Hannah Armstrong

So, like, they have, like, a lot of enemies-lovers stories.

You kind of, they're enemies and then they're lovers and there's kind of, like, a blitzes through.

But there's a moment of, like, mutual acceptance of each other where they're not even friends.

They're just, it's like the enemy of my enemy is...

slightly less my enemy.

And then the love builds from there and that is why it's so compelling with Damon and Laurent.

And I like how it goes the other way as well.

Like when you see kind of the subtle hints that Laurent is learning that he can trust him, like equally so.

I just find that exquisite, to be honest.

Yeah.

um storytelling and now i guess we're in in publishing all the things that are being published in fan fiction and online and in the real world trying to fix that or correct that really it's something i'm mindful of writing that like if i have a villain who is queer i have to have like predominant characters who aren't oh no who are sorry oh my god so like you have to balance it you can't just have like the only queer person be a villain yeah um and and that's obviously

not applicable in Val of Eternal Night.

But like in other things I'm writing, it's like, yeah, it's something you have to be constantly mindful of.

And I think it's something that authors in general should be aware of just to mitigate harm because even if it's not something you grew up conscious of, like I was never watching Lion King thinking that like Scar was queer coded.

I was watching it going like, oh, he's flamboyant.

Like I love that kind of character trope thinking it's just like a charismatic villain character trope.

And so as we see those things and enjoy watching them and enjoy kind of incorporating those tropes

traits into our characters, like we have to know where they're from and know about the Hays Code and that sort of thing to then change and mitigate harm going forward.

Absolutely, yeah.

Yes, 100%.