#also i myself am not demialterous

[hyperfixation-or-death]

Romane Berthauds aesthetics + demialterous flag colors

Fandom: Parallels (Disney, 2022) | Rating: G | Warnings: Implied character death, and a very brief romance mention | Prompt: N/A

@arospecfanworksweek

Demialterous flag colors: White, black, blue, gray.

(The aesthetics turned out way more angsty than I meant them to, just because it was kind of tricky to find images that fit both the character and the color scheme.)

A kind-of fic with major spoilers ahead - my headcanon is that Romane has a whole identity crisis after season one.

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She isn't sure how she feels about Sam or Bilal anymore. It's technically been years since she'd thought about a relationship with anyone. She had liked Sam when she was younger, before everything went wrong, hadn't she?

(Now that she thought about it, had it really been that different from how she felt about Bilal? She loved Sam, and Bilal, and Victor. But with Victor, it was closer to how she felt about Camille. With Sam and Bilal, it was more confusing, but a similar type of confusing. She wouldn't have been opposed to dating either of them. But was that the same as wanting to date them?)

Then he and Bilal had been gone, and then they were back. And then came the revelation of a future she had never considered. Then Sam's telling her the things he never had a chance to. But any relationship between them is in her past now, and she's still trying to process her alternate future, and for a brief moment, she can almost forget the present in all the mental chaos.

The moment is brief. Romane is a realist, and the only real thing now is the present, and in the present, Victor is the one who needs her help.

Then everything goes right for once, and she's fourteen years old again. And she kisses Sam, and it's nice. Bilal and Victor are there, because it was always supposed to be the four of them, regardless of if any of them were dating.

(Was she dating Sam now? Nobody had said that, but that was what usually happened after you kissed one of your best friends, right?)

Then they get their memories back, and Romane has never been so confused. She's seventeen. She's fourteen. Sam and Bilal are dead. They're sitting across from her. It's been years. It's been days. It's been three-and-a-half seconds, and all she has to do is open her eyes. Did she ever like Sam like that? Did she ever like Bilal like that? Did she ever like anyone like that?

(She didn't date anyone in the four years they had been gone for. That was because she had been grieving, wasn't it? She hadn't had any crushes on anyone, either. She also hadn't had any friends at all besides Victor, who she only saw on school breaks, anyways. Was any of this even relevant?)

Nothing made sense. Except for Victor. Victor always made sense, he was like the one constant in the mess of inter-dimensional complications that was her life. He was still her best friend, still like a sibling to her, and- he knew that, right? After everything?

She should make sure he knew that.

So they talk, and it eases some of the anxiety over everything. And she could probably chalk up most of the confusion to the disorientation from the time travel. So life goes on as normal. She dates Sam for about two weeks. They decide to stop after determining that she's really not in the right state of mind for a relationship right now. And it's fine. They're still best friends, all of them.

(Honestly, there isn't really much of a difference between dating Sam and not-dating Sam. Was there supposed to be a difference? They still loved each other. People her age - whatever her age was, after all that - weren't usually in love, right?)

Maybe she's supposed to date Bilal, eventually? A version of her married him, after all.

(The thought of marriage is...weird. She doesn't really want to think about it.)

Then, a few months after she and Sam stop dating, Victor says he has something to tell them. Sam has clearly already been told, because his expression is fond instead of curious like hers and Bilal's. Victor is grinning wider than he has in weeks as he explains. Aromantic. Someone who doesn't feel romantic attraction. Victor is aromantic, and his excitement is contagious.

Victor is kind of rambling, but they're all happy for him, so they listen. Romane was familiar with the concept of people not being straight, but she hadn't really given much thought to specific identities.

Victor's expertise on the matter comes from one night of internet rabbit-trails, so it's not exactly flawless, but it's still a decent amount of information. And a lot of words. Grayromantic. Frayromantic. Demiromantic.

(The last one was interesting. But just because she hadn't had a crush on anyone who wasn't a close friend didn't mean she never would, right? Besides, she didn't really talk a lot with anyone who wasn't either family or one of her three close friends.)

Eventually, though, she starts wondering. She was...those had been crushes, right? She knew what she had felt. She just wasn't sure if that was what it was supposed to feel like. She loved Sam, and she wanted to spend time with him. The same went for Bilal. But it wasn't like she wanted to be around them more than she wanted to be around Victor. And when it came to the whole idea of dating, she mostly felt...neutral? She was fine with it, she was fine without it.

She briefly wondered if that was normal. Then she decided nothing about her life was normal. Then she decided to stop worrying about it.

This worked for about three weeks. Then she texted Victor, partially because he was the one who had googled this kind of thing, and partially because he was the only friend she had that she was absolutely certain she had no romantic feelings for.

Two people doing research was faster than one. Alterous attraction. That phrase seemed to fit, but it wasn't exactly an identity. They typed it into the search bar.

Apparently, people could be bialterous. She didn't think she was bi, though. Then again, she didn't really have any friends who were girls, so there hadn't really been any chance for her to develop feelings. She mentioned that to Victor. He looked thoughtful, and asked if she'd ever had a crush on an actress or anything.

She told him that the only time she had ever thought she had a crush was with Sam and Bilal, and apparently those hadn't even been fully romantic feelings.

They did more google searches, and clicked on more links. Demiromantic came up again, but that didn't fit now that she was pretty sure she didn't feel romantic attraction.

(Alterous attraction kept sounding better the more she thought about it.)

It took a while to find a word that fit.

Demialterous. Like demiromantic, but for alterous attraction. It made sense.

(She still wasn't sure if she was bi, though. But that wasn't too important right now; she had a word, and she had the people she cared about, and she had time.)

Romane smiled.

[cryiling]

can we get 6 and 12 for the ask game thing ☝️😃

ask game from here

6) how is your life different now from two years ago

ohmygod in so many ways.. first of all I think my friend group/the types of ppl I surround myself with have totally changed. I think I'm in an overall more positive and uplifting environment and I feel a little less pressured to play some sort of persona in order to fit in

second, I found out I'm not, in fact, pan! I'm demialterous and on the ace spectrum. that was a really difficult thing for me to come to terms with because I had identified as pan all my life so it was like letting go a part of me (even though it wasn't who I really was)

I think I'm just in an overall better mental and emotional state. I've gotten better at understanding my emotions, and my time management skills have improved so much which means I'm not constantly stressing over schoolwork. I'm really grateful for where I am today but I also know I couldn't be who I am now without the journey I took 2 years ago :>

12) 3 deal breakers in a relationship

if you had asked me in 6th grade it would have been "they don't like sushi" bc that was literally the reason I broke up with my first boyfriend 😭

for me now, the biggest dealbreaker for any relationship (platonic, romantic, queerplatonic, etc) is probably a lack of consent, ESPECIALLY in terms of physical affection. I am a super touchy person and I love hugging my friends and stuff. but when they start initiating things I haven't stated I'm comfortable with, I get so uncomfortable and grossed out

with my qpp I was able to talk about my boundaries with physical affection, and honestly it just made our relationship so much better because I feel totally safe around them!! <3 but in the past, I've struggled with relationships because of the initiation of physical contact when we hadn't first talked about it, which just made me close myself off :( and currently I unfortunately have an acquaintance who keeps trying to hug me and hold my hand without asking and it just freaks me out 😭

bye I just used that to trauma dump AJDBAKDJ so I'll keep the other two shorter. my other deal breakers are if they can't at least respect my interests and if they cheat! I don't tolerate cheating at all so any form of it is a big nope from me

thank u for the asks oomfie!! :u:

[steakout-05]

ok i did a think and i believe demialterous is the most fitting label for myself! in terms of what type of romantic attraction stuff i am, i'm still not sure. it's definitely on the aromantic spectrum and i believe it would absolutely still have a demi- prefix to it. i'm probably going to stick with either desinoromantic or greyromantic for now because i have no idea wtf is happening at the moment (i think i might be greyromantic!). i am a little bit sad about letting go of the demiromantic label as it does mean a lot to me and i've used it for a long time (i think it was a year after my egg cracked), but i think it no longer accurately describes how i feel.

this is the demialterous flag by the way :3 it's really pretty i really like how the blue stripe pops out with the rest of the colours

(also apologies if the first part of the original post comes off as rude; it's meant as a joking way to describe what i'm going through right now in the form of "it's me i'm [word]" posts)

queer people will think they have a strong identity set in stone based on their past experiences and feelings and then years later have its entire foundation blasted away as soon as they think about it from a different perspective for a minimum of 5 seconds and then start questioning their entire identity again

it's me. i'm queer people. i think i just realised my identity as a demiromantic person is actually demi-queerplatonic or even some sort of demi-alterous thing instead and what i felt before wasn't actually romance and now i'm really confused about it. chat wtf is going on