Queer Fantasy, Anyone? (Or: I'm not the only one exploring GLBT themes, am I?)

I imagine my MC is probably bisexual, but I dunno if it'll ever come up in the novel. Not a whole lot of romance going on in my story.

2005: The Ships of Arcadia (won)
2006: Perdition City (won)
2007: Blood Gods (won)

I was actually thinking of using that sort of thing in my story, but only two characters have actually set themselves apart. My thought of MC and a woman who wants to be a MC. -shrug- I shall see where those things go, seeing as I have a few friends reading what I have so far, and who knows what they might think of my ideas.

--Queen

oh hell yes! my MC is bi, and is about to meet a transgender person (really someone who can change at will from male to female). i think one of my other large supporting characters is a lesbian, but i'm not sure about that yet.
however, as my novel won't include much romance, there won't be much time to explore these things in depth. it will just sort of be the obvious and natural part of my characters, not mentioned often but not forgotten either.

Hmm. Well the Queen of one of my kingdoms is a lesbian and my MC is bisexual. It will be interesting, but I have no clue how far I'll go with it.

My MC is bisexual, though it hasn't arisen in the story yet (she has been involved solely with men so far in her life). I don't really intend for romance to play a large role in the novel, but who knows how it will end up.

I don't know how much 'exploring of GBLT themes' will actually occur but at the moment I'm pretty sure that at least one of my characters will be bi and I'm almost positive that one of my ship captains is going to be a late in life lesbian. Right now writing is very 'flow of consiousness' so I'm really going to have to wait and see but I'm really hoping they go that way.

Goodness knows that characters do like to take things into their own hands after all :)

I'm writing GLTB themes in Fantasy though the MC probably won't explore that part of his relationship with my other MC until I'm more towards the end but before that there'll be hints and forshadowing to their realtionship mainly because I think this'll be either a two part set or a trilogy though I'm not sure.

Although, one of my important secondary characters is in a sticky forced relationship with the King of one of my World's countries.

Poetry is the moan forced from your mouth just as you’re being gagged. Freedom is the sound of the handcuffs clicking shut around your wrists. Trust is the darkness you can see while blindfolded. Life is bondage. - Anonymous

I'm not this year, just because of the nature of the novel, but one of my 'regular' projects, one of my main characters figures out he's gay and starts dating his best friend. In another book my main character's brother comes out to their father, who is very narrowminded about a lot of things, including homosexuality. I also have a book planned around a gay main character, who experiences and remembers both this world, and when he goes to sleep he ends up in another world. Basically the premise is that when we sleep our spirits flit between worlds. Thing is, in the other world, there is no concept of homosexuality... which makes things interesting when he falls for his guard... :) And then meets him in our world and they start dating...
So yeah, you aren't the only one :D

"So if you're really interested in saving the world, the least you can do is let me buy you a drink." -Heroes

Oh, hell yeah. Mine is a fantasy romance between a young man with sexsomnia and an incubus. It looks to be a very combustible romance, too. They just met and already they've had two fights and one erotic masturbation scene.

Breach: When a sexsomniac meets an incubus, sparks fly, but can they stop hating themselves long enough to fall in love with each other? Find out at http://katicalocke.livejournal.com/.

Interesting stuff. Yeah, my MC had a...sorta-kinda-platonic-maybe thing with his bloodmate (it's complicated), will have another such bond with the person he meets at story's end, and there's going to be a lesbian couple later on, but it's not a major theme for me. Kind of surprising; it's definitely an area of personal interest.

"...why – the good folk of Rivna will be falling over themselves to hand over their goods, lest we wreak our havoc throughout. Can’t fail.”
“You’ll get used to that phrase, Luka,” Mysk remarked. “It came up the last four times we tried this too.”

Mine is a romance between two women. One is a courtesan whose (male) married lover was killed, and the woman she falls for is his widow. It will have a revenge plot too.

So far it's coming out as just plain old smut though.

I've actually had a side project in the works about a gay male geisha, but it's been put on the back burner along with the story of a young King, married off to a young woman in the next kingdom (that damnable arranged marriage stuff, cliche I know..) but he grows to have strong feelings for her brother.

War ensues... yada yada yada.... that old nutshell.

I don't know about themes, per se, but my lesbian sidekick bodyguard has a subplot regarding her constant rejection by each and every female she meets in her travels with my main character. It brings me an opportunity to explore an interesting double standard, as well. Where Caelan & my main grew up, women were considered inferior to men. It was very Ancient Greek - men mostly used women for procreation and their fellow man for recreation. As such, none of those people minded very much about who she loved or what gender they were (the only reason she got to train for a position as a bodyguard was because she was part of a band of refugees, and that was their custom, so the main residents were like, "Well, go for it then...")

When she gets above ground, though, it's a different story for her -- the women are equal, which is good for her, but at the same time, she's scorned for her homosexuality. It's going to be a hard choice for her - live closeted and accepted, or be just as much as an outsider among her own people as she was back in Harindan.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati.

-Ash

I'm having some history in my story involving two boys who fell in love, and later one of my soon to be main characters will fall in love with another girl (who is more of a side character, but will be very integral). All the romances in my story are pretty important, mainly because many of my characters are part of this magic society (they were chosen by magic, it's complicated) and they aren't allowed to love because they have to be unattached and impartial should anything happen in their world. 'Tis fun!

2007: The Keeper's Word

Most of the characters, and the main ones for sure are all male in my story. Techinally though the 'daemon' in my story don't have a gender or sex parts, so they just believe they are male. But, it does make for some interesting points when the families are described. There are still a few females but their novalities. I don't see any romance really, but some of the friendships are very strong.

Mine are a girl/girl couple but I'm not sure if counts as exploring lgbt issues if they're already quite happy and not too many people give a damn as there's no stigmatism with being gay in this world. There are still the guys who think they can 'convert' the girls (not that many would want to, they're not amazingly pretty or anything) but overall it's ... just is. I think, seeing as one proposes to the other later in the story, they're likely at that point where they are evaluating what it means to be in a longer term relationship and growing more as a couple ... but I have a feeling I'm going to get carried away by my girly squealy OMGCUTE than really explore the issues but I hope I can. Who knows. I may have to get up off the chair and go "EEEE!" around the room to get it outa my system. It's weird though considering here we can't be married freely (same-sex couples that is) perhaps my desires are pure escapism into a world where they can talk marriage as freely as any other couple. Also proposals totally make me squee. Sad but true. According to my nanna as a really little kid my favourite book was about one little black bunny proposing to a little white bunny "will we be together forever and always" ... awwww *cries*

... ahem... spot the single lesbian in this thread -_-;

I have nothing witty or insightful to put here yet.

I think our feelings about the real world can have their effect on our characters, whether directly or indirectly. I think I mentioned my character Nazluk in the old GLBT Characters thread, and how he's generally bitter and envious and angry and closeted. I think he was channeling some of my own frustrations from where I was living (Winchester VA for about three years). We were mad and unhappy about very different things - I'm definitely not Nazluk, which is a good thing because he's an evil asshole - but the emotions were shared.

...I guess I should mention a character I didn't mention in the old thread. Maevyn is my main character and has a bit of a crush on Leni, my other girl character in a story dominated by males. I didn't mention her in the old thread because she's just nine and I didn't think of it as having much to do with the plot, but, but then I mentioned it to a friend who was like, WELL DUH, I could tell that right away. It's definitely not romantic or sexual though. She's nine. Maybe when she's older, but right now it's just the lines of, "Gee Leni is pretty and I like her" and wanting to beat up anybody who is mean to her.

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"Where there's a whip there's a will, my slugs." ~ Orc-driver, The Return of the King
"And pass me another elf, Sergeant. This one's split." ~ Ashnak, Grunts

I knew my MC would try to freak out her conservative colleague by pretending to be bisexual, but I didn't know that she was sleeping with another woman until a side character named Lucy popped up on day 3 and refused to leave.

Since my MC started as an exercise in creating the least-traditional fantasy heroine I could think of - 54 years old, overweight, selfish, childish, etc. - this is definitely going to be the least-traditional relationship I've ever written. But then, who says women in their fifties with less-than-ideal bodies can't enjoy a healthy sexual relationship?

"What, I'm not allowed to hit people?"
"Not people capable of genocide."

2006: Whole (won)
2007: Still Undead (pending)

one of my main characters has this... thing. for his male business partner/friend. not sure how much it'll be explored, since the character in question tends to view it as '... this is inconvenient. .... *FLAIL*'. XD

My two MCs turned out to be gay...and they have a thing for each other. I don't know how it happened...but it makes them less boring, which makes me happy. And yay for yaoi!

Watch me Bleed,
See my Words,
Free my Mind,
the Words in my Soul.

I'm doing it steampunk style in a world where gender pairings (or threesomes or moresomes, even) of whatever sort aren't particularly all that fussed over. For the most part, anyway. One character has mentioned a nation/region not yet visited that has serious issues with anything outside a two person het pairing, much to the bewilderment of the other character he was talking to. Yay, fantasy! So far, all the major players are taking full advantage of this whether they were originally meant to or not.

I was honestly planning on throwing in some real life GLBT-related issues to deal with on a regular basis, but they all said screw you and tossed that idea out the window. I think the aforementioned nation/region was a compromise, not that they'll ever end up there. -_- Some of the basic issues seem to be showing up in other forms, though, around people with mystical type abilities.

It's also male-dominated, but what can I do? Only a couple of female characters wanted to happen this time around and I'm not going to force more of them if they don't wanna show.

My MC is a bi female. One of the other characters may be lesbian but it's not the sort of question people in my world frame actually consider. Besides that character is having her Season and is expected to marry.

Sublime Dissonance - NaNoWriMo

An author is fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations…. – Charles De Montesquieu

My (female) MC was supposed to be bi, and fall in love with a girl over the course of the story - the whole thing's framed mostly as a romance. Once I started writing, she decided to not cooperate entirely - the guys I tried writing into her backstory turned out to be more annoyances than crushes. So, she's pretty much exclusively interested in women - and her eventual partner's never been with (or, as far as I know, been interested in) anyone but her.

I'm not really dealing with any sort of "issues" surrounding being gay, though. It's just sort of accepted (or, at the very least, tolerated without comment, because the characters in question are marginalized to begin with, so no one really cares who they sleep with). I am, however, working their marginalization in as another of the main themes of the book - they're pretty much outcast from society for their magical abilities. They all grew up hearing that they were "cursed" (from the Church) or that they "don't belong in this world" (from well-meaning friends and relatives). The main conflict of the book is the beginnings of their fight for acceptance...and yes, it's a literal battle, not just a protests-in-the-streets sort of thing; keeps it more interesting if there's someone to actually fight.

(I've got a few m/m pairings among my supporting characters, too. One of them, though, gets raised eyebrows not because his partner is male, but because his partner's a tree. Yay fantasy?)

the pen is mightier than the wand

~Damian

2006: Goldwing (6,830 words...I'll finish it eventually, honest I will)
2007: The Whispering Hall

Actually, I was brushing by the list of topics, noticed this, and remembered, Oh, yeah. I am including some of this in one of the major word-count-boosting subplots.

Suidhne Dreamsail is a lady (white skinned, with a unicorn horn, but female gender). Her long term relationship for about twenty years is with Pengarthe Ashe, a male satyr-like being. The two are very devoted to each other. But, then Suidhne runs into Tassi of Vachtor, a werewolf-like female from the planet Lykosa. She is in appearance virtually identical to a being with whom Suidhne's past lives spanning a hundred thousand years were spent in a profoundly devoted relationship as evolved, enlightened beings. Tassi is herself young and trying to understand who she is, but remembers being this ancient being. She doesn't want to disrupt the relation between Suidhne and Pengarthe, but she longs to rejoin with her ancient mate, who was male until incarnating as Suidhne.

It's a confusing love triangle, especially given that Tassi and Pengarthe both have heightened drives, pulling them towards each other as well. The interplay between Suidhne and Tassi likely will lead to some bisexual elements.

I'm going for the undiscovered sexuality theme just now but eventually both my [male] MC's will be drawn to each other, in a completely implied way, because this novella is part of an ongoing saga. THERE ARE ELVES. :3 But, yeah, s'gonna be a little difficult to keep it going with only 50,000 and still achieve a sort-of conclusion.

On that note, better get a move on.

e l f [on the] r o a d

Ah, one of my two MCs is a girl by the nickname of Day, and she's got the hots for the King's falconer Gizella, she just doesn't know it yet. And Gizella is actually a part of the Fae. There will be blatant lesbian romance in that PoV... and kind of coming-of-age/finding yourself on the part of Day.

My other MC is kind of just there, and awesome because she's Fae, but she might be bisexual. The Faeries don't really care much about gender.

Started four days late, but better late than never.

Sanity is fleeting.

I think it's a good trait to have and oddly enough, common amongst most people's interpretations of such beings. Certainly it's a good thing for me. :3

e l f [on the] r o a d

My MC started off in my notes as a straight university student and when i introdcued him last night he turned into a gay nurse... didn't realise he was gay until one of his patients tried to set him up with her grand daughter

Hm.

I don't know, Alex and Justin are definitely both "out" for the most part. Justin's openly and actively gay in the sense that he's usually pretty active in the dating scene, but it's not a point of activism for him. Alex is bisexual, though the distinction is a bit meaningless for anyone but me since he's not dating any females.

They aren't even hooking up to book two.

It wouldn't be accurate to say I'm exploring "gay themes" or anything like, I just happen to have two male characters who in turn happen to spend much of their time imagining lewd things to do to their best friend.

Here is my victory over depression, that I may do a thing and find joy not just in the completion, but in the doing itself.

I'm not sure it qualifies, since I won't be writing any themes, like coming of age or exploration of sexuality. However, my main character is bisexual and his current boyfriend is homosexual. The plot itself doesn't explore that very much, since their relationship is established from the beginning of the story.

I'm also writing an urban fantasy that's largely set in New York City, so that'd make them minorities (right?). Their friends know about their relationship and they aren't afraid to be seen in public together or anything. However, Nick (the MC) is very shy, so he isn't given to public displays of affection. Nathan's a bit of a different story, but he tries not to do anything that will make Nick too uncomfortable.

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NaNo 2006: Steel Bars - 59,233 words
Screnzy 2007: The Enchanted Forest - won
NaNo 2007: Turning Beetles into Buttons - 51,949 words
Screnzy 2008: Simple Gifts - 43 pages total & Butterfly - 9 episodes