When I was trying to think of a topic to write about for Month of Joy, I considered several options: Pokémon, cooking, the Robins. All of these things do make me happy, but for various reasons (mostly of the “life got bonkers” variety), I never got around to writing about them. Then I sat down to watch the second season of Marvel’s Runaways, saw Nico Minoru in all her gay goth girl glory, and felt my heart swell with joy and recognition. So I busted out my laptop, and here I am, writing about why Nico is one of the most important characters of 2018 for me.
The thing is, Nico and I aren’t very similar at all. We have different personalities—let’s just say that Nico’s probably a Cancer and that my picture would be next to the description of Capricorns—and she’s as femme as I am butch. It’s not self-recognition that I feel when I see her on the TV screen; it’s recognition of another queer Asian girl, a kind of kindred calling. There you are, I think when I see her bitterness, her pain, her anger. You exist, just like me.
Existing is a big deal when you’re marginalized. When people talk about the Asian American community, they’re usually talking about straight, cisgender Asian Americans, and any inclusion of queer people feels like a token effort. Yet when I go to lesbian spaces, there’s a frustrating and obliquely (and often directly) violent erasure of lesbians of color.
Many of the lesbian storylines I see in the media are about white women, which means that they’re only slightly more relevant to me than their straight counterparts’ storylines. So to see Nico be not just a supportive friend or sister devoted to the straight main character, but one of the driving forces of the show and an emerging leader of the Runaways—it makes me joyful in a way that few TV shows or movies do.
There’s a rawness to Nico, a vulnerability inked in her thick black eyeliner and dark lipstick. She’s grieving all the time: first her sister’s death, then her parents’ betrayal. Yet in the midst of that grieving, she still has room for warmth and courage. She’s the one who compels the other Runaways to go back and rescue Karolina in season one, and the one who performs the funeral rites for Graciela in season two. Nico is brimming with emotions but they’re always tightly bound, as if they’re a howling maelstrom no words can encompass.
It’s strange to talk about grieving and pain in a post that’s supposed to be about joy, but those are the things that make me feel the most kinship with Nico. If there’s one thing that I do have in common with her, it’s being hurt and flawed. Seeing Nico—another queer, Asian American girl—yell and cry and march out to meet her murderous mother head on with nothing but a wooden sword fills me with joy. Sure, she’s fictional, but the thing about stories is that they validate and reflect what already exists in the real life. Which is why Nico Minoru makes me so happy: she’s my reminder that grieving, angry queer Asian girls are out there, and that we’re not alone.
