Writing ourselves
In our first post for Pride, we wrote about why queer stories—and the communities that sustain them—are acts of resistance (and especially needed right now). This time, we’re handing it over to you—folks who reached out to us from a few stubborn corners of the internet still worth loving. Writers who carve out space for their words, reflecting on representation, craft, and the magic that strikes when queer creatives find each other, connect, and change the narrative together.
Endings, beginnings, and everything between
We all know the tropes by heart—the good, the bad, the exhaustively tired. Yes, a swishy villain can be deliciously camp (though certain Silicon-Valley-evil-gays-who-shall-remain-nameless are decidedly not camp). Yes, we’ve mourned with characters crushed by impossible loss. But that’s not the whole story; it never was.
Tropes have the power to highlight and to limit. For a long time, tragic endings, 'bury your gays,' and similar narratives have significantly narrowed the boundless lived experiences of queer people—across time, place, and identity.
Tragic endings, the relentless framing of queer existence as a sentence, as punishment, and the lingering scars of the closet still dominate mainstream narratives in most bookstores and films, etc. etc. etc. Many of those stories are powerful—and some even pried open the doors we now walk through. But they aren’t the only stories we deserve. Right now, writers are carving out fresh futures and pushing back against old boundaries:
"I write because I want the queerness and Blackness of my characters not to be the main event," Calix continues. "Utopias, futurism, fantasy—there’s space for queer characters doing far more than merely fighting for their right to exist. Even in my darkest stories, I’m deeply interested in everything beyond just how the world wronged them."
Whitman—iconic queer poet and certified OG—said it first: we contain multitudes. No single tale can box in queerness. Sure, 2025 has its dumpster fire qualities, but the sheer range and vibrancy of emergent queer storytelling is immense and dazzling. We’re chronicling grief and friendships, found-family road trips, torrid space-opera romances, cozy coffee shop meet-cutes, haunted libraries, every tender and profane weirdness that refuses to squeeze itself into an approved mold, or fade politely into silence. Queer fiction exists to blow open the doors of cultural imagination and smash genre walls—loudly, even if quiet—it's as boundless as our lives.
Reflected on the page
Representation doesn’t begin or end with neatly-ticked demographic boxes. Real rep is a delirious, messy intimacy—incisive, reflective, sometimes uncomfortably bright.
My queer identity and lived experiences are woven deeply into my writing. This closeness makes it challenging to remain objective—to step outside myself and critically examine the stories I'm creating.
My fiction has always been strongly ace-spec, whether intentionally or not. My resistance involves spotlighting the vast spectrum of relationships and emotional connections that exist entirely outside heteronormative expectations.
Writing queerness requires radical vulnerability and actualization. And when the page finally mirrors you—grief, joy, complexity, contradictions and all—it’s the first breath after a long dive. Writing that mirror for someone else is its own kind of oxygen—you have to breathe deep yourself before you can help someone else come up for air.
The internet’s Last Good Place
Obviously, it’s not the first time fan writing communities have been called found families—it won't be the last.
Carol says: "Inspiration is a conversation between creators. Creating fanart or fic involves actively engaging with the questions the original work poses, feeling challenged or deeply connected, and ultimately adding your own voice to the ongoing dialogue."
Fanfic remains one of the freest playgrounds online—few gatekeepers (at least… not officially), no focus-group memos, no constraints. Fan writing spaces are the bulwhark against a world that constantly tries to flatten, monetize, or erase you; a last bastion of free expression and free innovation in the slow rot of online degradation. Which is to say: it matters—a lot—for this precarious, very-now moment (barf).
Obviously the internet can be a tire fire teeming with toxicity. But queer writing spaces—Discord servers, Tumblr reblogs, comment chains—still hold solidarity amidst the chaos (or maybe because of a little necessary chaos).
When we lift each other up, everyone benefits. I eagerly look forward to offering the same kind of love and support that helped me discover the spaces I needed.
Every queer reader knows this scene: you’re convinced you’re the only one on earth until a fic, poem, or late-night Tumblr post hands you proof you’re seen. Suddenly the future cracks open, possibilities pour in, and the urge to write your own story becomes as needed as air.
Queer stories are powerful precisely because they convert statistics into lived truth; they stick where data slides off. Flood the culture with unabashedly true tales—human, glorious, contradictory—and it gets a lot harder for anyone to flatten us into talking points.
As Candriste says: "Pride is both a vibrant celebration of our existence and a defiant ‘f*** you’ to anyone who believes my beautifully queer family shouldn’t exist. I’m here, I’m queer, and anyone who disagrees can stay mad about it!"
Pride, for me, is about saying: You have a place here. You're valid. You're not alone. I write so someone else might feel just a little less ‘out of place.’
I write because queer people of color deserve more than trauma narratives. The stories and movies already exist—especially now—if you know where to look.
What matters now
Once you recognize and reclaim yourself, you can begin to build a future of possibility. Human stories will always connect and resonate. They stick, linger, and disrupt. And OK, we can all agree that 2025 is the proverbial worst, a full-fledged shit melange. But all things considered, we’re living and writing in the most open, connected, and ecstatic moment for queer stories in history. You know this because you’re reading this right now, writing your own words, connecting and creating communities built on authenticity, vulnerability, and action.
The recent shift—this rising tide of restriction, erasure, bad-faith panic—might be a blip in the void (🙏), but we’re going to expand on the connectivity and openness were building now. Hope isn’t passive or stumbled across; it’s something we build—story by story, server by server, action by action.
We’ve got our own wild narratives to tell. So crack open a doc, holler into the void—and watch what new stories they inspire.