#there are so many expectations n misunderstandings for me as an aromantic person (in their teenage years no less)

[threecatsinpajamas]

being aro doesn't make navigating romance any easier btw.

[whydoyouthinkileft]

I think I wrote some headcanons here that I haven’t told to many people just yet too

PLEASE REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG!  Feel free to add to any of your answers!  The purpose is to tell your partners about the way you write!  For the multiple choice ones, BOLD all that apply and, if you want, italicize if it’s a conditional answer!

– B A S I C S –

NAME : Ele ARE YOU OVER 18?   Yes / No IS YOUR MUSE?   Yes / No

ARE YOU SELECTIVE ABOUT WHO YOU WRITE WITH? No (anyone) / Semi (most) / Yes / Highly / Private (mutuals only)

ARE YOU SELECTIVE ABOUT WHO YOU FOLLOW? No (anyone) / Semi / Yes / Highly / (I only follow people I want to roleplay with. Also sometimes blogs with muse-inspiration things)

IF YOURS IS A CANON MUSE, HOW MUCH DO YOU STICK TO IT? Not at all / A little / Some / Mostly / Strictly / (OC)  (I go au about some facts that I prefer to think didn’t happen, I give my own interpretation of some of her reactions and lines she says that might have no canon confirm, I love AU threads and when I start threads based on the episodes they go off canon eventually because otherwise nothing would happen, plus because I write a blog and not write a tvshow with lots of characters I can focus on all her issues and develop them. So the result is a different Jemma, I guess - though it is fun that some things I wrote during s2 came true in the last two seasons. I cursed her) 

WHAT POST LENGTHS DO YOU WRITE? One Liners / Single-Para / Multi-Para / Novella (often the longest it is, the more it tames for me to be able to reply, other times I can only find inspiration for the one novella thread. I just know I can’t keep things short for long, I don’t like one liners, and sometimes I need short threads but they end up getting longer the more Jemma feels/thinks/says) 

DO YOU USE ICONS AND/OR GIFS? No / Gifs / Icons / Gif icons (whatever the other person uses. Normally I post starters with icons)

DO YOU WRITE ON OTHER PLATFORMS? No / Yes

WHAT LEVEL OF PLOTS DO YOU WRITE? Un-plotted / Open-Ended Plots / Semi-Plotted / Fully Plotted (I can definitely write all of these BUT really, it’s so hard to predict actual reactions characters will have once we are writing and specific sentences are said, that in the end I just prefer having a general idea and then letting the thread develop... even if sometimes it means that the careful plotting part goes to hell because when we write the talk they have they take one word wrong or suddenly decide to say things I hadn't plotted for them to say, and it doesn't feel true if I don't follow what feels right for the character on the spot. So 'we have this fight and then they part ways for a while' can turn into 'oh look she said I love you and they are together now, because he had a sad face'. That's fun too. Though I definitely enjoy going to fangirl in private chats and write about 'hey imagine if this happens' and discussing facts that don't get to be written in long-term threads)

HOW QUICKLY DO YOU USUALLY RESPOND TO THREADS? Very Slow (< a month) / Slow (3–4 Weeks) / Average (1–2 Weeks) / Fast (>One Week) / Very Fast (>Three Days) (THERE IS NO IN BETWEEN. I have threads for MONTHS that I can’t reply to but I don’t want to drop because I know inspiration might strike, and that I don’t expect people to keep up once I reply. Or sometimes I just gotta reply instantly or the reply is gone forever.)

WHAT TYPES OF THEMES DO YOU LIKE? (Feel free to add!) Fluff / Angst / Smut / Action / Tragedy / Domestic / Family / Conversational / Hurt-Comfort / Crack / Adventure / Romance (Hurt comfort turning into romance is my thing. Same as ‘friends who are family’. When it comes to action, I get bored after a while if there is no time for characters to talk, the tvshow has already so much actions anyway, what I'm interested in is making characters talk, develop feelings, clear misunderstandings, be happy. Exactly because the tvshow doesn't do that as much. Also tragedy up to a certain level because otherwise there is just no more growing from there, so it's complicated, I can't write 50 replies with Jemma trying to keep someone from falling apart without getting tired and sad myself, given that I already had too many threads like that and that it's dangerously close to real life, and I can't write too much tragedy for Jemma or for people close to her without them realistically losing any hope and chance to make it, so there has to be a limit. And I need the happy ending. Though it's important to me to have a bit of everything in every thread: humor, fun, hurt-comfort, some angst, lots of talking, some action -sometimes bad stuff happening and them having to deal with it- as long as in the long run it's clear that it's building something nicer and happier with less pain coming. Like okay, now that the danger is over, let's be all cute and fluffy, then let's deal with this emotional issue from your past, then there is comforting, then there is more nice stuff, then facing some other problem together instead of fighting. And so on.)

WHAT GENRES DO YOU LIKE? (Feel free to add!) High Fantasy / Supernatural / Science Fiction / Historical / Horror / Comedy/ Romantic / Drama / Action / Adventure / Espionage / Everything (this seems a lot like the previous one?)

THEMES YOU’RE UNCOMFORTABLE WRITING? (not triggers) No / Yes (I don’t write threads with one of our characters abusing the other - unless through brainwashing and even then only in a physical or emotional way. And I prefer not to write too much about death, about torture while it’s happening unless I’m the one writing it so I can get away from it if necessary. I’m very okay with recovery from it, though. Oh, also, I’m not extra comfortable writing characters who cannot be comforted, or refuse help for too long/until the end because I get anxious about where the thread is going, and also writing about fussy kids, as weird as that can sound.)

DO YOU HAVE ANY TRIGGERS?  HOW SHOULD IT BE TAGGED? No / Yes (Though I appreciate people tagging content non suitable for work so it’s not right in my face, and other triggery things in general)

– S H I P P I N G –

WHAT TYPES OF RELATIONSHIPS ARE YOU OPEN TO? Romantic / Platonic / Familial / Physical / Sexual (I’m a fan of friends or frenemies with benefits turning into romance in the sappiest way tbh)

WHAT TYPES OF PRE-ESTABLISHED SHIPS ARE YOU OPEN TO? Romantic / Platonic / Familial / Physical / Sexual (depending on how much me and the other mun plotted before, or how much we wrote in the past, so I know they won’t assume stuff that is not true for my Jemma)

DO YOU HAVE OTPS? No / Chemistry only / Yes (a bit of both, chemistry made Jemma/Ward and Jemma/Hunter and Jemma/Mace happen in the past and they became OTP too because I get super-excited about my ships)

DO YOU HAVE NOTPS? No / Yes / I don’t know (I’m not writing Jemma/Will unless plotted as a past ship that ended after the planet whether he was saved or not and only in verses where she had no romantic attachment to Fitz nor any other character - like when I write her ending in the planet in au verses where she is dating Ward or Hunter? Nope. Also Jemma with Coulson, May, Daisy, Mack, Bobbi? Nope)

WHAT IS YOUR MUSE’S SEXUAL ORIENTATION? Heterosexual / Heteroflexible / Bisexual / Homoflexible / Homosexual / Pansexual / Demisexual / Sapiosexual / Asexual / Attracted to masculinity / Attracted to femininity / Attracted to androgyny / sex favorable / sex repulsed / (very, very attracted to men - it’s a particular form of attraction. While her eyes find aesthetically pleasing some muscular, symmetrical men, and she’s very open to sex especially no strings attached, she also gets particularly attracted to specific areas - for example, abs. Or arms. And her attraction is given by ‘looks + what she can do to that person or what the person can do to her’, like ‘oh he has such muscular arms he could pick me up so easily’. Which is why once she starts dating one person, other men are aesthetically pleasing but not attractive, because half of what causes her to be attracted - what they could do for her or viceversa - is missing and she has no interest in them. Someone's personality can also attract her, if they banter with her enough, and then she'll find their bodies attractive too, though. Enthusiastically so. But most of her life sex was just one way to either have fun or vent, so she just picked men she could tell would be 'entertaining' for one night, especially if they looked very masculine but gave her the impression that they'd let her lead.)

WHAT IS YOUR MUSE’S ROMANTIC ORIENTATION? Heteroromantic / Heteroflexible / Biromantic / Homoflexible / Homoromantic / Panromantic / Demiromantic / Sapioromantic / Aromantic / Polyamorous /romance favorable / romance repulsed (she didn't really understand love all that well, and when I write her either she has never been in love before Fitz, or if she's not with Fitz at all, she still doesn't get well how it works and will need time to understand how she feels, both because she's detached from her own feelings and because it's just so rare and unclear for her to feel, the 'symptoms' are nearly the same as her friendship ones given how strongly she feels about platonic friends. She’s close to aromantic.)

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WRITING SMUT? No / Selectively / Yes

HOW EARLY IN A RELATIONSHIP DO YOU SHIP ROMANTICALLY Autoship / During Plotting / After A Couple IC Interactions / Several IC Interactions / Slow Burn / Depends on partner or muse (depends on the ship, and what me and the other mun feel, and a few interactions to check if there is a spark, something about both sass and being nice to each other)

ARE YOU OPEN TO TOXIC SHIPS? No / Selectively / Yes

ARE YOU OPEN TO PROBLEMATIC SHIPS? (canon history, age difference, complicated, etc.) No / Selectively / Yes (depends on the mun and the plotting we do)

ARE YOU OPEN TO POLYSHIPPING? No / Selectively / Yes

ARE YOU AN EXCLUSIVE SHIPPER? No / Sometimes / Yes

DOES CRACK SHIPPING EVER HAPPEN? No / Sometimes / Yes (but only because I don’t write crack, if crack here means interactions that are just written for a laugh, I can’t write Jemma outside of ‘my’ canon)

DOES CROSSOVER SHIPPING EVER HAPPEN? No / Yes / Depends (it sure as hell would if I wrote with characters from other fandoms)

tagged by @lovelornrocketscientist

@tagging @siinfvl @desecratedpatriot @whiskeyandtwoshotglasses @secondchaircellist @marvelcusmuses @melinda-q-may 

[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