guanin

As I develop my Sherlock Holmes adaptation, I keep wondering about the idea of something being niche in media. I only write queer characters, which is considered a niche. On top of that, I focus on aro, ace, bi, trans, and non-binary characters, which is niche even within queer spaces. Add on neurodivergent and depressed characters. Latinx characters. Sex-repulsed characters.

How may depressed, bisexual Puerto Rican/Mexican characters are there out there? How about autistic grayro ace, sex-repulsed ones? Or Colombian non-binary bi ones? That's what I'm writing right now. I'm taking a traditionally Victorian (hella racist, sexist, queerphobic time, by the way) and Latinizing and queering the hell out of it. It's immensely fun and validating, but I'm also picturing the people for him this would be too different and too "heretical". My gut reaction is "I don't need those readers, anyway". I catered my writing to the majority for years and it made me miserable. Gave me some serious psychological damage, too, which I'm barely beginning to recover from now, four years after realizing I'm ace (I'm talking about writing smut when I really didn't want to, but that's what readers want, right?). I could compromise on my ideas to get more readers, but I would hate myself for it.

One of my favorite comments on any piece of fiction is "uncompromising". I need to keep that in my head. I need to stay focused on the type of characters that I desperately needed to see when I was lost and confused in a world of hetero/cisnormativity and compulsory sexuality. A world where people who speak my language or share my culture are tokenized. A world where being autistic is weird and laughable. I need that.