I’ve been really blessed throughout this process of working on my webseries, After Oil. My co-creator, Jessica Naftaly, and I were able to bring the pilot episode to New York Television Festival back in October and chat with TV development executives looking for “fresh” new material.

We knew walking into these generals that we were in a weird niche. We were “gay”, but not gay enough.

Why? It’s a little high concept. It’s set in a global oil crisis. It takes place i Appalachia. A kid gets murdered. Oh yeah, and the main character is bi.

I didn’t walk into writing the After Oil scripts looking to make a statement. Whenever I start on a new story concept, I feel my characters out. I’m rolling a die in my brain. What ethnicity is this character? What’s their sexuality? This world I live in is diverse, and so is my imagination. Straight, white, and male has never been the default in my brain.

So when I met Briar as my main character, I knew that she was black and bisexual. I also felt she had a girlfriend, who was white and gay. I wasn’t being intentional with how I made these choices.

But after attending ClexaCon, I’ve begun to realize… maybe I should.

Let me head this up by saying, I’m not a “good gay”. I’m not a shipper. I haven’t watched Carol. And I haven’t watched The 100. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when After Oil was accepted into this year’s ClexaCon Film Festival. For those who don’t know, Clexa is the shipname of characters Lexa and Clarke from the show The 100. This was a canon gay couple who were not token but main characters. So when show writers killed off Lexa, the community was devastated. To rub salt in the wound, Clexa wasn’t the only canon ship to be slain in 2016.

It’s not a coincidence. It’s a pattern. If we’re not token, or filling in a stereotype, LGBTQ female characters are, in general, far more likely to bite the bullet.

It’s part of the reason why I’ve never engaged with the community. So much of queer content falls under the same three umbrellas: dramas about coming out, rom-coms about coming out, or “camp” genre flicks. But what I love to watch and write is horror, or pseudo-intellectual thrillers like Inception or WestWorld. This, also, isn’t a coincidence. This is the industry’s way of saying that the “queer experience” can be one of two things: a joke or state of existential conflict.

This isn’t to bash these types of films and shows. The queer experience can be laughable and painful. But queer content is kept in these boxes because this is the lens the Man™ in charge feels comfortable viewing the LGBTQ+ community through.

This is the harsh truth. The “pull” of well-represented queer characters just isn’t enough on its own to sell me on consuming media. We’re seeing more diversity than ever before in film and TV. It’s not good enough. As a queer woman in this industry, I have a choice. I can settle for representation “where I can get it” or settle for watching the content I love where I am missing on-screen.

The solution is pretty straightforward: go gay or go home.

More options means betters options, by default. Because I identify as bisexual, I understand that I have more diversity in my stories than the average straight white guy. It’s impossible for my sexuality not to color my worldview, but my sexuality has never been my identity. So yeah, I have main characters that are straight, or white, or male. Sometimes all three. I love those stories. I want to see them produced or published.

But after attending ClexaCon, I realize I have a responsibility not just to write from my perspective but to represent my perspective.

It sucks. I don’t want to be pigeonholed. And I’ve never wanted to make my characters an “insert” of myself. But until our entertainment reflects the diversity of my imagination, I need to be that change.

Which means I need to go full gay.

I didn’t get it before. I guess I was fine with settling with watching the same leading straight men and women. I had gotten comfortable with inserting myself into those characters. But then I met the Clexa fangirls. And the vidders. And I saw what it meant to them, to have those characters on-screen.

And for a moment, I imagined what it would feel like if I had a character, like that, that I could see myself in.

I may never be a true fan of The 100 or Wynonna Earp. But I can be a part of this conversation.

I can be a part of this movement.

Quick plug. If you want to see me put my money where my mouth is, and support queer content while you’re at it, you can watch the pilot for After Oil on YouTube right here. ALSO, if you always thought Harry Potter was missing some gay lady werewolves, you can follow my fanfic Stick Stone and Bone on Ao3! I plan to post new chapters every Friday.

What sort of representation do you want to see on-screen? Let’s chat. Leave a comment down below!

Even if you were not able to tune in for the SAG Awards 2017 ceremony, you likely haven't missed the hype flooding social media about this year's award winners. Hidden Figures won for Outstanding Performance by a Cast. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis won for their roles in the film Fences. Actor Mahershala Ali won for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role for Moonlight. But it is the win for Netflix's hit series Stranger Things for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series that is truly taking the media by storm.

Now, the cast of Stranger Things were not only the award winners to get a little political in their acceptance speeches, in the wake of Trump's recent "Muslim ban". But if you haven't already watched David Harbour's speech, watch it now, and if you have - view it again just to watch the looks on the cast's faces as they traverse the full emotional range from confusion, to realization, to pride. Harbour's speech is eloquent, it's poignant, and it is delivered in the true gusto of his character, Jim Hopper - with tremendous heart and ferocity.

Stranger Things took audiences by storm when it was first released on Netflix in 2016. People were quick to celebrate this charming callback to American 80's sci-fi and horror, and it soon became a viral trend.

However, I would stretch to say that Stranger Things was not a groundbreaking show. The performances the actors gave were phenomenal, and the story and pacing executed flawlessly, but as far as being revolutionary or innovative, the truth is that Stranger Things is nothing starkly new. It is very simply a fantastic sci-fi show.

Stranger Things getting an award show win is what is groundbreaking.

There is a reason that "Oscar-bait" has become it's own genre, and that is because the films and TV series that are nominated and awarded for award ceremonies all typically fit the same mold. Besides being released at an ideal time for nominations, they tend to conform to the same genres: period dramas, Holocaust films, "true story" adaptations, white guilt films, or any other film that plays on heart strings and allows for a wide range of powerful acting without taking any real risks.

This is important. By creating this whole category for films that are "Oscar-worthy", a statement is created as towards what sort of stories "deserve" to be celebrated or honored. This is a system that rewards creators for taking the road well-traveled. It entirely excludes mainstream or "genre" media.

This system also tends to focus on narratives that are in the past.

Narratives that rehash old stories of hope and victory as if to remind us: look at us, we fought that fight. We should be so proud.

No reason to fight it anymore.

The power of fiction - mainstream, genre fiction - is that it is never not relevant. The symbolism and metaphors in Lord of the Rings, or Alien, will never grow old. The accessibility of fiction is what makes it ageless.

Because we will never not be at war. We will never not be terrorized or afraid. We will never not be pressed with the decision to be courageous in the face of difficulty, horror, or oppression.

Fiction like Stranger Things lets people know, as David Harbour said, that we "fight monsters" on a daily basis, and we will always have the strength to do it. It is so incredibly important, in the wake of everything happening in our country presently, to see actors and creators - the symbols of action and resistance that we all see in our day to day - standing up and speaking out against tyranny.

Narrative and fiction has the potential to create radical change. The same power that Katniss Everdeen of the Hunger Games franchise represents. Not to go toe to toe with villainy, but to stand as a symbol for others to rally around. A fiction which conceals, at its heart, a message of truth.

When the character Evey Hammond from the film V for Vendetta asks V, our masked vigilante, why he is intent on blowing up parliament, he replies, "A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by people. Alone, a symbol is meaningless, but with enough people, blowing up a building can change the world."

In the light of the recent election, I know many may feel that our voices go unheard, and that in the face of the government, we have no power or choice. But we do have a choice, and that is in what we give power to; the symbols, movements, and ideas that we support or demand.

Chose to give power to the narratives that symbolize radical change, fierce resistance, vehement horror, and unbending hope. Support the stories that reflect our struggle - that support the truth that monsters are real, and seek to build up in us the courage to fight back against them.

With enough people, believing in one unified ideal, a story can change the world.

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But Is It Gay? How ClexaCon Changed My Mind