#indigenous oc

APRIL 2025 -- THE SUMMER BEFORE

"Sound familiar?" Penny laughed, glancing at her daughter. Her cutlery danced across her plate, making a terrible scratching sound. Yvonna's head piqued, looking at the blonde lady with a sheepish smile.

"A foul? I mean.. sometimes it's not."

"Mm," Penny turned back to her plate, shaking her head. The smile on her face was evident. It made Yvonna's tummy flip. "You sound like your mother."

"You wish you had my whistle," Diana smirked, holding her wine glass by the stem.

The Taurasi-Taylor family scarcely ate dinner outside; or even together at all, much to Penny's disliking. She spent some good money on the fairy lights around the porch, and the smell had gone since the old neighbours moved out. The lack of stench was most of the motivation for eating outside.

Yvonna is a big girl now, driver's permit, D1 scholarship to UConn, and even honey blonde highlights. Apparently big girls don't eat dinner with their families, much to Penny's disliking.

Diana leaned back in her chair, seemingly inspecting her daughter's expression as she poked at the dumpling before her. She was quieter tonight, Diana. Watching, taking everything in the way she does.

"You ready?" Diana asked.

Yvonna blinked. She looked up, perfect brows furrowing in confusion. Was she supposed to guess?

"For..?"

"UConn."

Yvonna swallowed, grip on her metal chopsticks faltering just a second. Of course, Diana couldn't possibly go a single night without bringing up her daughter's incoming future. It would be insane if she didn't.

After years of rewatching tapes, analysing opposing teams and their patterns, crying in the car -- after years of being Diana Taurasi's daughter, Yvonna wouldn't expect anything less.

"One more summer," Diana continued. Her tone was cutting, but casual.. somehow. "Then it's real. Different audience, different pressure, whole new pace. You're not the best on the team anymore, Yvie."

Yvonna nodded quickly, inhaling deep and slow. "Yeah, mom. I know."

"I don't think you do," Diana pressed. Penny shifted uncomfortably, sending her wife a look. Diana didn't acknowledge it. "They don't care whose kid you are."

There was a pause. Penny's eyes flickered between the two.Yvonna's gaze stayed fixed on the dark haired woman. Was this a lecture? It sure felt like one. She could never tell for sure with how unpredictable her mother was. Uncertainty gripped Yvonna by the extremities; holding her captive in her own statue-still body.

If this were the 2019 mannequin challenge, she'd probably be viral.

"I can't wait to watch you dominate out there," Diana said. "For real. You got it, kid. The IQ, the speed -- all of it. You should be running that team by sophomore year. Minimum."

It should feel like praise. It kind of does. But Yvonna's pretty sure she just shit herself.

Diana reached forward, chopsticks reaching to grab more dumplings. Penny swears up and down she makes them herself. Yvonna saw the packaging in the bin once. She never told Diana. Or Penny.

"Just don't play small," Diana added. "Hate when you do that." The giant didn't bother to put the dumpling on her plate, opting instead to shove it in hear mouth.

Yvonna's bare feet slid across the concrete under her chair. "I don't--"

"You do," Diana cut in absentmindedly. "You pass up shots. You second-guess. You start thinking instead of playing. At UConn, that'll get you benched."

Yvonna nodded, her stomach suddenly feeling full. She hummed softly, looking up at Penny across from herself.

Penny set her drink down gently. "Hey," she nudged her wife. "She's got time. She's allowed to figure it out at her own pace. She's still a kid."

Yvonna watched her parents, hazel eyes flicking between the two of them. Penny's accent had faded over time, Yvonna noticed. When she was younger, it sounded like a damn episode of H20: Just Add Water.

Diana paused, and for a moment, Yvonna swore she saw a soul behind her mother's eyes. Silence stretched across the dinner table. Yvonna hoped, crossing her painted-white toes under the table, for her mother to relent, and say something kind.

You're right, my darling wife. You will do great, my favourite angel-baby, Yvonna. In fact, here's $80. Go get your nails done tomorrow, Yvonna imagined her mom saying. She cringed. Felt weird. Like a deepfake of Obama kicking a puppy.

"She's ready now," Diana said instead.

Yvonna's shoulders dropped, nodding. Yeah, that was my fault. Got ahead of myself there.

"I just.. I wanna do well." Yvonna swore she thought it, screwing her eyes shut at the feeling of her vocal chords vibrating.

"You will," Diana said, though instead of it sounding like reassurance, it sounded like a demand. Yvonna nodded, but she didn't say the rest out loud.

Her backstory is kinda vague, but she was basically an indigenous slave around the time that America got its independence. She never knew her parents, and her earliest memories are in the house that she dies in with around 12 other slaves, a husband, and a wife. If you’ve seen her at all you’ll know she’s very strange socially but she died around the age of thirteen. She was more innocently friendly back then, and the people around her found her a bit strange, but she hoped if she pushed long enough, they would all eventually warm up to her.

It was a few days after America got its independence when she died. A strange person showed up to the house and began killing everyone. She was sleeping when it began since vampires can’t survive in the day, and everyone was in a frenzy trying to escape. I imagine a few of them actually did escape, but Seer wasn’t able to. Her and one other girl came face to face with the vampire. Seer thought her an that girl were starting to get close, but she ended up pushing her to escape instead. The vampire felt bad for her so decided to give her a kinder(?) fate and turned her into a vampire.

When humans get turned into vampires, it takes up a lot of energy especially if they aren’t fed straight away. Hibernation varies, but it can take a while. In her case, she woke up just as WW2 was ending.

All this changes the way I imagine her external and internal dynamics with her colleges. Now she’s an outsider not only socially, but racially and in terms of species. I’ve been rlly interested in the topic of the model minority especially as a black AFAB who feels like I have to fit into this label a lot of the time to be taken seriously, or seem worthy of compassion and friendship. It’d be fun to explore that with her.

I could’ve made her black to be more similar to me but I didn’t want to change too much about her design, and also I never rlly hear ppl talk about indigenous people in America. Like, you hear about it, but you also don’t rlly? It felt jarring talking to a friend who didn’t know what the word indigenous meant after immigrating from Canada. When I first thought of Seer’s backstory, I thought of her as a vaguely white person living in a vaguely European town with a vaguely nice family to work under. Thing is, I don’t rlly know much abt Europe, and I’ve never been there (when I was old enough to remember) plus that felt kind of boring to me. So I changed it. I’m in a pretty shitty headspace rn so her backstory ended up being pretty depressing, but history is depressing, and creatures like vampires that can stretch across history I feel tend to have a sad tone to most of their stories. I also changed Seer’s hair from blond to brown since you don’t rlly see blond hair in indigenous people a lot.

That’s all for Seer and Regan! I really like how they’re kind of foils to each other. Seer is a jewel, Regan is a born vampire. Regan cares more than she’s willing to admit, Seer wishes desperately to care more. Regan doesn’t care what people think of her, but Seer is very conscious of how she is perceived. There’s probably more, but it makes imagining interactions with them interesting. I might draw a lazy comic of them. My art has been a bit lazier and not as crisp recently. Idk if it’s very noticeable tho since I’m a bit of an art perfectionist.