Board Thread:Fanon Discussion/@comment-10860529-20141107042854/@comment-26267177-20150126024550

I think now is as good of a time as any to bring up A Fairytale is a Metaphor, in which I have set forth on a goal to conceptualize multiple views on LGBTQIA+ rights, including people from different points on the gender spectrum, sexuality spectrum, romantic spectrum, support-to-animosity spectrum, and knowledge-to-ignorance spectrum regarding the subject. Basically, it's what I had pictured EAH as from the start: a straighforward metaphor for LGBTQIA+ issues.

The story depicts Rebels as the ones more outwardly part of the LGBTQIA+ community(the only exception being Maddie, who is cis/straight but very supportive of the cause), while the Royals are mostly cis/straight with a good heaping of closeted exceptions(for example, the male!Lizzie and Ashlynn of the story are closeted homosexuals, Daring is secretly biromantic, Blondie may be skoliosexual or polysexual, and Apple is just deeply confused).

As an example, I've conceptualized Raven as a transitioning transgirl who comes out around the start of the school year to encourage her friends to come out as well. Apple, meanwhile, finds herself with a crush on Raven, who she had once met long before Raven began expressing her female identity. Due to her upbringing in the close-minded city the story takes place in, Apple has trouble accepting this and sets forth to subtly try convincing Raven to act as a guy just so that Apple can rationalize her crush as "straight". Which fails, of course, because Raven is one-hundred-percent female.

Surely, the fanfic has a lot of viewpoints which will follow many subtleties and extremes, though no offense is intended by any of them. (I personally see these matters as less of a spectrum and more of a bunch of wibbly-wobbly sexy-wexy stuff, so my own view doesn't really entirely match any character's.) I've actually had a lot of fun trying to see how the Royal/Rebel conflict and plotline of EAH can translate into LGBTQIA+ matters, and I've learned a lot about my own community along the way.