#all three of my partners make me wonder if i actually am aromantic because of how INTENSELY they can express their romance

[gorie-talks-a-lot]

Oh, don't mind me. Turning into a pile of goo on the floor because my boyfriend and my girlfriend both made very long, very romantic posts for Valentine's Day and reading them made me cry a little.

I wish I knew how to express that kind of stuff so openly without making it silly or turning it into some form of joke, god damn.

[foundfamilynonsense]

Sometimes being aromantic feels a lot like not liking a popular movie genre.

Like seriously, equate being aromantic to not liking horror movies.

I say I don’t like horror movies and people say “oh you’ve just never seen a good horror movie” and I’m like… no. I just don’t enjoy them. Like it’s not even the fact that I get scared easily, though that’s part of it, maybe it’s just not my thing. I usually relate to characters when they face different situations.

And I say things like “oh, uh, I don’t know I think that usually horror movies have plot problems where you don’t get to know the characters right?” Even though that’s not why I don’t like horror movies, I don’t like horror movies because I don’t like horror movies. But occasionally I feel the need to defend my dislike with actual facts. And people all trip over themselves to say “oh you can’t throw out the whole genre based on the bad movies!!” And in the back of my mind I think yeah that’s not why I’m throwing it out but I do have a very low bar for what makes a horror movie bad because I just don’t like them.

And people keep recommending horror movies and I’m like no sorry I don’t like horror. And they go how do you know you don’t like it until you watch it and like… because it’s a horror movie and I don’t like horror.

And these people aren’t bad people. They love a genre. It brings them joy, and they want me to experience that joy. But for whatever reason they refuse to understand that these movies will not bring me joy.

And I’ll watch them rant about how terrible these seven horror movies they just saw were and I’ll think “why would I ever want to watch these?” But I don’t say it because they are fiercely protective of the genre despite how many bad movies they see.

And occasionally I hear about a movie like Get Out or something. Where this horror movie is groundbreaking and interesting and has an incredible cast. And hey, maybe I’ll even watch it. More likely I’ll read about it. And I’ll think “this looks great. Like something I would really enjoy. In fact there’s only one thing that I would change to make it better for me: I’d love if it wasn’t a horror movie.”

Seriously take the same ideas and message and cast and characters and make it, like, sci-fi? Damn sounds great.

Anyway. My grandmother went on a little rant a few months ago about feeling so terrible for those “a-people” because they’ll never have love. And they’ll never know how wonderful it is for someone to be there and hold you and love you. She knows I am aromantic, she does not know I know she knows. And I want to say to her “grandma you have gone through three divorces, and I have never seen you and your current husband even hold hands. You either talk about the weather or the consistency of peanut butter or you’re fighting. You live in my house, so it’s not even like you save the good parts of the relationship for when I’m not around. But I don’t say that. I say “oh well grandma those people just don’t want or need those types of relationship” to which she said everyone needed love.

I was, of course, kinda pissed off about this. A few days later my dad said that she didn’t see it as insulting me. He said that he lived this life that he always knew he wanted. That he enjoyed this life of being married and having kids. And my grandmother, theoretically, also enjoys this life. And because they love me, they want me to have it.

And it’s the same insanity as people who can’t handle it when someone refuses to watch their favorite genre. I have every ability to go out and get myself a romantic partner. Just like I have every ability to sit down and watch a horror movie. But I don’t. So maybe possibly I know what I want more than other people do.

[enbeemagical]

Happy Aro Pride Day!!

As part of the Aro Pride Collab with @siriuslyremus @mossypebbles @logandeservesbetter @marathegreat @emmytheace @fandom-trashowo, I also wrote a Dragon Prince fic! Part one is complete, part two will be out when I finish it, hopefully soon.

Summary: Aaravos is asexual, aromantic, and sex-repulsed. Inspired by the vast amount of fics where Aaravos makes things spicy very quickly, my being a sex-repulsed aroace, and a what if. Roughly 2.4k words.

PART ONE

Aaravos is eleven years old when the human and elven children his age announce their first crushes. He does not have a crush, so he says it must work differently for Startouches, since they have such long lifespans.

Aaravos is sixteen years old when his caretakers finally realize he is going through puberty and sit him down for The Talk. The physical changes part he's already figured out. He doesn't understand the other part at all. Why would someone want to put their body next to another's in such a way when simple cuddling is likely far more comfortable?

Aaravos does not like not knowing things. He takes a dozen or so books on biology to his room, and spends weeks studying them. He still does not understand. The books seem to say that is enjoyable, but the pictures look rather uncomfortable.

At nineteen, Aaravos finally claims a crush: a shy, curly-haired human boy his age who clearly admires Aaravos. Aaravos enjoys this admiration– and who is to say he does not have a crush? No one else can know what he feels, and for all he knows this is what a crush is supposed to feel like.

The two have been together almost two months when the other boy brings up… physical intimacy.

They do not make it to their two-month anniversary.

Aaravos faces more questions about his intimate life as he gets older, and more beautiful. "How is such a one as you still alone?" "Do you not desire companionship?" "Books cannot provide the same company as another person…." "Have you ever done it?"

For his twenty-sixth birthday, Aaravos gets a cat. He names her Diamond.

Dia never once tells Aaravos that he should get out more, that he will be lonely without a partner. She does not attempt to pull him from his books and his stars. She asks only that he keep her dish full and her box clean, and in return she sits on his lap or his feet as he reads, purring all the while.

He reaches forty, still alone save for Dia, having connected to both Sun and Moon as well as Stars.

"You will be alone forever!" one of his human friends tells him exasperatedly. She is also forty, with a wife and three children. 

"My lifespan is more than twenty times yours," Aaravos replies. "Should I ever desire a romantic or sexual partner, I have much time to find one." He has no intention of ever doing so.

"You'll like it," his friend promises. "Try it someday, Aaravos."

Aaravos rolls his eyes good-naturedly. "Perhaps I shall," he says, with no intent of doing so.

✨💚✨

Despite his best efforts, Dia is only a cat, and a cat's life is not so long as an elf's. His constant companion and forever supporter exits his life on the same day she came into it, and for the first time, Aaravos is alone on his birthday.

He hates being alone. And so, for the first time, he tries sex. Perhaps it truly does work as his friends believe it to. Perhaps it will make him feel better.

He feels even worse afterwards. Dirty, violated. He consented fully to the experience, sought it out even, and he cannot figure out why he still feels as though he did not.

Never again. 

He retreats even further into his studies for a time, refining his mastery of the Sun and Moon, and connecting to Earth, Sky, and Ocean.

Aaravos has been alone for decades. Sometimes he misses other people. Contact with another living being. Sometimes he is content alone, and sometimes he aches with the wish, the need to hear another voice, to touch another being. Elf, human, cat, horse, it does not matter…. Aaravos is lonely.

He returns to society. It is awkward at first, speaking to others after so long. All his old friends are dead, he learns, and though he is sad there is also a spark of something else.

He can reinvent himself. Be anyone he wants to be. He does not need to be the awkward Aaravos he was, the boy whose ears and cheeks turned crimson at the mention of crushes or sex, the young man who was constantly on edge from the feeling of eyes following him, the man who threw himself into his studies as a way to escape constant questions. He can be anyone.

It happens gradually, almost without thought. A woman compliments his beauty, and before he can reconsider he says, "Oh, I know,” adding after a moment’s thought, “I thank you for noticing."

She smiles and nods silently, cheeks flushing.

A one-off interaction, or so Aaravos thinks. But later, when he is at dinner at an enchanting little café in Lux Aurea, another person comes up to him. Putting their hand on his table, they say, "Are you single?"

Aaravos pauses, looking up and quirking one eyebrow. "Why?" He smirks, lowering his eyelids. "Are you interested?" Stars, why did he just say that? What if they think he wants– that?

The human's eyes widen slightly, and Aaravos sees the dark blush spreading over their neck. Did he cause that? The thought gives him a sensation of– of power, of control. He is not the one blushing crimson, not now.

"Maybe I am," the human says in an almost sing-song voice. "Depends on if you are, I suppose."

What is the human getting at? "And what precisely is it you are asking me for?" he returns, voice light. Is this flirting? he wonders. Am I flirting with them?

"May I take you out for lunch tomorrow?" the human says.

They are interested then. Aaravos does not have much money at the moment, which he hopes to remedy soon. In the meantime, he still has to eat, and, well, they offered.

At lunch the next day, Aaravos watches carefully for signs that the human– he has already forgotten their name, so he calls them “starling,” which they seem to like– wants something from him in return for the meal. But, they seem only to want to talk, and listen. He guards his words at first, but they are surprisingly easy to talk to, and he finds his tongue loosening more and more.

He is enjoying this.

He stays in Lux Aurea for a time, continuing to date the human whose name, he finally remembers, is Tess. They help him get a job where he can use his magic: architecture. The new city never seems to have enough architects or builders. Sometimes Tess will take Aaravos out, sometimes he will take them out. 

After a time, he moves into their house. Both of them enjoy this new arrangement, Aaravos especially because they have separate rooms.

Now they are living together, there is much more casual physical contact. Aaravos does not like this, but he does not mind it.

Their relationship lasts about a year of living together before Aaravos and Tess separately decide to tell each other, on the same night, that it is not working out. They laugh at their timing, and agree to remain friends.

✨💚✨

Aaravos begins traveling Xadia then, never staying in one place longer than a couple moon cycles. He finds he enjoys this, the freedom of not being pinned down. Wherever he goes, he will use his skills to barter for food and lodging, or use his magic to gain those directly. He acquires new skills occasionally, and practises these as he goes. “A jack of all trades, a master of none,” the saying goes, “is sometimes better than a master of one.” Aaravos, however, is no human. He has time to master many trades, and he does.

He speaks however he pleases, finding another kind of freedom in flirting with no sense of obligation. He will be moving on in a matter of days, after all; he will not know anyone long enough to care whether they take his flirtations too seriously. And if anyone moves on him, he will simply… move on.

When the constant moving around and learning of new names and customs becomes too much for him, Aaravos retreats back to the Star nexus, where he stays until the loneliness becomes too great to bear. Then he is off again, as charming, flirty, and witty as ever.

He’s stopped keeping track of the years. Sometimes, someone will ask when his birthday is. He has it written down somewhere, but as he never bothers to check, he’ll usually ask the date and say, in great surprise, “Why, it is today!”

Aaravos mostly sticks to smaller cities and villages, whether human or elf. He notices that even the bigger human settlements are dirtier and poorer than the elven ones, and in the cities with both humans and elves, high-ranking humans are rare.

“This is the way it’s always been,” he hears every time he asks.

But it is not the way it must be.

Aaravos knows he can be charming and persuasive. He is beautiful, which does not hurt, but his voice and his intellect are what really matter. His voice is deep and smooth; he knows that when he speaks people hear the truth whether he speaks it or no. His mind is better. He is clever with his words, somehow knowing what his listener wants to hear. How to turn them to his cause. His magic, too, is powerful, a weapon many would kill to have.

And he finally knows why he has been given these gifts.

He journeys to the mountain called the Storm Spire, and requests an audience with Queen Azare. At first, the Dragonguard denies him, but he insists the queen will want to see him, even demonstrating his mastery of all six Primal sources. A guard leaves to ask the queen, and Aaravos waits, cracking jokes and seeing how hard he needs to flirt to make the stoic guards blush (very hard, actually), until the elf returns with the news that Aaravos is to be allowed in under guard.

Apparently this means something different than it seems to, for two elves grab his arms before he can react, and place wide metal bracelets on his wrists. They do not restrict his movement, but they are uncomfortable.

“What are these for?” He raises his arms, smirking. “Not exactly my style. I prefer sterling silver, in case you wish to get me a better gift. Iron isn’t really the best metal to give someone you want to ask out.”

“None of us are asking you out,” one guard snaps, causing a younger guard to blush and mumble something under her breath. “Those are magic restricting cuffs. No one does magic in the queen’s presence without her explicit permission.”

“Hm.” Aaravos draws a quick rune, which fails to even appear in front of him. “It seems they are.” He gives a short laugh to cover his rising panic. Stars, he needs to work on his physical fighting skills more. “Shall we proceed?”

Aaravos learns several things that day. Namely, that the Dragon Queen cares little for the plight of more than half her subjects, and even less for the charms of a certain Startouch elf. Not even his offer of service sways her.

“‘Humans are humans,’” he grumbles to himself as he leaves. “‘Their lives are too short to be changed by any effort on my part, so why should I try?’ Damned stuck-up uncaring spiteful dragoness!”

After that, Aaravos keeps mostly to human villages, staying longer and doing more to help. He cannot do anything about the systems that keep humans below elves, however, not like this.

He retreats to his nexus again, to study not magic, but politics, wars, government.

When he emerges, he finds there is a new dragon queen, this one an Earth dragon. He meets with her, but she claims there must be a reason humans are not equal to elves. If they were truly equal to elves, she argues, they would not be considered lesser. Yet they are, so they must be.

Aaravos points out the flaws in her logic, very nicely, and attempts to leave, only to be flung in jail. He works on charming his way out, but they continually rotate his guard, and that makes it very difficult. Until there is a regular guard. He flirts with her as hard as he can, but she never reacts.

“How can you simply ignore me?” he cries one day in frustration. “Am I so long imprisoned that I have lost my ability to flirt? Or is your heart simply so hardened from being a guard to that cruel queen you do not care?”

She looks at him for the first time since she entered. “I am aroace,” she says simply. “Your charms cannot work on me, Archmage.”

This is a new word to Aaravos. “Ah-row-ace?” he asks questioningly. “I’ve not heard this word before.”

A trace of a smile crosses the guard’s lips. “It’s a relatively new word, coined in the past, oh, fifty or so years. You’ve been here nearly a century, so I’m not surprised. It means aromantic asexual.”

Those words… Aaravos remembers reading them somewhere, but he cannot remember what they meant. He asks the guard, and she is all too happy to explain.

Aaravos enjoys her explanation past only the sound of another voice and the definitions. He feels… seen. The words resonate within him strangely, and he is silent for the rest of this guard’s shift.

He sleeps through the next few shifts, waking when the aroace guard returns.

“I have been thinking about what you said,” he tells her.

“Oh?” She raises one eyebrow at him.

He smiles. “I think I am aroace as well.” The word feels strange in his mouth, but oddly right. Like his name, like the title Archmage, it seems to fit him, settling around him comfortingly. He is not broken. He never was. He is aroace.

How strange, that he should realize he is whole in a place meant to break him.

✨💚✨

[edjectedly]

My Experience Being Ace

I have wanted to make this post for a while, but since my fuck ton of emotions are making me sick to my stomach I decided I would do this tonight. If this helps anyone who has been through similar struggles it will have been worth sharing. I want to say right now that this isn’t the best story, there are a lot of triggering things, and I will put them in the tags, so if you want to know what I have been through after figuring out my identity feel free to click the “Read More” after looking at the triggers in the tags

READ THE TAGS

I figured out I was asexual when I was thirteen. When I was 11 I started wondering if something was wrong with me. When my friends hit puberty they started telling me all this stuff about sex and how they couldn’t wait to have it and I was like..... “Haha me too! Definitely, but um how would I know that’s what I am feeling?” It was bad. I really thought something was wrong and I didn’t want to tell my parents and I didn’t want to deal with not being normal. Then, I found the word ‘asexual’ and I was like... this is me. I didn’t feel so alone. It was amazing, until I wanted to tell people about it.

I was thirteen at this point, and I thought I knew everything about myself. I was a biromantic asexual and I had a community I belonged too. I was figuring out my gender and it was great. So I wanted to talk to my mom about because of course I did. I told her I was bi, and she was like alright sure if that makes you happy. Then I told her I was asexual and she got so mad. She insisted I didn’t need any labels, that I didn’t know anything yet. Everything was just a phase and I needed to stop saying that. All because I was asexual. She did not care that I thought I was bi, she cared because she thought I didn’t want sex. At 13, that was my mom’s biggest concern with me.

My parents call me a prude, despite knowing it bugs me. Despite me telling my mom is was disgusting for her to keep insisting that’s all it was. That’s also when I found all the hate against asexuals online. It was so hard to read it, but a huge part of me felt like I had to, and then one of my friends decided to tell me that the only valid part of my orientation were the ones they thought were “oppressed enough.” My friend dropped me, and a lot of others in our friend group, because I wouldn’t agree that asexuals were basically straight.

I have had romantic relationships end because my partners, after figuring out I wouldn’t change the fact I don’t desire sex, give up on everything else surrounding our relationship. I think three of the most impactful times this has happened need to be shared, but they were definitely not healthy situations for me to be in and when reading any more you will find the most triggering parts of my story.

The first was when I was about 13 and just figuring myself out. I was dating this guy named Gabe and it was great! He was a football player! He liked my body more than my personality and that’s what he told all his friends! We were about to go to highschool, and he was telling me about how we were going to have sex by the end of the school year. I told him no, we weren’t and he wanted to know why I said that when I should care about him like that. I reiterated that I was asexual and so he went to my friends who agreed with him. I was just being selfish, how could I expect to be in a relationship with someone when I wouldn’t have sex with them?

The second time was at the summer of my sophomore and beginning of my junior year with this girl named Tiffany who I dated on and off for a bit. She was a year above me and just so small and cute and I really cared about her. I spent hours learning how to play our song on the clarinet for her. Then she cheated on me, and asked me how could I be mad when she needed to have sex with someone. I was making her feel undesirable. My sexuality was hurting her. I ended things with her for good at the beginning of my Junior year.

The third time actually happened in between me and Tiffany seeing each other. I got really serious with this boy who I don’t want to name, but will call D for now. We dated right up till April of my sophomore year so it was in total 9 months. He had been my shoulder to cry on when me and Tiffany broke up and he was the best. He told me he wanted to have sex with me around the four month mark and I told him no. But then I thought back to all the other relationships I had lost for being a prude so for his birthday I was like we can try it. After that it didn’t matter that I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to loose him though, so until he got violent I tried to deal with it.

I was taught that sex was expected. That I needed to suck it up and deal with it or no one would love me. Who would want to be with someone so broken? Which is also a big part of what factored into my depression and self harming tendencies. These thoughts of how awful and selfish and just bad I was for not having a desire everyone equates to humanity hurt me and never won’t be something I don’t think about.

Now I am so much happier, but I am still unlearning all the damaging things I have been taught about being me. This is why I don’t want to hear exclusionist tell me that asexuals aren’t oppressed enough. This isn’t the Olympics, we are NOT competing to see who can be hurt the worst, but we do need to recongnize that the things asexuals (and aromantics) face are because of their identities. Yes there can be some overlap in the root of these issues, but that does not mean that my problems weren’t also because of my lack of sexual desire.

I am allowed to not have a desire for sex, I am allowed to enjoy sex if I choose to have it, I am allowed to choose not to have it, but a huge part of me wishes I could be an allosexual, because it would be a lot easier. I would love to understand sexual attraction, I would love to experience it, and I would love not to doubt my validity because some people think my community is stealing from others. 

I don’t want to see anyone, and I mean ANYONE, saying anyone who is asexual/aromantic is basically straight. To not be cishet you literally just have to be not heterosexual/romantic or not be cis and last time I checked asexuality and heterosexuality are not synonyms and the same can be said for the romantic attraction.

Also, I use the split attraction model. It helps me feel comfortable in my identity and helps me. If you don’t use it that is 10000% valid, but remember to not invalidate those who use it.

[dwarrowdams]

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

It’s Festivus, obviously, which means that it’s time for my annual airing of grievances.

This year’s topic is kind of two sub-topics under the broader category of romance novels: specifically, misogyny directed towards romance heroines (and the women who write them) and anti-aro sentiments within romance novels.

Misogyny around romance novels isn’t exactly a new thing (because ofc women can’t like a thing without it being dragged through the fucking mud and treated like crap), but it’s morphed into an ugly animal that sometimes disguises it as a Good Liberal™.

You know, the kind who “doesn’t see color” and has a gay friend and thinks that they deserve praise for not misgendering trans people.

These Good Liberals™ see romance as something that’s fueling misogynistic stereotypes.  Problem is, they’re making these assumptions based on outdated romance novels that don’t reflect current trends.  There are some romance novels that are misogynistic af, but the genre is no more inherently misogynistic than every genre.  This is a whole-ass genre that largely centers the lives and desires of women in a way that many other types of fiction don’t.  If you want to say that all of it is bad, you might as well just come right out and say that you don’t give a fuck about stories that often flip patriarchal narratives on their heads.

Also, I never see people coming for fantasy—which is a cesspool of misogyny—the way they come for romance, and the misogyny in that genre is so awful that I'm scared to read any fantasy novel written by a man unless I am 250% positive that no women are raped/sexually assaulted/sexually harassed on page.  (Sometimes even novels by women have gender-based violence.)  If you actually give a fuck about making sure that women are treated like complex and three-dimensional human beings, look at all genres, not just one that is primarily written by women and often centers woman MCs.

(also like...queer people exist in romance, so talking about the genre like it’s all allocishets is a surefire sign that someone doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about)

The romance community itself is good at dealing with misogyny (you have to be when someone writes a fucking “is romance killing feminism?!” thinkpiece every other week), but they’re shit at dealing with anti-aro sentiments.

I fucking love romance.  I’m writing romance novels.  I read romance novels all the damn time.

I’m also on the aromantic spectrum and don’t like it when others imply that me (or others) identifying as such means that something is wrong with us.

Anti-aro sentiments sneak their way into so many romance novels.  Someone is hailed as “unfeeling” just bc they’ve never had a romantic partner.  Someone’s love “fixes” someone else’s cold heart.  Someone wondered what’s wrong with them bc they never loved anyone romantically before.

It’s hard to notice at first, but once you see it, it’s hard to unsee.  There are so many other ways that authors could express that someone didn’t feel romantic love other than resorting to the tired “unfeeling” or “heartless” tropes.  Romantic love is not some end-all, be-all thing.  It’s great, but so is platonic love or familial love or the love you have for your pets or the love you have for your favorite hobby.

Not every romance novel does this, but when they do, it gives me an icky feeling inside.  It reminds me that people in my own community think that people like me are missing something, that we need “the right person,” that we’re like a clock with a missing part.

Aro-spec people are perfect and we are not missing a single goddamn thing—except the respect and acceptance that we deserve (and tbh that’s other people’s fault, not ours, so we personally are not missing anything).

I just really fucking hope that the genre begins to weed out these insidious anti-aro sentiments because as a romance writer, I don’t want to be a part of a community that thinks I’m missing something bc I rarely feel romantic attraction.

[skyhelmwriter]

A Weird, Wild Journey

Below the cut is a long, possibly rambling discussion of my personal understanding of myself. It focuses primarily on how having one (1) prominent DifferenceTM made discovering and accepting the others more difficult.

I’ve always been weird. Hell, I’ve always been WeirdTM. And for a long time I thought the reason I didn’t feel the same as other penis-havers was a matter of the one big, glaring difference I had from everyone else I knew: I was autistic.

I was diagnosed at the age of seven with Asperger’s Syndrome, but these days I’d be described as “on the spectrum” and “high-functioning with obsessive tendencies.” And this made me different. In my life, I’ve met maybe three other people with the same diagnosis. It’s something that’s so uniquely my own that I thought it had to account for all the differences between me and other people who seemed otherwise identical to me.

I’m lucky to have a form of autism that allows me to understand my own symptoms and manage them consciously. I barely have to force myself to modulate my tone, make eye contact, or think about how other people feel, because I’ve independently arrived at the conclusion that those are good things to do (not useful, good. That’s an important distinction). I often tell people that I “brute forced” my way into empathy. I had to learn it, when other people simply do it.

Around the same time I was diagnosed, I made friends with someone. She was my first real friend, and she was a bit of tomboy. She could defend me better from the bullies (there weren’t many, but they were brutal) than I could defend myself. She called herself a tomboy, and I responded that I must be a tomgirl, because I was interested in many things it seemed only girls were interested in. She didn’t seem convinced, so I brought the conversation home to my parents.

My mother was also unconvinced. She seemed to think that I was just feeling different because I was...well not strong. That didn’t make me effeminate; it just made me different, and different was okay. I’d always been “sensitive,” but that was very literal. My sensory nerves literally took less input to activate.

So I dropped it. Because my parents knew better. Again, I was seven. They said that I shouldn’t talk like that because other boys might not take well to me if I didn’t act like a boy. So I acted like a boy, and I liked boy things, and I did boy things.

And as I grew up, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was different, but I already had this really convenient explanation for what it was that made me different. And everything that was different about me could be traced to it. My shitty handwriting came from a nervous disorder associated with ASD. My deep and unusual interest in various things came from the obsessive behaviors associated with ASD. My physical weakness came from my introversion (and my asthma), which was a symptom of ASD. My nerves, my strange bodily structure, my repetitive behavior, it was all because of my ASD, and so I lumped other strange feelings in with that, too.

I attended high school in what could politely be called a suburb. In reality, it was White Central. I say this to give you an idea of exactly how...Republican....you should expect general sentiments to be. It was widely thought by anyone in the student body that someone who supported, say, gay marriage (I went to high school in the late 00′s and early 10′s) must be gay themselves, because (and here I’m directly quoting students) “why would you care if you weren’t gay?”

Never mind that I was a minority as well. I wasn’t neurotypical. I could feel for people being discriminated against because I’d spent years convincing teacher after teacher that my shitty goddamned handwriting wasn’t something I could fucking help, and watching my grades suffer because they “couldn’t read” my writing (never mind that it was usually perfectly legible and they were just being assholes because it wasn’t pristine). Never mind that you ought to treat people decently regardless of how they differ from you.

And of course, I wasn’t gay. I was definitely attracted to girls. And I was socialized only to think about how I could be attracted to girls, because being attracted to guys was a good way to get the shit kicked out of you and I certainly didn’t want that. I was already a nerd. I was already weak. I was already shy. I was already in speech and debate. I didn’t need that, too.

And yet, there were signs. Almost all my friends were girls. And sure, I spent a lot of time with two or three specific guys, but that was because we’d hit it off in Latin Freshman year and boy was Latin an interesting class. I hung around with the theater kids (though I never actually took part, mostly because half of theater was musical I couldn’t sing for shit), and I did speech and debate (wherein my attraction to men in suits could be written off--even by other explicitly gay boys--as something brought on by charisma and fashion, not an innate desire to be with another guy.

Even still, by the time I graduated I was firmly in the Q section of the acronym. In part, this was because I found myself on tumblr for the first time in 2011-2012, and I learned about a whole world of identities and people I hadn’t realized existed, and I’d taken my first philosophy class and learned how to actually think about other people, and I’d taken a law class, so I understood the foundations of the social order. All this together had helped me understand that there was nothing wrong with the way I felt. I just had to figure out what it was that I felt.

And that was difficult to do. I’ve always been good at reflecting on my actions--too good actually; I have a tendency to brood over minor mistakes--but my own thoughts, my own feelings, those were more difficult for me to articulate. And besides, my feelings would be affected by my autism, right?

So I let it simmer. I bottled it all up and said “this isn’t something I need to focus on right now. I’m not even looking for a partner.” I went through a lot of stages in this regard in college, fluctuating in my articulation about my identity as unsure, straight, and bi seemingly at random, and never even thinking about my gender. Hell, I was so focused on my schoolwork that I forgot to properly take care of myself most of the time--my autism in action once more. How could I care about my gender when I didn’t even care about my appearance?

And then i graduated college, and I had a lot of time to think. And I didn’t spend much of it here, but before I got my first job, I was thoroughly out as Bi. I knew what I was, and I was proud to say it. I’d forced myself to look at all those instances that seemed like flukes or coincidences, and I realized they weren’t. They were indicative of a pattern, a pattern of attraction to men, and a pattern of attraction to women. I’d had to fight through not only my heteronormative socialization, but also my neurodivergent socialization, the part of me that said “hey! you’re already different enough! do you really need this?” And it wasn’t matter of need. The real question I had to ask was “is this really my experience?” and the answer was yes.

But I still didn’t feel right. A couple of my friends came out as trans, and I couldn’t have been happier for them. Living their lives as they saw themselves, they were happier, livelier, more productive people. And I remembered all those times I’d thought I didn’t quite feel like a guy, like a dude, like a boy. I remembered how my default posture included a popped hip, how I kept writing female characters.

I remembered how the first ever avatar I chose in a Pokemon game was the girl. How I always made female characters in games where I could make that choice. How I kept playing women in DnD.

But I knew I wasn’t trans. I didn’t experience dysphoria. I didn’t want to be a woman, at least not all the time. But sometimes, I definitely felt more effeminate. And others I wished my voice were deeper. Sometimes I didn’t mind when people called me “sir,” or said “he,” other times it didn’t feel right at all.

And once again I thought “aren’t you different enough?” and “couldn’t this all just be because you’re autistic?” I wondered whether I was reading too much into myself, if I might just be projecting other people’s thoughts onto my own. I’ve been wondering that for years.

But one thing is certain. My experiences are real. I have felt these ways. I can’t deny that. I won’t deny it. And now I have a word, a word the encapsulates the ways I’ve felt. Well, it’s three words. I’m an aromantic, genderfluid bisexual. And I’ll say all three of them loud and proud. Not just because it’s pride, but because I deserve to be comfortable with who I am. After all, it took me 24 years to figure it out. I’ve got to make up for lost time somehow.

[whelvenwings]

Heeyyy I'm getting kinda confused recently about my sexuality and all?? I think I might be asexual but I'm not totally sure of what it really means to be ace tbh. I don't feel any kind of sexual attraction or stuff like that towards my gf but it's actually kinda overall weird with feeling affectionate or whatever. I think I might be asexual?? Maybe aromantic? Idk could you help me out here lmao. Also I'm not sure if my gf really supports that stuff loads idk I just get the feeling. Help pls??

HEYYYYY there friend!! very pleased to make your acquaintance. my name is Emily and I will be attempting to answer your questions today. in the event of an emergency, the exits are located here, here, and here. I don’t know why I segued into this air hostess thing but I think I’m making it work. gotta raise a decent wage to support my three kids and pet banana somehow, you know??

*IMPORTANT REMINDER to take my words and advice with a pinch of salt since I am far removed from the situation and don’t know your personal constraints, feelings, and situation deeply*

hmmm, okay. what it means to be ace. well, being asexual just means not feeling sexual attraction. you mentioned not feeling attracted to your girlfriend that way, and I’m guessing that if you’re considering being asexual, you don’t feel attracted to any other people that way either? so, it sounds to me like you’re kinda ticking the relevant box. a lot of ace people don’t immediately identify with the asexual label because they’re like “huh that’s cool but I totally feel attraction” and it’s only after hearing what attraction of that kind actually feeeeeeeels like that they’re like. OH. that’s… something I have never felt in my life?? interesting. also, I think a lot of ace people don’t feel ace or aro enough, because they’re like, am I really ace/aro though??? did I feel attracted to that one girl that one time?? did I like that one guy or did I just want to like that one guy that one time? what it comes down to is this: if you tell me you’re ace or you’re aro, that’s good enough for me. your feelings on this are what matter. if you feel you’re ace/aro, then you’re ace/aro enough. and if you want to try out calling yourself that for a bit and then figure out that you’re not that, that’s totally OK too. no one expects you to understand yourself immediately with instant clarity.

I can’t tell you whether you’re ace or aro, friend. all I can tell you is that the process of figuring it out and accepting it might be a long one or a short one, and however it goes for you, it’s perfectly OK. there’s no rush to understand yourself - it could be now or in twenty years or never. just know that whatever you’re feeling, you’ve got so many people on your side, standing with you in support.

as for how asexuality works when you have a partner who isn’t asexual, and wants to have sex - I’ve talked a bit about this before, but the absolute most important thing is to listen to your body and what it wants, and go with that. it sounds obvious, maybe, but sometimes it’s really not obvious at all - sometimes you want to say yes to something so much that you kind of pressure yourself into it, and that generally doesn’t make for a good time. learning how to listen to your body and accept what it wants is absolutely key, I reckon, if you’re going to have sex as an asexual person.

the other key thing is having a partner who is totally prepared to also accept what you want and do not want, and that brings us on to your girlfriend. you mentioned that you get the vibe like she might not be cool with asexuality/aromanticism, and that strikes me as something that you kinda need to think about addressing? I mean, hmmm. let’s break this down a little bit.

- if she’s not cool with it because she’s got a bad case of acephobia, you don’t want to have to live your life undercover, keeping it a secret that you’re ace. that sounds like a recipe for misery and you deserve so much better than that.

- if she’s not cool with it because she wants to have sex/romance be a part of your relationship, then either you guys need to communicate and set boundaries for what you’re comfortable with and work it out together - or, if you can’t find a middle ground, maybe it’s time to think about whether you can really make each other happy in a monogamous relationship. that’s tough - really tough, I’ve had to leave behind people who meant a lot to me because they couldn’t accept my asexuality, and it was honestly a Big Suck. but I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, because leaving someone behind and getting over them, as Suck as it is, feels so much more right than keeping secrets and always feeling like the person they think they know doesn’t really exist, and nothing ever getting better because you just keep on hiding.

figuring out where you lie on the ace/aro spectrum, if you do, can be a real undertaking. if you’re in a relationship, then your partner being there for you through the process and supporting you can make a big positive influence - and if you’re going to be in a relationship, that’s the kind of person you’d want it to be with, right? someone who’d be right by your side as you figure out who you are and what you want. I don’t know your situation, friend, but I don’t think you should have to hide who you are from someone so close to you. sometimes (like with family) it’s unavoidable for the sake of safety, but in a relationship you choose to be in… it just seems so much less than you deserve to put yourself through that. so… if I were you, I’d talk to her about it, even before you’re sure that you’re ace or aro. if you can’t be open about what’s on your mind, you gotta wonder if the relationship is really making you happy, right?

*REINFORCEMENT OF THE IMPORTANT MESSAGE that I do not know the significant details of your situation and so my advice is just my personal perspective on a life that is entirely yours to choose what to do with*

I wish you all the very best, friend. I hope I helped?! you can always come back and ask any questions you’d like - even if I don’t end up making any sense, you can guarantee that I’ll at least be supportive and generally overjoyed by your existence as a human.

[the-last-airbadger]

Ok so it’s been a while since I made one of these posts but right now I really want to rant about something without saying it to a specific person I guess? Idk how to explain it but oh well just enjoy my ramble I guess

The thing is, I used to really like romantic relationships. I was always so obsessed with ships and stuff and I’d dream about having a girlfriend or boyfriend or just any romantic relationship and it was my dream to find a partner, get married and live together forever. But lately... all of that is gone? Like this summer I had a very brief experience with a romantic-ish relationship and all of a sudden all this excitement and giddy-ness was like completely gone? Like right now when I think about stuff like cuddling with someone in a romantic way or just, idk, saying “I love you” to someone romantically just makes me really uncomfortable? Like I find it just... like kind of a weird concept. I have a hard time telling romantic and platonic feelings apart and it makes life just really complicated. In stead of enjoying a ship all I can do is wonder how the hell those characters can know they love someone romantically like that. It just really confuses me because I’m genuinely starting to wonder if maybe I am aromantic because I’m so confused about romantic attraction right now but even the fact I’m considering I’m aro makes me feel weird because only three months ago the idea of me being aromantic would’ve been rediculous so I just don’t feel like I will ever feel 100% valid identifying as aro, just as I still sometimes feel like I’m not a “true ace” even thought I’m like 99% sure I am asexual (especially when talking to people about very sexually tinted shinee performances because where I am baffled by the courage of the guys to perform something like that for their fans all they seem to care about is “they’re so hot”and I’m just there like ???) 

But yeah, Idk, I’ve been really confused about my sexuality rn especially because I would like to kiss people and I would like to have someone to go on dates with and hang out with but I don’t want it to be romantic I guess? Like idk the whole idea of a romantic relationship feels more like a cage than the flowery fantasy it used to be. I just want to live in a house with a group of friends that I can just chill with and do cool stuff with and kiss and hug and cuddle and idk. I’ve never been this unsure about my orientation and it kinda scares me because it feels like the entire plan I had for my future is being shattered? I don’t know what I want and what I feel and oh my god I really hate seing romance stories like everywhere right now (especially straight ones, gay romance stories are actually really cool because we are still super underrepresented lmao)

But yeah, if you made it this far, thank you for listening to my ramble. I really needed to get this out of my system without telling anyone specific because i’d just feel needy and overemotional if I sent this to my sleeping friends rn because I have been bombarding them with ranty emotional things lately (sorry frens). I mean they probably wouldn’t mind but I am just not in a really great place atm but I mean it’s not as bad as last year at school so I’ll manage

[theclaravoyant]

also if you're up for it, S1 Skye finds Simmons in Fitz's bed post FZZT and in trying to explain that they are not dating or sleeping together, they end up talking about QPs and aromantic (and/or ace) identities (bonus points if Skye ends up joining them for all the platonic bed sharing feels)

AN ~ Always a pleasure to write for you! Thanks for the prompt

Also tagging @unlessimwrongwhichyouknowimnot bc they’re always down for QP FitzSimmons. Happy Pride!

(and for those of who who didn’t catch them last year, there’s more QP FS in Birds of a Feather and aro!Jemma (who unfortunately didn’t make it explicitly into this one) in Love is Not an Eight Letter Word.)

Read on AO3 (~1600wd).Fluff! Rated G/K+ for some light/brief mentions of sex.

-

Peas in a Pod

It was the morning after the scariest day of her life, and Skye woke with her heart pounding heavily in her chest. She couldn’t remember if she’d been dreaming, or if so, what it had been about, but in her state of panic she remembered the way her heart had dropped, her mouth had gone dry, her every thought had turned to death death death when Jemma had jumped. She would have survived and landed and gone on, and her friend would be dead. Gone. Forever. She’d never been that close to it before.

All of a sudden, she felt an urge to see Jemma’s face. Or Fitz’s, which if nothing else, would remind her that they’d come out of it after all. So, still in her pyjamas, Skye bolted across the hall and knocked on Jemma’s door. No answer? She tried Fitz’s instead, her whole body starting to shake, just in case, but then –

“Yeah, come in.”

Not screamingly enthusiastic, but definitely not the voice of a man who had lost his best friend the day before. Relieved, Skye pulled the door open, and yelped.

“AH! NO!” She spun on the spot and covered her eyes, unsure where to look or not look. Unsure what she had just seen or not seen.

Jemma laughed and sat up, Fitz’s blankets pooling around her, now revealing most of the Sci-Tech Academy logo on the shirt she was wearing.

“It’s okay, Skye,” she assured her. “We’re both decent.”

Skye settled, and dropped her hand from her eyes. Fitz had crossed the room as if to open the door for her, and was frowning a little, confused by her reaction.

“It’s cool,” Skye said, shrugging to recover her casual exterior, though she was still a little flushed and breathless. “Extreme situations give rise to new relationships. All the time.”

“New relationships?” FitzSimmons shared a glance, and then snapped back to Skye, in unison.

“This is a new thing, right?” Skye checked, waving a finger between them. She may not be a long-time trained spy, but she wasn’t that thick. Besides, it had only been yesterday (such a long day) that Fitz had been snorting and guffawing and denying his chemistry with Jemma and even – if Skye was not mistaken – flirting with her instead. With no real reason to keep a secret from her – well, not one like that – the only other conclusion Skye could draw was that the two of them had finally been driven into each other’s arms by the previous day’s near-death experience. It happened.

It happened, but it was not what had happened here.

“Oh,” Simmons said, as if explaining aside to Fitz. “She thinks we slept together last night.”

“What?” Fitz baulked. “No! Of course not! I mean we slept but we didn’t… sleep…”

“Fitz and I aren’t together,” Simmons explained, cutting him off. “Well, not by your standards, anyway.”

“’My standards,’” Skye repeated, confused. “As opposed to what? Your standards? What, are you guys aliens or something?”

“What?” Fitz was momentarily alarmed.

“What?” Skye locked her eyes on his, wondering if she’d actually managed to catch him out. She’d always felt there was something weird about this place, and about FitzSimmons. And with everything that had happened recently, aliens wouldn’t be that much of a stretch, to be honest.

But Fitz seemed just as keen to catch her out as she was him, and so they stared each other down for a few seconds until Jemma waved them off again.

“No, I just meant… most people don’t understand the nature of our relationship.”

Skye snorted.

“Alright, Ms Grey,” she teased. “Now I know that can’t be as kinky as it sounded just now, so I’m curious. If you two aren’t aliens – which I’m not entirely sold on, by the way – what am I? What do you mean ‘my standards’?”

“I didn’t mean to offend, Skye,” Simmons apologised. “It’s just a little obscure. Fitz and I, we’re in what’s called a ‘queer-platonic’ relationship. It’s like, well it is friendship I suppose, but it’s… deeper than that. It’s like, friendship with the commitment of a romantic relationship. But without the actual romance.”

Skye frowned.

“Isn’t that just like, really good friendship?”

“Well, in a way, yes,” Simmons explained, and then took a deep breath that warned Skye she was in for an info-dump.

“But also, no. See, the term ‘platonic’ has its origins in Ancient Greek and could actually be used refer to any non-sexual non-familial love. It simply means ‘confined to thought and concept, and not resulting in action’, which in this case would be sex. So technically, non-sexual romantic acts are also platonic. Well, they were. I mean, the evolution of language does have to be taken into consideration, obviously, which is where the ‘queer’ part of it comes in. It doesn’t refer to Fitz’s or my orientations but rather, to the relationship itself - ‘queering’ the definition of platonic as we know it today, to make it more resembling of the older, wider version. At least, that’s how I see it.”

Skye blinked, speechless for a moment.

“Cool,” she said slowly, once she had run it over in her head and absorbed it. Fitz shook his head, and simplified.

“Skye. When you first met us, did you assume we were friends or a couple?”

“… a couple?” Skye confessed.

“When you found out we were ‘just friends,’ did that make sense to you?”

“Of course!”

Fitz and Jemma glared a little. Skye rolled her eyes, blushing with chagrin.

“Alright, I still wanted you two to get together and I still thought maybe you had or should have had something going on. But that happens to loads of friends, right?”

“Sure, probably,” Fitz agreed.

“Especially those of different sexes,” Simmons put in.

“But for us, we like to have the label,” Fitz explained. “It’s a different type of companionship, that’s all. It’s a very deep, very special connection that we share, that’s different to how we relate to other people. Some people might experience something similar and call it love; other people might call it friendship. We call it queerplatonic. It’s our special balance, that’s all.”

Skye frowned, still absorbing. It made as much sense as it didn’t make, and strangely enough, it seemed like a perfect concept to describe a relationship such as theirs. Two people who insisted they were not in love even though, by all accounts, they appeared to be. Perhaps they were not in denial after all, but simply, in a balance?

“Tell me more?” Skye requested.

“Of course!”

“We’d be glad to.”

Excited to share this oft-undiscovered part of their life with such an open mind as Skye’s, FitzSimmons beckoned her further into the room, so that all three of them sat on the bed – it was too small a space otherwise, anyway.

“Are you guys exclusive?” Skye wondered. “And, do you – you know – have sex? Or could you? Is queerplatonic a Thing? Do other ones work like yours?”

“It’s the same as with all relationships,” Fitz explained. “No two look exactly the same and like I said before, one person’s queerplatonic might be another’s romance or friendship or friends-with-benefits-ship. There are lots of different arrangements. Like, homosexual QPs exist too, and some with more than two partners. It all depends on the people.”

“As does the sex,” Simmons put in. “Some QPs have it, others stay away from it, for various reasons. Fitz and I, for example, we probably wouldn’t have sex because Fitz is ace.”

She gestured to him to explain, but before he could open his mouth, Skye exclaimed an interruption.

“Oh! I know that one!” she cried. “Not a fan of sex, right?”

She high-fived him, quite pleased with herself, and continued.

“I get it. I mean, I don’t get it because sex is The Bomb, but I respect it. What about you, Simmons? Are you two exclusive?”

Simmons shrugged.

“At the moment, we are,” she said lightly, “but that’s just by default. We haven’t really talked about it either way.”

“Well, you should,” Skye suggested, “because your boy’s been flirting with me and I’m not entirely sure he knows that’s what he’s been doing but maybe it’s time to get your chips in order.”

Fitz blushed, chagrined. Simmons blinked at him, a little surprised.

“By the way, sorry man,” Skye continued, “you’re a good guy but you’re just not my type. In case we’re getting our wires crossed here.”

Fitz raised his hands in surrender.

“I understand. No crossed wires.”

“It was worth a shot. I appreciate the appreciation.”

“My pleasure.”

“You’re a good guy and you’ll find a real romantic partner someday, if you want one,” Skye continued, putting a sympathetic hand on Fitz’s knee, and Fitz laughed.

“Is this a breakup speech? You shouldn’t have.”

“Hey, you’re my friend, and I’ll wingman you if you want me to. The offer still stands – I mean, if it’s okay with Jemma, I guess?” Skye glanced between them, still not sure exactly where the line lay on this sort of thing. Simmons waved her back to Fitz, who shrugged, and then put an arm around Simmons’ shoulders.

“No thanks.” He grinned. “I think I’ve got everyone I need right here.”

[50cyg]

It could be my asexual/aromantic streak talking, but am I the only one who doesn't see a Taiorato "romantic love" triangle? Am I the only one who just sees three very close friends where one of them simply happens to be a girl? Or, alternatively, two boyfriends in a lover's tiff and their best wingwomen who recently had just about enough of their shit?

Short answer is No you are not crazy, many people feel the same way as you who are not asexual or aromantic

Ridiculously long answer under the cut haha :P

Initial Reaction to thisAnon:

“two boyfriends in alover’s tiff and their best wingwomen who recently had just about enough oftheir shit?” laughed my ass off for like 10 minutes straight. I’m stilllaughing about this now, I love this so much!!

Second reaction:

I don’t believe I haveposted much regarding Taiorato so I’m very curious as to why I’ve received thisAnon Ask, I’m curious as to what made you decide to message me? Not that I’mcomplaining because I LOVE asks (they are the second-best part of having a Tumblrpage IMO, right behind getting to make friends with other bloggers) and I justspent like an hour responding to this and I wouldn’t put so much effort in if Ididn’t love it 😊

Reaction after severalhours of having this go through my head while driving around running errands:

It’s definitely not yourAsexual/Aromantic streak talking because I am not asexual or aromantic and Itotally get what you are saying and so do many other fans.

Since I am a Taiyama shipperI lean heavily towards the two boyfriends and their wingwoman concept but I’mgoing to try to be unbiased here. Also note that when I use Ship names likeSorato and Taiora I am both referring to the ship in a platonic sense as wellas a Romantic sense. So, like if I say “Taiora scene” I do not necessarily mean“a scene where taichi and sora interact that is meant to be taken romantically”,I likely am just meaning “A scene meant to highlight the relationship betweenthese two characters” or “hint at the potential future relationship of thesetwo characters” (in the case of Sorato)

I’ve definitely seen a fair number of moments throughout theTri series that can be interpreted as Sorato and Taiora romantic moments. Formost of the Sorato moments you can read my really long post about the Triships. As for the Taiora moments I have not compiled a list of moments but Imight if anyone asks. But honestly, they are all easy to refute, as are most ofthe shippable moments in Tri since they seem to be catering to most ships atleast a little and heavily catering to the three big ones (Taiyama, Takari,Koumi), which makes everything a little confusing and not very concrete. Also,these scenes could easily be interpreted as platonic scenes (with the onlyexception being the koumi scenes), and since really the show is meant to beabout friendship and not romance it makes sense that the scenes play out thisway.

To summarize the next 4 paragraphs (because they are reallylong and I ramble a lot so if you don’t want to read them you do not need to,just skip to the paragraph that starts with “as for taiorato”), Taiora playsout platonically probably because it is meant to be platonic both in Adventureand Tri. Sorato can be seen as platonic because it’s meant to be very subtle soif you aren’t looking for it you will probably miss it. Taiyama is the mosteasily interpreted as romantic because Toei wants it that way since A: it’s areally popular ship and B: their relationship has always been the primary relationshipwithin the series.

(skip ahead if you don’t want to hear me go on and on) Italk about this in my Digimon Tri Ship post I just mentioned but it’s prettyeasy to not see a love triangle when it is not being explicitly obvious. I meanthis “love triangle” is no Team Edward vs Team Jake (omg I just made a twilightreference and I am deeply ashamed but I’m sorry it works as a comparison), Yamatoand Taichi are not fighting over Sora, they have never fought over Sora, thatis not their relationship. Primarily this is because Taiora was never meant tobe in the running according to the original creator even though many otherpeople involved in the production did ship them. People can say all they wantthat it was only the English Dub staff but the Digimon Movies disprove that, especiallyDiablomon Strikes Back when Sora reaches for Taichi instead of Yamato, there isliterally no plot reason for that, it was put in there because someone in theproduction staff wanted it there and that must be because they ship it. Sobasically, Taichi was always meant to be the supportive friend encouraging histwo besties to be happy with each other.

Now the other interesting thing that I haven’t seen manySorato fans bring up is the fact that if Tri is meant to be a call back toAdventure, which is very obvious by all the scenes that are direct nodes to theoriginal series, then it makes sense that the moments between Sora and Yamatowould be very subtle while the moments between Taichi and Sora are a littlemore obvious. In Adventure Taichi and Sora had a lot of scenes together becauseTaichi was the character most focused on and Sora was his best friend as wellas the person who had known him the longest and since the show focused a lot onfriendship it makes sense to put Taichi and Sora’s relationship at theforefront. As for the Yamato and Sora scenes I think the main writer meant fortheir scenes to be subtle hence why he only told a select amount of people (Iwill never understand this executive decision and honestly blame him for allthe discourse within the fandom regarding Taiora vs Sorato. I know a lot ofpeople blame the English Dub but I have also heard people claim that there weremany people on staff in Japan who shipped Taiora and since the concept of the hot-headedleader and primary girl is pretty cliché it does not surprise me that manypeople would be behind it and even assume it is meant to be end game. If you donot make it clear you intend for something to be canon and have a ton of otherpeople writing whole episodes and character arks who may have their ownconcepts you very much run the risk of people putting in moments dedicated toother ships). Basically, these three factors (putting friendship at theforefront, wanting Sorato to be subtle, and lack of communication) allcontributed to both Taiora and Sorato being very easily seen as both romanticand platonic. But really the reason I brought this up was to compare it to Triand I’m sorta getting off topic I think (god all my posts really just feel likerants, I need to work on my writing style).

So, getting back to this being reflected in Tri. I recentlyread a really brilliant post that pointed out all the Sorato moments in Tri andhow some of them are very similar to the foreshadowing moments in Adventure.There was one specific scene in this post that totally blew my mind where theauthor talks about the scene where Yamato plays his harmonica in Confession.They point out how Yamato’s harmonica song, which was used in foreshadowingscenes in Adventure, plays throughout Sora’s scene and into the first part ofJyou’s scene when Jyou is talking about wanting to introduce Gomamon to hisgirlfriend and I just thought “holy crap that is actually a really brilliantly subtleway to hint at Sorato” (I am getting so sick and tired of referencing posts I can’tlink to and I’m so sorry, I’m going to go through all my likes and reblogs inthe next month and bookmark everything important so I can find and link stuffmore cause it’s really not nice of me to not link to the post for both thereaders and the wonderful people who create the posts. Seriously if anybody isreading this post and knows what I’m talking about please send me the link so Ican include it in this post because it was very well written and as a nonSorato fan I was super engaged and impressed). So basically, a lot of TriSorato scenes are call backs to the subtlety of Adventure Sorato scenes and Taiorascenes are more obvious because the Taiora scenes in Adventure were moreobvious.

And then we have Taiyama. If we are following the same logicas above then of course we are going to get the most of Taichi and Yamatobecause their relationship was the primary relationship in the original seriesand their fights drove a lot of the plot and virtually all of their characterdevelopment (especially Yamato’s character development but I’d say Taichi’sfinal ark of character development is solely due to his final fight withYamato). So if Tri is trying to mimic Adventure they are going to have theTaiyama fight scenes play into the plot and character development once again. Taiyamais one of the most popular ships in the fandom because of all theirinteractions in Adventure, many of which really do play out like two loversinteracting.

As for Taiorato, it can be often seen as just platonicbecause Digimon is meant to be a story about friendship between both thechildren and their partners as well as between the other children. Since Taioratois the golden Trio of the Digimon Adventure universe and always has been so weare going to get a lot of these guys interacting but there isn’t going to beany obvious love triangle stuff probably because it isn’t meant to be therejust like how it was never meant to be there in the original season, and alsobecause it would be pretty OOC if Taichi and Yamato suddenly started fightingover Sora. Sora is primarily designed to be, or at least try to be, a calmingagent between these two very different and strong headed boys. She is not meantto be a love interest and cause further discord, basically I’d say she is theopposite of what most girls in her role (lead female) end up being and that isreally great. These three are meant to be the three in command of the group andthey were designed to work well off each other and of course that is going tobe showcased in the show and it comes down really to their friendship sinceSorato is meant to be canon (at least in adventure) and Taiora are just greatfriends, and Taiyama are also Rivals to Friends. So yes, it makes sense thatsomeone would look at this and think “wow those three are an amazing trio offriends” cause that is the point.

But for seeing it as a love triangle, I think it is verylikely the Tri creators are pointing subtly at it for the same reason they aresubtly or not so subtly (cough cough koumi cough cough) pointing at it becauseit is prominent within the fandom and they are catering to it. They are bothplaying off the discourse within the fandom to cause more drama which oftenleads to interest which leads to sales. Also, don’t forget Taiorato as a Triadrelationship is super popular so they are likely catering to that as well inmaking it seem like they could all be together, oddly that can lead people toseeing it as solely platonic if you are not used to seeing a functioning Triadrelationship and not a love triangle with obvious discourse.

I tried to make this as unbiased as possible, even though ultimatelythese are of course opinions and interpretations of the material. If you arecurious about my biased opinions on this “love triangle” just ask and I can doa follow up post.

Thanks so much for the Ask 😊 I enjoyed responding to it

[awbrainno]

guess who wrote another letter to the mom

if u guessed Dean for some weird reason then amazingly you are correct

(the letter is below because it’s long)

People with DID are as varied as anyone else. We all have our own ways of thinking about the disorder, our own ways of coping, and of course, we all have different alters, unique to our systems. But DID does have some universal traits, such as some level of amnesia, some kind of trauma, and of course, the presence of alters. Alters in a DID system also tend to have defined roles. The most common of these roles, which tend to be found in just about every system, are the roles of Host, Original, Core, and Protector.

The Host is the alter who controls the body most often. They’re usually in charge of day-to-day life, major decisions, interactions with other people, etc. Basically, the Host is the person in charge of maintaining our personality. When people meet us and interact with us, they usually meet the Host, and if (for any reason) the Host isn’t around to control the body, then whoever’s in control at the moment mimics the personality of the Host so that we can maintain the illusion that we’re one, single, “normal” person.

The Original is exactly what it sounds like - they’re the person who was in this body first. At birth, before the trauma that caused the first split, back when this body was only home to one person, the Original was the only one here.

The Core is the alter around whom our identity is built. We use their name, we use their memories; for all intents and purposes, the Core is the identity that matters most. This is the identity that people believe in, the only one that exists in the minds of the various friends, family members, and acquaintances who’ve met us and don’t know about the rest of the system.

Obviously, there’s room for overlap. In a lot of systems, alters can occupy more than one role. Often, the Core and the Original are the same person, or the Core and the Host, or even the Core, Host, and Original, which makes things very easy - the person who was born into the body gets to continue using it a majority of the time, and doesn’t have to pretend to be anyone but themselves. It’s all very convenient.

In other systems, that isn’t true.

Ace recently wrote you a letter over which they agonized for more than a month. Every time they thought they had a finished draft, Ace would re-read what they’d written, agonizing over whether or not it was too harsh, if their words were too rude, if they were being firm or simply being cruel. Aiden could have had that letter written and sent, sincerely, from the heart, within a day. But because they’re terrified of hurting your feelings, Ace rewrote that letter nearly twenty times until they finally had to either send it or chicken out, and even then, they were so worried that your feelings would be hurt by their letter that they lost sleep over it. The point of the letter was to let you know that you’ve been emotionally abusing us as long as we can remember. We wanted some closure. We wanted for you to stop using guilt to manipulate us into forgiving you for things you’ve never apologized for. We wanted to be recognized as individuals, addressed by our correct names and pronouns, and we wanted you to finally acknowledge, in a mature and respectful way, the ways in which you’ve harmed us over our life. In reply, you wrote that you think Ace is “a compassionate young man who deserves more from his mom” and that you love hearing how happy they sound with their partner. You literally misgendered Ace in reply to being asked not to misgender Ace, then went on to talk about how happy Ace sounds with Clint’s boyfriend. I don’t know if you think that’s an honest mistake or if you recognize that as a serious misstep on your part, and I don’t care. It’s offensive, it’s hurtful, and it’s proof that you don’t care enough about Ace or about any of us to bother making the effort we deserve from you.

For years, we’ve been nice, and polite, and sweet, and we’ve coddled and protected you. But it isn’t my job to protect you. Being the system Protector means that it’s my job to protect my system, and it’s become clear to me that you’re a threat to our emotional well-being. I think of my system as my family, and that means something to me. I don’t know if you honestly think you’re trying as hard as you possibly can, or if you’re just so used to being forgiven after every half-assed attempt at an “apology” you make that you never thought you’d have to face a consequence, but it doesn’t matter. If you thought you’d never have to own up to your mistakes, you were wrong. If you were sincerely trying your best, it wasn’t good enough. Either way, I’m finished letting the people I care about make excuses on your behalf and watching them break apart because they don’t know how to deal with the fact that you can’t be bothered to learn how to use a gender-neutral pronoun, much less remember more than one name.

My name, for the record, is Dean. I’m the Protector.

Our Host is named Clint. Clint is engaged, because Clint is in love. We have all told you this several times. Aiden is aromantic and asexual and doesn’t want to date anyone, least of all Clint’s fiance. We’ve told you that, too. You’ve never cared enough to remember.

Our Core is named Aiden. That’s our legal name now, those are the memories we’ve built our identity around. It made sense to do so, since Ace’s memories are the earliest we have. Aiden uses they/them pronouns, which you knew. Aiden wrote you a letter recently, and in it, they asked that you stop misgendering them. When you replied, you referred to Aiden as “a boy who deserves better from his mother.” You don’t get to say you’re “trying so hard” unless you actually try.

The Original is Jack. He’s the guy who actually belongs to this body, I guess. He’s smart, and he’s funny, and he’s kind. He takes care of us. He got us through college, since he reads faster and writes better than the rest of us. He’s caring and empathetic and witty and self-conscious when he speaks. He’s a bit shy, moving and charismatic in front of a crowd, and he’s not your son anymore. He’s a wonderful, strong, capable man, and he’s not your son anymore.

There are others. There are fourteen of us total, and of the ones you’ve met and been introduced to, you’ve icily asked two to leave so that you could spend more time with Aiden, completely forgotten and denied ever meeting one, mixed up and misremembered us as if we’re all interchangeable, and accused us of being “convenient excuses” that our Core uses to hurt you. Throughout all of this, you’ve continued to insist that you know “your son” like the back of your hand, and that if you’d ever met any of us you’d know instantly, and that you love all of us like a mother, and that you’re trying so, so hard.

We’re finished listening.

You no longer get to interact with Ace or Jack. In fact, out of the 14 of us, there are only three of us who are prepared to continue interacting with you. From now on, you’ll deal with me, with Clint, or with Bunny. We won’t take your shit, we won’t let you forget our names, and we won’t be gaslit or abused.

When my system-mates dream, sometimes I am forced to watch from the sidelines, completely helpless, like a ghost. Every time I get trapped on the outskirts of one of Ace’s dreams, or Jack’s, unable to protect them in that house from their childhood, while your face in their nightmares insists that you are “trying so hard, trying so hard, trying so hard…”

Every time I get trapped on the outskirts, hearing about how Ace’s gender might “hurt your business” or seeing your big, shocked eyes while you tell Jack that he’s “as condescending as his father” and we wake up and they’re afraid to speak because they might hurt you by accident, somehow, even from halfway across the country…

Every time it happens I’m failing to protect my system, and that kills me. And even if you forget our names, and forget our roles, and forget our pronouns, I hope you never forget that I’ve only got this job because you were their protector first.

[this-sapphic-paradise]

In light of Kara's reaction to all three of the guys, it made me reeeally want an aroace spec. Kara. Like we see her keep thinking that she might be falling for someone, but as soon they reciprocate she realizes that she doesnt actually feel as strongly as they do. Please writers?

For a few days, well, nights actually, Maggie had noticed Kara wasn’t being her usual cheery self; Alex had told her about the whole Guardian thing, but still something told Maggie that there was more to it than that.

Seeing Kara alone at their favorite bar, the detective slid into the booth she was sitting at, and said, “What’s up, Little Danvers?”

Kara had been lost in thought, tearing the label on her foreign beer bottle absentmindedly when she was brought back to the present by the detective’s voice. “Hey, Maggie.” she greets with an easy smile, but one that was pale compared to how bright her smiles usually are. “Sorry, I’m kinda-”

“Off?” Maggie supplied, giving her an empathetic smile, to which Kara just nodded. “No Super-friends tonight?” she prodded carefully.

Kara’s gaze fell to the table, and her fingers fidgeted even more with the beer label. “No... James and Winn are out fighting crime, and Mon-El... I-I haven’t seen him in a few days- I mean, I see him at the DEO, but outside of work we haven’t really hung out in a few days...”

Maggie listened intently, nodding her head a couple of times. Taking a swing of her own beer, she asked casually, “Did something happen between the two of you?”

Kara sighed, “Yeah... Kinda... I don’t know.” the hero grunted, letting her head fall back. 

“What’s up, kiddo? Talk to me.” Maggie coaxed, wanting nothing more than to help Kara; after all, making Kara happy would make Alex happy too.

Straightening her head up, Kara worried her bottom lip before gushing out in one breath, “A couple of weeks ago, Mon-El kissed me, but he pretended not to remember it because he was sick, and then a few days ago he admitted to have feelings for me, but now I’m feeling all weird, like I did when James and I finally got together!” Kara took a deep breath, and bit her lip again.

Maggie frowned, taking into consideration everything Kara had told her plus the distressed look on the girl’s face. “Mhm... If you don’t mind me asking, has this happened to you before? I mean, before James?”

Kara nodded, “Yeah... Whenever I meet someone I like, something always gets in the way: trying to figure out my powers, trying to hide my powers, trying to be a superhero, fighting bad guys...”

“Mm...” Maggie tilted her head to the side, “But like...” she stopped, trying to choose her words carefully, “Okay, I have one awkward question, but I promise I’m trying to get to a point, alright?”

Kara frowned a little, but nodded.

“Do you...like the idea of being...intimate with someone? Is it something you’re looking forward to?” Maggie asked, and just like she had anticipated, the younger Danvers was blushing up a storm.

“Yeah! I-I mean...isn’t that what normal people are supposed to want? I-I want that too, of course.” Kara managed to stutter out as she fixed her glasses.

Maggie winced at the word ‘normal’. “No, Little Danvers... There are no “normal people”, just what’s considered more common... Look,” she said, placing a hand on Kara’s arm and smiling softly at her, “I know you’ve been fighting your whole life to fit into a mold, to blend in with the crowd... So I know you see romance and sex as something you have to check off your list in order to be considered an avarage human, but there isn’t such thing. We’re all different, we all want and like different things - contrary to what all those rom-coms you watch want you to believe.” Maggie punctuated her sentence with a little teasing smile.

Kara listened to Maggie speak, but she couldn’t really comprehend what the detective was saying so she kept quiet, waiting for Maggie to continue.

“I mean, there are people who can’t fall in love or don’t like romantic relationships... there are people who are repulsed by sex, some don’t really care one way or another about it, so if they feel like it and their partner asks for it, they’ll agree to have sex... There some people who only feel sexual desire for people they have a romantic connection with... It’s called being aromantic and asexual, Little Danvers, and it’s a whole spectrum. I only know a little bit about it, but if you want to, we can look into it together.”

In the blink of an eye, Kara was by Maggie’s side, hugging her a little too tight. “Thank you.” she whispered, before letting go of her sister’s girlfriend and starting to fidget with her own fingers. “I, unfortunately, have the habit of walking in on my friends having sex- which, in my defense they were...doing it at work, so I had no way of knowing- and when I caught them...I was just...” Kara frowned, trying to find the right word, but then she sighed and said simply, “I just had a scary and intense feeling that that kind of thing wasn’t for me.”

“And that’s okay, Kara.” Maggie smiled, feeling proud that she could help, seeing as she was apparently the Senior Gay of the group. “If you don’t want to full on date anyone? That’s fine. If you want to date, and kissing is all you’re comfortable with? That’s absolutely fine. The only wrong thing to do, would be to pressure yourself into a situation you don’t want to be, okay? Just do what makes you happy, be honest with the people you get close with, and if they are compatible and right for you, they’ll stay.”

Kara was full on crying by now, crying and laughing at the same time. “I-I really didn’t know that’s a thing!” she managed to say between sniffles and giggles. “When you got here I was wondering what was wrong with me! I could have had James, now Mon-El... I thought I was broken... or... you know... just too much of an alien, I guess...”

“It is perfectly human, Little Danvers.” Maggie reassured her. “And you’re not broken, you’re perfect just the way you are.”

Kara finally gave Maggie her brightest smile, that Kara Danvers patented smile that could light up a room. “Thank you, Maggie, really... Alex is lucky to have you in her life...and um, so am I.”

Maggie smiled back, and playfully bumped shoulders with Kara, saying, “No problem, Kara. I’m here whenever you need me.”

[novalillies]

love is weird

(personal ramblings on the subject under the cut)

on some level or another, we all crave it. while i have been fortunate enough o have never felt like i never had enough platonic or familial love, romantic love is something i personally have been anxiously craving for practically my whole life. i blame this on the fact that a lot of my family is mormon (many people of this religion marry SUPER early), and that its just so far etched into our society that everyone finds “the one” at some point in their life

a month ago, i was falling in love with a girl (lets call her sarah) who i had known for a little over a month. we instantly clicked, and immediately i wanted to grab and keep her attention and make her happy. practically everything i did was for her. i told her everything, and it got to the point where i was practically ignoring my best friend of 13 or so years

its not like my feelings were one-sided. sarah admitted to using me in order to “experiment” (something i agreed to because i longed for affection, bad mistake past me), and for reasons i shouldnt disclose at this time, we could literally never be together. in the end we crashed and burned

that happened about 4 weeks ago. ive slowly been recovering, but definitely not as fast as i would like to. recently ive come to the realization that this was very much so abuse, and now certain things relating to it (her name, her social media handles, her fandom content) are triggering for me. it feels weird to say that im heartbroken because we werent actually together, but i am

but then i think back to my first love, marina. in a lot of ways the situations are very similar: i fell for marina so fast and so hard, but our back and forth went on for five years. however, she and i were in a relationship a few times, but it just never worked out

the similarities between these two rests mainly in my actions: i am very, very clingy when in love; do things solely for the girl of my affections; hide my own negative feelings towards things in order not to burden them and often times resort to self destructive tendencies; the list goes on and on

marina and i first got together when we were so, so young. i thought i had learned from all of my mistakes and wouldnt fall for the same antics i had before

maybe thats why it hurts so much now: my first love, i didnt know any better because i was young and naive. but this time im supposed to know better. im supposed to be an adult. im supposed to be able to handle my feelings

in a lot of ways, they both were afraid to show their love for me. the difference between them is that sarah was much more up front about her feelings. marina would shut me out entirely

marina showed me hardly any affection (i tried my best, but it was hard due to our ages at the time). sarah though, she practically showered me in affection at all hours of the day. she encouraged and validated me, and at that time i had never felt so loved by anyone. she became my sole confidant (which was probably part of the problem. if i had been talking to jason at this time i KNOW he would have been like “what the fuck are you doing” and talked sense into me). she always encouraged my romantic inclinations, even though SHE knew her actions were absolutely terrible. for all her faults, and for how much i despise her now, at least she didnt let this go on for five years like marina did

this all makes me wonder if this is how my life will go. it took me almost three years to come fully to terms about what happened with marina before i really fell in love again. will it be the same now? when im 24 will the wounds sarah inflicted finally heal? will i end up falling for some other girl, only to have my heartbroken again?

its no wonder i identified as aromantic for awhile. it was so much easier than this

i know im in absolutely no position to love again, but i really, really want to. i had forgotten how wonderful it was to have someone love you like sarah did. i mean, most of our relationship was very toxic, but that feeling of being in love is literally like no other. i know there were definitely a few days where the world just felt lighter and i had a spring in my step and couldnt stop smiling. i always want to feel like that

i think the main thing for me to take out of my experiences is to have patience. mainly for myself. i need to remind myself to take things slow in both relationships and with personal healing (it hasn’t even been a month. of COURSE im gonna have a lot of breakdowns. im sure it was the same with marina, but i just dont remember as clearly given its almost been 4 years) 

another thing is that there are things to take from both relationships. i shouldnt shut my partners out, but i also shouldnt overshare with them (that was another problem with marina, i talked to my friends about our problems more than i did with her). i shouldnt be so desperate for affection. i should know when to walk away and to trust my instinct more. i shouldnt get so angry 

its so hard to be optimistic right now. but im trying my best. and i need to remind myself that im good enough

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 5/29/17

Bloom Into You, Vol. 2 | By Nakatani Nio | Seven Seas – While there is a lot of yuri out there that can be defined by the words “what is this strange feeling in my heart?,” I’m not sure if any of them are quite as fascinating as Yuu. I’m not entirely sure if this manga is going to go with “Yuu is asexual,” but the first couple of volumes can certainly be read at that. She’s not really aromantic, though, and her relationship with Touko is complicated—and becoming known to others, who may also be asexual. Touko, meanwhile, is the ever-popular “problematic” we see in so many yuri titles as well, and is having trouble balancing that line between consent and just giving in to her desires. Bloom Into You may start like typical yuri, but it’s not headed that way. Good stuff. – Sean Gaffney

Chihayafuru, Vol. 2 | By Yuki Suetsuki | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Oh, happy sigh. I do love Chihayafuru so much. In this volume, we see the conclusion to the elementary tournament Chihaya, Taichi, and Arata have entered. Sadly, they lose and Arata moves away not long after. Chihaya is certain that they’ll meet again, but as we skip ahead three years to high school, it’s clear that they haven’t really kept in contact. She’s determined to start a karuta club and makes Taichi promise to join if she finally achieves class A ranking. Seeing her compete rekindles his own love of karuta, but when she calls Arata to tell him the good news, she learns he’s stopped playing for a really awful reason. I actually got sniffly when they came face to face again at last. This is the kind of manga where I wish I had dozens of volumes stacked up to marathon. Unequivocally recommended. – Michelle Smith

The Full-Time Wife Escapist, Vol. 3 | By Tsunami Umino | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Although I enjoy a good cliffhanger as much as the next person, I’m not normally as invested in their outcome as I was for the one at the end of volume two of this series. Before we find out exactly what Tsuzaki and Kazami mean by “sharing” Mikuri, however, there’s an interlude where she and her fake husband must field questions from relatives about their procreation plans. I really enjoy the way Umino is plotting this series—it makes sense why Mikuri would want to take Kazami up on his arrangement, and neatly dovetails into her aunt finding out about it, prompting her to be concerned about the nature of her niece’s marriage. Mikuri doesn’t engage in any flights of fancy this time, but she does do a lot of psychoanalyzing her husband, which is interesting. Definitely looking forward to volume four! – Michelle Smith

Girls’ Last Tour, Vol. 1 | By Tsukumizu | Yen Press – I’m not entirely sure what to make of Girls’ Last Tour. Chito and Yuuri are two chibi-faced young women roaming a post-apocalyptic wasteland on their Kettenkrad motorbike, just trying to survive. There are parts of this series I really liked. I love the depictions of desolate cities, or cavernous interiors… it reminds me a little of BLAME! in that respect, which is a major compliment. Too, I like their brief interaction with a guy named Kanazawa, who has found meaning for his life in creating maps, and that other levels exist where conditions might be different. I find that I really want to know how things turned out this way. That said, I strenuously dislike Yuuri, and there are some really unfunny gags featuring her that I guess are supposed to be moe or something but just piss me off. Still, I’ll be continuing! – Michelle Smith

Golden Time, Vol. 7 | By Yuyuko Takemiya and Umechazuke | Seven Seas – Linda is mostly absent from this volume, which allows us to focus on the odd triangle between Kouko, Banri, and Banri’s old self, which seems to literally be sabotaging his relationship, though he’s also being helped by coincidental disaster and bad choices, particularly “don’t drive home when you’re all sleepy,” which leads to Kouko, understandably, having a complete nervous breakdown as several of her long-standing issues combine with nightmares she’s having about the car accident. Fortunately, Bari gets over his own issues to an extent in time to be there for her, and much to my surprise we get a ‘girlfriend’s dad’ who’s supportive and not a caricature. As good as ever. – Sean Gaffney

Kase-san and Bento | By Hiromi Takashima | Seven Seas – After getting together in the first volume, this second in the “Kase-san and” series continues to show off the awkwardness that comes with having just gotten together. Both girls still don’t know each other that well, and misunderstandings abound. But they’re all relatively easy to resolve misunderstandings, which is good, because no one is reading this for overwrought lesbian drama. We’re reading it because Yamada is adorable, Kase-san is spunky, and the two of them together are wonderful. There are a few more kisses, and Yamada is slowly gaining confidence. And there are bentos. Which, you know, you would expect thanks to the title. Cuteness personified. – Sean Gaffney

Maid-sama!, Vols. 15-16 | By Hiro Fujiwara | Viz Media – I had thought Maid-sama ended with volume sixteen, but I was wrong. And indeed, much of this volume is about reminding me that it’s not just as simple as “Misaki admits she likes him, the end.” Usui comes with baggage, though, and we learn a lot about that baggage in this volume, including the story of how his parents met—it’s steeped in class issues and tragedy. And as such Misaki, who is as common as they come, has it hammered into her that she can never be with him as she can’t cross those class barrier. Misaki, of course, is ready to kick your class barrier down with her best quality—her sheer stubbornness. Oh yes, and Misaki’s father returns. Please ignore that entire plotline; it’s awful. – Sean Gaffney

Requiem of the Rose King, Vol. 6 | By Aya Kanno | Viz Media – There’s a lot of good stuff going on in this volume, not the least of which is the tragic death of a major character, but it’s sort of hard to get past THAT SCENE. I said “poor Anne” at the end of my last review, and boy, I wasn’t kidding, though frankly she takes it far better than I expected. But man, Margaret. She’s always been one of my favorite Shakespeare villains, as well as one of his best female characters, and BOY HOWDY does Kanno convey that in a fantastic way. You want to recoil from the page. As for Henry and Richard, I think by necessity we are headed to the end of that relationship soon, unless there’s some rewriting of canon beyond what we’ve already seen. Riveting. -Sean Gaffney

Toriko, Vol. 38 | By Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro | Viz Media – Thankfully, this volume was considerably more interesting than the previous one, though I am still grateful we’re heading for the end. Most of the volume focuses on Komatsu and the other cooks, and I am reminded that this is really Komatsu’s story as much as Toriko’s, and he’s had a lot farther to develop. Beyond that, we have the usual impressive shone n stunts, monsters galore, and a decent amount of food, though I miss the days when food was the only thing driving this manga. And again, the relationship between Toriko and Komatsu may not be explicitly gay, but it’s certainly far deeper than any relationships the two of them have with their love interests. Keep at it if you’ve been reading it. – Sean Gaffney

Welcome to the Ballroom, Vol. 5 | By Tomo Takeuchi | Kodansha Comics – The Tenpei Cup has come to an end, and Tatara Fujita must return to normal life. After successfully getting into high school, he is upfront about his love of dancesport in his self-introduction, earning the mockery of the girl who sits in front of him, Chinatsu Hiyama. However, it soon becomes apparent that not only is Chinatsu a big fan of Sengoku and his partner, Chizuru Hongo, but she has some experience with ballroom dance. Hey, how convenient that such a character shows up right when Tatara is in need of a new partner! Imagine that. Anyway, this is mostly a transitional volume, and featured a couple of people saying unkind things about their overweight friend, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as previous volumes. I’m still on board for the next one, though. – Michelle Smith

By: Michelle Smith