Writing Queer Characters, Pt. 1

If you saw my posts introducing my characters of The Secret Portal, you may have noticed that a lot of them had LGBTQ+ flags in the background of their avatars.

I'm going to make a couple posts about this explaining why this is.

I am using the reclaimed term queer because that's how I identify. I'm sorry if you don't like it.

First of all, I am queer. In the bios of all my social media accounts I list myself as being asexual and on the aromantic spectrum, although I'm still figuring things out. I'm not here to open up about my journey discovering this, but I didn't figure this out until relatively recently.

Today's post, I'm going to focus on times I accidentally wrote queer characters.

I've been reading aloud many of my old writings on my TikTok account, and I've been coming to the realization that many of my characters were accidentally queercoded, because I was a queer kid who didn't know she was queer until she was 18.

The earliest thing I can find that was like this is a short story I wrote called "The Red Sea." I will post the link to it and all other read-alouds mentioned at the end of this blog (although some have yet to be posted, so I'll update that as I do post them). "The Red Sea" followed two mermaid girls, both named Victoria. Victoria 1 wishes she could bring Victoria 2 home with her, and Victoria 2 asks Victoria 1 if she could tell her parents about her. Although this is subtle and can easily be read as just two best friends, it does play out like a childhood crush, and I feel like I should mention it even if this isn't the most blatant one.

In my draft of M.A.G.I.C., there are a few instances in which I implied queerness. Anahi first laments that she does not care about boys and does not understand why all the other girls around her do. I wrote this in middle school, where I projected this part of myself onto Anahi. I definitely projected onto Anahi a lot, and I go into that more in my videos reading this draft aloud. In the same scene, the ballroom instructor partners the girls up and tells them that one of them will have to take the part of the "man" in the traditional ballroom dance, which Anahi has no problem doing. Later, in another ballroom scene, she's partnered off with her nemesis Marlis. She and Marlis do no break eye contact the entire scene, and there's a huge tension between the two of them that the instructor notices. Furthermore, when in Marlis' perspective, she is constantly admiring Anahi's beauty and specifically noticing her hazel eyes, to the point where Marlis almost always defines Anahi by her eye color. Although I never finished this draft, I was going to make Anahi and Marlis enemies to reluctant allies to friends. But if I were to pick this up now, it would be enemies to reluctant allies to friends to lovers. Because man they have a lot of sexual tension.

In my Warriors cats fanfiction, there are many queer cats. Mossflower and Lemonfrost have a lot of lesbian energy to them and sexual tension in multiple scenes. Lemonfrost also seems to be attracted to Violetshine when they're both apprentices by referring to her as pretty, but her tension with Mossflower was there from the beginning, even with a scene where Mossflower performs the role that traditional m/f couples go through when one is like "I heard you did X thing that was so brave" when they were apprentices. Talonstorm, as an apprentice, seems to be overly complimentary toward Sparrowwing. They also have significantly more chemistry that Sparrowwing's later female love interest, and overall the two tomcats give off bisexual and gay energy respectively, while Lemonfrost and Mossflower are definitely lesbians.

In my second draft of The Emerald of Secrets, when Christy and Trish meet, Trish smiles and Christy feels all of her stress and worries go away. This is a trope I hopefully don't have to explain.

There are a few characters in The Secret Portal that started out accidentally queer, but I'm going to get into that tomorrow, since they ended up becoming canon queer. So check in tomorrow for more of that!

Don't forget to like, comment, sign up, and join me on Spaces to never miss an update!

Read-Alouds mentioned:

The Red Sea:

https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7171440971891363118?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835 .

M.A.G.I.C.

Anahi and boys: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7200398225671605550?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835

Marlis jealous of/admiring Anahi: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7202629588365823278?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835

Marlis and Anahi's dance, part one:

https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7203371835101138219?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835

Marlis and Anahi's dance, part two: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7203745107852496171?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835

Warriors fanfic:

Mosspaw compliments Lemonpaw for being brave: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7205590216994770218?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835

Talonpaw and Sparrowpaw having more chemistry than their respective het romances:

https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7207099477696515370?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835

Proof that those het romances are bad: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7207825185116900654?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835

Parallel between Mosspaw and Lemonpaw with a M/F couple: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7210042743916121390?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835

I've filmed a few more but they are not posted. Stay tuned!

The Emerald of Secrets:

unfortunately these haven't been filmed yet...