On the gender and sexuality of characters
If you look at the Character profile template, you will see that there is no gender field, only pronouns, and that there is also a sexuality field despite the usefulness of that being questionable at best. While this page in itself could also be considered unnecessary by some, allow me to explain my thought process for the inclusion and usage of these fields.
First, the pronouns field. Quite simply, I do not believe that gender is important (or even relevant in many situations) to a story unless it is made a core part of said story. It is, however, important to some readers/viewers for their own reasons, be them good or bad, and can be important for some writers as an influence on direction. The simplest thing to do then is to list only the pronouns of a character on their page, unless gender identity is a core element of that character’s story. For the characters I write, they may have a particular gender in my head as I start writing with them, but that’s no law.
Cis or trans, binary or nonbinary, it doesn’t matter, everyone is free to imagine characters in the way that feels right to them, and if the lack of a set in stone canon gender bothers someone, that’s their own problem that they can deal with alone. And if the thought of a character being trans or non-binary bothers someone, or the usage of pronouns in this manner bothers someone, they will probably not be welcome here for long.
Next, sexuality. Frankly, this is even less important or relevant than gender in most situations if you ask me. That said, not only does the same logic as above apply here too, I also personally find it useful to have this in mind when I try to get inside the head of a character and write for them, even when it doesn’t seem relevant, because it can influence a character’s behavior around others in subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways. That’s why I assign sexuality to my characters, even when it’s not part of their stories. And as it turns out, this wiki happens to be mine, so things that I do only for my own brain will end up listed here.
However, even though I include those fields, I almost never consider them set in stone. Same as before, it’s only set in stone if sexuality is a core part of the story. Otherwise, you’re free to ignore the field if you’d like. The listed sexuality can also change in the future for some characters depending on how things develop. So again, unless sexuality is a core part of the story, you can imagine the characters of this world in whatever way feels right to you.
But that’s all just me. As for characters created by people other than myself, the respective authors may have different views than I do on this matter, so they may really intend for their characters to be set in stone. Maybe in the future if this wiki grows big enough, I’ll add other authors’ thoughts to this page to keep it all in one place, but for now, if you want to create a character in this world and want their gender and/or sexuality to be set in stone, please state that somewhere on the character page, or remove the fields entirely if you would rather not use them.