Today is National Coming Out Day so I thought I’d make a little something for everyone :)

(also it’s 3 days after my anniversary so I’m still swimming in feels)

As I developed the idea of “magnifiqueNOIR” I decided to make the girls college aged (the youngest being 18 and the oldest being 20), and at the time I didn’t think much of it. But as I reflect on what today is I realized… I was 18 and in college when I came out.

Each girl in the group represents a different aspect of the LGBTQ spectrum, and each of them has/will have their own coming out story. I think it’s important to show a variety, because we all have different coming out stories, and some of us are more ready than others and that’s perfectly fine. Even after I came out at 18 it took me 2 years to really start telling the people I was closest to. On campus I was out, but on campus people were meeting me for the first time, so if they didn’t like all the cards I laid out it wasn’t as significant to me as, say, my parents, or my close friends back at home who’d known me since childhood.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that coming out is a process, one that many of us have to do repeatedly. For example: Bree (Cosmic Green) has an older brother who knows that she’s bisexual and knows that there’s a girl she likes… but she’s not quite ready to tell her mother. And sure, her brother reassures her over and over again that it’ll be o.k., but there’s little things that her mother has said or done that makes her apprehensive. That’s not to say her mother is a bad person, but I think in regards to coming out we sort of hone in on EVERYTHING, whether it’s a “joke” someone says or a comment they make toward another queer person.

Then there’s the whole “magical” metaphor to begin with, as the girls get to decide who to tell about their abilities, and they even have to decide if they WANT to be magical girls to begin with. It’s a lot of little things in the story I didn’t realize I was doing until recently, and I really do think it’s an important story to tell.

So here’s a little wallpaper from me to you. I debated putting “HAPPY NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY” on there but I know some people can’t come out or aren’t ready to, so I thought a little subtle encouragement would be best :)

(also shout out to MuseTap Studios for the chibis)