What I'm writing is -takes deep breath- an epistolary post-apocalyptic biopunk urban fantasy queer coming of age novel. (Is it still urban fantasy when the cities are the places where the monsters aren't?) Precisely naming the genre gave me some clarity of the moral of the story. The narrator is raised by people who care about her becoming responsible, not conformist. Their nonconformity leads to them being harassed and attempted murder. The more powerful people who stumble into helping them also accidentally drag them into a far bigger and more dangerous conflict. So a cynical version of the moral is "doing the right thing will meet resistance and put everyone you care about in danger". A better interpretation might be "all types of love are good reasons to resist oppression".