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So I haven’t made any real queer content for pride! WTF, right? I’ve been so overwhelmed lately because, awesome announcement: YAY my book Witch’s Knight is now available for preorder! It’s a sexy, bisexual, polyamorous paranormal romance about vampires and witches, and it isn’t completely inaccurate to compare it to an adult version of Netflix’s new series, First Kill, with all that sapphic, vampire, enemies-to-lovers goodness.

Which brings me to the topic of today’s post!

I have been too overwhelmed mentally to be able to sit down and read the books on my TBR pile and was hoping that washing my brain with some TV would help. So I got completely sucked into First Kill.

I love everything. The camp, the stakes (pun intended), the terrible CGI, the sexy yet sweet teen romance. If this had come out when I was still in high school, it would have taken me much less time to figure out a few things, that’s all I’m sayin’.

I don’t want to give spoilers about First Kill if you haven’t seen it yet, but just… go see it.

Since I usually do book reviews, I don’t want this to be a review exactly, but I want to explain why it is we need content like First Kill.

First Kill is basically Twilight or Vampire Diaries… for sapphics. There is not a lot of explicitly queer content out there in the mainstream, but it’s starting to get out there! We’ve got Steven Universe, we’ve got Our Flag Means Death, Love Victor, and now… we have First Kill. Which is my favorite because vampires are always my thing.

Straight people have had cartoons, comedies, high school shows, pirate content, and vampire content and like… every content to ever exist.  There is a lot of vampire romance and paranormal romance out there catering to heterosexual lust, and once that went on for a while, a bunch of people decided vampires were dead without giving the rest of us a turn. And that’s what makes First Kill so beautiful.

Vampires never really went away. You can’t really kill what’s already undead, right? Just keeps rising up from the grave. First Kill takes the modern vampire story and makes it fresh by giving it something it’s needed for a while. Women who love women. It’s not the first to do this, of course – the web series Carmilla comes to mind as a classic – but it’s the most mainstream example I can think of, hitting #2 in the top ten most watched shows in America not long after premiering!

That is… seriously amazing. Lesbian vampire and vampire hunter romance being in the top is fantastic, and I can’t wait for a season 2. But I think perhaps the best thing about First Kill is that, while it is a love story about two girls, queerness isn’t what’s under attack. That’s completely accepted and normalized in the world of the show and by the families. Having crushes on girls is fine, but just not *THAT* girl because she’s a vampire or vampire hunter, which makes the plot so much more compelling. This show gives sapphics a chance to see our love just like any other paranormal love story. The plot isn’t that they’re queer, it’s that they’re a vampire and a vampire hunter.

Whenever I’m asked, I always say that I want more queer content that are great stories that happen to have queer characters rather than stories about queerness. I want us to be swashbucklers, I want us to be high school sweethearts, I want us to be vampires, and I want us to have all those fun, amazing adventures that straight romances have had for ages. First Kill satisfies that thirst and in the wake of so much anti-queer hatred in the world right now, I hope that media like First Kill continues to be made and helps to normalize queer love stories as just that. Love stories.  

Happy Pride everyone! And may all your vampires be queer as fuck.

If you enjoyed this post, give a like and follow for more content, and leave a comment with your thoughts. Be sure to check me out on Twitter at @EternalEvelyn, YouTube, or Facebook and stay tuned for information on my upcoming paranormal romance novel, The Bloodline Chronicles! Subscribe to my newsletter to keep up with new developments here.

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