#A related thought to that bit on romantic assumptions is that under amatonormativity

[hephaestuscrew]

“This has both our names on it”: Viewing Fleet and Clara’s relationship in Victoriocity through a queerplatonic lens

TL;DR: By Season 3 of Victoriocity, Fleet and Clara have developed a committed emotional partnership that certainly moves beyond the purely professional. Whilst very much operating as a duo, they can be interpreted as often rejecting or subverting romance-coded elements in their relationship, instead embracing a unique dynamic that can be read as resonating with the concept of a queerplatonic relationship (QPR).

Buckle up because this is over 2,500 words long! If you'd rather read it as a document, you can access it here: Fleet & Clara QPR Google Doc

Disclaimer: I'm not making any claims about creator intent, nor about how anyone else ought to interpret Fleet and Clara's dynamic. It's also worth acknowledging that queerplatonic relationships are inherently defined by the people in them and any attempt to apply such terminology to a story set in 1887 is obviously anachronistic (although whether that should matter when said story also contains a cyborg Queen Victoria is up for debate). 

With that said, if we define a QPR as a committed personal partnership which is not entirely captured by the typical expectations of either friendship or romance but may contain some elements typically associated with either (other definitions of QPRs are available), I enjoy viewing Fleet and Clara's relationship through a QPR lens, and I want to talk about some of the reasons why I think this reading works.

***Spoilers for all three seasons of Victoriocity and the novel High Vaultage***

Detective duos

Even before we actually get into Fleet and Clara's particular bond, detective / crime-solving duos as a general concept have QPR energy to me (which probably predisposed me to this interpretation). It's the Holmes-and-Watson legacy. It's the use of the word 'partner' in a non-romantic context (‘associate’ or ‘companion’ can also serve a similar purpose). It's the intense trust and reliance on each other. It's the sense of being a recognisable pair, always appearing together, known as a duo, with skills and attributes that complement each other. 

Romantic assumptions

Moving on to Fleet and Clara specifically, one aspect of their relationship that can be read through a QPR lens is how they are often in situations where other people believe or imply that there is a romantic relationship between them. Sometimes this is a deliberate strategy of theirs, and sometimes it’s imposed upon them by others. But I’d argue that there’s never a point where they both simultaneously seem entirely comfortable with that romantic narrative for their relationship. Usually one of them will actively deny the assumption or react negatively to the implication:

When Mrs Hampshire interprets Clara and Fleet as a couple experiencing “young love”, Clara might be happy to adopt this as an effective cover story, but Fleet seems unsettled and keen for them not to be perceived this way: “No. No. You’ve misunderstood, we are not, that is to say I am…” (S1E2)

When Warden Hughes assumes Fleet is the new Warden and Clara is the new Warden’s wife, Clara says “I am certainly not”, with emphasis on the ‘certainly’. (S2E2)

Fleet definitely doesn’t sound enthused when he realises Clara has gone for a married couple as their cover story at the Grand Salcombe: “I am sure I’ll regret asking, but by any chance am I [Mr. Theasby?]” (S2E2)

When Titus Byrne tells the pair “I take it you're happy sharing [a room]”, Clara responds with a horrified “What?” (S3E4) (Obviously sleeping in the same room isn’t inherently romantic, but it is often perceived that way.)

Of course, fake dating and external assumptions of romance are very common tropes in romantic will-they-won't-they dynamics, and these moments could definitely be interpreted that way for Fleet and Clara. But I prefer to read these instances as reflecting a different kind of closeness between these two characters. They have a sense of emotional partnership that allows a marriage cover story to seem plausible to others and that other people sometimes automatically assume to be romantic (obviously with some period-typical heteronormativity at play). But to me, it doesn't seem like either of them are fully comfortable with their relationship being perceived in a directly romantic way. Perhaps they are a couple in a different sense…

Proposal via door plate 

The way that Fleet asks Clara to be his business partner has always seemed to me like a platonic version of when people find personal ways to surprise their romantic partner with a proposal:

CLARA: You bought me a door plate for your office? [...] This has both our names on it. FLEET: What do you think? CLARA: I like it. (S2E7)

Fleet could have just asked Clara outright, without going to the trouble of buying a sign that would have been useless if she’d said no. If it was purely a professional business proposition with no emotional meaning behind it, I think he would have just asked verbally. But instead, he gifts her a sign with their two names paired together: Fleet-Entwhistle Investigations. There's something so intimate about that to me: about Fleet asking Clara whether she would like to be a duo with him in a more formally-defined but still non-romantic way; about him choosing to present this offer in the form of a gift; about the way he presents her with their two names joined together etched into metal and asks what she thinks; about the significance that this gesture attaches to their partnership; about him having enough trust that she'll say yes that the effort and vulnerability of presenting her with that sign seem worth it for him. And the gesture means an awful lot to Clara:

She thought about the door plaque he’d had engraved with both their names on it as his way of inviting her to be his business partner – typical Fleet, refusing to tell her so much as his favourite breakfast food and then to go and do something like that. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. (High Vaultage, p187). 

Anniversaries

In the special episode ‘Murder in the Pharaoh's Tomb', Clara says “And you know what else is a big occasion Fleet? It's our one-month anniversary.” She wants to celebrate the anniversary of Fleet-Entwhistle Investigations. Their partnership holds a significance for her that means key dates associated with it are worth remembering and remarking upon. 

When Clara first mentions their anniversary, Fleet nearly chokes on his drink, which seems like an instinctive reaction to the usually romantic connotations of an anniversary (see my point above about Fleet not being comfortable with their dynamic being perceived as romantic). But when Clara clarifies what she means, Fleet seems much more cheerful about the notion of their anniversary: “Ah, so it has.”

“Miss Clara Entwhistle, my partner”

I get extremely strong QPR vibes from this moment, when Fleet introduces Clara to the sailors at Grave End:

FLEET: This is Miss Clara Entwhistle, my partner - in business, my business partner. CLARA: I'm also his friend, but he doesn't like to say it. (S3 E3)

Fleet and Clara are partners, but not in the way the average person might assume from that word, which Fleet realises mid-sentence here. This is another instance of Fleet reacting negatively to the idea that their relationship might be interpreted romantically (see above). And yet, 'partner' (rather than, say, ‘colleague’) is the word that comes naturally to him in this moment to describe who Clara is to him. He then frantically emphasises the professional element of their relationship so as to avoid the romantic implication, but Clara is keen to proudly assert that there is a personal, emotional aspect to their dynamic too. They are first-and-foremost partners, and they are friends, and they do not want to be seen in a romantic light - this post basically writes itself... 

“Her ridiculous detective.”

When Clara fears for her life at the display of the Lanterns, the narration tells us:

“she thought of her brother, her sister, her parents... Her ridiculous detective.” (High Vaultage, p172) 

The fact that Clara thinks of Fleet in this moment of fear clearly indicates his importance to her, but I think the phrasing of this quote is particularly interesting. The narration lists Clara's immediate family: two of whom are dead (her sister and father), one of whom is publically mourning Clara's life choices (her mother), and only one of whom we have any real evidence of her having a positive relationship with (her brother). And then, separated from these complicated familial relationships by an ellipsis, the narration tells Clara also thinks of Fleet, “her ridiculous detective”. 

Parents and siblings are familial relationships that tend to come with established expectations, in which the use of a possessive pronoun (i.e. her brother) to indicate the relationship is a norm. ‘Detective’ does not fall into this category; unlike ‘brother’, ‘sister’, ‘parent’, ‘friend’, ‘partner’ etc., ‘detective’ is not a word that inherently implies a relationship or that we'd usually expect to see preceded by a possessive pronoun. The idea of ‘her detective’ therefore stands out, giving the sense that there is a unique relationship being indicated here. The way in which Fleet is ‘hers’ is something that Clara has chosen for herself, something that they have shaped together. Who they are to each other can't necessarily be fully expressed using standard phrases that traditionally describe relationships between people. But Fleet is Clara's detective, of which she only has one, and who she'll think of in the midst of “the screaming of the heavens at the end of the world”.

Fleet is also the only one in this list of Clara's loved ones who gets an adjective - her love for him has detail. And while “ridiculous” might often be perceived as negative (it's certainly not a classic romantic endearment), it seems to me like there's such fondness in it in this context: the recognition of and affection for eccentricities, the idea that his importance to her is not (purely) based on his professional strengths but on Fleet as a whole - perhaps at times ridiculous - person.

“Settled”

When Clara and Fleet talk about Clara's mother’s expectations for her, they have this exchange:

"She's still living in hope that one day I'll settle down."  "You're not settled?" asked Fleet. "I am." (High Vaultage, p259) 

By ‘settle down’, Clara's mother of course means ‘marry’, ideally into “at least a minor baronetcy”. But Clara already considers herself "settled", just not in a way her mother would understand or appreciate. She's not looking to "settle down" into a lifestyle other than her current one. She is settled in a situation where Fleet is certainly her closest personal connection in London (and perhaps anywhere), and where the two of them work closely together, operate as a duo, and then go back to their separate homes. And this partnership with Fleet is a comfortable set-up that feels right for Clara exactly as it is, rather than being a precursor to, or a distraction from, the marriage ambitions that her mother wants for her.

I think this exchange also contains an implicit sense of the commitment between the two of them. Fleet wants to check that Clara is ‘settled’ in her current situation, of which working closely - and platonically - with Fleet is obviously a major element; Clara confirms she is. There's a subtle indication of their shared intention to be in this for the long haul.

As a sidenote, Fleet and Clara’s implicit assumption that their partnership is a long-term one can manifest itself in joking contexts as well as serious ones. Look at this exchange from S3E5: 

FLEET: We're not bandits, we're just going to flag it down. CLARA: We'd be terrific bandits! FLEET: Let's just see how our current line of work goes.

I think it’s notable that, in this joking speculation, both Fleet and Clara use ‘we’ and ‘our’. The joke could have been phrased just as effectively if they were imagining only Clara becoming a bandit. But the suggestion is that, if either of them was a bandit, they’d be bandits together. Even if they changed their lives entirely, they'd still approach life together.

Inseparable 

Fleet and Clara have become a nearly inseparable duo in a way which is noticed by others. For example, after Clara and Fleet fall out in High Vaultage, Fleet meets with Keller, who says: 

"You're here with me instead of barrelling across town with her, so I'm just assuming there is some thickheaded puffinry for which you need to apologise to Miss Entwhistle" (p335)

Keller, hardly the most emotionally perceptive man in Even Greater London, automatically infers from the fact that Fleet is on his own that he has had a falling out with Clara, rather than that they just happen to be in different places. When all is well, Keller expects to see the two of them together, whether or not they are in a position to be actively working a case.

Going back earlier in their partnership, Keller makes a similar assumption about Fleet and Clara being inseparable in S2E6. When Clara shouts her name amidst Keller's anti-Vidoc booby traps, Keller asks "Entwhistle? Which means… Fleet?" Again, there's this idea that if one of them is there, the other is likely to be there too - they come as a pair. (It's worth noting that this scene takes place less than two weeks after they first met.)

“Like a friend might?”

At the end of S3E7, Fleet suggests that he and Clara go to the theatre together. It would have been easy for this invitation to have been explicitly framed as a romantic proposition, or even for the nature of the offer to have been left more ambiguous. But Clara says "Archibald Fleet, are you inviting me to a social activity? Like a friend might?" The use of the word 'friend' directly labels this as a platonic interaction. And it's with that platonic lens on it that Clara is extremely excited to spend non-work-related social time with Fleet.

“Maybe it'll just be my good luck charm.”

CLARA: My grandmother's ring, I don't suppose you managed to hold on to it? [...] FLEET: Oh, it's been crushed.. I'm sorry Clara [...] CLARA: No, you keep it. FLEET: What? No... CLARA: Keep it. Maybe it'll remind you not to run towards trains. FLEET: Maybe. Maybe it'll just be my good luck charm.

In S3E7, Clara gives Fleet a ring, which - as a gift from one person to another - is traditionally a symbol of a particular, legally recognised, kind of personal commitment. But when Clara tells Fleet to keep the damaged ring, down in the Underground tunnels after the destruction of the beast and Fleet's latest brush with death, it is quite a different situation to a wedding or a proposal. A married man would traditionally wear his wedding ring on his finger for all to see, but Fleet won't ever wear this ring like that. The ring itself has been bent into a different shape between the wheels of their misadventures, subverting the usual associations of a ring given from one person to another. (In a heteronormative world, those associations are particularly strong when the two people in question are a woman and a man.) 

That ring is not an engagement ring, but it is Clara’s grandmother's ring, an inheritance from the blood family she never really felt she belonged in, now given to the man who might be a very different kind of family for her in London. That ring - with which Clara saved Fleet's life - is a symbol of their bond. And it therefore serves as a reminder for Fleet “not to run towards trains" and as a “good luck charm”. I like to think he'll carry that ring with him, perhaps in his jacket pocket - a little piece of his partner, kept close to his ticking heart…

Thank you for reading all of this!

If you’ve read all of this, I'm assuming you also enjoy the concept of Fleet and Clara as a QPR (unless you're really a glutton for punishment) and that makes me very happy! This was long because there's so much to say about them… And I wrote all of the above without even getting into: the potential to headcanon Fleet and/or Clara as aspec (which I don't think is necessary for QPR headcanons, but which is also fun); Clara's baggage around and discomfort with marriage in general; the speed with which Fleet and Clara become a ride-or-die duo; and the many other demonstrations of care, understanding, trust, respect, and affection between them that didn't feel as directly QPR-coded to me but are nonetheless wonderful. Please do feel free to share your own thoughts!

[yuriswitch]

Thoughts on the intersection of sexuality and romance?

This topic is honestly far too big for a single post, but I'll try to come up with something good anyway. In terms of feelings there's a lot of overlap, but also variety in how people conceive of or differentiate between platonic, romantic and sexual attraction that often spills over into fiction in a bit odd way. One way of thinking is simply in terms of intensity, where romance is what happens when friendship crosses certain threshold of intensity, which is honestly quite often a huge part of it for us too. It's also just as commonly distinguished by intimacy/sexual attraction too, with which for a lot of people romance is deeply intertwined.

This is where some people on tumblr will go like "no, thing must be always and only one thing" and insist that the existence of purely sexual desires and multiple different interpretations of what makes something romance, all of which rely on signs that don't always indicate romance, means that it actually doesn't exist and all romantic feelings are just made up lies by the amatonormative cabal or something. I get why the multitude of ways of differentiating would make some aros go "see everything is made up out of nowhere your feelings are fake, but I'm saying it's fine so I feel good about what I just said and now you can't discourse me about it haha I defeated you" but I personally think that romance and sexuality are one of those things that highlight the lack of this, awareness of what context is and why it's always present and a necessary precondition for all existence.

Basically, sexuality and romance can't be considered outside of specific people in specific situations, and as such can be a whole lot of different things to a lot of different people. The first major reason why is that it's one of the many ways in which people relate to one another, like gender and nationality/ethnicity and the social control imposed by the dominant justifying ideology of capitalism (and earlier slavery and feudalism too) often ends up biting people in a way that makes them want to erase the concept thinking that that will make the painful thing go extinct and everything will be good. But gender expectations and roles formed under the specific context of Things That The Machine Called Economy Needs To Function, and thus are only what one group needed it to be in order to benefit from whatever status quo they were in.

That doesn't, however, mean that erasing the concept of gender and gendered spaces and relations altogether is the solution, or even possible considering that "structure-less" feminist formations in the past tended to have unofficial structure that couldn't be challenged due to a lack of recognition of that structure and formal challenge of power. So to close off the tangent, I think it'd just conceal gender in the sense of leaving people without a way to determine how they relate to each other, but still not being able to prevent them from relating to each other (is the person a fellow or a someone different kind of deal, people would still have feelings like that).

Going back to romance and sexuality, this means that it's tied up in a whole bunch of things, all of which will exist in some form as experiences, feelings of being the same or the other, feelings of wanting to be involved with someone in a way that never happens with friends and so on. It's one of those things that exist in between people much more than purely inside of them, because it's yet another type of relation determined/influenced by a whole lot of other relations and factors. This could be explored in detail in fiction, but I feel like most of the time all we get is the normal's assumptions and then the story ends the second the relationship is established. It's a complex topic, one that is much more enforced from above rather than discovered or decided, which is why abolitionist approach irks me a lot, because taking the tool away won't make everyone non-distinct gender soup, it will just take their words away and spare them some idiotic expectations at most.

I think it'd be for the best if we just tried to keep in mind the way concepts allow us to understand and act upon things that we'd otherwise only feel. Romance and sexuality can be the means of forcing the new generation into the mold, but it can also be liberatory too, it just means that we have to figure out how to get rid of the coercion without taking away the reference models that we need to figure out how to construct ourselves as people and understand what we want and how we feel about and relate to people. It's as crucial as bodily autonomy, obviously since it usually involves some amount of physicality, but also because it's one of those things that have to be responded to and as such need a certain environment in order for that response to be genuine and not forced.

The world we live in was shaped in a multitude of harmful ways, a lot of which involve socially demanded forms of romance and sexuality, but the thing to remember here is that nothing can just pop into existence out of nowhere, it always utilizes something there and reproduces with a fictional story attached about how no power was exercised at all and it just spontaneously happened this way. For romance and sexuality there's a lot to unpack and do, but at the same time I honestly think the sheer amount of different thoughts and feelings and understandings is a good thing that should be celebrated, because it proves there's a whole lot more to life than the narrow line we were all told to walk in our respective childhoods. And that's honestly great, it makes me wish making art was easier, because it's a great vessel for exploring these kinds of topics and shouldn't be strangled by the capitalist economy requiring an end product to get exchanged for money. I could probably keep going on, brain neurodivergent in many ways and so on, but this is getting really long

/Kafuka

[saltyaro]

[Image description: The cover of the 5th book of Aromantic (love) Story. It features a drawn woman in a red tank top, a white skirt that hides her heels, and red high heels shoes. She has her hands on her hips and looks confident.]

You know what I forgot to do? That review on the 5th and last tome of aromantic (love) story. For those who weren’t aware yet, I’m not going to keep the suspense going on any longer: yes, it is safe, no, the heroine doesn’t end up as a straight woman. That’s already a victory in itself, so now all of you can go ahead and buy it if it’s available in your country ;) 

The actual review is under the read more, it’s not spoiler free so!

So, Futaba (the main character) tried dating to see if she’s able to develop romance, or not. The person she chose to do so with of course knows about it, and they’re actually both trying it to see if they can understand romance. Futaba still can’t imagine romantic attraction outside of sexual attraction, which frustrates her, because she *knows* allo aces are a thing so obviously, sexual desire isn’t necessarily linked! The viewpoint of her (straight dude) partner-in-crime is...well, not surprising at all, actually. His opinion is that romantic feelings are born of, on one hand, wanting the other person’s happiness, while also wanting to possess them and keep them all to yourself. 

This is, well. A very Straight Man™ way of seeing things, but, on the other hand, this point of view isn’t limited to them. (I promise, I’m not going to ramble about how it’s scary that society puts such a violent feeling as the most beautiful and important. Not on this post at least)

Fun note, at least for me, you have the classical “guy is sick, girl brings him medicine” except...Futaba gives him the medicine and just. Leaves. I love her. Well, she ends up going to his apartment, but that’s where her being aro really stands out. Usually, in a basic romcom, everyone’s flushed, and it’s annoying. But Futaba is aro, so she isn’t embarrassed, she just sees someone she cares about being sick and wants to help. She’s very natural and stoic about the whole situation. It may seem like a detail, but honestly I find that so important!

She explains that, when she was a teenager, she avoided men as much as possible (to avoid romance) and I relate. So fucking much. I don’t know if any of you did the same, but with my parents bugging me about boys, I just avoided them as much as possible (with a few exceptions). I didn’t feel unsafe around men yet back then, so I know that’s not what it was. 

She explains she was afraid of creating misunderstandings, and ended up not using the world “love” at all because of that. I relate to that so much too, I’m trying to heal from that, and I think it’s important, really important, for us as a community, to learn to separate love from romance. Anyway, this kind of struggle that just...hinders your vocabulary options is really a shame, and I’m glad to see a character mention it (and not be shamed for it!).

Are you ready for some Hetero Bashing™? Because Futaba reunites with her friends and they talk a bit. The Straight dude (Kyosuke) asked Futaba to think about marrying him, and she’s a bit “huuuuuh” so she talks about it to her friends. Friend 1 is like “well, you don’t need to be *in romance* to get married. I have friends, a straight dude and a lesbian, who got married by necessity” and Futaba expresses that she never thought such a thing would happen to her, she never thought of marriage being an option for her. Friend 2 they says that it’s the contrary for her, impossible to avoid the idea of marriage and children, despite not wanting either, because it’s been so ingrained in her head. “you know, the “to perpetuate the specie” argument, like having descendance is every human’s mission...”

And the friend 1 says “ah...the perfect exemple of a notion made by straight people to validate their point of view!” and I love that?? I mean, in general, even in the larger queer community, we’re dancing around the argument, finding proof that there are non-straight animals in all species, and all. She then adds “If reproductions is *that* important...then rich single people could have a ton of kids using articifial fertilization and bingo, they’d have contributed to society’s well-being!” Friend 2 is like “uuuuh, that would raise ethical issues” to what friend 2 answers: “Personally, I kinda reaaally don’t care for lessons of morality from a society that considers sexual minorities and childfree people as useless. If we consider that humanity will necessarily go extinct one day, then mating to reproduce is nothing but a useless cycle”. I really like that take which’s why I *had* to share it despite it being so long to read haha. 

Futaba is surprised by her words, so friend 2 explains that friend 1 is worried that a straight guy is going to steal Futaba from them, and she doesn’t want to be abandoned. Friend 1 is bi but that’s a very aro sentiment here tbh. 

(Straight bashing, over)

You have the usual meeting with the family...god, how realistic is that, you see your aunt and uncle you haven’t seen in maybe years and the only thing they’re interested in, is whether or not you’ve found a romantic partner. I swear, I got annoyed for the character cause it’s so true. She’s bothered (and I am too) by her grandma’s affirmation that everyones gets married someday. I hate that, it really, really annoys me that I supposedly can’t be free to make my own decisions! But she also knows that it would be useless to explain to her grandma that her words are paternalism, so she lets her be. Because she means well, and maybe that’s the worst thing about amatonormativity and its assumptions...that the people upholding those mean well. 

The manga also touches (rapidly) on Futaba feeling of guilt for not being sincere with her family. Her parents aren’t pressuring her to get married, but she knows that seeing their only child, still single, and over 30, is sure to make them worried (especially given she’s not exactly wealthy). I can’t express how much I love seeing a character like that, she knows what she wants, but there’s still this lingering feeling that keeps you from feeling totally at ease, regardless of how much confidence you’ve got. It’s only natural and nothing to be ashamed of. 

I think one of my favourite moments of this book - maybe of all the serie? is after Kyosuke’s friends remotivates Futaba by, basically, telling her to do what she always did, fight out of spite, even if that means to accept to sometimes take hits (this happens throught the phone). Kyosuke says to his friend, that he would never have neeb able to say such things to him, and his friend answers that love blinds him, and prevents him from seeing what she really needs. To that, Kyosuke doesn’t answer, and his friend understands immediately and says “That look...maybe you actually nurture this self-deception.” 

And I love this moment because, for Futaba to be happy, she needs to be single, and free. From him, and his expectations of romance, because even though he knows, rationally speaking, that she won’t ever feel the same, he still wants her, and still wants to be the one at her side - when no one should be. Not in a partnership way anyway. He’s actually choosing to ignore the rational part of him because he still hopes for her to make the difficult choice, and stay at his side, because it’s not really that he wants her to be happy but rather, that he wants to be the one to make her happy, which is of course, extremely selfish and possessive. I love that it’s just laid here, without ambiguity. What’s great also, is that the straight dude in romo realizes what he’s doing, even if he tries to ignore that. Later in the manga, Kyosuke thinks to himself that he couldn’t help but hope that she would concecede, yield, and accept him, despite knowing that’s not what she needs, and knowing that’s not the way you build a positive relationship. I...don’t know if alloro usually know they’re doing such things? I don’t know what’s worse, to be confident you’re not doing that shit when you’re doing it, or to keep on doing it even though you’re aware. 

On a sidenote, I really, really like that she got boosted by the least expected person? They don’t like each other, they’re more or less at each other’s throat most of the time cause he’s sexist and unsentitive, but in the end, he was touched by the anger in the beginnings of her work, and it built a sort of...professional trust between the two of them. Like, those characters won’t ever be friends, but there’s still that little place of trust between them, it’s a delicate portrayal of ambiguous relationships. 

Basically, what ends the manga, if the end of Futaba’s own manga (the romantic comedy). And I really like the outlook she has on it, at the end of her 2 years and a half of work. Even though she didn’t want to write such a thing, in the end, she met a lot of people thanks to it, and, through challenging her own vision of relationships and romance, she finally managed to complete her certitude in herself and who she is. I think that’s a lovely parallel. 

It also ends her questions, and she rejects Kyosuke (I usually can’t help but laugh when a Straight man gets rejected in fiction I’m an asshole I know). Their conversation is really lovely after that, and challenged the expectations of partnership. Kyosuke asks her if she would have accepted his proposal if, like one year ago, he didn’t feel anything towards her. And her answer is no. She did think about it, imagining their marriage as a fake straight couple, and how she knew that, while it would have asked concessions and sacrifices from both of them, they could have been happy.  But what she needs isn’t some stability based on renunciations, but ton confront reality, so she can live in agreement with herself. 

Also, the moment after her choice, loneliness and worry strike her, and she acknowledges that feeling, because it’s okay, it doesn’t mean she made the wrong choice. It will pass. 

The younger guy who’s also in romance with her, interestingly enough, resolves the situation in a very mature way. He asks her if she’s found her answer, when they’re about to part ways (he’s no longer her assistant), and she says that, yes, she doesn’t feel romance - and he thanks her, for having endured his weirdness all this time, and bids her farewell. And we then have his thoughts - while his decisions, to act that way, was difficult for him, he did so because it was the right thing to do and he realized that insisting would have bothered her. That was nice. The situation is weird for Futaba too, because, as his senior, she kinda felt responsible for him, protective maybe? And she’s a bit overwhelmed by how much this kid’s grown. 

There’s an epilogue of sorts, and we can see that Futaba decided to entirely live while being true to herself, which also means making some changes. 

To conclude: I really liked this serie! It’s nice to see a woman over 30, finally embracing herself - despite having gone through doubts, even at her age - after making sure she was right about her feelings. She’s, well, asexual I think, but it’s the aro part that matters to her, and really has an influence on her life, the ace part is more of an afterthought. It’s also nice to see a nonamorous aromantic woman! Aro women are already hard to grasp in our amatonormative and migogynistic society, so a nonamorous one probably even more so. 

It was overall a really nice experience, I’m not going to say everything was perfect, and her aromanticism is the topic of the story, but Futaba is also her own person and this is never downplayed in favour of talking about her identity. Definitely something too rare and, as such, very enjoyable. 

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

Carnival of Aros (May 2019)  [Call for Submission post]

The Intersection of Religion and Aromanticism

Coincidentally, it was deciding to check out a blog recommended to this one (@aroacepagans themself) that led to trawling through different aro blogs and questioning if I actually experienced romantic attraction. [For the sake of saving space, I split the full “I don’t think I’m alloromantic, but I’m not sure if I can pinpoint a specific label” part into a separate post (link).]

Region’s Dominant Religion & Love/Romance

It’s not a shock for the usual blog readers, but I distanced myself from Christianity, particularly my family’s flavor of a certain Protestant branch, when I was younger and coming to terms with being queer. Some people reconcile their connection to Christianity with being queer, but I already had theological doubts and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back in a manner of speaking. In that stance, I was more concerned with the church approved relationship only looking heterosexual, and I honestly wasn’t paying as much attention to the intertwined issue that basically went “God will bring everyone a special someone into their life”.

Depending on the exact environment you’re in, you sort of run into different issues with how Christianity may have played into how you discovered your sexuality, lack thereof, romantic orientation, its lack thereof, etc. I remember a focus on the negative attributes given to sex between two people of the same sex/gender in arguments and an incredibly obtuse inability to see that queer people were capable of anything other than sex in irl interactions. It’s honestly a bit of a clusterfuck trying to remember it; “just friends” could cohabitate for years, might be able to hold hands, and could be physically affectionate until the point of Too Romantic when there were suddenly assumptions about The Gay Sex.

The conflation of romantic and sexual made it easy to fall into a trap of falling back on amatonormativity, especially when you were going up against people who didn’t even agree that non-heterosexual people were capable of love. It was all tied up in sin, and lust, and a confused teen who wants to hold hands with someone of the same gender without hearing how they’re “evil” (and probably going to hell) just isn’t on equal footing with that type of argument to get into dismantling amatonormativity when it sounds like they’re agreeing that they can’t love.

This isn’t to say that someone shouldn’t try to address the amatonormativity in those Christian settings. It would be a lot of years before I even had the terminology to try to talk about that, and I’m looking back and trying to be gentle with past-me for using the limited tools I had against adults who really should have known better. I wasn’t the first queer person to spring into existence, y’know? It shouldn’t have been my responsibility to miraculously Know everything to defend myself against homophobia, transphobia, and all kinds of interconnected types of queerphobia (bi, pan, ace, aro) from adults.

Weddings =/= Marriage

That being said, the shorthand for talking about queer acceptance in Christianity was tied up in religiously motivated opinions about whether “gay marriage” was ruining the sacredness of cisheteronormative marriage that dovetails into having 2.5 kids and the American Dream. I remember different levels of informal and class sanctioned debates on whether same-sex marriage should be legalized, notably a whole class period devoted to it in AP US Gov in high school. (This was before the ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges in June 2015.)

In the context of that type of discussion (“why can’t the gays just have a commitment ceremony?”) and the related issues of “just partners” in relation to the AIDS crisis (not having the legal rights tied to a recognized marriage), love wasn’t necessarily reserved for marriage, even though “us queer people basically love like you straight people do” was a popular defense, and marriage didn’t exactly mean the same thing to everyone.

Some people, often straight, associated marriage with the big wedding, a priest/preacher in a church setting, and the whole shebang of the reception and stuff afterwards, which is more tied up in having religious recognition and acceptance. The wedding gets turned into romantic shorthand, and I think that’s why I wound up with complicated personal feelings even while staunchly being the person to speak up and support alloromantic queer people’s rights for their marriage to be recognized and their weddings to be held.

Non-romantic Partnering & Marriage

I grew up with an ambivalent relationship to weddings because they were associated with being reserved for het couples, and even though same-sex marriage has been legalized nationwide (and therefore in my state) for almost 4 years, I haven’t really been concerned about having a big blowout, church approved, het acceptable wedding. I don’t mind the idea of romantic coded activity or partnering with someone, which has personally made me a bit wary of claiming an aro/aro-spec identity. (Not to say that these are incompatible. I, personally, just feel like I’m intruding at times in some aro places.)

Partnering is one thing, but it’s a little hard to nail down if I want to legally marry a long-term committed partner. (Having the potential for more than one and being poly-flexible also makes it hard to imagine picking one person unless there were a particular reason for accessing a marriage benefit with them.) I’ve also had depression for at least a decade and have struggled with suicidal ideation on more than one occasion, so I honestly have trouble with imagining anything that could qualify as “long-term”. The future’s just a hazy guess with some blurry sketched in goals. However, I can’t deny that the benefits of a legal marriage do look appealing, and I just can’t say I’d want to restrict it to a romantic partner.

. . . & Minority Religion

I’m a polytheist (sorted under the Pagan umbrella), and usually when I try to look into Pagan weddings, I mostly get Wiccan or Wiccan derived information on handfasting. I can understand wanting personally relevant symbology and scripts that don’t draw on Xtian ones, and I can understand wanting a rite that means something for your own religious community (not everyone just wants to go to the local courthouse and have their marriage license being signed be it).

For a taste of how handfasting has different definitions across time periods and the Neopagan and/or Wiccan wedding commonly thought of now doesn’t actually have some unbroken link to pre-Christian marriage ceremonies: Tying the Knot: Handfasting Through the Ages [link] and Historical Handfasting (Late Middle Ages to Reformation, Reformation to 1940, Historical v Mythical v Neopagan Usage) [link]. This doesn’t mean certain elements wouldn’t perhaps look familiar to certain pre-Christian people in a certain location, but the whole package of binding hands with a cord, talking about the union of the God and Goddess, year and a day ‘trial’ from one Beltane to another, possibly jumping a besom, “greenwood” marriages starting on May Day isn’t an exact carbon copy of a historical pre-Christian marriage ceremony for everyone.

I’m not saying that no one should do any of this or call it a handfasting because the Neopagan definition has been around long enough to become its own recognized thing. Some of it just sounds like “our wedding ceremony is just as legit as a Xtian ceremony because it’s Old”, but I’m not really interested in that. While the aesthetics can certainly be beautiful, moving, and adaptable to commitment ceremonies for polyam arrangements, I just find myself about as ambivalent to the idea of handfasting as a church wedding.

If the stars were to align and I was clear on feeling romantic attraction or I wanted to get married to a partner for legal reasons, I would want the marriage (signing the paperwork) to be separate from any ceremony held for friends and family to attend. I really can’t lock myself into one ‘ideal wedding’ idea, in part, because I would want to take into account some sort of interfaith compromise in ceremony melding. Even though weddings get used for romantic shorthand, there are personally significant connections to culture, ethnicity, and other minority religions within the US in how some people celebrate a wedding, and I wouldn’t want to ignore that for my hypothetical partner.