A little about Scylla

So, Different Worlds has been out for a few days and now seems like a good time to talk about something that isn’t really a spoiler but didn’t really make sense to post about without the book being available for people to look at and understand what the heck I’m talking about, and that’s Scylla.

It’s been in the works since the get-go that Scylla is aro-ace, but it wasn’t something that was really going to get brought up until Actual Book Two, New World. (Not a spoiler! Not really!) Yes, I know, Lyssa is writing the Ace Brigade in these books, but it’s been my experiences that we aces always manage to find each other. This is also something that is in the plans to come up in New World.

Now, for the purposes of Different Worlds, it was originally going to come up a bit more than it wound up doing. The scene where it was going to come up wound up on the cutting room floor, though, because Henry and Tamara didn’t like it and they kind of took over and did their own thing, as characters do. Which meant that the only reference to it left in the book was the scene in Chapter 9 where she says, “I don’t date.”

Originally, that was all she said, because the aro-ace stuff came up elsewhere. Since that got cut and I still wanted very much for Scylla’s representation to be canon on-page and not just “Word-of-God”, now she just mentions it as an aside. It will be more explicit in New World, but I didn’t want to completely neglect it here.

I just wanted to say now, on the off-chance that someone reads it and misinterprets it, that Scylla’s experience isn’t reflective of everyone’s. She IDs as aro first, ace second, and she chooses not to date as an expression of that. Not all aros and not all aces are the same, and being aro or aro-ace doesn’t automatically mean that you don’t date. That’s just what it means for Scylla. She says, “Tamara, I’m aro,” not as a coming out, but as a somewhat-snide reminder of her previously-established-to-her-friends identity which makes sense in the context of the rest of the discussion they’re having, because that’s how Scylla is—she and Henry are in competition for the snarkiest member of the friend group. So I just wanted to clarify that here, just in case. 🙂

Also also, while I’m thinking of it: Why didn’t I have a big coming out scene previously, to set those parameters to the reader? For the same reason Isaak didn’t mention his demisexuality until it came up in Fourth World: because this series takes place in a future world where I very much hope big coming-out scenes won’t be necessary because no one gives a f—. Someone off-handedly mentions that they’re ace when it comes up and everyone’s like, “That’s cool,” and that’s the end of it. That’s the world I would like to live in, and so that’s how it works in this series. Because yeah, I’m sure government will still be shit in the future, and it’s dystopia and all that, but I would like to think that humanity will at least get the socially tolerant thing down in the next 50 years^[1]With the odd exception of jerkbags like Isaak’s dad, of course..

Call me optimistic.

Anyway, I hope you all are enjoying Different Worlds! Don’t forget, the first book in the series is also on sale for $0.99 for the next few weeks, so if you haven’t picked it up yet, now is a good time to do so! 🙂