#Also he isn’t aromantic (kinda obvious)

[downthedraincomic]

What are each characters sexuality? 👀

Good question because for most of them I actually have no idea, so I'll just say Sam and Brandon's

Brandon is straight/ace and Sam is bi (?). Probably. She hasn't really figured it out exactly. But they can both mutually agree on what idols they think are hot

[devilsrecreation]

Since the ep is INSPIRED by POTO, I’mma point out the similarities and differences

Similarities/references to POTO:

-There are obvious parodies of the characters in the book/musical. Neema’s obviously the Phantom, Paka kinda has Christine’s role, Nne and Tano are kinda like Madame Giry, and there’s an herbivore with Carlotta’s role. Maybe a wild ass

-Neema pulls very similar stunts Erik pulls, mainly sabotaging performances. But he also has a secret lair in a water cave that he takes Kiburi’s float and Paka

-The Grasslands has a tradition called the “kupiga mpira”, meaning “masquerade ball” where everyone dresses up in costumes. Neema crashes the party lol

-Like Christine, Paka is a (rookie) performer and has a relationship with the Phantom

-I guess you could say both Erik and Neema had a hard life (granted, Neema’s past wasn’t as bad as Erik’s but still) that somehow affected their reputation

-He put Paka to sleep with a soothing melody (AKA he recreates “Music of the Night”)

-“[Why would anyone want to date a strange individual who’s killed people? That just sounds like a toxic relationship.]”-Neema at one point

-The reptiles like to refer to Neema as an “angel of music”

-Tamka brings up “the point of no return”

-Like Erik, Neema kills someone

-One of the reasons he sabotages a show is that a certain spot isn’t left for him. It’s HIS spot, no one else’s

-Neema and Erik both get exposed

-Both phantoms get affection at the end

-Neema’s point of no return is to either quit this double life thing and go back to being in Kiburi’s float or stick to being a phantom and leave his only family permanently. Although Tamka/Nduli think Neema’s gonna give THEM a choice to either join him or he’ll kill everybody, to which Kiburi shuts it down cuz that makes zero sense

Differences:

-There is no operatic singing in the episode. It has singing (the Grasslands are a musical place) but not actual opera. Also there’s no Raoul nor Persian

-While Erik loves/is obsessed with Christine, Neema is aromantic and has no interest in anyone

-Neema does not wear a mask that covers his face (except during the masquerade scene)

-Like I said before, everything between them is platonic and healthy. Though Neema DOES have a soft spot for her. If anything, they’d be QPP’s

-Erik and Neema haunt their respective places for different reasons. Erik does it cuz of his passion for opera and obsession for Christine. Neema honestly just likes the music. The hero thing just comes with it.

-Two things: it was completely platonic and Neema hummed the song since he’s mute and can’t sing. It’s more of a lullaby than a romantic ballad

-Neema isn’t jealous nor possessive. The most he does when he sees Paka with someone else is make sure they don’t hurt her. He’s more protective if anything

-my guy is not a teacher. He’s never taught anyone anything (except maybe how to stand up for yourself)

-As much as I love the scene, it ain’t happening with Neema and Paka. Way too sexual for them (and the episode fic) 😭

-Unlike Erik he killed someone cuz he was hungry, not to sabotage the show. Though everybody else seems to think differently

-He doesn’t kill anyone cuz of it, although he does cause a monkey to interrupt it by scaring him

-While Erik’s face gets exposed during an opera in front of everyone, Neema’s confronted by Kiburi’s float and basically gets exposed then

-Erik gets a kiss while Neema and Paka share a hug and a head pat :)

-Neema’s ending is veeeeeeery different from Erik’s. Neema doesn’t die like in the book nor does he completely quit being a phantom and not see Paka again. He goes back with his float in the end, but he continues to be a Phantom hero in the Grasslands.

There’s a reason Neema kept up the whole “Phantom” act and it kinda has something to do with his past. Neema was raised by strict, but somewhat supportive parents as a hatchling. He never learned to actually talk but his parents convinced him that being quiet was a good thing. “Silence is golden” they’d always say. “Just do as you’re told and they’ll like you”. It was like that for a while until the day he saved that lizard. Being referred to as a “hero” awakened something in him that day. He likes being some mysterious heroic entity, he likes playing with the Grasslanders and telling them what to do, he likes keeping animals on their toes, he likes the music the Grasslands have.

He likes being his own animal.

He’s been following and obeying his leaders all his life. Don’t get him wrong, he doesn’t necessarily mind it and he loves his friends, but it just feels nice to be someone now that he’s found his passion.

Nne and Tano found out when they got hungry and wanted to try something different rather than a mole rat or trying to eat animals from the Pridelands. They soon found themselves in the Grasslands and just so happened to spot Paka walking around. Just as they cornered her, Neema came out of nowhere, gave Paka a chance to run away, and began to attack the pair…until they recognized him like “Hey wait a minute…we know you! You’re one of the crocodiles in Kiburi’s float! What’re you doing here?”. It took a bit, but the pair finally figured out that Neema was a phantom and decide to join him. They never let anyone know since (until Kiburi basically forced them to tell where Neema was going).

Ever since Paka heard about this supposed phantom saving one of her lizard friends, her sleep schedule has been out of whack (seeing how black-footed cats are nocturnal) and she’s been obsessed with seeing it for herself. It only grew when Neema saved her and she went from wanting to see him to wanting to get to know him. Luckily, Neema took interest in the little feline due to her personality and shared love for music and began watching over her. He’s even led her to his water cave (where he hummed her his lullaby) and their friendship grew from there. She doesn’t really understand him so they communicate by yes or no questions until Kiburi comes along. Same with Nne and Tano.

Unrelated, but I just realized a pattern with my headcanons for Kiburi’s float: I gave them all desires

Kiburi wants to be good enough to make his dad proud like he promised

Tamka wants to be seen as more than just one thing (which is an idiot). He wants to pursue his passion and show he’s capable of doing things

Neema wants to feel like somebody. Like I said, he’s been a follower for way too long and he wants to find himself

Nduli wants everything to stay the same. He’s lost so much due to change and he doesn’t want to lose anything or anybody else, so he clings to his loved ones in hopes they won’t let go

Wakali wants to be taken seriously since her young age and albinism causes other animals to underestimate her

Even Makuu wants to show everyone that he’s changed his ways and wants to leave a legacy. It was the same thing with Pua, although nowadays he just wants to live his best life

Ucheshi got what she wanted in that Udugu episode I have-she got her big brother back :)

[inoghmia]

As an aro person, seeing jayvik is really getting on my nerves

Just hear me out

When I watched arcane I really liked Jayce’s and Viktors relationship. It’s professional, it’s intimate, it’s that specific type of love you have for someone that just gets you and its muddied with the disconnection they have in other things, like their upbringing, politics which is something that creates this barrier between them, it’s this one small for them but ultimately always in the background thing that will eventually drive them apart - I genuinely love it

It’s also platonic.

Viktor had an objectively kinda shitty childhood, not being able to play with younger kids, growing up misunderstood for his genius, being seen as a “cripple from the undercity” later on, even if he became assistant to the dean of Piltover’s best academy, he probably never had anyone close in his life (not talking abt his parents cause they weren’t mentioned in arcane). He deserves a friend

Viktor and Jayce click, they finally found an equal that operates on the same wavelength, has the same goal in life and is a great work partner. They themselves are great and fun characters, and they have this amazing story line and relationship I love them really

So I wanted to read fanfics about them and then I found jayvik.

I was honestly appalled by it, really just being angry at the fandom for this ship being seemingly everywhere. But I’m someone who doesn’t want to judge so I’ve read a few fanfics and altho they are imo all extremely out of character, the stories themselves are greatly written and stand on their own.

I don’t have an issue with jayvik, I myself like it for comedy

But there’s literally barely anything not jayvik related and it really makes me depressed, cause I feel like a lot of people (not everyone obv) ship them cause friendship “isn’t enough”.

All aromantics can probably agree that it’s really disheartening how often this happens, how it’s a socially accepted truth that romantic love is above friendship and that’s just simply not true. Friendship, true actual friendship, aka someone willing to sacrifice anything for you, kill for you, die for you, they are your ride or die, they’ll always have your back, they are there for you for when you’re broken and when youre at your best, they pick you up, they are the reason you want to be better - is absolutely equal to romantic love.

The thing is, it’s just as much effort to acquire as love, because it is exactly that, it’s just a different kind of love, but people think that it’s for some reason a given. As if friendship is obvious and meaningless and only love is what matters. And this just hurts to see. I see it irl all the time and I see it especially in fandoms.

How many fanfics do you see or two characters being friends? They may be in the background, but usually it’s all just romance, sex, drama, it’s exhausting and after some time heartbreaking, cause it feels like someone is taking that beautiful thing, that platonic love, and basically spitting in your face that it’s boring and meaningless

I understand that people can ship characters for fun and that’s fine it’s just that I sometimes wish that we could see platonic relationships on the same level as romantic and this is just another example of that

And if the writers are gonna ship them because fans want it I’m going to cry no joke, cause it’s just another slap in the face of how we can’t have intimate friendships without it being romantic

This was just me ranting at literally 4 in the morning

[peacerisendove]

Big Ethel Energy #57

Honestly, this is going to be a short one because I still need more  context, especially from Jughead’s perspective of the events to judge this episode.

I honestly thought this episode was good because 1. we are actually getting answers, but also 2. the connections and relationships between the characters are actually interesting as we find out more about them and their history. That is probably the strongest and most interesting aspect of the comic. It only becomes tedious when the writer continually uses miscommunication as a plot point and uses the medium to insert topics with a preachy or sanctimonious sort of tone rather than letting them be conversations or have a natural tone in which their opinion on the subject is reached. Basically the execution isn’t great when it comes to certain topics and it can be jarring or sudden is what I’m saying.

Regarding the first image above: As I said before, of course Archie isn’t going to be the one to figure anything out even about his best friend.

I loves seeing the high school background and how Ethel and Jughead actually had a friendship going on. And of course I love seeing Reggie and Jughead interacting  and getting a peak into their friendship and how their relationship is.

Honestly, I thought the episode was was cute. And overall, the intention I get from Jughead is that his kiss (it was only a kiss right? From how it was depicted I wasn’t sure if there was an implication of more?), was experimental to him.

But I feel like as a long ongoing plot that there has be more to this instance and his and Ethel’s relationship that would be enough to 1. Cause him to never talk to her again after that moment, 2. For him to be so angry and frustrated with Ethel that he won’t talk to her even now after all this time, and 3. Feel like she and Trula are conspiring against him.

This conflict can’t simply end in it being a misunderstanding/miscommunication of his sexuality. It’s unsatisfying and doesn’t honestly deserve to be a conflict 57 pages into this webcomic because it could be so SIMPLY fixed with a few conversations. (I have a feeling that maybe Ethel said something unwittingly to him that hurt him or someone did and that has forced him to act this way because he’s carried these negative feelings this whole time.) But also I swear if there’s another miscommunication in this comic I’m not going to be happy. How many can you put into the story to create CONFLICT???? It’s really annoying at this point.

Though I’m still frustrated that no one has put the very obvious theory of: “He might be asexual or aromantic” on the board. Like is that so foreign to this comic that it can’t be mentioned??? It’s kinda insulting if he is confirmed ace/aro. Like especially in contrast to the Jughead 2015 comics where he simply confirmed to be aro/ace and the comic portrays his experiences as someone who is ace/aro and the good and bad. Now I’m not saying the way they may potentially introduce Jughead’s asexuality/being aromantic is bad. Separate stories can be told and portray Jughead as ace and or aro, but comparisons regarding the representation and treatment will be made. If the case is that they are using his asexuality/being aromantic as a reason for the conflict/confusion then that’s not great.

[spinaroos-47]

Hunter Noceda AU!

So, this has been an au that's been developing on my mind for the last two weeks, and Yesterday's Lie has helped to rough out the start of the story but it's still not very developed.

The basic is, Hunter would have somehow ended up falling on the human realm through a leak caused by Titan's blood (i haven't figured out exactly how that happened yet) when he was pretty young, like three or four years old and Camila (and presumably Luz's dad) found him and adopted him!

Then, years later, when Luz is being sent to the camp, he would be going too, working as a counselor-in-training there. But then the whole Owlbert thing happens and he ends up following Luz and Owlbert to the demon realm and the story goes from there.

- He and Luz are pretty close since neither of them are exactly popular or even well liked. They’re two ND kids who mostly only trust eachother since they almost always were the only ones who understood and stood up for the other. They both love Azura a lot and often end up in hours long discussions about the lore and theories.

- He has felt like he didn’t belong there for a lot of reasons. The pointy ears, magenta eyes, just appearing out of nowhere when he was small, having no idea where he’s from, anger issues, being very obviously ND and having weird interests, and the list goes on.

- Generally he's more cautious than Luz about almost everything, trying to think things through first, he likes being sure of what to expect. But that gets dropped down quite a bit when they're in the Boiling Isles because everything is so interesting and he's excited to know more, ending up more impulsive, even if its a bit out of his comfort zone a lot of times.

- He's hesitant to stay on the Boiling Isles at first (for obvious reasons) but he decides to stay because 1) Luz 2) He wants to know more about witches, since that's his chance to finally know more about who he is 3) Magic nerd number 2.

- It takes a while for him to discover he's powerless. He at first thought it was because of Earth not having natural magic like the Boiling Isles do, and then he goes to the assumption that his magic is funky because of having stayed on earth for so long, but that it will come back one day. But he does end up realizing he just never had a working magic bile sac. Takes a little while for him to accept that.

- He's autistic/ADHD, aromantic and trans (trans guy Hunter and nonbinary Luz solidarity).

- King loves staying with him, often leaving him trapped in the couch not able to leave because he fell asleep on top of him (and no one disturbs King’s naps).

- He has the habit of hiding his ears quite often ever since Jacob one time bugged him about it when he had the displeasure of bumping into him one time on the coffee shop. He still does it on the Boiling Isles out of habit, but kinda drops it after a while, specially around the owlfam.

-  Most if not all the emotional problems Canon Hunter has are still there, but not as outward/extreme as in canon or they appear in different ways.

- He’s also a magic nerd because of Azura, as well as a history nerd, who sneaks into any library near him, be it in Gravesfield or Bonesborough. He would love Hexside, he’d probably choose all tracks like Luz, but maybe not going all out like her.

- Idk If he's still a grimwalker here. Maybe? Could be interesting

- And I also don’t know how the second season could play out . If he's a grimwalker, then there could be an even younger Golden Guard. That’s a fun and horrifying idea, i think I'll go with it. Would be a hell of an existential crisis.

- I think that, while extremely invested in the glyphs too, he would be searching for other ways of doing magic too, to not have to rely on only glyphs.

- His and Luz's father is still alive (we didn't get confirmation that he died and the possibility of him being alive makes some good small bit of angst for the au, as I’ll explain on the next points), but divorced/broke up with Camila some years ago and she ended up with the custody of both Hunter and Luz, and they still sometimes see him.

- There wasn't any way of Vee knowing about Hunter and his relationship to Luz before she decided to escape to the human realm. She only finds out about him when Camila asks about him and she doesn't immediatly associate him being the witch she saw with Luz at the start, she just assumed he was another witch who lived there, she only realizes who he is when camp ends. He had agreed to wait with Luz for the bus until some colleagues who were also going to be counselors-in-training were going to pick him up and give him a ride to the camp (to not “embarass Luz by the otehr campers knowing they’re siblings”), so when Camila found Vee alone, she assumed he had already gone.

- And just like Luz, he lied about going to camp to Camila, and lied to the colleagues that he gave up on that (and Vee accidentally helped by giving the same answer when asked about it and panicked). He really wants to know more about where he’s from and about all kinds of magic and everything going on, and he doesn’t want to worry Camila and if he said the truth while Luz was lying it wouldn’t end well for both of them. He’s scared of being forced away from all these things he wants to discover, and doesn’t want it for Luz either, and like her, he loves this new support group they both have. His plan was to keep the lie until camp ended, but we all know this doesn’t go as planned and he gets really nervous about this, like, barely able to keep himself from having a crisis.

- He is very attached to Camila, he would send her messages everyday, and the guilt eats him alive. Luz and he talk a lot about this in the middle of the nights.

- So, portal gets destroyed, camp ends. Camila is (obviously) stressed out by only finding one of her kids and discovering that Hunter never even got there in the first place. She can’t contact him in any way so she’s pretty sure he ran away, maybe to her ex’s house, so this already makes her feel horrible and like she messed up a lot, assuming he hated living there. It worsens a lot of stuff for Yesterday’s Lie.

- Luz does tell that Hunter is fine and with her (he wasn’t on the portal realm doing this experiment with her), and it breaks Camila’s heart to know that, while Hunter is okay, both of her kids are trapped in a different realm, there’s a kid that acted as Luz ever since camp started and she didn’t even know, and that Hunter and Luz chose to stay there and lied to her. I don’t think that, when Luz gets out of the portal, she even tells Hunter about everything of this situation.

- Yeah Yesterday’s Lie made this so fucking sad

There isn't much on the story besides the start and where the second season has stopped for now, the relationships haven't been fleshed out yet and his design also isn't finalized, but I'm so excited to share this au!

[tokyoghoulaspecs]

Like I said in my last post, I’ve been putting more and more aspecs into my writing lately. This fic in particular is being written extremely scattered, so i have no idea when it’ll be posted, if at all. But I wanted to at least share the aspec bits I have written!

This time, it’s Hide’s segments!

(Word Count: 2200)

(Warnings for a brief scene of romance and lots of internalized aphobia/amisia)

[This takes place shortly after Dragon, while the ghouls are all still staying at the CCG]

“Um, Hide? Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Of course!”

“So, um, I was thinking about what you said...” Kaneki began.

“Which one?” Hide asked. So much had happened over the past few weeks, Kaneki could have been referring to literally anything.

“A-about... you liking me.”

“Oh.” Hide could feel his face heating up. He’d almost forgotten about his confession.

“And, I think I’d like to try? As long as that’s okay with you?”

Hide lunged and hugged him. “Of course it is!”

Kaneki hummed contentedly and hugged him back.

-

It was 3am, and Hide was awake staring at the ceiling.

He had forgotten the reason why he stopped dating in high school, why all of his relationships ended badly. Something was different about him — about his sexuality. Kaneki had just confessed and they became a couple, and already Hide could feel his feelings changing. Most people would write it off as anxiety, but Hide knew better. He’d felt this feeling before, and he knew what was happening. His romantic feelings were fading.

Hide groaned and ducked his head into his knees. “I was hoping I would be fixed by now.”

He had given up dating after he broke two people’s hearts. Two people that he had loved romantically, and even when his romantic feelings faded he still cared about, but the relationship became too much for him. Too many expectations, too many things he didn’t understand, and he had to end it. After not even a few months, going from passionate to repulsed, he unintentionally broke their hearts. And then they broke his when they screamed at him, accusing him of never loving them in the first place.

He had hoped that taking a long break from dating would fix whatever was wrong with his sexuality. He had loved Kaneki for so many years, with none of it fading, even when Kaneki went missing time and time again. Hide thought it would stay forever. But now that they were in a relationship, it was fading.

“Maybe I can hold on, and it’ll come back.” Hide said, trying to ignore the fact that he said the same thing in his prior relationships, and it had never worked before.

-

“I love you.” Kaneki whispered, nuzzling him before kissing him on the cheek.

Hide pulled away. “I can’t.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

Hide shook his head. “It’s not you. It’s me.” He grimaced. “I know that sounds cliché, but its true.”

“What’s wrong? I can fix it.” Kaneki reached out to take his hand.

“It’s nothing you can fix!” Hide snapped, yanking his hand away.

“Hide…?”

Hide stepped back. “S-sorry!”

“Wait, Hide!”

“I’m so sorry.” Hide ran off.

-

Hide tried to busy himself with CCG work, which Marude was more than happy to provide. It was boring, but gave him time to think, which he really needed. And after a while, he needed someone to talk about it with.

“Hey, Marude-san…” Hide began. “What are your thoughts on queer people?”

Marude laughed.

Hide winced and continued on his work. Maybe they could just pretend he never said anything.

“So you’re saying you’re queer too, huh?” Marude asked. “I guess I shoulda known, the way you talk about that one eyed bastard.”

Hide perked up. “Too?”

“Hm?” Marude looked at him. “Yeah. You’re far from the only queer person I know.”

“Really?”

Marude gave him a look. “Nagachika, you really think everyone is straight, in the entire CCG, all these years I’ve worked here?”

“Well, no, but…” Hide trailed off.

“So what are ya, then?” Marude asked. “I noticed you said queer and not gay.”

“I’m pansexual.”

“Which one is that?”

“It’s kinda like bisexual. Usually people use it to mean more gender-blind, whereas with bisexual there’s usually some internal difference with attraction to each gender. But not all people use it that way.”

Marude hummed and nodded. Hide was glad he accepted it at face value and didn’t try to pick it apart.

“But the past few days, I’m beginning to think I’m something else…”

“What, like you’re just gay or just straight?”

“Not like that.” Hide shook his head. “Like, an additional label.”

“Transgender?” Marude guessed.

“Not trans, but you’re on the right track on how trans is an additional label on a different axis.”

“Then what label are you thinking about adding? I’m at my limit of vocab here!”

“Aromantic.” Hide said, deciding to keep it as simple as possible.

“And that is?”

Here it comes…

“Not experiencing romantic attraction.”

There was silence. Hide braced himself.

“Romantic?” Marude asked. “So, wait. Separate from sexual stuff?”

“For me, yeah. But some other aros don’t experience sexual attraction either.”

Marude hummed. He seemed to accept it, but Hide couldn’t tell what he was thinking beyond that.

“So what’s the issue?” Marude asked.

“I can’t love.” Hide whispered. “And that’s scary.”

“Eh, love’s overrated.” Marude waved him off.

Hide sighed. He was glad Marude was being so accepting, and it was really nice to hear someone not put romance on a pedestal for once, but at the same time Hide wanted some validation for his fears.

“For so long now I’ve prided myself on being loving. And now knowing that I can’t… What am I now?”

“So was everything fake?”

“No. Yes? It’s complicated.” Hide groaned.

“Look, kid. You feel how you feel. You can’t force it or change it. And that goes for everything, not just sexualities.”

“I know.”

“You’re a sweet kid. It’s overbearing to me, but I appreciate that in a world so cruel, people like you exist. And from what I’ve seen, the care you show isn’t fake.”

“The non-romantic love? That’s not fake. But the romance? The crushes and flirting? It’s not fake but… it disappears. Way sooner than it should.”

“Disappears?”

“I think I’m, like, a subset of aromantic? I get crushes but they fade after I’m in a relationship. Way sooner than it should. I’ve been in love with Kaneki for years, but now that we’re a couple, that romantic attraction is gone.”

“That’s certainly a dilemma.”

Hide scoffed. That was an understatement.

“So what do you wanna do about it?” Marude asked.

“Huh?”

“Break up, or keep it up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then just talk to him.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t give you any advice on the romance aspect, but you two have been through things much worse than relationship drama. Just talk to the guy. Can’t be any scarier than what you’ve gone through.”

“I’d beg to differ.” Hide muttered.

Marude rolled his eyes. “Even I know he’s not gonna get pissed and eat you.”

“Of course not! That’s not what I’m afraid of!”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“I don’t want to hurt him.” Hide whispered. “Or make him think I hate him.”

“Just communicate with him. You can’t work it out all alone. You both need to work together, or else how do you even expect your relationship to work?”

Hide sighed. “...I guess you’re right.”

-

Akira huffed as she sat down next to him. “How do people deal with it?”

Hide gave her a look. “Deal with what?”

“Crushes!” Akira said, as if it was obvious. “They’re so distracting.”

Hide chuckled. They certainly were.

“I thought one was bad enough, but now I have two! Ugh!”

“Oof. That’s rough. I’ve been there.”

“Hey, you’re allo-romantic, right? How do you deal with crushes?”

“Huh? Allo-romantic?” Hide asked. He thought he was pretty well-versed in sexuality terms, but he hadn’t heard that one before.

“It means people who aren’t on the aromantic spectrum.”

“You’re aromantic?” Hide asked. He had known she was asexual for years, but he never knew what her romantic orientation was.

“Demi-romantic.” Akira explained with a nod. “Got my first crush at 20 on a friend, and now a double-whammy of crushes #2 and #3 at 25.”

“Huh.” Hide whispered. He was 22, and it was pretty incredible to imagine only having a single crush in that much time.

Akira-san is aromantic…

“Do you know a lot about aromantic terminology?” Hide decided to ask.

“I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, but I have been researching it these past few weeks. Why? What do you want to know?”

“I’ve been wondering if I fall somewhere on there…” Hide said.

“Really?”

“I’ve actually been wondering since high school, but its come back full force now.”

“What makes you think you are?”

“I get a regular amount of crushes, I think. But they, like… fade…?”

Akira hummed in understanding and nodded. “I do recall seeing a few terms like that.”

Hide’s eyes widened. “Really? More than one? Like what?”

“Um, off the top of my head I remember Aroflux, that fluctuates. Hold on.” She pulled out her phone and typed into it.

“Maybe, but that’s a bit vague…” Hide said.

“I know Grey-romantic can be used as an umbrella term.” Akira added. “Ah, here we go! Fray-romantic means you’re only romantically attracted to strangers, and it fades as you get to know them!”

“That’s close, but it’s not that quick. Well, maybe I can use it anyway.” He knew that a lot of queer terms had a lot of grey area to them.

“Oh, and there’s also Lithromantic, that fades at reciprocation!”

“Reciprocation...?” Hide asked, his eyes widening. “That’s… That’s it…”

“Ha, really? That’s awesome!”

“I got crushes and tried to date them, but once I was in a relationship my feelings would disappear. I tried to push on and fake it, but it didn’t work out and we had to break up. Eventually I just gave up dating entirely.”

Hide sighed and held his head in his hands.

Akira frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Kaneki.”

“Kaneki?”

“We just confessed to each other and started officially dating, and I can already feel it fading.”

Akira frowned, not sure what to say.

Hide laid down. “Who’d want to date me? A person who can’t love them back.”

Akira scoffed, laying back to join him. “What about me, huh? Someone who takes forever to like you back, and even then isn’t capable of sexual attraction.”

“You like Amon-san and Takizawa-san, right?” Hide guessed.

“Yeah. So what?”

Hide turned on his side to face her. “Well, Amon-san doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to care about that. And I don’t think Takizawa-san does either. If they really love you, then I’m sure they’d be willing to find a way to meet in the middle.”

Akira sighed, considering his words. Then she gave some of her own, “You know, you and Kaneki are really close. We can all tell. And I know Kaneki, too, and how he is. I’m sure he’d accept your aromanticism. Maybe you could even be in a non-romantic relationship with him.”

Hide blinked. Akira chewed her lip. They were both silent, thinking on each other’s words.

“You really think someone would be okay having a relationship without sex?” Akira asked.

“Of course.” Hide replied. “Do you really think someone would be okay with having a committed relationship that’s not romantic?”

“Of course.” Akira replied.

-

As he talked, Hide walked around the room, taking in the tiniest of details. And then he came across small pride pins, clipped to her bag laid in the corner.

“Is that what I think it is?!” Hide cried out.

“Huh? What is what you think it is?” Kimi asked, turning around.

“That!” Hide pointed to the pin that had gradients of greens and blacks. “Is that an aromantic pin?”

Kimi’s eyes widened. No one had ever recognized it before. Hardly anyone even recognized her bisexual one. “Yeah. I’m aromantic.”

“Wow.” Hide muttered. “And I know the bi one, but… what’s this other one?” He pointed to the one on the other side of the aromantic pin, the one with stripes making a gradient from pink to green.

“It’s aroflux.” Kimi said. “I fall in the grey area of the aromantic spectrum.”

Hide untensed his shoulders. “You know… I think I do, too.”

“Really?”

“I’m Lith-romantic, I’m pretty sure.”

“Neat! It’s always exciting to meet more aromantics!”

“You know others?”

“Nishiki-kun is arospec too. And I’ve helped a few other people question.”

“Nishio-senpai is too?! You’re in a relationship with another aromantic?! That’s amazing!”

“Tell me about it! It was just a coincidence! He didn’t know he was aromantic before I told him about aromanticism! Although, in hindsight I guess it explains why we fit so well together. We both have very complicated feelings on romance, that our previous partners never were able to grasp.”

Hide felt warm and happy, a sense of comfort and kinship coming over him. He often had a lot of internalized dislike of his aromanticism, but it was really nice to talk to someone who was similar — someone else who was on the aromantic spectrum.

Whenever he talked to other people — other allo-romantics, was the term Akira had used — they never grasped what he was trying to explain and always blew it off. As much as he liked people and socialized, he always felt a heavy disconnect from them.

And it suddenly dawned on him. He knew three arospecs so far, and Kimi had implied more.

[sanders-sides-fic]

Love breaks the curse

Here is a soul-mate au I’ll probably never write. But the idea has been torturing me for a few days, so I decided to post this anyways. The soulmate concept I used for this is the following: You are born with a curse, which has no affect only towards your soulmate.

Roman and Remus Silver have different versions of the “Amor’s curse”

Roman is cursed to be loved by anyone and anything - until he loves them back. This means he’s always popular, but more lonely than anyone else. Remus’ version of the curse differs quite a lot from that: People hate him instinctively, but only as long as he feels differently. Differently from Roman, whose “charms” just wear off, though, his curse makes everyone he hates love him in return.

Remus doesn’t want people to only like him because of some stupid curse, so he makes a point of repulsing people he cares about as much as possible. He also has a list of reasons why he likes certain people, so that their treatment don’t change his feelings. It’s not really their fault after all.

Roman want to find his soulmate more than anything else, but he would never dare to love anyone again. His heart has been broken by someone’s false claim of being his soulmate one too many times. He doesn’t trust anyone’s words anymore and is too scared to take the first step himself.

Both twins have a lot of self-doubt concerning their relationship as they done know whose curse is affecting whom at the moment. Did Remus manage to make Roman hate him and Roman’s curse makes him love his brother or does Roman hate Remus because Remus loves him? And when their feelings switch, is that because Roman loves his brother again or because Roman’s treatment made Remus hate him now? No one knows, least of all them. That’s probably why they grew apart so much - or maybe the fact that one of them always hates the other.

Janus Masks has the “Janus’ curse” (his parents got real creative with that name, huh?) which means that he has two faces and one behavior ingrained into him that’s connected to the god Janus

Janus is a special case amongst those with his curse, because he can’t switch between the faces but just has half a human and half a snake face at all times. Also because he doesn’t have the need to become a completely new person the next day and leave everything behind, as most do, but simply cannot tell the truth for the life of him instead.

Janus secretly wishes his curse was the usual type for his classification

Janus’ first soulmate is Roman. They only discover then that, without the curse, Janus is actually the worst liar anyone has ever seen.

Roman believes Janus that they are soulmates, because how could someone whose curse is lying manage to lie that poorly?!?!

Virgil Black has a “Fortuna’s curse”, which allows him to see the worst outcome of a situation and what to do to prevent it.

Virgil meets Janus in the library and nearly gets a panic attack. Because for the first time in his life, he doesn’t know what to do to prevent the worst and whether or not the worst is actually happening yet.

Janus and Virgil are, as it turns out, platonic soulmates. No dating involved. They have a hate-love-friendship going on.

Remy Glasshouse is Virgil’s other platonic soulmate.

Remy and Virgil meet at Virgil’s workplace, where Remy wants to buy his daily dosage of “I don’t sleep through the entire day because I have plans”, where Virgil has his second almost-breakdown at talking to a stranger without knowing what could happen.

Remy’s cruse is the “Sleeping beauty’s curse”, which means nothing and no one can wake him up once he falls asleep. Remy and Virgil move in together for obvious reasons once they find each other. 

Janus beings over Roman and Remus one day and Remus and Remy bind instantly over being aro and ace (Remus aromantic, Remy asexual)

It takes the two dumbasses three weeks and a strongly annoyed Logan to notice that neither hates the other and that that makes them platonic soulmates as well. They’re elated at the news and become the chaos duo of the group.

Logan meets Janus and Virgil through Remy, who his older brother.

His soulmate curse is the “Mirror’s heart curse”. He knows what he should feel at a certain point in time, but he doesn’t. His heart is like a black void, and he needs to feed on other people’s emotions to fill it with something, like a vampire strictly for emotions.

Logan and Virgil hit it off right away, but he just can’t see why he would be soulmates with Janus of all people? Like, they just don’t mix, he doesn’t understand. And that frustration is absolutely horrible to deal with too. He finally understands why people figuratively blow up some times and-

Janus’ and Logan’s relationship develops slowly, and they are the only ones who don’t seem to notice. It takes Virgil’s help to (finally!) get them together. Logan still refuses to this day to apologize to his brother and his soulmate for calling them idiots.

Patton Heartsmith is the last one to meet the group. And the one with the most soulmates.

Patton’s curse is the “Fae’s curse”. This means that one use of the puppy-dog eyes or the stern father’s voice is enough to make anyone whose name he knows do everything he says.

Patton becomes the dad friend of the group almost right away.

His platonic soulmates are Virgil, Roman and Remy. His romantic soulmates are Janus and Logan. Remus is the only one he isn’t soulmates with, but both of them do their best to avoid curse-based conflicts.

The group buys a house and lives together.

They often get a lot of hate for being “abnormal soulmates” with both having platonic soulmates and more than one. But they don’t care. They care about each other and that’s all that really counts to them.

Since those relationships are kinda impossible to remember, here a chart:

Yeah… That probably didn’t clear up anything.

Anyways! That’s that. If you wanna use this idea, feel free to. Just tag me, cause I wanna read it then. I might write something about this after all. I doubt it, tho.

[thefloatingstone]

I wanna talk about one episode of the anime “Ore Monogatari!!” (My Love Story!!)

I’m guessing most people know this show by now, but in case you haven’t 1) you should watch it and 2) The story follows the start and growing relationship between two high schoolers. One is a young girl named Rinko Yamato who has a passion for baking and making sweets, is super feminine and sweet... and isn’t exactly the brightest girl out there (but like in a cute way)

And our main character, Takeo Gouda. Who is very popular with the other guys in his class, but not exactly popular with girls. He too, is not exactly the brightest guy out there

Their relationship is basically this;

Anyway. Watch the anime. It’s really really good. It’s also fucking hilarious and watching these two idiots being way too fucking cute together is honestly the best thing ever.

BUT ANYWAY!

Takeo and Yamato don’t go to the same high school since Yamato goes to an All-Girls-School a few blocks away while Takeo goes to a co-ed school. A little bit into the series, Takeo and Yamato’s relationship has gotten pretty established. Takeo has never had a girlfriend before and, frankly, has never had any girl show even the slightest interest in him. (Most girls talking badly about him behind his back. Calling him a gorilla etc). So he’s not exactly use to Yamato’s complete and utter devotion to him and he’s not entirely sure what about him she sees in him. He just accepts that she does because he’s way too in love with her (it’s so cute it’s disgusting).

Takeo’s school has a sports day, and to prepare for it, Takeo helps out a girl from his class who’s kind of really bad at sports leading up to the day, and ends up spending a lot of time with her after school. Takeo doesn’t really think anything about this, because he’s all about helping people and he’s dating Yamato. As a result, he completely misses that this girl he’s helping has, in fact, grown to find him very attractive. (mostly because he’s built like a house)

Yamato, however, is a girl herself. And she’s not that oblivious to the fact that Takeo is in a different school to her, and she has no idea who he talks to and spends his time with when she’s not around. She worries about this a lot.

And this is the part I want to talk about.

First of all, Yamato does NOT do the “jealous girlfriend” thing. She doesn’t comedically follow Takeo around trying to “catch him in the act” of flirting with another girl. She doesn’t ACCUSE him of anything at all. She doesn’t demand to know what he does when she’s not around. NONE of that. The most she does is try to give off the hint that she IS his girlfriend when they’re together, and, shocker of shocks, she actually tells him how she feels!!!

Most of the time, she just seems a little depressed and worried.

Takeo’s response it reassure her, every single time, that she has nothing to worry about because he’s not the kind of guy girls are attracted to. So she shouldn’t worry so much. She accepts this, but still looks rather unhappy about it, and it does not actually ease her worries. He continues to reassure her, but after a while her worry comes back.

Eventually, when Takeo learns the girl he’s been helping DOES actually find him attractive, it’s like a lightbulb goes off in his head and he immediately goes to Yamato. And this is where the episode gave me real pause.

Takeo tells Yamato “I am sorry for saying you shouldn’t worry because other girls wouldn’t like me. I should have told you not to worry because even if they did, I’m not interested in anyone else but you.”

I know on paper that sounds kinda obvious, but I just remember thinking that somehow this dumb shoujo show seemed to have a better grasp on how to handle this kind of situation than most real world people do. Honestly, I didn’t even CONSIDER that Takeo’s reassurance was “wrong”. I was just watching it like “Haha he says girls don’t like him because he’s so oblivious to this other girl’s attraction to him! What a silly miscommunication!” And I was expecting... I don’t really know? I knew eventually Takeo would realise this girl likes him too, and I guess I was expecting him to be flustered? Confused by her attraction to him? Blushing and stuttering and unsure what to do about it? And then I guess what I was REALLY expecting was that the confusion would be sorted out between Takeo and THIS girl.

But no. Instead, the show does the ADULT thing that should have occurred to me as an adult!!! Takeo doesn’t even THINK about “what it means” for this girl to also find him attractive! Hell he doesn’t even BLUSH. He just goes “Oh shit! If this girl likes me too then I’ve been saying something untrue to Yamato to make her feel better!! I need to fix it so my girlfriend isn’t so worried!!” and then IMMEDIETELY goes and talks to his girlfriend.

He actually COMMUNICATES with his partner. He essentially tells her “I suddenly realise that the way I was trying to reassure you is entirely based on the belief that there isn’t any OPPORTUNITIES for me to date other girls. Instead of letting you know that even if I had many opportunities to date other girls and could date whoever I wanted it wouldn’t matter at all because I am in love with you! You don’t have to worry because I don’t WANT to date anyone else. Not because I don’t have the opportunity!”

I think media in general, from ANY country, has so programmed me to see miscommunication between couples and jealousy be treated the same way. The guy is oblivious, the girl can see the signs and become possessive and bitchy because she feels threatened and she gets mad at her BOYFRIEND for it, the “other woman” makes her move and our male lead has to prove his devotion to his girlfriend by arguing with “the other woman” and tell her “no” until she goes away. Then he goes back to his girlfriend and goes “you were right, dearest. That other woman was bad news. I am sorry for not listening to you.” and then they’d make out or whatever.

And just.... why is this version so rare in media???? The version where the girlfriend is NOT possessive and bitchy. Just insecure and vulnerable. The version where the “Other woman” is NOT a massive homewrecker bitch, but just another girl who can’t help that she’s attracted to this guy and, knowing she’ll be turned down because he has a girlfriend, wants to admit his feelings to him anyway and make herself vulnerable and accept rejection so she can move on. The version where the guy fixes the situation NOT by chasing away this slutty temptress in a hilarious and sexy manner because “oh no! SHe’s appealing to his lust! and we all know what MEN are like! It’s so hard for them to say no to sex with anyone!” and his predicament is instead “I misunderstood my girlfriend’s insecurity! I need to fix that with open communication!”

Why is this version so rare????

In all seriousness, after seeing this episode, I was actually upset that I had expected the “man gets flustered by his own libido when temptress shows up and it’s hilarious” setup. Like that was the DEFAULT RESPONSE to this situation. As if that was the ONLY way you could handle this situation. As if it was the truth, that men are nothing but walking sex drives and every woman except the grilfriend is a hussy out to steal your man.

I just.... I HATE that even someone like me, who doesn’t even really LIKE romance stories (until very very recently) has had this drilled into my head so completely that even Asexual borderline Aromantic me didn’t even consider open communication. That NOT all “other women” are sluts and some of them CAN actually just be confused and vulnerable girls with feelings too. That this kind of misunderstanding should be talked about and fixed between the COUPLE, and NOT the man and the temptress.

Why did it take a dumb shoujo romance about high schoolers to point out to me how fucked up relationships are portrayed in basically every other media in existence?

Anyway... I’m not sure what my point was, really, apart from “Ore Monogatari is really good and you should watch it.”

It also features Takeo punching a dude on a subway when the guy said Yamato was asking to be groped because of the way she was dressed.

☕️Buy me a Ko-fi ☕️

[full-course-identity]

Give me your thoughts on uuuh Jake

wew boy

okay. gonna word dump this, and probably other interpretation asks, so I can get the words out there.

from my POV, there’s 3 types of canon Jake + 1 fanon vers + my personal interpretation. lemme explain what they are;

Book Jake, who I don’t have enough experience with bc I STILL haven’t finished the book… >_>;

2River Jake, who is kinda oblivious and very in-the-moment impulsive (not so bad he’s jumping place to place ADHD like Rich, but like, not considering that maybe dropping everything to seduce Madeline or Christine is a bad idea when he clearly really likes Chloe). these are debatably survival mechanisms bc of his family (and wealth, if you want to go into the “being rich actually traumatizes you and locks you into dissociation” theory–but to be fair, this is partially reliant on thinking Jake is Genuinely Rich. … well, not Rich as in… yeah); ignoring any pain he feels in favor of getting dicked down and forgetting about everything for a while. very “I’m not sad, I’m busy!!!!!” 

Bway (possibly the new canon general for all Jakes since it sounds like London’s is modeled after him but just… toned down), who is still oblivious, but towards other people’s emotions instead of himself; he’s manipulative, a little impulsive but a lot more malicious about it, and he knows exactly how hurt he is about his parents. this jake’s awareness of himself makes him act worse because he knows this is the only thing that seems to help and it’s basically the only thing he actually has control of. his wealthiness is undeniably present and Bad here because the reason taking what he wants and not caring that it hurts people is his main coping skill is pretty much only because he’s been allowed that privilege all his life. i tend to think this version of him should be done by a white cishet dude (despite jake’s actor on bway being genuinely FANTASTIC) bc being marginalized in a high school should’ve curved a lot of the “endless power and privilege” he gets for being rich (Not That One). 

[i… think this jake has ‘better’/more nuanced writing in BWay… but i don’t think it fits the musical nor is it the overall direction i think it should’ve gone. BMC feels best to me when there’s a heavier element of Dark Humor that briefly nods to a Larger and more Fucked Up world behind the bit we see in the musical. making it largely a twisted comedy, maybe even ramping that up further with more whiplash lines like jake’s “which means the house is empty, so that’s fun”]

Fanon Jake is… like most of the fanon characters in BMC, a bit… “bipolar” (like, radically shifting depending on the situation). the BMC fandom has been born with heavy engagement from minors in the current fascist climate of fandom as a whole. as a result, you have three general uses of jake that as “approved of” by somehow the exact same people despite being conflicting in a lot of ways. THIS IS NOT ME SHITTING ON FANON, i actually think most of this fandom is just a casual romp for most people and that shouldn’t be snatched away from them nor mocked nor treated like you HAVE to be logically consistent when this is just a fun hobby for most… but there are still trends i notice:

1: Jake the sweet bi disaster who loves their significant other and is just a little bit hopeless in their silliness and Down For Whatever-esque personality. this is often used for shippy pictures and memes and cute little oneshots, plus, of course, fluff.

2: Jake the tragic abuse victim who is extremely sad and has to learn to love again and has always been selfless, plus or minus a permanent disability post-fire. this is of course used for hurt/comfort, plus in combination kinda with michael in the bathroom-esque posts and tragic art, often also used as an example of the squip being the worst for jeremy or rich guilt trauma. also: aesthetic and moodboard posts.

3: the one I have the least good will towards: Jake the “why does everybody woobify mlm? You can’t portray him without flaws! queer boys aren’t your fetish!!!” with an attached, clunkily written reasons why he was an asshole that is also simultaneously watered down so you don’t think he’s a Monster bc then you’d be vilifying queer men (well, more like they’d feel bad about their cutesy-er ‘emotional support’ art and writing which is Totally Different from all the other cutesy emotional support art and writing). 

basically, Meta Trying To Make Jake Reasonably Flawed But Not Evil in this fandom is RARELY genuine–it’s more often than not moralistic hand-wringing made so that they can wash themselves of the guilt for actually enjoying something with a character they portray as mlm, or otherwise the guilt of enjoying anything romantic or sexual involving men or queer people period when we’re apparently not supposed to do that anymore, as decreed by the radfems infesting our spaces. 

and, well, or you’re an mlm writing this post, you’re probably young and still feeling extremely sensitive and scared about your identity. i once saw a very wise post by a trans person who had been trans for a long time, who said that when you first come out as trans (or queer in general, but especially trans people who are beginning social or physical transition and coming to terms with themselves) you are obvs on High Fucking Alert and so you’re insecure and scared of anything, ranging from “obvious transphobia” to “just trans people enjoying themselves and exploring transphobia in fiction or else their own sexuality”. again, this can relate to a lot of identities tbh, and as such young mlm either cis or trans can get very Itchy about people enjoying mlm content.

anyway.

wrapping it back around to me: i edit jake on a case by case basis (sometimes i even make him eviler or meaner based on what’s set up during Bway, he’s just not my usual go-to villain), but i tend to think of him as a tragic Mr. Peanutbutter-y sweetheart who kinda knows he feels like shit yet also knows that if he stops to assess it, it would make his life a lot harder in a time where he can’t afford that. his relationship with chloe is extremely toxic (chloe abuses him horribly, specifically), and so he tries to claw his way out of it only to be continually back in by chloe and her bullshit. 

this is why he doesn’t really get... well. he genuinely thought the thing with christine was going to be permanent; he wasn’t jerking her around, he thought he was over chloe and wanted a girl as cool and fun and genuinely nice as her. afterward he Gets It, and so feels Really Bad--at a time where he doesn’t have his house, his legs are broken (i don’t tend to put him in a perma-wheelchair), his parents have abandoned him, and he best friend is in the hospital. guilt crashes in on him from all sides, and he just has to... pretend it isn’t, even as he can no longer stop himself from thinking about it.

if i was to do a jake focused story, it’d probably be a dating sim where you play as him and watch his life change in conjunction with his attempts to find happiness again; you can either choose decisions that help him greatly or ruin his life so ver much... hmm. lets file that under hashtag “story ideas i’ll never use even though they could be great”

to wrap this up: i like jake. i don’t... really enjoy most of the written content (fanfic, meta, sometimes even the storylines on ask blogs) in this fandom about him or... really, most of the characters, which i feel bad about--i’d enjoy it more if it was every in conjunction with my usual Wants in a fic, which is, like. extreme angst.

BUT

i do still like jake, and i can super enjoy his portrayal in memes and visual art

he’s just not my total fave, but like, the reason he tends not to come up a lot in my content is more what i’m focusing on and why. i’d be happy to use him in stories if his presence fit.

as a bonus

here’s the ships i’m happy to use him for, generally: deere, michael/jake, brooke/jake, toxic chloe/jake, and of course, different ocs/jake

his identities/labels: cis, bisexual/romantic... tho sometimes i actually go for bisexual and aromantic! outside bway and eviler jakes, i’m good with him being any race, and even then it’s just a matter of suspending disbelief re: privilege theory. also, PTSD probably, and maybe generalized anxiety as a result. maaaaaybe autistic too? adhd would be a hard sell for me since he seems super put together in a way that’d be extremely difficult for every form of adhd, but i can see him being neurodivergent on the spectrum + like dyslexia maybe. oh, and i sorta-kinda think he may be color blind? but really i’d drop that at a moment’s notice if it’d be easier to write him without it lol.

his interests: one is more or less sports in general, tho i think that, unless he went straight for track or swimming or something Olympics (which he probably can’t do now...), that’s a high school or some college only focus for him. so, besides sports, i think he’d kinda like the satisfaction and steady growth of Collecting Rare Things That You Have To Look For, like cool rocks, bugs, etc. 

as for careers... some form of doctor something, maybe a businessman of some sort but he’d likely try to curve his power in that field as much as possible; he inherits his parents' assets and company or whatever, but he probably takes a backseat to that and only really has it out of a sense of ‘it’s my job as my parent’s kid to keep the company going--without engaging in the same awful legal issues they did--for as long as i can’. one of my fave jake-is-there stories, vanceypant’s spicy bis-focused fic 1999, has him owning a restaurant, and that was cool as hell.

also jake loves dogs. especially golden retrievers. yes.

[geraltcirilla]

Thoughts on Daisysous ;

As much as I dislike last minute endgame ships squeezed into a final season I do think Daisy deserves a peaceful ending where she can finally have family and love. So I'm okay with this.

It helps Sousa was a pre-established character in Agent Carter so the audience already knows him. The writers didn't need to waste any time introducing him and could instead just focus on his growing relationship with Daisy to help sell the believability this could happen. Plus we as an audience already know him to be a good man and trust him, therefore allowing us to trust Daisy with him should they end up together.

And I like the writers chose Sousa because he isn't some irrelevant nobody, he was a main character in Agent Character and a huge fan-favorite. It shows they respect Daisy enough to not draft up some rando dude as a love interest. They gave her someone with his own relevance.

It also helps Daisy and Sousa actually HAVE chemistry. If they didn't this would all be very cringe and the shoe-horning romantic subplot would only be more obvious and perhaps even an eyesore to the audience.

I kinda wish that they could have brought back Robbie for this if the only purpose was to wrap up everyone's storyline and give Daisy an endgame. But they could have done a lot worse than Sousa. He’s up there for one of the better options, certainly better than Deke.

For people who think “Daisy doesn’t need a love interest to be happy, romance isn’t everything”, as an AroAce myself I have this to say: You are absolutely right! However Daisy is not an Aromantic Asexual character. She has been shown to be attracted to men. But throughout the show she’s been given almost no romantic options. She kissed Ward in season 1 and had a short-lived relationship with Lincoln. Both ended in tragedy and she was very hurt. Meanwhile most other characters have had better luck: Mack has Yo-Yo, Jemma has Fitz, May has Coulson. Yes those relationships are complicated and not always easy but the point is they existed for a good majority of the show, meanwhile Daisy had no one. As a fan of Daisy’s character I do feel cheated -- Why do all the other characters get longterm relationships and she doesn’t? Why do the writers put more thought and care into their romantic relationships than Daisy? Is all Daisy worth to them a supporting backbone to the other characters? She is a main character and has spent most of the show without a paramour, so as Sirius Black would say... I did my waiting.... Five years of it.... In Azkaban! 

The show is ending so let it end with her having an endgame relationship, as most certainly all the other characters will have. She deserves it just as much as they do.

[moonlights-shadow-warrior]

Hi, I’ve been following you for a hot minute and wanted to ask about how you define your asexuality and gray-romanticness. I am a poly/pan trans-guy trying to wrap my head around it and from your posts you always seem super nice and down to earth. Sorry if this is a weird question ^~^’

Ngl your ask did catch me off guard, although that was mostly due to the fact that a) I never get asks, and b) I rarely post my own stuff or comment on others’ posts so the fact that you said I seem nice and down to earth ‘cause of my posts threw me for a bit of a loop. Sweet though, and I’m glad I come off that way even though my blog is really just a mishmash of things I like and that catch me eye

Now as for your question

TL:DR Defining my asexuality means I don’t feel sexual attraction towards others (never have in my almost 23 years of life) and it honestly kinda confuses me simply because it’s something I’ve never experienced before and when others talk about it I just don’t get it

As for my greyromanticism, it’s more a transitional term as over the years I went from having loads and loads of crushes (I think) as a kid to now where I haven’t had a crush for multiple years as I move closer and closer to being aro ‘cause of some trauma that happened in my life. Same trauma is part of why gender does make a difference in my attraction now

Gonna start this off with some backstory saying I used to identify as bisexual, then pansexual, ‘cause I’d never heard of asexuality before and gender didn’t really play a part in my like for someone. And from the terms I knew, those seemed like the obvious choice at the time. But I also didn’t really,,, get it when some of my friends talked about how hot a person was or their list of actors they wanted to bone (and just celebrity crushes in general now that I think about it, although that could’ve very easily been due to the fact I can’t for the life of me remember who’s who in the realm of Hollywood). I’d just sorta nod along and listen ‘cause hey, people are different and just ‘cause we’re both pan doesn’t mean our experiences are exactly the same

Now at this time I was reading a lot—and I mean a lot—of fanfics ‘cause of escapism and all that jazz. And in one fic I came across there was a character—my favorite character—that was ace. When it got mentioned I didn’t think much of it ‘cause it was just ‘oh cool new term I haven’t heard before’. But then it was explained not only what asexuality was, but also what sexual and romantic attraction were—with examples for each of them—and how they didn’t always line up for some people. And it just

Clicked

I did a bit more research on it, reading things that other aces had posted talking about being ace, and it felt like it just fit me

It’s probably been close to 7 years since I last read that fic, but it was explained something like this

Have you ever looked at someone and wanted to fool around with them, maybe take a tumble in the sheets, but would never want to date them? That’s sexual attraction

And have you ever looked at someone and had your heart flutter and just wanted to go on dates and maybe kiss them but you wouldn’t describe them as sexy and the thought of having sex with them either didn’t cross your mind or made your stomach turn? Romantic attraction

And feeling the latter without the former? Well you might just be ace

Of course this isn’t a universal thing for those under the ace umbrella, but it worked for me and helped me realize something about myself

I don’t feel sexual attraction, which was why all those times my friends talked about how sexy someone was or who was on their f list, it felt like a foreign concept to me and the most I could say to relate was “well they are cute”

As for my greyromanticism, that one’s not as clear cut. Also cw for bad parenting and divorce/bad breakups basically idk

Like I said above, I used to get a lot of crushes as a kid. Looking back, were they all actually crushes or just me thinking a person looked cute? Who knows, but I’m pretty sure there were some

Walking in late only to see the new kid sitting there and immediately my heart rate picked up and I had trouble looking directly at them without blushing? Then picking up an instrument that they played just to try and be seated next to them in band class even though I had no idea what I was doing and had barely talked to them before?

Crush

Get partnered with someone for one assignment and then always trying to sneak glances at them out of the corner of my eye and it just so happens that they ended up in a lot of my photos of my middle school DC field trip?

Crush

Playing spin the faygo just for the chance to make out with one person ‘cause they’re hella cute and within an hour of knowing each other we immediately linked hands and threaded our fingers together while walking around?

Crush

Just as a few examples. Also I was shy and didn’t know how to socialize, which didn’t help at all in the creepiness factor

Now could some of my crushes have actually been just me becoming attached to someone who was nice to me one (1) time? Maybe, who knows, not me

Like I said above, me identifying as greyro is more transitional as I move closer and closer to identifying as aromantic ‘cause of trauma. Was I actually always arospec but just hadn’t heard of the terms like with asexuality? I don’t know because only after everything did I come across the term and my memory is so poor that I can’t properly recall the feelings I experienced. Even the above may not be accurate because my memory’s so spotty and my mind likes to insert things that never actually happened or are wildly different from what everyone else remembers

Which sucks but I digress

So that trauma I keep mentioning. As a child that had to deal with a rough divorce, it can bring on a whole slew of issues, some of which relate to relationships. I called my parents’ divorce almost a decade before it actually happened, and watching it go downhill to the point they could barely stand to be in the same room was rough. Not only that, but I had to give relationship advice to my father, from saying that he should go through with the divorce to giving my opinion on who he should date and if he should break it off or power through a rough spot or not come home for the night. Needless to say, all that warped my perception just a bit

And while that was happening, I had to deal with my own rocky high school relationships

While I haven’t dated a lot of people, a lot of the breakups were bad. Maybe not bad right away and we’d continue on being friends afterwards, but down the line something would happen where they’d either drop all contact or blow up at me without me knowing why or realizing something was off in the first place. And paired with the after effects of the divorce, it was a bad combination

But the golden lining was a breakup so terrible that it caused my datemate to hallucinate and go into such a depressive state that I’m pretty sure the after effects still influence how they act today when it comes to relationships. The four of us talked about moving in together, having a double wedding and all that. But then one left out of the blue and the other became harder and harder to contact until there was no response. And that all happened less than a month after I finally ran away from all the bs of the divorce and my father asking for relationship advice and being dropped so suddenly after what I thought was a good breakup

And after that I can only pinpoint 2 maybe crushes around the same time less than a year later

So yeah, traumatic

But I didn’t identify as greyro yet, because I hadn’t heard of the term

But even then I told my datemate that if we broke up I will never be in another romantic relationship after them because of everything. Because I didn’t really believe in love anymore

But I didn’t identify as greyro yet, even when I had heard of the term

I thought, nah, that’s not me, because I still thought I had crushes, as few and far between as they were. Because I didn’t know there were other kinds of attraction

And then my datemate asked if I had a crush on this one person, and I said no, and I realized that was the truth. I hadn’t had a crush on them. I wanted to hold their hand and cuddle and maybe give light pecks, protect them as best I could, but it wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t the same feelings as what I remember feeling in my childhood, what I feel towards my datemate

I had a squish, and once I realized that things started making a bit of sense. There were people I wanted to hold their hand, laze around in a cuddle pile to be close to them, maybe give them quick innocent pecks because I’m touch starved and want affection. But never were the feelings romantic

If that trauma had never happened, would I still say I’m panromantic instead of bi greyromantic? Who knows, not me

But what I do know is that if something were to happen and my datemate and I were to split, that the single romantic attraction I have felt in years was severed, I’d full on say I’m aro because they are my exception

My greyromanticism is transitional. It’s not “I feel romantic attraction sparingly” or “have a hard time distinguishing platonic from romantic” or the other common definitions I’ve seen around, but rather “I used to feel romantic attraction all the time, but now only feel it towards one person and if that were to go away, I wouldn’t feel it at all”

Sometimes I doubt myself, thinking maybe I’m experiencing crushes and just don’t realize it or am in denial. But then I think about it again and tell my doubt to shut up because that’s wrong and I know it

And wow that was a lot and I’m pretty sure I spent ~4 hours writing this without realizing it. I hope this answered your question though!! Word vomiting like this helped me realize a few things myself

Also wow I need therapy more than I thought

[thecharmingknightemma]

also a reminder that some friends that exist in every world and are basically my npcs (but basically don’t exist when played with a muse related to them or who plays them since it would be godmodding) are:

-August/Pinocchio, been there all her life as a family/older best friend depending on the universe, who used to be reckless and make bad choices, but kinda ended up being more of a ‘voice of reason’ once Emma started getting into more obvious danger than he did and scarred him for life. Not literally, but still, when your younger friend keeps being a complete and lovable idiot, you develop some mom friend instincts even if they are not normally your own.  -Grace, Jefferson’s daughter, kinda grew up to be more like a young Jefferson than the potentially kind woman she could have been, a thief who is not too empathetic, ten years older than Emma but looks nearly the same age, very okay teaming up with Emma to tease August/Pinocchio, very okay sleeping with anyone who is hot around her (no matter the gender), very okay being aromantic (but as an aro I say she’s bad rep because she’s also pretty damn uncaring about most people and lacking the ability to develop romantic love doesn’t make you like Grace), very happy enabling Emma and taking a step back so she doesn’t end up killed, very okay making things hard for everyone with her words if she can. Does love Emma dearly and therefore will help people for Emma, otherwise she’d be content only caring about her dad and about fun and stealing. When writing with Jefferson or similar people she’s replaced by Ariel/Aria. Who is a very innocent, sweet, but also strong-willed friend.  -Alexandra, daughter of Ashley/Ella and Thomas/Sean. A more serious woman, more... normal, than the characters Emma surrounds herself with, polite, educated, a bit exasperated by Emma but loves her dearly, not too friendly with Grace because, after all, Grace isn’t exactly a person you welcome in your life easily. In most verses she finds love and has two twins by the time Emma is 28 (with a guy who is not a royal in the Enchanted Forest universe). Even if she lived far from Emma when Emma went through her own traumas, she herself felt the brunt of it and became more cautious about love. Gorgeous and refined. 

-Hansel and Gretel/names in our world to be decided: in the Enchanted Forest they have a tavern and an inn each, connected to each other, where princess Emma goes all the time and where she invites her friends including the ones with bad reputation. Have a bed&breakfast in our world. Gretel is a very practical, working woman. Hansel is blatantly in love with Emma and only Emma hasn’t noticed. -Elsa (and Anna) are friends of Emma in our world, with different names but they went to the same high school in most universes. (Also Elsa in my blog is the good kind of aro rep. Where she can’t feel romantic love but she’s not an ass. She loves her family and friends dearly, too.) Much like in canon, Elsa is a lot calmer than Emma, more responsible, and Anna is a bit clumsy but with a big heart. 

[555-95472]

1, 15-17!

this is also for @shinykipp who also requested 15, 16, & 17!

1. What’s your favorite part of being arospec? Wow we’re starting off with a tough one lmaoits hard to talk about why you love being. or why you love not having something. tho thats kinda something ive been thinking about a lot: what ive gained from being aromantic, as opposed to what ive missed out on?

I think the easiest answer is the perspective? I think I often challenge people’s expectations and can help to question assumptions about what relationships can be

the silly answer is just oh boy is it nice to not have to worry about dating

15. What’s a movie that you get aro vibes from? the first one that comes to mind is Pacific Rim? especially with Mako and Raleigh? the idea that their relationship isn’t romantic on any level but is still one of partnership, devotion, respect, and love

A lot of the content that reads as “ambiguous” re: relationships can also be read as aromantic?

16. What’s a song that you get aro vibes from? one of my faves is Alone and Sublime by Mother Mother?

This is a spilling of the heart,With no intent to fall apart.I don’t feel like I’m even here.You may just watch me disappear.I wonder, did they make me right?Aren’t I supposed to wanna fight for love?And life? Everything that people say is right?Am I so wrong to cry only when there’s something in my eye?Am I to die alone and sublime?

It’s not necessarily happy aro vibes, but I find it really comforting when I feel less than confident in my orientation.

17. What’s a book that you get aro vibes from? So I don’t have a good answer for this b/c I haven’t been reading that many books in the last few months (largely b/c ive been playing so much ace attorney), but b/c there isn’t a “video game” category here, I might talk about ace attorney really quick? 

(spoilers for aai1 and aa5) there are two characters whose arcs include huge acts of self-sacrifice done for people they don’t love romantically? namely Shi-Long Lang (who takes a bullet for his subordinate, because even after he realizes she has betrayed him, he still feels it is his duty to keep her safe) and Simon Blackquill (who is willing to be found guilty for murder and sentenced to death to protect his mentor’s 11yo daughter from the same fate)

and to me they come across as really aromantic especially b/c they dont have a partner to be paired with? neither of them have an easy ship? like with other characters with aro vibes its largely b/c of some relationship they have that resembles a qpr? while these two seem to more embody aromanticism as a perspective (re: finding value and contentment in non-romantic relationships) and the fact they each lack an obvious ship makes it even more apparent

and I find the most satisfying characters to hc as aro are ones who love intensely in non-romantic ways? It feels like a good way to push back against the stereotype that aro people don’t/can’t care about other people?

more asks can be found here! (or if anyone has general questions about aro stuff, id happily answer those too!)

[techouspeaks]

Puzzleshipping: My Most Hated Shipping

Now before anyone tries to flag me or send me hate mail or both, look and read before you get mad. Also, if you do love this shipping, that’s perfectly fine. I have nothing against you. I’m not saying people who enjoy this shipping are bad people or stupid nor do I wish any ill fated action on them. None of that. This is just my personal gripe with this shipping.  I am ranting it here, on my page, on my blog. Not attacking anyone personally about it. I know how loved this shipping is, I may not get it but okay I‘m just sharing my views, to share a different perspective.

All I ask anyone is to read this with an open mind. Everyone is gonna have a different opinion. This is more so my reasons why I hate this ship for reasons of both sharing opinions and also as away to get off my chest.

To start off there are many reasons why I absolutely despise Puzzleshipping and some reasons are ones that fans probably heard a lot. If you dunno what Puzzleshipping is for followers new to my blog or this subject, it’s the shipping or pairing of YugiXYami/Atem in Yugioh Duel Monsters.

First is the whole Yami/Atem and Yugi look alike and are possibly related, thus getting into um inappropriate (family romance) levels.  (I’m honestly trying not to get this censored by tumblr). True, it’s never stated whether or not Yami/Atem and Yugi are related, except in one video game which is not canon to the series. 

Honestly, you can’t blame people for feeling like this shipping goes into that territory. They look exactly alike. If you had a stranger who knew nothing of Yugioh and they saw some questionable fan art of the two, it’s only natural that they would think fans are into inter-family relationships and think “What the actual hell?” 

When I was first really into the internet at a high school age, that was my main shock of the relationship because I’m like “Aren’t they related?”. I know this is still debatable but even then I’m like “Kinda creepy”.

Another obvious one is that Yugi blushes or gets more flustered around women. He is never this way around men. He’s never shy around men and especially Yami. Shoot, the moment a woman hands out sample ad brochures for Duke’s shop, Yugi blushes at her. Obviously, he doesn’t know her but still flusters around her since she’s pretty, indicating a more well obvious attraction to the opposite sex. Not to mention when Yugi is kissed by Rebecca and when Tea gets obviously jealous.

 Yami on the other hand, I would argue he’s even asexual or even aromantic because he doesn’t seem that remotely interested in anyone. Maybe, Mana but even that is still debatable. He cares for people sure, but never shows that much of an interest in that kind of way. He protects Yugi and of course, cares for him but the way he’s does so is more of a brother or father figure looking after their brother/son. It’s protective love but not romantic. He doesn’t want to kiss Yugi or show anything that would indicate a romantic relationship. In fact, he even encourages Yugi to go after Anzu in the Japanese version. Most of this over protective attitude stems for the fact Yami feels guilty for dragging Yugi and his friends in his personal endeavors that can be dangerous, which often Yami states through out the series.

Now, I’m not going to go on with superficial and typical reasons that are often heard of when hating on this ship. I’ll just get to my main gripe about it and it’s a very deep reason for hating it. It’s my inner core of why I hate this ship. This shipping is the top, number one shipping of any series I can’t stand and here is why.

I honestly believe Puzzleshipping goes against what the story of Yugi Mutou is about and even who Yugi is as a character. The story of Yugioh Duel Monsters and generally Yugi’s personal story is about growing up. Yugi becoming an independent, strong, individual that can hold up his own in personal fights. Yami helps Yugi along, first as an entity that Yugi isn’t aware of yet but feels the presence of. As time goes on and he realizes who Yami is, at first he’s afraid because of what Yami does to Kaiba. He goes against Yugi’s wishes to not hurt Kaiba, but thanks to Anzu/Tea, Yugi stops Yami.  After he vows to not go against Yugi’s wishes ever again, Yugi begins to trust Yami and become good friends, realizing that he is the confident entity that’s been protecting Yugi and helping him stand against tough foes, as well as gain the confidence to make friends.

Yami of course, goes against Yugi’s wishes again when he decides to use the Seal of Orichalcos against Rafael, though ultimately regrets this after Yugi pushes Yami and gets sealed away instead.  Though this leads to Yugi and Yami in a heated duel, that results in Yugi explaining that it was for Yami to finally defeat the darkness within his heart, thus allowing Yugi to help Yami grow this time. Yugi continues to lend in the strength that Yami needs as Yami did for Yugi during his times of needs.

Now after explaining all that, it does seem like Puzzleshipping is legit, right? Not really. See, my gripe and why I say Puzzleshipping goes against it is how the fandom depicts Yugi in Puzzleshipping. When the time came and Yami had to be sent to the past, this was basically Yugi growing up and moving forward to continue on with being his own person, while Yami learns to be a strong, individual leader that his people need. 

The way Puzzleshipping often depicts Yugi is the exact opposite to that. PS often depicts Yugi as a helpless damsel or someone that can’t live without Yami. The shipping seems to throw away all the development that Yugi gained, making Yugi look more helpless and more needing a man than Snow White and Sleeping Beauty! I know Yugi isn’t always strong and always confident but my goodness, he’s definitely come along way and I just feel that most PS works just throw this development way like it was nothing but garbage.

Same with Yami. Puzzleshipping often displays Yami as the hero that rescues Yugi or seductive flirty person, which he is not. While there are some that depict Yugi and Yami similar to the series, that’s also a problem too. It depicts Yugi and Yami before they grew and learn the lessons they learned.

Also why I am not showing puzzleshipping artwork in this post is because that would probably be considered art theft and I don’t want this blog flagged! Google it yourself!

Yugi is a character that in my youth, I looked up to a lot. When I was in middle school, I was bullied a lot and wish I had a large group of friends to stand by me. I probably wouldn’t have survived school without seeing Yugi during his struggles, showing he can be strong but also kind and accepting, thus giving me hope to find someone equally as kind and accepting.

Put it short, Yugi, his story and his friends helped me out during the toughest times as a kid. So seeing Yugi depicted as this prissy, helpless princess that needs his Egyptian Prince is just down right insulting to the character, I highly respect. Yeah, he’s fictional but again, he’s a character I grew up, highly respecting and looking up to as an example of a person I wished to be and a person that I wanted to be with. (Though I’m happy for Tea/Anzu, since she’s also really awesome.)  Yami is too though he got a bit emo for my tastes down the road, he’s still a character that certainly deserves some respect as well.

It’s sorta like how people can’t stand remakes and reboots, despite this is just pure fandom fluff. Yeah, nothing is gonna stop it but that doesn’t stop people from feeling the way they feel about it and wanting to rant about it now and then and I’m not saying that all Puzzleshipping works are like what I described, but a majority of them are, especially in artworks.

Puzzleshipping just ruins the long, struggling, development of our two main leads and what are a great, strong and reliable individual characters. The whole point of the Dark Side of Dimensions movie was for Yugi to settle with his conflict he had when Yami left him and finally move on and I just feel like Puzzleshipping throws this type of development out the window, for a more “Kawaii-ish feels” or often from my perspective, to just add more gay to Yugioh. 

I get there are AUs and people are allowed to have their fun and if I insulted fans well, sorry but call it even because I can’t search Yugi Muto without Puzzleshipping work being in my face and there’s only so much soft blocking I can do.  I’m not at all saying that people can’t ship these two because yeah, like I’m the queen of the world! Hell no! It’s also not like I don’t have a few questionable ships and shippings a lot of people may not agree with myself.

 (Drawing and Violet, child in the middle by me. Angel Dust and Vaggie belong to VivziePop)

Like I said, I’m just giving my reasons for why I personally hate it, why it ticks me off and why I think it’s one of the worst shippings in terms of pairings that are otherwise not that morally bad. There are far worse shippings that are more obvious on why they’re bad, but this one just gets under my skin for personal reasons, as I stated.

Think of this post as a dive into a different perspective, if you will. The goal isn’t to change the minds of puzzleshippers but to give a different point of view, especially to those that may not fathom why someone would hate this shipping. As I said, on the surface, Puzzleshipping seems legit but on the deeper levels, it’s not as wonderful as it may seem, at least to people like me and at least the majority of works that show case it.

I hope this rant though long, is at least informative and shares light on personal feelings that I certainly have and some who hate this shipping as much as I do also have. As stated, ship who you want. I mean, I obviously can’t tell you what to ship and to not ship. If it makes you happy, go for it. As said, just wanted to share my thoughts and my reasons. Obviously there’s worst things out there but everyone has a pet peeve or something that maybe mundane but is annoying or even infuriating to them.

So, creative question to anyone who reads this, what is a shipping you really can’t stand and why? Is there a shipping you hate? Also, what’s a shipping you like? My personal favorites are SpiderMoth (Angel Dust and Vaggie from Hazbin Hotel), Peachshipping (though I see it as canon), TomaXChiffon from Futago Hime and CloseXHaruka/Cure Flora and ShutXTowa/Cure Scarlet from Go Princess Precure.

[arosnowflake]

About arospec headcannon thing anyone from FMA of your choice and a character from a series/book that you have enjoying latelly!

“character from a series/book that you have enjoying latelly” bold of you to assume I’ve had the attention span to be reading anything anon. the only thing I’ve been reading lately is ‘The Bacchae and Other Works’, demonstrating that I can, in fact, be a smart literary reader every once in a while, but the only play I’ve finished is Ion, and like… sure Athena is aro, but I also feel like headcanoning a greek god as aro is kinda cheating, but in the spirit of ancient greek myths, I’ll be doing my fave aro headcanon, Percy Jackson. He’s going under the cut though, because Ed’s turned out… long. Sorry about that.

Anyway, from FMA, I’m (predicatably) picking Edward Elric, because I can’t and won’t stop:

What arospec identities do they have? (Can be as specific or vague as desired)

I generally headcanon Ed as nebularomantic, though I also really really like the headcanon of him having my exact aro experience because honestly, I like projecting onto him. But I usually go with nebularomantic because I feel like the headcanon possibilities for that are more interesting, so I’ll go with that in this post.

(Or arovague, a little more, maybe? He’s nebularomantic in the sense that a) alexithymia makes figuring out whether he’s feeling platonic or romantic attraction pretty much impossible, and b) he feels like he doesn’t really fit into society’s ideas of romance due to it heavily being tied up into neurotypical standards, and finds the concept of romantic relationships/romantic attraction somewhat inaccessible to him as a result. So he’s kind of a mix between nebularomantic, quoiromantic with the ‘disidentifies with the concept of romantic attraction’ definition, and arovague, I guess, but I think he’d just use nebularomantic because it’s easier and it still encompasses his experiences very well.)

How proud of being arospec are they?

Pretty proud, if only because he knows it pisses people off and he loves doing that. He’s not dropping it into every conversation ever, but he definitely has a couple pins and shows up at pride with the flag painted on his cheeks.

Do they prioritize their arospec identity over any others?

I’d say that on the Minority Identity tier, it’s probably his least important identity to him, definitely after autistic/ADHD (kind of the same thing to him) and nonbinary. It’s still pretty important to him, though. Maybe the only thing he prioritizes it over might be his amputee status, mostly because, since he grew up with a bunch of automail engineers and later living in Rush Valley with Paninya and Winry for a long while, amputees have kinda become the norm for him. However, I can also see that, due to the Circumstances surrounding the loss of his limbs, he might prioritize his physical disability anyway, because he’s had to learn to take pride in it, whereas for the nebularomanticism, that came pretty naturally.

Are they out? If so, how did they come out, and to whom?

He’s out to pretty much everyone, although the only people he actually sat down and had a conversation with were Winry, Paninya, and Al. Winry because she helped him figure out he wasn’t allo (even if he couldn’t pin down his specific aro identity), and Paninya because he brought it up when he proposed starting a qpr to sort of close a sort of ‘qpr’ triad between him, Winry, and Paninya. Al also knows because Ed talked his feelings over with him when he was still questioning, and then Mei found the identity ‘nebularomantic’ and told Al, who told Ed, and that’s how Ed figured out his identity.

How do they feel about romance? Romance-favorable? Romance-neutral? Romance-repulsed? Or does it fluctuate?

Romance-neutral, largely. I mean, he’s married, so that counts as romance-favourable probably, but honestly? He’s mostly neutral to the concept of romance because he doesn’t understand why it exists. It’s pretty much impossible for him to separate neurotypical expectations of romance and love from the concept of romantic relationships/romantic attraction in general, and this was one of the main reasons he and Winry decided to change their relationship from ‘romantic’ to ‘idk what but we’re definitely important to another/queerplatonic-ish’; he constantly felt like he was failing in romance, and Winry had a bit of trouble adjusting her expectations from a generic romantic relationship to one with Ed once they moved from a long distance relationship to a short distance one, so they felt like it was best to change the label. But that said, he’s not repulsed, and he’s not necessarily opposed to the concept of a romantic relationship, he just doesn’t really understand why that exists and has trouble living up to the neurotypical standards it generally entails.

Have they ever experienced arophobia? If so, how?

Some mild stuff, but nothing extreme. He married Winry fairly young, so that warred off all the ‘I can fix you/you need to be fixed’ and ‘you’re horrible and are going to die alone!’ flavours of arophobia, but at the same time, the fact that he married her means that a lot of people deny, ignore, and/or erase his arospec identity. Even showing up in public with an aro/nebularomantic pride flag doesn’t stop people from ignoring it. Since he’s a pretty high-profile figure, this means that it’s especially noticeable.

In addition, he’s also faced some ableist-specific arophobia in people saying that he just doesn’t understand romantic attraction because he’s autistic/ADHD, which, yeah, duh, that’s why he identifies as nebula? But people use that to deny his identity, saying that his aro identity isn’t real because it’s caused/affected by his neurodivergency, or that it must be fixed with therapy. He generally punches those people in the face and they shut up really quickly.

How do they show their arospec pride?

Like I said, he goes to pride and paints his cheeks in the nebularomantic/aromantic pride colours (one on each cheek), and he doesn’t shy away from talking about it in day-to-day life. On the rare occasion that he makes a public appearance such as an interview or as a gala attendee (mostly when he’s lost a bet to Mustang or Ling), he usually takes either a small or big flag with him (depending on the mood he’s in), just to smirk when people get awkward or try to ignore it.

Do they actively try to combat amatonormativity in their daily lives or elsewhere? If so, how?

He constantly corrects people if they call Winry his wife (yes, they’re partners, and yes, they’re married, but ‘wife’ specifically has connotations to him that he doesn’t like), constantly corrects them if they assume he’s alloro, and just generally is an obnoxious arospec fuck who’s not going to let any part of his arospec identity get erased.

Was it easy for them to label themselves arospec, or was there a long period of questioning? How many labels did they have to try before landing on the one they use now?

The questioning process took pretty long, both due to the complicated nature of his identity and alexithymia hindering the process. As I already said, it’s pretty much impossible for him to distinguish neurotypical expectations of romance from romantic attraction/relationships, but he was also aware that societal expectations =/= romantic attraction at its core, so he didn’t know if his confusion surrounding the matter was enough to make him anything but allo. Furthermore, there was the fact that alexithymia made trying to figure out whether what he was feeling was platonic or romantic pretty much impossible: he could barely figure out if he was feeling hungry, fuck if he knew he was having a squish or a crush. There was also the obvious fact that yup, he sure married Winry, and he didn’t want to divorce her because he did want to be in some kind of relationship, but he didn’t know if that was because he was feeling any kind of romantic (or platonic, for that matter) attraction, or because he simply felt at home with her, and yes he did consider that the ‘at home’ feeling might’ve been romantic, but probably not, since he also feels it with Al, but then again it was still very much different with Al, so maybe…?

Anyway, you get the point. Questioning was long and messy, and eventually came to a head when Winry basically said ‘look listen I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you promised not to keep me in the dark anymore, so spit it out’ so he did and she basically said ‘well in my expert alloromantic opinion that’s not very allo’ and he went ‘oh. shit. why didn’t I ask you earlier’ (it was because he’s the world’s smartest idiot). So they sat down and figured things out, and eventually agreed that it would be best if they ‘cancelled’ the romance aspect of their relationship for now, just to figure out what would work for them.

Also Mei was actually the one who found the term ‘nebularomantic’ way later, when she was researching arospec identities after her and Al’s relationship crashed and burned horribly (she definitely has access to a huge library of queer identities in Ling’s palace shut up), and Al heard her say the definition and he went ‘oh shit that’s my brother’, so then he called Ed and that’s how Ed came to identify as nebularomantic.

Would they be interested in a QPR? Why or why not?

He’s in a queerplatonic triad with Winry and Paninya! The relationship is actually kind of complicated, with Winry and Paninya being in a romantic relationship, Ed and Winry being in a committed relationship they’re chosing not to label at the moment, and Paninya and Ed being in the world’s most casual qpr, but the three of them call their triad ‘queerplatonic’ to simplify stuff. He probably wouldn’t necessarily search out a qpr, I think, but he very much loves people (regardless of whether or not it’s platonic or romantic or something else entirely), and he does like living with other people, so he’d probably have fallen into one naturally anyway, even if canon hadn’t played out the way it did.

Final thoughts?

If you think that I won’t headcanon someone as arospec just because they married and had kids at the end of the series then you’re so fucking mistaken.

What arospec identities do they have? (Can be as specific or vague as desired)

Percy’s demiromantic!

How proud of being arospec are they?

Very proud! If you think he ever stops making demi jokes, you are very very wrong. He goes to pride, has pins, has a flag up in his room, and generally won’t shut up about it.

Do they prioritize their arospec identity over any others?

Somewhat! He’s both demisexual and demiromantic, and he doesn’t necessarily separate those two out, but he does prioritize both of those over his demiboy identity, though that’s definitely important to him too and he’s proud of that as well (plus, he appreciates the pun material).

Are they out? If so, how did they come out, and to whom?

He’s out! After he figured it out the first thing he did was kick Annabeth’s door open and go ‘Annabeth Holy Fuck!’, so she knows. His mom and Paul know, because he actually had a Serious Coming Out conversation with them (he knew they’d take it well, but still). Everyone else at camp also knows, because he won’t shut up about it, and also like everyone at Camp Halfblood is queer as fuck, so they just kind of expected something like this sooner or later. The puns are an unwelcome surprise, though.

How do they feel about romance? Romance-favorable? Romance-neutral? Romance-repulsed? Or does it fluctuate?

None of the above, he’s very firmly romance oblivious. He’s not going to catch you flirting with him, he WILL read over romance subplots without picking up on them, he is always the last to catch on to relationships his friends have started, etc. etc. He’s romance-favourable in the sense that he’s currently in a romantic relationship with Annabeth, but honestly, I don’t think he cares enough about romance to use any of the above labels.

Have they ever experienced arophobia? If so, how?

Yeah, he’s had a bunch of assholes tell him that he’s just straight, or that he needs to use demi as a modifier, or that demiromanticism doesn’t exist, etc. etc. However, he’s been lucky enough to have a supportive family and a queer as fuck friendgroup, so it hasn’t been as bad as it could’ve been and he’s had a lot of support.

How do they show their arospec pride?

PUNS (IN THE FORM OF DEMI- JOKES). SO MANY FUCKING PUNS. NEITHER HE NOR I WILL SHUT UP ABOUT THE PUNS.

Do they actively try to combat amatonormativity in their daily lives or elsewhere? If so, how?

Sort of? He’s loudly demi, which combats amatonormativity pretty much automatically, but he’s not exactly the type to go around educating everyone about the concept of amatonormativity or anything. That’s what Annabeth is for.

Was it easy for them to label themselves arospec, or was there a long period of questioning? How many labels did they have to try before landing on the one they use now?

Honestly, he just sort of assumed that the world was playing a prank on him regarding this ‘falling in love at first sight’ thing, or in general, this ‘falling in love’ thing. He’s never had a crush on anyone before Annabeth, and was honestly halfway convinced that the concept was fake until her, but he also never really analyzed that? He just kind of… assumed that was normal. Calypso was the first real wrench in that theory, but he chalked it up to her being not human and went about his life.

Aaand then he overheard someone talking about being demi, got massively confused for a second, asked for clarification before, you know, calling a satyr, and realized ‘oh hey that’s me!’.

So all in all, the questioning process was pretty straight forward, just hampered by him being very oblivious.

Would they be interested in a QPR? Why or why not?

Hmmm, maybe? I think he’s satisfied with his romantic relationship with Annabeth, but I also don’t necessarily think he’d be opposed to one. I don’t think he’d search one out, but if someone asked, he’d probably be willing to give it a go.

Final thoughts?

This was my first ever aro headcanon and I can and WILL die on this hill.

[letters-from-the-three-houses]

Ooooooofffff who are you gonna pair up???

!!! :D

the first half answers the question proper and is probably what i’m going to do in my first play throughs, while the latter half is a list of my actual ships (though i like all the ships in both lists because notps don’t exist in my vocabulary!)

this got long so it’s under the cut! if the read more works now; come on, tumblr, you can do it edit: nooo it didn’t work. sorry again for flooding everyone’s dash with a long post;; edit2: now it does! awesome

black eagles:

edelgard/linhardt - i really adore the idea of them together so i would not be opposed to an accelerated rate to their supports! i saw fanart of them by reddit user chiralmia one day and i thought they looked cute. eddie being all gung ho about the crests and lin being a crest researcher is bound to have some interesting conversations

hubert/dorothea - this one request made me hardcore ship them because their dynamic is?? super?? fascinating?? i can’t wait to see how they’d interact in-game!

caspar/petra - another;; request;; just imagining caspar being so proud of petra as she improves her adrestian and gets acclimated to the monastery makes my heart warm. he’d be so supportive of her! anyone who makes fun of her speech? insert gta wasted sound effect here

ferdinand/bernadetta - moeblob’s comics opened my eyes to the idea of ferdiebernie and they’ve never closed since. they kinda give me ‘my fair lady’ vibes? this would be a great platonic pairing and i am not opposed to seeing ferdinand become protective of her

(other ones i’m looking forward to):

ferdinand/dorothea - since he’s all uppity about nobility and dorothea’s a commoner, i wonder how it’ll work!

hubert/petra - so serious! such cool! much admire! they both like edelgard a lot too so i can see them gushing about her together and aaaahhh 

caspar/bernadetta - even more requests?! and a fanfic?!?! i’m weak????? caspar being bright and happy to bernie’s glum, and coaxing her to socialize more is top tier

blue lions:

sylvain/ingrid - i mentioned before that i thought they’d be like kaze/azura (which was my fates otp!) before i found out sylvain was a flirt, but now that just makes the ship a fusion of kaze/azura and sain/fiora?? which i both adore?? so i dunno about you guys but this stole me from the get go

felix/annette - (KROISSANT IF YOU’RE OUT THERE—) if it isn’t obvious yet i like my serious, depressed grumpy cats together with bright sunshine children and this is exactly that

dedue/mercedes - actual parents;; they’d be so soft it’ll be insane

(other ones i’m looking forward to):

ashe/annette - shenanigans all the way! they’ll have loads and loads of fun when they’re with each other

dimitri/ingrid - obligatory ‘we have to get the pegasus knight and the lord she has an unrequited crush on together’; not that ingrid does have an unrequited crush on dimitri (we don’t know if she does), but they fit the trope

felix/mercedes + felix/ingrid - we ARE shipping felix with everyone and we ARE going to like it

golden deer:

claude/marianne - asdfghjkl; an actual disney prince with an actual disney princess? why would i not??

lorenz/hilda - they hate each other. i can feel it in my bones. i need to know how it’d work. please, IS

ignatz/lysithea - cute babies! you can see them together a couple of times so they must be friends! i honestly had a daydream about them eloping together which????? made me hate my brain more than i already do, but i guess i’m going to have to roll with it

raphael/leonie - i actually don’t want to pair them up with anyone because i think they don’t care about romance (asexual/aromantic representation when;;), but they seem like good pals so i’ll be okay with that!

(other ones i’m looking forward to):

claude/hilda - partners-in-crime. i don’t know why but i keep thinking they’re childhood friends. they’re probably not, but their dynamic is bound to be funny

lorenz/lysithea + lorenz/marianne + lorenz/leonie - i’m super curious to know why girls don’t like him. is it because he has terrible pick up lines?? does his personality suck?? will they mention his haircut????

ships i really ship (they’re mostly interhouse because i’m an idiot):

they haven’t really changed much from before so if you’ve read this post, you can skip this!

dimitri/edelgard - out of all the lord pairings i could have chosen i chose this one, and it constantly reminds me how much i hate myself (note: before anyone asks, i’m aware of what thani said! whether or not it’s true, it just makes their dynamic that much more interesting to me?? i dunno, guys; sorry if anyone’s disappointed in my terrible taste :c)

ashe/bernadetta - the first time i thought of these two together, i gasped out loud and never looked back since. i still think these two would get along quite nicely! i’m tempted to steal one when i’m in the other half’s house (+ steal both during my golden deer run) so they can be archer partners

petra/dorothea - still the same reasoning as before. one’s a commoner and the other’s a foreigner so they feel out of place within the black eagles as i await for the inevitable ‘but i belong with you’ trope

mercedes/lysithea - i got lysithea’s personality wrong but i still think this is cute! mercie being all sweet and caring whenever lys forgets to take care of herself, and lys making sure mercie is appreciated as she should be is uwu

felix/sylvain - “not fraldarddyd?? letters, i trusted you!” i’m shrieking i’m so sorry if it’s any consolation i don’t trust myself either i just think felix getting all flustered by sylvain’s flirting is?? ???? ?????? and asdfghjkl; i’m trying to spit out words but i don’t even know how to describe it please don’t hurt me

claude/annette - ;w; i have very many feelings about this that would take too long to explain, so if anyone’s curious just shoot another ask and you’ll get an essay in return!

i’m also partial to felix/edelgard but you didn’t hear that from me

from the ships i mentioned in the earlier lists:

hubert/dorothea

sylvain/ingrid

felix/annette

claude/marianne

claude/hilda

broships i really broship:

edelgard/bernadetta - pry this from my cold, dead hands

dimitri/felix/sylvain/ingrid - it’s canon! what else could i ask for?

linhardt/caspar - also canon!

annette/mercedes (+ ingrid) - also canon!! (+ ingrid needs friends to balance out her dumb dumb childhood squad)

linhardt/ignatz - they’re officially nerds! different topics, sure, but they seem like they’d get along well

dorothea/ingrid - girls supporting girls. that is all

bernadetta/marianne - they’re so similar! i’m sure they would bond/connect really quickly, and they’d have each other in their support circles!!

caspar/lysithea/marianne - this would be so chaotic haha. caspar shoots off, does something crazy, drags mari with him, and makes lysithea’s high blood pressure go off the charts

hubert/ingrid/mercedes - honestly? they can have all the tea they want if it means just taking a break and relaxing from their rowdy housemates

i also really want to see ferdinand/leonie interacting with each other just because leonie is the the least noble of all the characters and i wonder what ferdie would think of her

edit: oh yes!! and lorenz/mercedes; mercie mentions that she knows him so i’m curious about what they could talk about!