#and kept using terms like ‘full on aromantic’

[lovequeerindigo]

i haven’t been on aro reddit for a while so my bad if this has already been mentioned but PSA to any aros that use it, the r/actuallyaromantic subreddit is ran by an exclusionist so… steer clear of that one.

[variousqueerthings]

okidoki, @elsonambulo and I have been having fun conversations about reading Amanda as aro --

EDIT: this has been in my drafts for months. pre-s5 months, so I probably won’t mention s5 much in here because I cannot remember toooo much rn (I will rewatch it) @elsonambulo I lied to you, I found it and I wrote some more and now I’m posting it-

going through some interesting thoughts that I wonder if exists amongst other people who are aro themselves (I get the same feeling when I hc characters as ace + aroace) of internalised Stuff that makes one feel like that headcanon is somehow “less allowed” than others -- ex. it would be easy to say “oh of course Amanda is now conveniently aro, because then you can have her and Daniel divorce, so he can hook up with Johnny or Chozen or whoever,” and to be clear, nobody has said those things to me!

but those things exist in my head (and they exist because aromanticism and asexuality are considered less interesting in narrative -- too complicated, not dramatic enough, and definitely not normal enough! surprise, it’s just classic queerphobia).

So in honour of saying “fuck you” to internalised stuff, let’s look at why aromantic Amanda is very compelling -- including the idea that... maybe she would have that sort of internalised thinking as well that could stop her from being able to pursue these ideas within herself

Here’s something the ever-intelligent elsonambulo and I talked about (shared with permission):

VQT: considering how gung-ho this season was about the perfect nuclear family, it's just making me even more interested in exploring those cracks! and amanda is such untapped Potential

E: There's just So Much there with her. She is not a traditional wife or mother by any means and I'm sure the writers patted themselves on the back for that and just stopped thinking about it but we know there's more there. She speaks to us jghgg

VQT: it's the mix of how daniel gets the most important moments with sam + presents himself as the family-minded in more personal/smaller-scale ways to amanda's focus on making sure the business continues to run and the notion of what Makes a family and why is it important to maintain it (and what is it maintained on -- is it love? respect? communication? mutual agreement? shared goals?)-- and of course that amanda, while better off than other women on the show, is still full of gaps where her motivations would be, so we're free to invent them!

AND that these notions of "what a woman should do" are so to the left with her/you see her struggling with "performing" marriage and motherhood

E: I will never be over how in making Sam the karate larusso instead of Anthony and in making Daniel an all in family man to contrast with Johnny, the writers almost had to make Amanda the practical go-getter.

And it's clear it's a happy marriage, because the point was that Daniel just kept winning at life. But when audiences get happy marriage + stay at home dad energy + a woman who is, in the end, there to play the role of wife and is therefore not as present as the man, then questions start to come up. Questions like yours about what it takes to maintain a family and a marriage and what a marriage is based on, but also questions on who this woman is and what her motivations and inner thoughts might be.

Because, like you said, she's in the role of wife and mother but she occupies that role differently than others do. So what's the deal there? Yeah maybe she's just "not like other girls" but that's boring ghhjh. Not enough meat in that

First things first, slow clap for that last message!

Secondly, broadly and vaguely perhaps, but reading Amanda as aromantic is simply an incredibly interesting way of queering the text with Intention. I’m under no illusions that the word probably doesn’t even exist in the lexicon of the writers, never mind the ability to compute it into narrative

Amanda doesn’t suffer as much as Carmen in terms of being allowed action and motivation and some internal life, by far. But the creators of the show probably haven’t gone much further than, “ok she’s a little more badass, she’s practical and pragmatic,” and if we were to go a stretch further (and to echo Elsonambulo) there’s also a tie-in to Daniel being a little less acceptable as a guy, because he’s taking on a family-man role

She’s not entirely trapped in the home (like Carmen almost always is) -- in the first couple of seasons she’s in the dealership a lot (a different sort of trapped) and her most emotional moment with Sam happens while Daniel is noticeably away in Okinawa, and then in s5 (which I do have to rewatch) she’s��“karate adjacent” which is pretty great, and there’s the babe ruthless moment which, like many things, is kind of a mixed bag for me. 

(“why are they in a womens’ only bar” I ask, wondering if the writers have heard of lesbianism. “why are they suddenly fighting?” “okay but babe ruthless is a genuinely killer name”)

She’s equally practical about the marriage, which is another place to use the crowbar and look underneath for some fun aro-reading. Daniel isn’t putting in the work that’s promised in the marriage and Amanda seems to be calmly moving towards something like a separation, until he promises to make it up and course correct -- the placement of her (dealership) with the narrative about the marriage, can easily be analysed from the perspective of said marriage being equally a business. This not meant coldly -- after all, she is incredibly fond of Daniel and wants them to run these things together -- but simply... practically

So now imagining this practical woman and this highly romantic man -- so romantic that it’s kind of catching and charming and you do wanna just do things to him, and yeah, this is probably what love is, and besides what references does amanda have? that time her parent cheated with her maths tutor and she fucked up that tutors car?

more important than deep, deep emotion of the kind apparently seen in other relationships (dubious, footage not found), is something that works and is good with someone you care about, and also are attracted to! 

- here I note that I know this was once meant to be a much longer text, but it’s been a few months, so much of the thought process has gotten a bit muddled since, but I wanna just post it as-is. the main conclusion is

1. young!Amanda who doesn’t feel the way other girls feel about the whole cute falling-in-love type thing, and is rather just very sexually confident and gravitates towards Daniel’s whole Thing in the way a lot of the guys do, but without the toxic masculinity or Need For Ownership that they seem to have -- but his magnetism, his open charm, his ability to work hard, his honesty-

2. which speaking of honesty, do headcanon a large part of her own private “fuck this whole thing” is discovering he has a secret past of karate trauma that she simply wasn’t let in on, which is Breaking The Marriage Deal 

3. I wonder as well -- in terms of that pragmatism it’s not simply that she’s aro, but there’s an element of some kind of neurodivergency in that. she’ll go for the steps that seem most correct to her, and unless genuinely freaked out (the house alarm going off, Daniel having his breakdown in s5 about Silver, Sam getting hurt), she’s quite cool about most things

4. Amanda slipping under the radar, because she’s simply -- from the outside -- a very confident, capable, heterosexually married woman, and that is the Image she likes to present, but canonically she has this whole side to her that she’s very effectively buried, that may not be as extreme as karate-rivals, but is evidence of her as not this picture-perfect being

5. and so this whole process of karate rivals coming out of the woodworks on Daniel’s side, offers her a chance to think of some stuff on her side, like why she does the things she does, and why she’s in this marriage, and what is important to her about it (and is it this nebulous idea of “love” or is it something more hardy, more pragmatic, more physical -- like a business and kids)

6. not to say her dedication to Daniel isn’t real, but she has to go through what exactly that consists of, and why Daniel matters to her, and also she’s not onboard -- not with Kreese and not with Silver -- until she has real, tangible proof that they’re bad guys who can directly threaten the things she and Daniel have built. so she’s not with Daniel through everything no matter what, she’s with him on the condition that his whole deal is something that can at some point presumably be ended through fighting back. if it were just that Daniel was having a breakdown of some kind, she was ready to call it broke and pack up the kids

7. this might seem cold from the outside, but it just makes good sense. and again, does not mean she doesn’t care for Daniel, just that she’s not in it for the true love, she’s in it for the contract they’ve made (truly truly wonder what would happen if Kumiko and Amanda were onscreen together, alongside Daniel) 

8. Amanda going through this process and maybe wanting to lean into her bisexuality more? just try some things out? if it won’t ruin her marriage, and it won’t ruin her business, and she’s not deemed a slut, then... actually that feels quite appealing? 

9. Amanda’s queer karate awakening deserves to happen is all I’m saying. we already know that she’s just as into it as other characters.... 

10. there’s more thoughts but this is kind of the gist of it all. Amanda isn’t technically closeted, because she doesn’t even have the vocabulary, she’s just aware that she’s in it for other things than is traditionally expected, but she’s not “struggling” per se with her identity, because she’s not even aware of the option

11. you know those middle-aged men that are like “yeah I fucked around with a guy when I was in my late teens/early 20s but then I got married so I’m straight” -- Amanda has those vibes but with women + bonus “and I got married because that’s the thing that’s expected of me and it was the best way to merge my interest in running a business with performing correct womanhood, and he gives good head, so I’m just winning all around. what do you mean he has several men in his past who are obsessed with him to the point of violence????”

[lewdladylily]

You have a dominant, right? But I presume it's a fuck buddy situation? Just curious...

I do have a dominant :) She goes by Raven, sometimes I call her Mistress or Owner. I am collared and owned, as much as is reasonably possible given our non kink life goals, health, and obligations. Because I am married to a different woman, a mother, and fairly unhealthy in terms of mental health, and we are long distance there are a lot of limitations on what we can actually do.

We've been doing kink things since DEC 2018, but it was a fuck buddies situation at that time. I was looking for a dominant partner with no intention or desire to find a long term relationship at the time. I'm married (since 2010) and my wife is asexual while I am aromantic, so we both look outside our marriage to find partners for the things the other is not interested in. It's worked great for us.

I couldn't tell you when we moved from being an arrangement of convenience to a relationship, mostly because I am terrible at remembering dates and even years (yay memory problems!) but it's in my journal somewhere. Intentions changed because we are highly compatible in terms of kink and, frankly, Raven is an excellent partner both sexually and emotionally.

As for what our relationship is like, we are good friends first and foremost. We spend a lot of time together outside of kink activities, though we hardly knew each other before starting. On the sexual side, it would be accurate to say Raven controls and is the focus of most aspects of my sexuality one way or another, which is significant for me because I am an incredibly horny person and always have been. We do a lot of long distance stuff, like directed edging, self bondage, directed self inflicted punishment, but besides the direct stuff there is a good amount to our relationship/dynamic.

First off Raven has strict control over when and how I cum for the past 3 years, including indefinite denial if that is what she wants to do with me with only occasional and small breaks in that time for mental health reasons. For some time before that (since late 2018 actually, it was one of the first things we negotiated) she had me under orgasm control with a bit lighter touch, like limits on how long she could deny me.

She also sets rules and requirements for me. Things like using proper titles for her, I have to respond to all asks on this blog with a thank you, I have to give a full list of all my triggers to anyone that asks. Things that exert control over me in fun ways to let her feel dominant and me feel submissive. We also keep track of rule infractions for punishment.

The last big thing is Raven has full permission to use whatever methods she likes to train and manipulate me without having to clear it will me first unless she wants to (she earned that kind of trust). She is an experienced hypnotist and frequently uses this on me to implant suggestions and triggers, and she reward/pain association and other conditioning methods to do whatever she wants with my mind.

The most obvious example is her training and conditioning me to have a huge kink for long term denial and edging, before she got her hands on me I thought the idea was hot but didn't like long term denial at all, it was too frustrating and difficult, so my hard limit was one week. Within a year and a half of us starting Mistress had trained and conditioned me to handle months of denial with edging every day to make sure I was kept horny and frustrated as possible. I'm basically incapable of thinking about having an orgasm without also thinking how hot it would be to be edged and denied instead.

Another example is her giving me a boot humping kink, or the suggestion she made so I find edging myself while deepthroating incredibly erotic and pleasurable, the bigger the dildo and the more frustrated horny I am the better it feels.

Anyway that's way more information than you asked for but I thought it might be appreciated and I always like to brag about how Raven is the best :)

Thank you for the ask!

[spaceless-vacuum]

Fandom‧˚｡ﾟ･° ｡✎ Hetalia

Pairing‧˚｡ﾟ･° ｡✎ America (alfred) x aromantic!reader

Word count‧˚｡ﾟ･° ｡✎ 1,158

Summery‧˚｡ﾟ･° ｡✎ You’re hanging out with Matthew waiting for Alfred to come back so you can continue your trip. while waiting you and Matthew have a chat about being Aromantic.

Misc‧˚｡ﾟ･° ｡✎ second person pov, use of the term queerplatonic, coming out to a close friend, Matthew is really supportive, Alfred never shows up in this work

You laid down on the bed. The soft comforter was familiar and warm. Your limbs sprawled out against the large bed. Even with Matthew sitting on it too there was enough room for you to stretch without touching him. Alfred took you with him to spend some time up in Canada to hang out with his brother. The three of you were supposed to go out and hike some trails or something. Instead you were stuck waiting.

“When will Alfred be back?” You wanted to be annoyed with the American leaving a day into the trip, but it was hard to do so. Work was a big part of any of the countries life. It was a simple fact that they had a lot to do and breaks were to be taken scarcely. Which is why Alfred never took a day off for this trip. Instead he decided to work from Matthews house, making a spare bedroom his makeshift office. Matthew had his own office for at home work, and worked from home as well so the two could hang out while visiting.

It was a great idea. Up until Someone, you were never told any names, called Alfred to work in person for a conference. This wasnt planned and was very sudden. To make the trip Alfred had to leave suddenly. Reassuring the two of you that he wasn't in trouble, he fled back to America. It had been two days since then. Two very long, and very boring days without him. Matthew was great company, but you were closer with his brother than you were with him. Matthew knew that too. Making the days spent with just him a bit awkward.

Matthew sat on the edge of the bed with you. He was on his phone typing away on the handheld device. He looked up from his phone for just a moment before looking back at it. “You need to stop worrying, he’ll be back soon. We can go out and do something then.”

“I can't not worry about him. It’s what I do, I mean you've met the guy. He's almost gotten into a fight with a glass door before.”

“I know you love him, but he can take care of himself.” you were too quick to jump in and shut that line of thought down.

“Don't say it like that! I don't love him! I don't like him in that way. Matthew I…” The words were on the tip of your tongue. ‘I don't love him because I don't feel love’. Was it too late to take it all back? You've known Matthew for a while. Several years in fact, and he wasn't the straightest line on the page. There was no question that he would be ok with you being aromantic, but that didn't make it easier. Matthew did not give you the chance to backtrack.

“Of course you like him! When he’s around you follow him like a lost cat.” ouch. That hurt a little, no matter how true it was. “You two are best friends, it's common to feel this way about someone you spend so much time with.”

Was that true? Were these the feelings that everyone has with their close friends? You didn't think of Alfred as a friend. He was something more than that, but it certainly wasn't love. Was this a common feeling or was it something more. There was an easy way to figure this out. You gathered your courage and decided to talk.

“Matthew…” The change in the room was immediate. Even if the two of you weren’t as close as you and Alfred that didn't mean you two were not friends. Matthew could tell that something was up and gave you his full attention. He turned off his phone and set it beside him on the bed. “I don't think I feel romantic attraction. At all I mean. I’m aromantic.”

“I figured.”

“You figured?”

“Last year when Alfred and you took that trip to Europe he kept trying to set you up with people abroad. He kept calling me to talk about his wingman abilities because he thought he had lost his touch.” Alfred called his brother often. Often enough that it wasn't incredibly surprising to hear that Matthew was aware of how much he tried to set you up last year. Was your love life brought up a lot though?

“He called one night worried out of his mind because he had upset you. Apparently you told him you were sad and didn't like how he kept trying to set you up. I had to tell him that maybe you were just uninterested in dating.” This lined up with Alfred sopping his attempt to get you to date someone. Except he never said why. You assumed he had been hurt with how harsh you had been in telling him you didn't like being out in those situations. Turns out he was just looking out for you.

“He refuses to say anything about it. We don't want you to come out unless you're ready so we haven't brought it up to ask. Just know that the both of us accept this part of you. No matter what, you mean the world to us.” Matthew placed a hand on my arm. You would be lying if you said there weren't tears in your eyes. Now it was your turn to talk. Somehow it was easier to get the words out now.

“I think I like Alfred, but not in a friendly way if that makes sense. It’s not love but it’s not the same as I feel with my other friends. There's something else there. Almost like love if love was platonic. Does that make sense?” Matthew moved away from your side and grabbed his phone. He sat up on the bed and started typing on the deceive again. You took the chance to rub your eyes well no one was looking. You didn't want to cry in front of him.

Moments passed in silence before Matthew handed you his phone.  “Here, I looked up aromantic terms and I think one of these must be what you’re looking for.”

“There's a word for what I’m feeling?” Matthew laughed and wrapped one of his arms around me in a hug.

“Of course there is! You're not alone in this feeling. Google says it’s called queerplatonic, and I think that’s a good description of it. You can read more there.” he pointed to a wikipedia page dedicated to the term.

You were not strong enough to stop a tear from falling. If the man beside you noticed he didn't say anything. Choosing to keep his words to himself as you stared at the phone in your hand. You ran one of your fingers across the screen. Scrolling through the page to read what it said.

“Thank you Matthew, you're the best platonic wingman I could ask for.”

[astriiformes]

WIP Meme: List the titles/filenames/descriptions of your WIPs and tell us a little bit about them/wail about them/beg for inspiration/whatever you want! Then tag some people for a no-obligation mutual wailing/cheering/complaining session!

Was tagged by @marypsue to participate in this one. I am being restrained with my definition of WIP here because especially with all my Critical Role thoughts as of late I have been opening up some truly ancient drafts and contemplating acts of hubris, but these ones are all “Yes, I am definitely working on this one for real” projects. (Ones that are at least partially on Ao3 include links!)

Aurum Horizontale - or, as the draft is actually called in my google docs “vampire times (advanced);” my 2021 FTH gift for @twitcherpated which I am going to finish VERY VERY SOON because even the gracious extension I got from the event organizers after I busted up my hand is running out on me (rip). That said it has been an absolute delight to work on -- a chance to play around with one of my very favorite Critical Role fic tropes, “What if Percy wasn’t able to escape Whitestone when the Briarwoods attacked?” with a very fun twist. I have loved it ever since getting the prompt idea, partially just because it’s been a great excuse to indulge in my love of writing gothic horror and whump, as well asto go absolutely overboard with including all sorts of references to the history of science (particularly alchemy). Also, officially my longest story... ever?

Make A Little Birdhouse In Your Soul - one of my TOH Whumptober fills from last year all grown-up into a proper fic. (And, my first longfic for The Owl House). People kept saying they were interested in seeing it expanded and I was too! My personal attempt at writing a “Hunter gets taken in by the Owl House crew” stories with some distinct deviations from the fic norm, in part because I want to highlight some of the (fairly major!) characters the fandom tends to ignore a lot more -- but with some other twists too. On a break while I finish up other projects but Ch3 is coming along pretty decently all the same

marty mcfly trans - what it says on the tin, really. Marty is one of my favorite trans headcanons, and after realizing one particular way that would seriously complicate the narrative of the movies, I decided I wanted to dig into that in fic form. It has spiraled since then, to say the least, in part because I realized I was really invested in doing historical research for it -- most of the time, I feel like trans Marty headcanons don’t ground themselves in the 70s-80s very much, but I am full of hubris and also have a deep emotional connection to learning trans history. A librarian friend of mine, @suzirya, has provided excellent research help for this story and it’s one of the most personal things I’ve ever explored writing. I am absolutely committed to trying to get it posted sometime this year.

marty mcfly trans: TWO!! - ....yes, another one. It’s a duology, one taking place before the movies and one taking place after, essentially (yes I am very intentionally channeling some past/present/future elements here). The first one is from Doc’s perspective and while I love elements of the outsider POV on it, I decided it was also important to me to do a Marty-POV story, whcih is full of... extremely personal metaphors, to say the least. Ultimately I think it’s going to be the perfect way to explore what I want to do with these but it DOES means writing two different extremely long oneshots.

I Breathed a Song Into the Air - I had forgotton. That my actual google doc for this one is called “ELF DEPRESSION.” Anyways. My love letter (ironically) to the other half of my queer identity, this one is a post-canon LotR story dealing with Legolas and Gimli’s relationship and the former’s coming to terms with being aromantic and asexual. I love this on dearly and even though it’s been on hiatus since late 2020 (....yes, I know) I have every intention of still finishing it. The deeply aromantic version of a shipping fic in which I go “But what if this relationship were extremely complicated and hard to confine to either romantic or non-romantic?”

I am literally always down to talk about any of these stories, so please, if your interest is piqued or you have anything you’d like to say, hit me up

Going to tag a handful of people if they’re interested (including Twitch and Sarah, who have already been tagged in a round-about way), so @animatedamerican, @sidewalk-scrawls, @lafseanchai, and @shadowen also feel free to join if you’re at all interested.

[westiec]

June 17: Chengxian 💜🖤💕

childhood friends to lovers/QPPs, ace Jiang Cheng, bi & aro Wei Wuxian, modern AU

(A/N: If you're wondering about a certain other someone, he will have a wonderful, full life of his own in Suzhou in this AU but is not in this story. 💙 There are some brief mentions of offscreen ace-antagonism, not by anyone we know.)

Read on ao3

Jiang Cheng had been Wei Ying's best friend in the whole world for his entire life.

Okay. Well, not quite his entire life, but certainly since Wei Ying’s parents moved to California when he was little little, which was about as far back as Wei Ying could remember anyway. Wei Ying’s baba and Jiang Cheng’s baba had grown up in Wuhan together and been best friends when they were kids, so naturally, when Wei Ying’s family moved into the same neighborhood as the Jiangs, it made perfect sense for Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng to become best friends too.

It was Jiang Cheng who had taught Wei Ying that he didn't have to be afraid of dogs, by introducing him to Princess, Jasmine, and Lil' Love. Lil' Love lived up to her name, coming and quietly sitting in all her fluffy glory on Wei Ying’s lap every time he went over to play.

It was also Jiang Cheng who Wei Ying got drunk with for the first time. They snuck booze from the cabinet where Wei Ying’s parents kept it and laughed at the faces each other made with every shot until they stopped tasting the harsh burn, and then laughing more just because.

(Wei Ying’s mom had not laughed, not at the time, when the two teens had been sick as anything the next morning, but instead made them a gloriously greasy late breakfast and gave them lots of advice about proper hydration.

Then she told Jiang Cheng’s mom and let her scold them.)

It was Jiang Cheng who came out first, their first semester in college, when he told Wei Ying he didn't think he wanted to have sex with anyone, ever, and asked if Wei Ying thought that meant no one would ever want to date him. Wei Ying hugged him tight and told him he didn't know about everyone out there, but he knew Jiang Cheng was the best guy in the world and would be an awesome boyfriend, and he'd fight anyone who said differently.

Jiang Cheng found a group on campus for third culture LBGT kids, and Wei Ying went with him, as a supportive ally.

Which was how Wei Ying figured out that he was not just a supportive ally.

In listening to the others talk about orientation and identity and attraction and cultural expectations, Wei Ying realized that what he'd always assumed was normal—finding all kinds of people physically attractive, regardless of their gender—was actually his bisexuality. So that was kind of cool.

"So yeah, now we can be queer together!" Wei Ying said, when he excitedly shared his newfound realization with Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng snorted. "Yeah, 'all' and 'nothing,'" he joked.

It was Jiang Cheng who'd helped him practice what to say to his parents when he wanted to change his major at the end of sophomore year, and Jiang Cheng who reminded him to eat and sleep and "take a fucking break, Wei Ying," those next couple semesters when he took way too many hours so he wouldn't have to rack up a whole extra year's worth of student loans to finish his new degree plan.

It was Jiang Cheng who graduated first, on a gorgeous blue-skyed sunny day in May, and Jiang Cheng who suggested Wei Ying keep living with him at his new apartment, so he wouldn't have to try to find a one-semester lease until he finished in December.

(They renewed the lease together every time.)

Jiang Cheng ribbed him playfully each time Wei Ying met someone new, but he was always there each times things fizzled out after a few months for reasons that never quite made sense to Wei Ying.

Jiang Cheng occasionally dated too, and Wei Ying was glad he never did have to fight anybody—though he did drive Jiang Cheng to the emergency room the time he came home with split knuckles from punching a guy who, "seemed to think I didn't know my own mind about certain things."

But dating sucked for everybody, right? It wasn't like Wei Ying or Jiang Cheng were in any hurry to settle down and do the whole spouse and kids thing or whatever. Wei Ying tried to imagine it and just... couldn't, though the image of Jiang Cheng with a baby was admittedly pretty cute.

~

It was not Jiang Cheng, but Jiang Yanli, a few months after she proposed to her girlfriend and they started planning their wedding, who Wei Ying finally asked, "Yanli-jie, how does a person decide someone else is their person?"

Jiang Yanli looked across the room to where Jiang Cheng was showing her soon-to-be-wife how to put side spin on a billiards ball and smiled. "I think you just know," she said. "You meet someone and you get to know them, spend time together, then one day you realize you love them and want to build the rest of your life with them."

Wei Ying wrinkled his nose. "I dunno if it works that way for me. Just some random person? I've never met anyone I can imagine wanting to live with all the time. Well, besides—huh..." he cut off suddenly and darted a look over at Jiang Yanli, who just calmly sipped her drink.

"Have you ever told him that?" she asked, after a moment where Wei Ying reassessed his entire life and dating history. "I think he might appreciate hearing it."

"I... huh. Yanli-jie, you're kinda blowing my mind here," he complained.

"I gathered," she said wryly, before fixing him with a smile that made all the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "Of course, I trust," she told him, "that I do not need to explain to you of all people how very dearly I hold my didi's happiness and well-being."

He swallowed and raised three fingers in the salute he'd used ever since the summer that—hah—he and Jiang Cheng had decided as kids that they would make their own oath of brotherhood like the heroes of their favorite show. "I, Wei Ying, swear to you that I would kick my own ass before I did anything to hurt him."

Jiang Yanli leaned over to knock her shoulder against his and nodded. "That's what I thought."

~

Turned out, dating Jiang Cheng didn't suck at all.

It felt easy in a way Wei Ying’s past dates never had, less like trying to keep up with a game whose rules everybody knew except him, more like... well, like spending time with his best friend in the whole world, but on purpose. There was also a tension in the back of Wei Ying’s mind that seemed to have lifted, though he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was that had gone.

It was Jiang Cheng who helped him figure it out.

"I think it's that now I'm able to count on this. On us," he said, when Wei Ying brought it up. "Before, whenever you went out with someone new, I wondered if this would be the time you'd find someone to fall in love with and leave me behind."

"Aww, Chengcheng! I would never!"

Jiang Cheng huffed and rolled his eyes, but his cheeks were pink. "Well, I know that now," he said, a pleased little smile breaking through his attempts at a scowl.

"As long as you're sure—" Wei Ying began, still getting used to thinking about himself with the word "aromantic." Still a so very sure that Jiang Cheng deserved to be fallen in love with.

"Hey!" Jiang Cheng cut him off. "None of that. I know you. And I know you don't see it this way, but I personally think it's pretty damn romantic that you choose to love me, on purpose."

"I simply have exquisite taste in life partners," Wei Ying sniffed, embarassed the way he always got when Jiang Cheng declared something he'd done "romantic."

"You do," Jiang Cheng agreed. "Someone told me a long time ago I was the best guy in the world and would make an awesome boyfriend, and that he would fight anyone who said differently."

Wei Ying laughed. "That's you and your sister I've promised to kick my own ass if I ever break your heart, then. Guess I'll just have to keep you forever."

"Damn right, you will," Jiang Cheng agreed, grinning smug and happy and breathtakingly beautiful. Wei Ying leaned across the couch to give him a sweet, closed-mouth kiss—the kind Jiang Cheng had shyly admitted he actually did like, a lot—and smiled too, at how lucky he'd gotten to be with his best friend in the whole world for his entire life.

🖤💜

Today's (extremely long!) thread was inspired by this WONDERFUL art of ace Jiang Cheng and bi & aro Wei Ying! Go give Midori some love on Twitter!

I spent a nonzero amount of time googling to double check when various terms and flags came into vogue, so if you're wondering, WWX & JC were in college in the early 2000s, before the ace and aro flags were designed. By the time they get themselves figured out, they can get their cute wristbands.

...which, yes, means these dingdongs spent about a solid decade living together before realizing that was what they wanted to do forever. 😉

This also means Jiang Yanli and her unnamed wife here are getting married between when California started recognizing same-sex marriages in 2008 and the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015! THIS SHIT'S RECENT!!!

Happy Pride, thank you for reading, check out more LGBTQIA+ sweetness on my #PrideMonthSnippets Masterpost!

[lily-janus]

Hi there! So in honor of Aromantic awareness week, I thought I'll share here how I found out, my coming out story essentially.

So I'm actually not really sure where exactly I knew this term from, but I kinda knew about asexuality and aromantisisem in general, I think mainly from Bojack Horseman, but I didn't payed it much attention, let alone related it to myself. It was more like, at the back of my mind.

I never really had a crush or felt that way towards other people, but I subconsciously told myself it's just because I haven't found 'the one' yet or maybe because I'm not old enough, surely it'll happen by the time I'm 18.

And then I started nearing 18 and realized... there's still nothing. That's when I began to wonder if maybe I am interested in someone and just didn't realize it so every time I was with one of my guy friends, I wondered if I have romantic feeling for them.

At some point, after many of people in our grade kept asking if we're a couple, I decided to ask out one of my closest friends since I really did felt deeply connected with him and thought that maybe that was it. Long story short, he agreed but nothing really changed between us and at the end we both realized that what we have with each other is nothing else than platonic and we 'broke up' kind of.

My bff seemed to agree with me everytime I brought up the subject with her and one day I suggested to her the aromantic term, still not relating it to myself in the slightest, and she seemed to agree for a while as she started to figure herself out. But a while after she realized that's not right for her and that she does get crushes and really really wants a romantic relationship someday with a special someone (I know you can be aro and still have crushes and want relationships I'm just saying she decided the label is not fit for her, not trying to invalidate anyone, sorry if I did in some way).

So after that conversation, a few weeks after when we entered our first quarantine, I got curious and decided to research the term on Google for a bit, just to get a better understanding.

And oh boy, did I so not expect all the things I read to call me out so accurately, I can still remember how it felt, everything just falling into place and, for a moment, I was very relieved. Since I was already 18 and still I felt nothing of what everyone expected me to feel and I was seriously starting to freak out and thinking there's something wrong and- but no, apparently I'm not the only one and there's a label for it and it's a thing that exist and I'm totally fine.

But then my relief turned into sadness and regret and... jealousy. I'm... not like everyone else... I won't fall in love... I won't have those perfect and happy relationships I keep reading about and seeing in my favorite shows. And... I felt like I lost something... that I was missing out and... what if I can't be truly happy without it? Because my entire life I've been taught that you can't possibly be happy without a romantic partner, you need someone to complete you and turn you whole so... does that mean I'll have a missing piece my entire life?

I went down this spiral for a couple of weeks, feeling a physical pain in my heart everytime I saw anything concerning romance, feeling as though the entire world just rubs it in my face.

It took me quite a long time of self reflection and conversations with my bff to come to terms with my identity. I eventually realized that, I have nothing to be jealous about because all those romantic things are not something I want and not something I really felt the need to have, moreover, I'm happy just the way that I already am, I love my friends and family and I love myself and I don't need anything 'more'. And really, dating seemed really complicated and confusing and full of drama that I eventually felt relieved I don't need to deal with it.

So now that I finally came to terms with who I really am, I naturally wanted to tell the ones closest to me about my new discovery. My friends took it well, asked questions to better understand and were pretty chill about it overall.

My parents, however, didn't really took it well.

In full honesty, I didn't plan to tell them at all at first, it sort of slipped out during dinner once. My mom was rambling about this new show she loves and how she loves the main couple there. So of course, my aromantic brain had to jump in and complain that there's romance in almost every show and that it gives off the idea that's the only thing that matters at the end of the day. Long story short, we started arguing until I blurted that there are people out there who are not interested in romance and that... I'm one of them actually. So then they started saying that all my friends will eventually find a partner and get married and I'll be all alone and yada yada yada all that aphobic stuff.

And that's it, I still struggle with my identity from time to time, being aroace in this society is not easy. And my parents are getting more used to my identity by the day.

Happy aromantic awareness week everyone! You are all valid no matter how you identify! I love you all❤

[iclaimedtobethebetterbard]

stars in the sk(eyes)

Fandom: Sanders Sides Characters: Logan, Virgil, Roman, Remus, Janus, Patton Rating: Teen & up Relationships: Analogical, background Intrualiceit Warnings: Language, food, like 1 line that’s maybe suggestive but also said half-jokingly Word count: 5592

Read on AO3!

My writing masterpost

Starlight Universe masterpost

analogical week 2021 start - previous - here - next - masterpost

Summary: Logan has always loved stars. Virgil has always loved music. Maybe they can put those together with a little help from some friends.

Notes: Day 2 of Analogical Week 2021! @analogicalweek Takes place in my Starlight Universe, does not need context to read.  Patton, Janus, and Remus are all nonbinary folks who use he/they pronouns and masculine terms in this universe (but in the flashback scene, Janus is only using they/them); Roman, Logan, and Virgil are all men who use he/him. (I know absolutely nothing about music or concerts or anything, so please don't roast me too hard for any inaccuracies, lol.)

They were only opening the concert; the real attraction was a band from out of town with a midsize following, making a stop on their tour. Not that Virgil was complaining to have landed this gig. It would be the biggest performance his band—the band he, Janus, and the twins had formed a few years ago—had given, by a lot. And that was exciting. Sure, Virgil had absolutely spent hours stressing over how big it was, but he knew how to manage his anxiety, especially when it came to performances, and the anxiety didn’t stop the excitement.

“You’re going to do wonderfully,” Logan had told him earlier that day as he’d been getting dressed, passing his fingerless leather gloves and then holding his jacket for him to slide into. He’d spoken it with a simple, unassuming confidence, as if it were a given fact. It had been more comforting than Virgil thought Logan knew.

With the memory of his husband’s words carefully nestled against his heart, and the jacket Logan had helped him paint rainbow stripes on sitting on his shoulders, Virgil found it easier to let go of the anxiety. Some lingering tension remained as he paced backstage, running through lyrics in his head and triple checking that everyone knew the schedule, but it wasn’t as bad as usual. Most of it, if he was being honest with himself, wasn’t even about the performance—it was about the surprise the band had put together, the surprise Virgil had had to bite his tongue a couple of times to keep himself from thoughtlessly mentioning it to Logan, even though the surprise had been almost entirely his own idea and the others were just helping. But he’d successfully kept the secret, and now Logan was out in the audience, and Virgil was backstage, and there would be no more chances to spoil it.

But Logan was out in the audience, and Virgil was backstage, and the final round of jitters was setting in. And when Logan wasn’t there, Virgil’s jitters took the form of pestering the hell out of everyone in the room, to make sure everything was perfect.

He checked all the instruments, giving Janus’s keyboard a once-over without touching because he knew better by this point. Remus’s drumset was already on the stage—he was drumming with his fingers on the end of the fallout table in the corner—so there was nothing to do about that. Roman was actively tuning his guitar, so Virgil left that alone too and instead checked his bass, just in case it had gotten out of tune in the last thirty seconds.

All of the instruments were fine, great, even, and Remus and Roman were undeniably being productive; Janus, who’d been on their phone in the corner, had stepped out for just a moment, probably to get a drink of water or something.

Things were in order. Which was good. Great, even. But it gave Virgil nothing to do with his restless energy.

“Are we ready?” he asked, jiggling his leg and tracing the pattern of his fishnet tights through one of the large rips in his jeans.

Roman looked up. “Yes,” he said shortly. Roman’s nerves tended to take the form of a very short temper, which didn’t mix well with Virgil’s perfectionism.

“Yeah,” Remus agreed, running a hand through his dark green curls and straightening his denim jacket.

“We all know the order things go in?” Virgil followed up after a minute of tense silence.

“Mmhm,” Remus said easily. Remus, and Remus alone, somehow always managed to remain at ease and unbothered no matter what. Virgil didn’t know how they did it.

Virgil took stock of everyone’s outfits. He himself was wearing fishnet leggings that went all the way up past his waist. Over them he had ripped black skinny jean, and a black crop top splattered with white paint. On top of that, he wore his black denim jacket, which matched the ones the other three were wearing. Virgil’s had the rainbow pride flag painted on the front, all down the lapel area; the rest of the jacket was covered in patches. He checked his makeup, examining the black eyeshadow and lipstick in his phone’s camera; it looked fine. Perfect, even.

Roman was the neatest of the group, made to stand out as the lead singer. He wore the same high-heeled doc martens as the other three, but in white where theirs were all black. He had a tight white longsleeve shirt made of a shimmery material and a matching pair of white pants, and the black jacket contrasting nicely against it all. Roman’s jacket had the aromantic pride flag where Virgil had the rainbow, and the rest of his jacket was painted with red roses all at the ends of long, intricate, thorny stems. His eyeliner was sharp enough to cut, and his curly hair was piled up atop a black headband wrapped around his forehead like a crown.

Janus still wasn’t back, but he’d been on the neater end too, to counter Virgil and especially Remus’s scruffiness. Their outfit was sleek and all black save for a thin white belt around their waist. A black hat with a broad round brim framed their face like a dark halo. His jacket had nonbinary and pan stripes on the front, and thin white squiggly lines running up and down like warped pinstripes everywhere else. (Virgil knew where on the jacket one line ended in a tiny snake head, and where one trailed off into a tail, but you wouldn’t notice unless you knew to look.) They were wearing black lipstick to match Virgil, and winged eyeliner to match Roman, and contour that emphasized the sharpness of his cheekbones; definitely the heaviest makeup of the group.

Remus, sitting in the corner and making noises to themself, was a sharp contrast to his boyfriend Janus’s sleek elegance. His black jeans, splattered with white paint to match Virgil’s crop top, were ripped almost to shreds, open nearly entirely from mid-thigh down to his ankles, with only a few clinging strands of fabric keeping them anywhere in the realm of being pants. The tee they wore—black again, with his own name painted on it in large white letters—was also ripped full of holes, these ones much more deliberate; he’d slashed it carefully with an exacto knife, kneeling on the ground and focusing with their tongue stuck out slightly, until it was exactly how he wanted it and you could catch glimpses of their top surgery scars when they moved. His makeup consisted of dramatic green and black eyeshadow, and his jacket had the trans and polyamorous flags on it—he and Janus, who had nearly identical collections of pride flags between them, had split two and two which color schemes they wanted to use. The rest of Remus’s jacket consisted of a few jagged holes and some incredibly detailed paintings of green tentacles.

The instruments were fine. The costumes were fine. The makeup was fine. What else did that leave for Virgil to fret over as the final minutes ticked away?

“How about the blocking?” Virgil said. “We can go over it again if anyone—”

“I promise we know, Virge,” Roman snapped.

“Come on, kiddo, you know he’s just trying to help!” piped up Patton, Janus and Remus’s other boyfriend, who was suddenly somehow present and sitting in Janus’s lap, his pastel outfit completely out of place amidst the varying edgy styles everyone else in the room was sporting.

“How did you get back here?” Roman and Virgil demanded in unison. Virgil hadn’t even noticed Janus was back, let alone that he’d brought Patton, who was supposed to be in the audience with Logan until the performance was over.

“Oops,” Janus said, not sounding even a tiny bit remorseful as they played with Patton’s dark curls.

“Did you leave Logan alone?” Virgil demanded of Patton, hands on his hips.

“Only for a minute! He’s getting snacks, anyway,” Patton said, wrapping his arms around Janus’s neck. “We both know where our seats are, he’ll be fine.”

“You already have a partner backstage, stop being greedy,” Roman scolded Janus. “Patton, you know we need to focus right now, can you please not distract my horny bandmates until after the show?”

“You sound like Virgil, with all that worrywarting,” Remus commented, snickering.

“Take that back this instant!” Roman demanded as Virgil gave Remus double birds.

Remus only guffawed, looking incredibly amused.

“Seriously, though, uh, Patton, with all the love in my heart: get out,” Virgil said.

Patton wrinkled his nose, but pressed a warm smack of a kiss to Janus’s cheek and hopped to his feet.

“Do I get a kiss?” Remus asked, reaching his arms out hopefully.

“Makeup—” Roman began warningly.

“I haven’t got any on my mouth!” Remus said triumphantly. “Suck it, Jan.”

Janus smiled wryly, fingers rising to but not quite touching their black lipstick that Patton had avoided so carefully. “The prices I pay for beauty.”

Patton giggled, crossing to Remus, clasping both his hands, and leaning down to kiss him sweetly.

“Great, you’re very very cute together but now is not the time, Patton get out and stop distracting your boyfriends,” Roman said, shooing Patton towards the door.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “High strung much?”

“Not all of us possess your—your stupid coolheadedness powers, Remus!” Roman snapped.

Patton paused in the doorway and pointed at Roman, getting out his dad voice. “Hey. Be nice.” The finger moved to Virgil. “Be nice.” His eyes flicked to Remus, then Janus, and his voice shifted to a different tone, half flirty and half joking. “You two be good boys.”

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god, I said to stop being horny!” Roman shrieked, chasing a giggling Patton out of the room and down the hall. He returned moments later, Patton-less and fixing at his hair to make sure it wasn’t too messy. “We had better not have any more alloromantic bullshit from any of you until after the show is over!” he announced. “Okay?” He didn’t sound quite as annoyed as before.

“Homophobia,” Remus accused teasingly.

But instead of snapping back, Roman giggled. “Oh, shut up.”

The twins began joking back and forth, Janus making the occasional amused interjection.  Evidently Patton’s intrusion into the room, although technically unhelpful, had done wonders to break the tension, and Virgil reminded himself to thank Patton later.

Virgil’s phone buzzed with a text from Logan.

Logan: Patton found me, don’t worry. Logan: How are you doing?

Virgil: hahahahahaaaa i don’t wanna think abt it

Logan began typing, then the little bubble went away; a second later, the phone began to ring, Logan’s caller ID plain to see.

“Hi, babe,” Virgil greeted.

“Hello, dear. Would you like to walk me through your plan for the performance, to reassure yourself?”

Virgil let out a small sigh of relief. “Yes, please.”

“I am listening,” Logan assured him.

Virgil took a deep breath and launched into a detailed itinerary, knowing that Logan didn’t mind if he got a little too technical in his terminology because Logan was listening for Virgil’s sake.

“And then that’s about it,” Virgil wound down, carefully leaving off the final item from his explanation. It wouldn’t do to spoil the surprise now. “Oh, looks like we’re getting ready now, gotta go.”

“I love you,” Logan said quickly. “You’re going to do a wonderful job.”

Virgil let out a short laugh. “Thanks, L. Love you too.” He hung up, set his phone down on the table, and picked up his bass.

“You ready?” Roman asked, nudging Virgil with his elbow, as the group finally headed towards the stage.

Virgil sucked in a long breath. “Yeah. I think so. Are you?”

“Oh, you know it!” Roman grinned, a spring in his step. He paused after a second and glanced back to Virgil. “Sorry for being so wound up earlier.”

“It happens.” Virgil shrugged. “Right back at you.”

Roman nodded and put a hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Hey. He’s going to love it. Just wait and see.”

Virgil looked away, half smiling. “I sure hope so.”

“He will, I know it!” Roman insisted as they climbed the steps onto the stage and emerged into what could practically have been the eye of a hurricane, for all the noise and light that surrounded the stage.

The sky above was fully dark; bright lights everywhere in the area contrasted against it. There was a decent crowd. The venue seemed almost full, as a matter of fact. The observation added a thrill of adrenaline to compliment the goosebumps from the chilly breeze across Virgil’s bare midriff.

Roman stepped forward and spread his arms wide right as the spotlights came up. “Hey, folks, thank you for being with us here tonight!” he said, his smile gleaming in the bright lights and his voice booming in the speakers. “We have some great hits lined up for you tonight! Let’s get it started, huh?”

Virgil waited a few seconds for the cheer of the crowd to peak. Janus began the melody on the keyboard; Virgil came in with his bass at exactly the same second Roman began to sing, and Remus picked up the beat on the drums on cue.

Virgil was quickly able to get lost in the music, all his focus on playing and providing backup vocals, leaving him with no more brain space for his anxiety. This was his favorite thing about music: its ability to keep him in the moment.

They played three songs. Two covers that always went over really well, and one song that the twins had written together about family that always left Roman just a little teary. Normally that would be their closing song.

But tonight was a little bit different.

Roman took a step back, nodding at Virgil; the pair of them traded places onstage, putting Virgil front and center.

“So,” Virgil said, the mic on his cheek picking up his words, “we were thinking we’d let you all be the first to hear our new song. Uh, I wrote this one. And normally Roman does our singing, because—well, you’ve heard his voice. But this song is kind of special. I wrote it for my husband. So. We thought I’d perform it tonight.”

As Janus began playing the melody, Virgil searched the front row of the crowd, squinting against the lights, until he found Logan, sitting next to Patton and gazing up at Virgil with shining eyes. “Lo, I love you so much, babe. More than every star you’ve ever shown me.�� He took a deep breath and began to sing.

***

10 years earlier

Unknown Number: Hello. This is Janus. Logan’s roommate

Virgil: how’d u get this number?

Janus: I broke into Logan’s phone after you started dating and saved you to my contacts just in case

[read 3:43pm}

[3:46pm]

Virgil: i Virgil: wtf dude

Janus: Your boyfriend has been moping in his room all day, can you please come fix it? Janus: Roman is starting to mope too for no good reason, but he’s doing it in the living room and at this point it is starting to affect my quality of life

Virgil: yk i literally could not care less abt that part u asshole <3 Virgil: i’ll be over in 15 Virgil: is he ok?

Janus: He won’t talk to me, I don’t know what happened

Virgil: i’ll be over in 10

It was normally a 12-minute walk from the dorm Virgil was an RA in to Logan’s apartment just off campus, but Virgil could walk fast when he was anxious or alone, and in this case he was both. Even taking the time to grab a jacket, he still made it to the building in nine minutes flat.

Janus let Virgil into the apartment almost the second he knocked, relief plain to see on their face.

“You see?” Janus said over their shoulder in a scolding tone. “I had to resort to outside measures to deal with your bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit,” Roman whined from where he was slumped on the couch, scrolling aimlessly through Netflix on the TV.

“Oh? And what’s this?” Janus demanded, hands on their hips. They dramatically pushed the button to open the microwave door, revealing a limp burrito wrapped in a damp paper towel.

“Lunch,” Roman mumbled defensively.

“You hate microwave food, and it’s four in the afternoon!” Janus snapped.

“I am in a creative slump, Jan! Have some sympathy!”

“No! Get your whiny ass off the couch and stop ruining my afternoon!”

Virgil took a deep breath and pointedly walked in between the pair of them down the hall towards Logan’s room. Roman and Janus’s still-bickering voices faded into the background.

“Hey.” Virgil knocked on the door, which had a piece of printer paper taped to it with Logan’s name written on it in blue sharpie and a couple of stars, both scribbles and stickers, scattered around it. He waited, and when there was no reply, he added, “Are you okay, Lo?”

“I’m fine,” Logan said, in a voice that had obviously been crying.

“Can I come in?” Virgil asked.

“Okay.”

Virgil pushed open the door and stepped into the dim room, closing it behind him. The blinds were closed, and Logan was curled up under a mound of blankets.

“Hey, baby,” Virgil murmured, kicking off his shoes and climbing to sit on the bed beside Logan and stroke his hair. “What’s wrong?”

Logan made a muffled noise of misery into the mattress.

“What?” Virgil said after a moment.

Logan rolled over. “Teacher didn’t like my essay.”

Virgil chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment. “Okay, I promise I’m not making fun of you, but you do know that that is possibly the most stereotypically you thing you have ever said to me, right?”

Logan let out a little huff that was not quite a laugh. “I guess.” He was silent for a moment as Virgil continued to stroke his hair. “And I know it’s stupid. I still got a B+ and my overall grade in the class is fine and I know I’m a good writer and everything. But it sucks. I was really proud of it.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Virgil said, choosing to ignore the squirm in his gut that always happened when grades came up. It was so easy to compare or to worry about others comparing and then to worry about others getting upset over comparisons and—he dragged himself back to the present, forcibly setting the issue aside. “You’re allowed to feel upset,” he told Logan. “About anything that upsets you. Even if you wouldn’t choose it.”

Logan didn’t respond, but after a minute his hand snaked out from under the covers and grasped Virgil’s.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Virgil asked, struck with the idea.

“Huh?”

“A walk. Get out of your head for a little bit and hang out. We can talk if you want, or just be together.”

Roman’s voice grew particularly loud outside, and Virgil picked out a teary, petulant, “I hate you!”

“Plus it’ll get you away from that energy,” he added wryly.

Logan drew in a breath and sat up. “Alright. Let’s do it.” He pulled out a denim jacket while Virgil put his shoes back on and retied the laces. They made their way out of the apartment, hand in hand.

Roman was on his feet now, releasing an angry tirade at Janus, hands clenched into fists and sounding on the verge of crying, the TV remote cast on the floor beside him. Janus was sitting on the kitchen counter with arms crossed and an intimidating glare on their face.

“Hey!” Virgil snapped, and Roman cut off abruptly. “Eat some food,” Virgil told him on a hunch. Sure, Roman could be a little immature at times, but this was on a whole different level, and a lack of food seemed like the simplest culprit.

Virgil looked over at Janus, to make it clear that they weren’t off the hook either. “We’re going out. You two better make up before we get back. Clear?”

“You can’t tell us what to do—” Roman began stubbornly.

“Janus literally called me in to fix all your problems, so yeah. I can. Also open your windows, it’s gloomy as fuck in here.” Virgil opened the door and held it for Logan, tossing one last glare over his shoulder at Roman, who looked dumbstruck, and Janus, who avoided eye contact.

Logan was quiet as the two of them walked down the stairs and exited the apartment building, hands in his pockets (one still clasping Virgil’s) and eyes on the toes of his slip-on shoes.

“Wanna talk?” Virgil asked.

Logan tilted his head to the side for a moment, his thinking face slipping over his features, and then shook his head.

Virgil nodded. “Okay.” He fished in his pocket for his earbuds and plugged them in. “Let me know if that changes, okay?” He received a small nod and turned on his go-to playlist—a 12-and-a-half-hour-long composition of all his favorite emo songs that he could loop without having to put any thought in.

The two of them wandered through the streets, hand in hand, music blaring in Virgil’s ears and Logan’s fingers soft and warm against his. They made their way towards downtown; their university was in a small city, and it was pretty walkable.

As they walked, weaving around and across different blocks, occasionally stopping to peek into particularly interesting shop windows, the tension in Logan’s shoulders slowly began to relax and his gaze migrated from the toes of his shoes upwards to take in the surrounding scenery. Virgil felt himself relaxing in turn. The subdued, almost sullen look on Logan’s face was beginning to shift back to his typical bright-eyed curiosity, which meant that while maybe not all was right with the world, a whole lot was right with the world.

As the sky began to darken, Logan’s pace quickened with sudden purpose—but he didn’t lead Virgil in the direction of the apartment. Instead, he headed in almost the exact opposite direction. Virgil was lost for a moment as to where they were going, until the park in the center of downtown came into view. Ah. That explained it. He was kind of glad; he didn’t feel ready for the quiet time they were spending together to be over.

A scent caught his attention as they entered the park, and he tugged gently at Logan’s arm, nodding towards the mediterranean food truck. A small smile answered him, and a nod, and the pair of them made their way over. They both ordered gyros—Virgil chicken, and Logan, who was trying out vegetarian food, falafel.

Fifteen minutes later, seated side by side on a park bench and finishing the last of their sandwiches, Logan cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

Virgil bumped his shoulder against his boyfriend’s. “Of course, babe.”

“I am feeling… better,” Logan said cautiously, as if he were testing out the words in his mouth to see if they felt true.

Virgil nodded. “Better is good.”

Logan nodded, eyes moving to the sky, which was now almost fully dark except for a streak of orange sunset leftover on the horizon. The stars were out, at least the brightest ones that could be seen even past the floodlights placed every so often across the park.

“You like space, and shit, right?” Virgil said, scooting closer to Logan and dragging his arm to wrap around Virgil as he rested his head on Logan’s shoulder. It was a bit of a rhetorical question, since he knew Logan had an astronomy minor and was the vice president of the astronomy club and had gone on no less than three eager rambles about space in the last month alone, but one could always do with a conversation opener.

Logan blinked and looked down at him. “I do.” You know this, his tone said, a little puzzled at the question.

“What star is that?” Virgil pointed at a particularly bright one, although he wasn’t paying nearly as much attention to the star as he was to Logan’s face.

Sure enough, Logan brightened, his eyes more interesting than any star. “Oh! That’s not a star at all—it’s actually Mercury!”

“Really?” Virgil asked, grinning and scooting closer.

Logan wrapped his arm a little more tightly around Virgil’s shoulders with an answering smile. “Yes, and it’s actually very fascinating…” And just like that, he was off, words spilling out of his mouth at a breakneck pace, gesturing eagerly with his free hand to emphasize his points.

Virgil listened, doing his best to follow along and asking a few questions whenever Logan started to wind down, but mostly just happy to watch his boyfriend’s lips as he excitedly infodumped, and his eyes, too, alight with delight, the frustration of the disappointing grade all but forgotten as he held Virgil and told him stories about the night sky.

It was nearly ten at night by the time they made their way back to Logan’s apartment, chatting back and forth in quiet voices and giggling. Logan broke off as he opened the door and got a look inside; he glanced over his shoulder at Virgil and put a finger to his lips.

Virgil hushed and followed him in, then saw what the need for quiet was: Janus and Roman were asleep on the sofa, Roman sprawled on his stomach on top of Janus with his limbs everywhere and his face buried in Janus’s chest, Janus with their arms wrapped around him and a throw pillow propping their head up and a worn copy of Crime and Punishment flopped over from where it had clearly been propped up on Roman’s back.

“Precious,” Virgil commented softly as Logan picked up the book, tucked a bookmark off the coffee table into it, and set it down with the tender care he seemed to reserve exclusively for books and Virgil.

Logan smiled. “They are, rather.” He looked down at his roommates. “Sometimes I wonder why I picked the two most dramatic people I know to live with.”

“Sometimes like this afternoon?” Virgil said with a chuckle.

Logan snorted. “Maybe. But then they do things like this, and I remember why I like them.”

Virgil noticed something on the tiny kitchen table. “Or this?” He pointed.

Logan came over to examine what Virgil had found. “Oh,” he breathed, a smile spreading across his face.

A plate of cookies sat on the table, together with a hastily handmade card.

“Sorry :( ❤️” it read in large, expressive cursive, and beneath it in smaller, neater handwriting, “I actually didn’t do anything wrong, but these are for you and I did the dishes, also you’re welcome for the date night.”

Logan laughed quietly, taking a cookie and offering the plate to Virgil, who accepted one cookie—they looked to be snickerdoodles. “Yes. Things exactly like this,” he said. He took a bite of the cookie and raised his eyebrows. “Not bad.”

Virgil grinned and leaned over to kiss him. “Not bad at all,” he agreed, pulling away.

“I literally gave you your own cookie,” Logan whispered, clearly trying not to laugh.

“Yeah, but it tastes better this way.” Virgil winked, mainly for Logan’s reaction—he pressed a hand to his mouth, stifling an amused smile that was still visible in his eyes. “I should go,” Virgil added, glancing at the time. It was Sunday tomorrow, so he didn’t need to worry about how late he was up, but he disliked walking home at night.

Logan nodded, taking another cookie and pressing it into his hand. “Text me when you get home?”

“I always do,” Virgil said, accepting the cookie and a goodnight kiss that still tasted just faintly of cinnamon and sugar.

And he did just that; he always felt a little awkward simply texting “I made it home,” or the like, so he usually tried to come up with interesting questions to send to Logan instead. Tonight, it was:

Virgil: hey Virgil: if u could pick one Thing u always wanted to do Virgil: and get a guarantee that u’d get a chance to do that thing no matter what Virgil: what would u pick?

Logan: Fascinating question! I would like the opportunity to name a star. Logan: I don’t imagine it will ever happen in real life, but I’ve always thought it would be… cool, for lack of a better word.

Virgil: ghfdkjghksdhj i will never be over ur love for space Virgil: u have a Brand and u stick to it

Logan: Well, a brand is important in life. :-) Logan: What about you? What would you pick?

Virgil: i think it’d be neat to be in a band Virgil: idk Virgil: like i don’t wanna be super famous or anything but like Virgil: being in a band would be neat Virgil: yk?

***

Ten years later, Virgil sang the last lines of his song looking right at his husband. “And I don’t even need to look to the skies/Because all of the stars are in your eyes.”

The noise around him didn’t fade away like in the movies; to the contrary, the cheering was so loud it was almost hard to focus. But Logan’s face was absolutely alight—Virgil couldn’t be sure at this distance, but he thought Logan might even be tearing up—and he was looking at Virgil like he was his whole world. Even with the bright lights and overwhelming sounds all around, it was easy to focus on Logan in the midst of it all, Logan pressing a hand to his mouth but smiling too wide for anything to hide it, Logan leaning into the side-hug that Patton—oh, and there was Patton, right beside him—was offering, but never taking his eyes off Virgil. Logan looked so happy, even though Virgil knew concerts weren’t really his favorite type of event, and Virgil was hit right in the chest with a renewed realization that Logan was Virgil’s whole world and damn, Virgil wanted to make sure everyone knew it.

But their time onstage was up, and the next few minutes were a bustle of packing equipment away and cleaning up the space they’d been allotted backstage, and it all went by in a bit of a blur, helped along by the remnants of Virgil’s performance mindset and slight overstimulation—though that was getting better now that he was offstage.

Virgil took a quick break, when the bulk of the urgent work was done, to just stand in the empty restroom and breathe for a moment, the noise of the other band who were now onstage thudding in the background so quietly he could hardly hear it. When he’d fully composed himself, feeling much calmer, he took a deep breath and headed back out.

On his way out, he ran into Roman, pushing a dolly with a box on it. “Oh, good, there you are,” he greeted Virgil. “Can you—oh, for crying out loud,” he broke off, looking ahead.

Following his gaze, Virgil snickered as he saw Remus, leaning against the wall with their hands clasped behind his head, grinning down at Patton, who was leaned forward, bracketing Remus with his arms, looking up at him and speaking, although Virgil couldn’t hear him from here.

“We still have work to do,” Roman said under his breath, but the exasperated gaze he leveled at the pair was altogether far too fond to have much real bite.

Virgil’s mind was on other matters; if Patton was here, that meant—

“Lolo!” Patton’s voice called brightly; he’d seen Roman and Virgil and stepped back from Remus, waving happily at the pair of them. “Virgil’s here!”

At the sound of Patton’s voice, Janus emerged from the room, a little further down the hall, that had served as the headquarters for the band. He bent to give the tiny man a kiss, then turned to Remus for another kiss.

Logan popped his head out just a moment behind Janus. “Virgil?” He brightened when he saw Virgil’s face, and stepped fully out into the hall. He hadn’t changed from his work outfit, still wearing a button down with the sleeves rolled up, a tie, and a pair of jeans, and a smile that he looked like he couldn’t wipe off his face.

He was still the handsomest man Virgil had ever seen.

Virgil looked to Roman. “Permission to get back on my alloromantic bullshit, captain?” he asked teasingly.

Roman rolled his eyes and swatted Virgil’s shoulder. “Go be cute,” he said benignly.

Virgil took off down the hallway to Logan, not quite running; Logan took a few steps to meet him, and Virgil caught him in a hug so eager he actually lifted the taller man off his feet for just a second.

Logan, half-laughing with surprise, grasped Virgil’s shoulders for balance as he regained his feet. “You wrote me a song?”

“Did you like it?” Virgil asked, holding him tightly.

“Virgil, I—” Logan seized Virgil’s face in his hands and kissed him.

Virgil wrapped his arms more firmly around his husband, kissing him back exuberantly and swaying slightly back and forth.

“It’s perfect,” Logan told him, breaking away only just far enough to speak. “You’re perfect.”

Virgil grinned, reaching up to run his fingers through Logan’s neat hair. “Careful, you’ll spoil me.”

“I don’t think I could ever do that,” Logan told him seriously. “It’s not spoiling if you deserve it.”

And really, what was Virgil supposed to do about that except kiss his husband again?

[bye-bi-birdie]

Every attempt by gatekeepers to veto names for "the community" just shows they don't actually want a community unless either they get to dictate who's allowed or it only contains people exactly like them.

"You can't say queer community because not everyone identifies as queer/people are uncomfortable with that term"

Well let's just assume for a minute that the person wasn't specifically referring to the community of people who do identify as queer but was talking about the whole nebulous "community" encompassing everyone who isn't straight or cis (and ignoring for now that gatekeepers would exclude large numbers of people who fit under that category as well) then what happens when we decide that is an unacceptable term? You've already shrunk the group you're calling your community down by a fair amount of people by excluding those who don't really fit into any group except queer.

Well an unfortunate number of people would be ok with that, let's move onto a pretty big one.

"You can't say gay community if you're not talking only about gay men and lesbians/you can't call yourself gay if you're not a gay man or lesbian"

This one still pops up surprisingly frequently imo. It's a favourite of terfs, although obviously scrapping queer is too, because it assumes that terms or groups can be watered down if they aren't kept to a strict set of rules and definitions. So we can't have "gay community" for non straight or cis people as a whole because that's not ok to use for bisexuals, pansexuals, asexuals, aromantics etc. Of course there's also the issue of whether "gay" would be a term that non cis people felt included in even if there wasn't pushback to using it. Many people who don't like queer are fans of using gay instead, terfs hate both if you're referring to a group not just including those they count as gay but it's not only terfs against it as an umbrella term. Still very divisive though not as inflammatory a word as queer.

"It's just LGBT/it's LGBT+/it's LGBTPN/etc. etc."

Many people who aren't ok with queer or gay insist it's "just LGBT" often with the hurried addition that pan and nonbinary people "go under" the B or the T respectively if they're not quite to the point (or at least not openly) of excluding those identities as well. "The LGBT community" is ideal for most gatekeepers but obviously a problem for everyone else. The + is sometimes tacked on as an afterthought to placate anyone who didn't get a letter and "LGBTPN" was a short lived attempt to show pan and nonbinary people that aspec exclusionists weren't going to turn on them and it was rather hastily discarded when it became apparent that was untrue. "LGB" is obviously only favoured among trans exclusionists and some of them blatantly prefer "LG" which really is the ultimate destination of all the gatekeeping over who's allowed in the community no matter what bi or trans or any other gatekeepers say who insist it's not the goal to be rid of all the mspec people or nonbinary people or whoever, just the "bad" ones (although normally they'd say "fake" not bad) because when you're trying to appease gatekeepers there's really no end to it.

MOGAI and (and QUILTBAG although it's seen less often) are generally at best not taken seriously, usually assumed to be full of "trenders" and at worst accused of attracting predators. "SGA" or "SGA and trans" tend to denote gatekeepers, different types depending on which they use, and have the unfortunate connotation of conversion therapy.

In the end there's never going to be a term everyone agrees on because "everyone" includes different people depending on who you ask. Denying people the ability to use a term that best describes the community they're a part of because it's "too broad" is only ever going to show that you think you can decide who gets to be in a group that there's not even any consensus about and it's going to show that your relation to that group is framed through the lense of gatekeeping.

People don't have to use queer if they're uncomfortable with it of course but it's always going to be the term I prefer because it's the most all encompassing and not focused on squishing people down into the restrictions other terms come with. If I see people talking about the queer community I know they're most likely not trying to shove anyone out so at the end of the day whether or not there's a cohesive community of any kind I'm gonna stick with the queer community.

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Eleven

Asexual and aromantic. 

Those were the words Five found for himself when he looked up his “symptoms” on the internet. The scientific terms for someone who didn’t have any desire for sexual interaction, or romantic entanglements. And while it didn’t feel exactly like it fit him (Five liked to jerk off as much as the next 17 year old guy, he just didn’t find anyone sexually attractive), it was closer than he’d ever been before. 

And Five liked titles. He liked being able to put things in neat little boxes. The world was massive, and confusing, and full of shitty people who would manipulate you and use you under the guise of caring about you. If you knew your place and you knew what to look out for, you could keep it from happening.

The best thing you could do was look after yourself. As long as you didn’t rely on anyone, they couldn’t hurt you. It was a lesson hard learned.

That’s why Five turned in his completed, signed and notarized emancipation forms the day he turned sixteen. Relying on his dad was like dropping through a sheet of ice and hoping you’d come out the other side as an acorn. You couldn’t change the fundamentals, be it time and space or a person’s nature. They were who they were, and no amount of bellyaching was going to change that.

Hell, if it wasn’t for seeing Sir Reginald’s name on his completed form that got mailed back to him, Five wouldn’t even have been sure that the old man knew he was gone. But it was there, stamped, because the old man signed too many forms to do it by hand, and it felt like a burden lifted and a new one hung around his neck in equal measure. 

For a reactive, petulant teenager who wanted nothing more than to be acknowledged, it had been a swift kick in the ass to actually be acknowledged. Wasn’t that just karma rearing her ugly head?

That day, five days after the papers were filed, was the last day that Adrian Christopher Hargreeves ever existed outside of legal documents. That was the day he decided that his name was Five. Not for any real reason, there was nothing monumental or thoughtful behind the choice. It had been the first thing to come to mind and Five let it be his choice, fueled by spite. 

He was no heir apparent to an aeronautical empire. He was just another number.

Living in a hostel wasn’t ideal, but it was better than trying to pay for a hotel every night, or deal with landlords who didn’t want a teenager on their lease. It gave him a shower to use every night without having to go to a gym and a safe place to keep his things, as long as he didn’t leave anything expensive lying around in plain sight. His laptop came with him wherever he went, always in his backpack. Just in case.

Sometimes, he thinks about asking Peter and Eddie if he can crash on their couch. He knows they’d say yes if he did. But as accommodating as they were, there were always limits to people’s kindness, and Five didn’t work his ass off to get out of being beholden to one man’s whims so he could find himself at the mercy of another.

(Peter isn’t like Sir Reginald. He actually listens when Five talks. But he won’t take the risk, not when things were going so good for him.)

Head Chef. 

That was another title, another little box. But where the other ones were titles and boxes that Five could wrap his hands around and declare with a decision, this one was one that was going to take some work. 

Five spent days mooching off of the wifi at the hotel near the beach, moving from bench to bench so they wouldn’t ask him to leave. It was how he figured out exactly what he was going to need to get from sixteen year old with no experience to head chef. And it was going to be a long, hard road.

Getting the job at Tony’s place seemed like the best way to start down that road. A Michelin star restaurant on his resume would look good when he applied for culinary school. But what Five didn’t account for was how much he’d hate the damn job. If he had to shuck another oyster again, it would be too soon. 

Why anyone would eat those things was beyond him. They were disgusting. And if you needed a slimy mussel to get your dick hard, then maybe you needed to see a doctor, not spend hard earned money sucking down disgusting sea creatures.

And no matter how much he told himself to suck it up and power through, Five spent most of his time miserable for those few months he worked at Tony’s restaurant. To the point that he’d even started considering giving up on it altogether. What was the point of going to culinary school if he was going to hate it? What was the point of all his hard work if it wasn’t going to make him happy?

The whole point of this endeavor was to not end up like his father. If Five was going to go home every night miserable, he would have kept the money and the business. At least then he would have been miserable on silk sheets. Or miserable driving a Maserati. 

That’s when Peter stepped in. With his idiot grin and his unending well of optimism and bottomless pit of a stomach. He was the one to tell Five that he should follow his dreams. That there were plenty of chefs out there who didn’t have degrees but still made some of the best food on the planet. 

‘I think there’s a fryer in the back of the bar’ sounded like the best escape plan that Five had ever heard. Not that he was going to tell Peter Parker that. He’d bite off his own tongue before he told Peter just how much he needed him. (How much he loved him. Like family.)

So head chef became owner in Five’s head, all the plans he’d built around himself shifting to accommodate. Now the focus was on making money, saving up what he could, learning what would make people go out of their way to try. 

Shifting a title and a box in his head turned out to be easier than Five thought it was going to be. And in a way, he should be glad that he figured it out with head chef because Eleanor Crain walked into his life and blew up two other boxes that Five was content with. 

Asexual and aromantic no more. Nell was beautiful in a brushed clean kind of way. Like she’d never worn make up in her life. Five knew women went for that look, that they carefully cultivated the kind of make up that made them look like they weren’t wearing any at all. But Nell’s face wasn’t like that. It was simple, and clean, and beautiful. 

She had a laugh that was light and bright and effervescent, a smile that lit up a room. She was the kind of girl that Five would have been convinced was an unattainable creation of the media if he hadn’t met her for himself. 

But he did, and now he was in too deep, right off of the diving board and into the deep end. Because now all of his decisions had a Nell Crain shaped question mark at the end. Would she still like him if he did this? That had given him pause a time or two.

Of course, it didn’t stop him from decking a drunk in an alley behind the bar, but he took the time to think about it and that was a whole new kettle of fish for him. (Sometimes, Five got so angry that he couldn’t breathe. He never wanted Nell to see that. And if it took back alley bar brawls to keep it away from the surface and from her, then so be it.)

It even started affecting his cooking. 

Not in a bad way, not exactly. But for the first time in his admittedly short but stellar cooking career, Five found himself thinking about what someone else wanted. About what she would think of each item, whether she would savor it on her tongue or pretend and smile her way through something she had to choke down. 

He learns about her life in between small tasting plates of chicken wings and mozzarella sticks. She tells him about her father giving up on her and her brother and Five says fuck him with a vitriol that makes Nell laugh. 

She tells him about her mother, dead when she was six years old. Nell pushes a mozzarella stick around in a puddle of marinara when she does, making abstract designs. Nell says she doesn’t remember her mother, and Five admits the same. It’s not the kind of bonding that anyone wants to do, but it’s knotted between them all the same. 

Five doesn’t know how it happens, but he tells her about Sir Reginald. About emancipation. He dances around the part about living in a hostel, because he doesn’t know if he can turn down kindness from her. 

By the time they make it through the bar’s short menu, she’s given him sweet but solid advice on all of it. (Better than Peter, who licked the plate when Five first made parmesan and garlic chicken wings.) Five has notes written down in a small notebook he keeps in the breast pocket of his apron, and he fully intends to adjust and adapt his recipes. 

But he can’t stop thinking about Nell. About how nothing he made really sparked any joy in her. And he wanted that. Hell, he could be honest with himself, he needed that. He needed her approval, and it was a big, bright red flag flapping in the wind, but Five was too far gone to do anything about it. 

Which is how he ends up in the bar’s kitchen on a Sunday morning, tossing his third sandwich in a frustrated heap. But the fourth, oh the fourth is a thing of beauty, just the right amount of crisp on the edges and golden brown all over, the cheese starting to seep out of the sides of the sandwich. It was purely aesthetic, but it was perfect. 

He brings the bowl and the plate out of the kitchen and up to where Nell sits, the lone body at the bar. Peter and Eddie wouldn’t come downstairs for hours. This was the closest to privacy that Five had these days. (He wasn’t stupid, he knew they slept in on Sundays for this very reason. Eddie Brock the lapsed Catholic had started going to Mass at night on Sundays.)

“Grilled cheese and tomato bisque for the lady.” Grudgingly, the bisque was Tony’s recipe. But it was a damn good one, and Five wasn’t going to spit in the wind. Just because it wasn’t his idea didn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea. 

Nell laughs, but the sound falls away to something more appreciative as she breaks the two triangles of the sandwich apart, watching the golden cheese stretch between the two halves. It’s only when she bites down on the edge of the sandwich, the crisp bread crackling that Five realizes he’s holding his breath. 

And it’s released in a whoosh of laughter when Nell fans her mouth. “It’s good! Really good. Really hot, but really good!” 

Being in love was not a box or a title that Five had expected to ever have. But now that he found himself in that box, he wasn’t in a hurry to get out. And there was maybe a few more box’s and titles he’d like to get his hands on now that he knew about it. 

Nell Crain’s boyfriend would be a good one to start with. 

[dragonkeeper19600]

Beanbean Headcanons

Yoo! 

This is a list of headcanons (in no particular order) covering the Beanbean Kingdom and its inhabitants.

Beanish age at a much slower rate than humans. Bubbles’s 1000+ lifespan is unusually long but not unthinkable, comparable to a human reaching triple digits. 

Before the events of Superstar Saga, Peasley was Cackletta’s main adversary. Because of the Beanish’s longer lifespan, he’s actually been fighting Cackletta since before the Bros. were born, though he currently appears to be younger than them. 

Cackletta used to be a member of Queen Bean’s high court, but she lost her rank after trying to depose the queen. The court took every precaution they could to keep her locked up, but she broke out anyway, largely due to the help of her apprentice.

Fawful is actually the latest in a long line of Cackletta’s apprentices. (Think Emperor’s New Groove: “Every decade or so, she gets a new one.”) In exchange for their service, Cackletta would instruct them in the ways of dark magic.

Out of all her students, Fawful has the least amount of magical potential. But, he more than made up for his lack of supernatural skills with his scientific genius. Fawful is actually her favorite.

Fawful’s only real power is precognition. He has visions that allow him to see into the future. However, he can’t control when these visions occur, and they aren’t all that frequent. Cackletta at first tried to teach him to hone his sight but eventually gave up.

She actually warned him not to rely too heavily on it because he couldn’t control it and the ability made him overconfident. That was a lesson he forgot in Bowser’s Inside Story. Guess he needed her after all. 

Peasley is gay. That seems so obvious that I feel like I shouldn’t have to say it, but I’m saying it anyway. He’s gay. 

However, Peasley doesn’t have much interest in long-term romantic relationships. He’ll flirt like crazy, but he won’t commit. Perhaps he’s aromantic? Possibly, but Peasley doesn’t bother himself with such labels.

Fawful, on the other hand, is definitely aromantic.

Mario’s voice is capable of waking the Beanstar. 

For a voice to be considered “pure,” it must meet the following qualifications:

Be pleasant to the ear

Belong to someone who is good and virtuous

Belong to someone who is at peace with who they are

Fawful is an adult. He’s so small and weak because of he grew up malnourished. This is also the reason for his food obsession.

Fawful used to be a student at WooHoo Hooniversity. He got in on a scholarship. Full ride. Unfortunately, he was kicked out after he blew up the science building.

He never gave a reason why he did it or ever bothered to defend himself. He just kept laughing. 

Fawful was eating the beans you paid him with in Partners in Time. He’s gotta eat something. 

Nobody in the Beanbean Kingdom thinks twice about eating the beans that grow in the ground or brewing coffee with them, by the way. It wouldn’t occur to them to consider it cannibalism, since those beans are non-sentient. 

Fawful has an unidentifiable European accent. Nobody is quite sure where he got it. 

Fawful likes musicals. Like, a lot.

He is wearing no pants under his robe in Superstar Saga. Zero pants.

Fawful’s core motivation in seeking world domination and fusing with the Dark Star was to never be weak again. To never go hungry or get hurt again. His upbringing gave him a bit of a Darwinist view, and he was determined not to be on the bottom. 

[quietnqueer]

Some thoughts on asociality

Asexual, aromantic, now asocial… yes, here I am banging on about another ‘a’ word; this time ‘asociality’.

I’ve been looking into what ‘asocial’ means lately, curious as to whether it could be used to describe me and my loner-ish ways.

As I discussed in this post, I’m at a point in my life where I want to try and tackle my shyness. However, I know that all the therapy in the world is not going to make me more outgoing. I just have this innate sense of myself as someone who is ‘just not that social’.

This has really come to the fore over the past few months. Since last autumn, I’ve been working for myself from home. I now spend most of my time alone; easily going for days, sometimes even weeks, without having a proper, full-on conversation with anyone.

And it hasn’t bothered me in the slightest. I’ve not been lonely; I’ve not been bored, and I’ve definitely not gone ‘crazy’. My mental health is actually in a much better state than it was when I worked in an office, pinned to a desk, surrounded by other people all day.

Then there’s been the COVID-19 quarantine. Many people who live alone have struggled with their enforced solitude; unable to go out with friends at the weekend or of an evening, they’ve been feeling lonely, their own company proving a poor substitute. I’ve not related to any of this; whilst some have been saying they didn’t realise how much they needed other people, I’ve been realising just how much I don’t.

So, does all this mean I’m asocial?

  Well, yes, it would seem so, if we’re going with the Wikipedia definition of asociality: “the lack of motivation to engage in social interaction, or a preference for solitary activities.”

I also saw myself in this definition here on Tumblr, which says asociality is “not feeling social attraction”. I like this, because it chimes with that sense of self I have, of being someone who just lacks an innate interest in being social with others. I also like it because it echoes the definitions of asexuality (not feeling sexual attraction) and aromanticism (not feeling romantic attraction).  

  It’s good to know that such a thing as asociality exists. It provides a bit of a buffer from the oft-heard mantra that human beings are inherently social beings, which can cause us loner-ish types to wonder whether there’s something wrong with us. Having an awareness of asociality, means I can start to ‘own’ my solitary nature a bit more, and stop myself from feeling all weird and ashamed about it, as I often have done in the past.

It also helps when it comes to thinking about my shyness, and what it is I actually want to work on.  If I hadn’t come across asociality, I might have undertaken therapies that would seek to transform me into some flutteringly feminine social butterfly; in other words, something I’m just not, therefore doing me more harm than good. Now I know that it’s possible to lack an innate desire to be social, and that this is not the same as feeling socially anxious, means I can seek to overcome my shyness in a way that honours my true – ‘asocial’ - self.

  Having said all that…

…. whilst I accept that I am asocial, I don’t feel comfortable identifying as such. Why? Because a lot of the time, asociality is also construed as having a complete disinterest in other people, or even “lacking the capacity for social interaction” (merriam-webster.com).

And this isn’t me!

Just because I prefer my own company, doesn’t mean I don’t like people, or that I’m not interested in them. I have hung out with people, and on occasion, actually enjoyed it! I’m a fan girl of many a 19th-century literary heroine and ‘90s rock musician. And I am capable of getting on with others. It’s just that I prefer my social interaction to be kept to a minimum; in short bursts, or on a long-distance basis.

I’ve also seen it mentioned that asocial people lack empathy towards others, and this bothers me as well. It implies a connection between a person’s level of sociability and how capable they are of caring about others. So, on this basis, we’re saying that extroverted party people are likely to be some of the most thoughtful, kindest people around? Pffft…………….

I may meet the definition of ‘asocial’ in terms of lacking motivation to engage in social interaction, however I also meet the definition of a ‘highly sensitive person’. This means when I do interact with others, I can’t help but be aware of their moods and emotions, and generally speaking, I place a great onus on being, or at least trying to be, a considerate, empathetic person.  

So, I don’t believe that a lack of interest in socialising with people equates to thinking they = shit. Unfortunately though, based on most of the definitions I’ve come across, the word ‘asocial’ seems to carry that baggage.

In a world that still treats introverts less favourably than extroverts, it would be good to have a label those of us on the more ‘extreme’ end of the introvert spectrum could claim to signal our innate preference for solitude. An identity we could take pride in and use to raise awareness of the fact that, contrary to what our extrovert-dominant society would have us believe, not all humans have a need to be social.

For me though, ‘asocial’ doesn’t quite cut it.

[kendrixtermina]

We’re you getting harassed for reblogging that anti Christmas post from that Jewish person? Because I did.

...since you’re on anon and using the loaded term/framing “anti christmas” im a bit worried that you’re that same troll but in case you’re just reluctant to private message me for some reason I’m gonna answer because it’s important to stand with harassed ppl. If obvious troll answers follow though they will be deleted. 

 I wouldn’t be surprised if they harassed multiple ppl seeing how systematic they were with their new accounts etc. I ignored them & they went away (or maybe reporting them for spam so many times led the mods to do something, idk - if you’re a real person & still being harassed then obviously not), the threats very pretty much transparent manipulation/ big talk.

Are you asking me for some reason? Do you propose some action or did you just want to confirm you weren’t the only one? Are they harassing everyone who reblogged that post or something? In that case it seems like organized trolls from some far right website

IDK what their problem is. 

This is why I believe it’s important to like just question about universally worshipped holy cow values; Because you quickly find out what big string of unrelated strings ppl associate with them. Question everything - not because everything has to be changed for changes’s sake. But the things that you keep should be kept out of deliberate choice not just trudging along with conformism.

This is why there’s value in phrasings like “defund the police” - gets ppl to think about the fundamentals & realize such base assumptions that they took for grated. 

Like if you say “Hard work is overrated” or “Soccer doesn’t interest me” they will react like you attacked their self worth when you are merely protesting exploitation or expressing that you are indifferent about soccer; Nor is indifference or annoyance the same as “hate”. 

“I don’t drink” =/= “You are a bad person for drinking“. After all, drinking is to have fun. If it doesn’t cause you fun, there’s no point in doing it. You don’t gain anything from it. If you’re abstaining for health reasons or past addiction it might even harm you. But you don’t need a reason other than just that you don’t enjoy it. 

“I’m aromantic & perfectly fine without a partner” =/= “You are bad for desperately wanting a partner“

“I don’t care for christmas” =/= “You’re not allowed to like it“; (but don’t bully ppl who don’t - I mean as an atheist I'm relatively lucky I could “join” if I wanted; Muslims and jews would have to leave their entire culture & family behind, of course they’re offended.)

Or they believe their religion, (or cultural convention, if we’re talking about purely “secular” Christmas) is the same as, say “morals family & togetherness” so when someone says “I don’t care about christmas”, “I’m annoyed at being bombarded with Christmas stuff”  or “I don’t like christmas” they feel it’s an attack on morals family & togetherness themselves. But it’s not. 

If you’re neither Christian nor from Northern Europe (and historically Christmas didn’t use to be a thing in, say, spain or optic communities; Orthodox Christians celebrate a completely different date!), that’s just a day in the calendar that you associate with nothing. Cold maybe. Or hot, if you live on the southern hemisphere. Maybe you associate family & togetherness with Chinese New Years. 

Maybe you associate family & togetherness with Jewish or Muslim or Hindu Holidays so it annoys you that you don’t get time off for it (precisely because you DO care about family & togetherness), or are accused of not caring about family & togetherness because you don’t happen to commemorate it on December 25th. Maybe this harassment & discrimination leads you to eventually associate “normal day in the calendar” with harassment so you hate it. 

Or, you are from a traditionally Christian north or central european background, but your family was full of abusers or religious bigots, so now you associate Christmas with bigotry and abuse. Or no need to go that far -  commercialism & false, forced cheer aren’t that great either. You don’t need a reason.

So of course you don’t like it! But does that mean you hate everyone who celebrates it or that you’re against family & togetherness? Not at all. 

It’s really just like the drinking example above: If Christmas makes you happy, great, do christmas (just do not bully anyone over not doing christmas, much like you shouldn’t drink and drive), but if it doesn’t, why on earth would you participate?

Personally I mistrust anything where you’re told that everyone has to like it, because it’s so unlikely to be authentic. There’s hardly anything that everybody likes aside from extreme things like “not being murdered”, & the older I get the broader I’ve learned that this is true.  Even sex or chocolate or being touched aren’t liked by everyone!

[elizabethemerald]

For the writing thing, could you do Krel and Toby (your choice as to romantic or platonic) with #39? Thank you!

"Come on Krel! You're my star. I can't do this on my own!" Toby pleaded with the depressed Akiridion. The room was filled with Toby's recording equipment, though it was much nicer than what he once used. 

Toby was surprised, normally filming always made Krel happy, but something else must be off. He scratched at his beard, he would need to shave it again soon. 

"Do I need to call your sister over for another visit?" Toby asked. That had worked at least for a little while the last time Krel had been in this mood. 

"My sister is Queen of Akiridion-5." Krel said. Toby opened his mouth then shut it again. He knew Aja was queen. He had been invited to attend her coronation as Queen in full. The first and only human filmmaker to attend an extraterrestrial coronation ceremony. That footage was worth its weight in gold. 

"Aja does not have time to come to this dump heap every time I am feeling down." Krel continued.

Now Toby knew his friend was depressed. He only referred to Earth as a dump heap when he was really down. Toby cracked his knuckles and sat down on his bed, then gestured for Krel to join him. He had some experience with depression. 

"Talk to me dude. What's this about?" Toby put his hand open, palm up on his knee. An invitation. Krel was like a cat. He only wanted to be touched on his terms. 

Krel looked at the hand for a second, then pulled out his serrator and activated his transduction to take on his human form. He sat down on the bed next to Toby. He put his closed fist on Toby's palm, then immediately removed it to run his hands through his hair. 

"Sometimes I feel like I'm broken." Krel said softly. Toby's eyebrows pinched together. He raised his hand to put it on Krel's shoulder but dropped it back to his knee before he did so. Krel kept talking, "Sometimes I just want to feel the way the rest of you do. I want what Aja had with Steve, or what you have with your Jimbo, or what Jim has with Claire. But I just don't feel that way."

Toby thought about that for a moment. "Oh, you're Aro?"

"Arrow? Like the projectile?" Krel asked in confusion. 

"No, aromantic."

"A romantic, like Steve?"

"No like asexual."

Krel huffed in annoyance. "Toby you are explaining words I don't know with more words I do not know."

"Here let me show you." Toby got off the bed and sat at his desk. He opened his laptop and logged in. He immediately blushed up to his ears as the picture from his bonding day appeared on his desktop. 

The day was half human wedding, half troll ceremony. Claire and Darci looked stunning in their dresses and he hadn't been able to take his eyes off Jim in his custom made suit. The cage match at the end of the night was the stuff of legends. 

Toby quickly opened his browser to cover the picture. He typed what he was looking for into the search engine. He clicked the first article on aromantics. Krel leaned on the back his chair to read it. 

"See you're not broken. A lot of people feel this way." Once Krel had read it he sat back on the bed, his expression thoughtful. "Look if you want a relationship like that, I'm game. But you don't have to have one if you don't want to."

"But what about-" Krel paused. 

Toby minimized the browser to show his desktop again. The picture was taken from above with all four of them hugging and holding each other, their heads back to look up at the photographer. Barbara had to climb on top of Blinky, who had to climb on top of Aaarrrgghh in order to take the picture. 

"Listen. I've dated or married every friend I've ever had. I'd totally be game to date you as well. And considering the number of people Aja is currently dating, I know Akiridions have a word for polyamory."

“Mmm.” Krel thought about it for a moment longer, still looking at the screen. Toby selected the browser again so Krel could reread the article. Finally Krel pointed at something on the screen. “What are these colors?”

“Looks like that’s the pride flag for Aros. Want me to order you a pin or something?”

“Yes. And as much as I appreciate the offer of a date, apparently I am not broken.” Krel paused looking at the flag. “Apparently I am an Arrow.”

“Good to hear. Are you feeling better, friend?” Toby said standing back up and offering his fist for a bump. Krel tapped both of his fists against Toby’s. 

“Yes I am feeling much better. I am ready to shoot with you.”

“Perfect. Now give yourself more arms, we have a lot to carry.” Toby started gathering up some of his equipment. 

Krel transformed back to his Akiridion form to help pick up the equipment. They were both laughing together by the time they got downstairs. 

Less than a week later Krel’s pin arrived in the mail. He proudly wore it every day, and eventually added an asexual pin as well. It made him happy to know there were other people like him. 

[tarralin]

Fraternization

a Clauses and Contracts story

Chapter One

TW: Adult situations, implied nudity

~☆~

Warm morning sun streamed through the window, pulling Duchess from deep slumber. She shifted slowly, stretching as far as her muscles could reach to clear the morning mental fog from her mind. Crisp spearmint wafted through the air on steaming puffs from the nearby bathroom accompanied by the familiar sound of a running shower. The mirror fogged slightly but the open door prevented full cloud coverage.

Duchess sat up to finish her morning stretch when a metallic squeak rang out, signaling the shower’s occupant exiting the stream and stepping into full view of the mirror.

Oh… Good morning to you too!

Her brain raced to remember the name of the honey-eyed best man that could very well put Adonis to shame should the famed god ever wish to experience the sting of failure. Many things from last night crossed her memory; the two glasses of champagne she nursed to keep her wits about her, the dimly lit dance floor of the reception hall, the warm arms she allowed to guide through dances. Those same arms being the ones she spent the night in.

But, damn, what was his name?!

“Like what you see, Duchess?”

A flash of heat crossed her cheeks at the realization she had been caught staring, averting her gaze immediately to the floor. “Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean-- I was just--”

His warm laughter at her flubbering was oddly soothing. “It's ok, otherwise I wouldn't have left the door open.”

It was her turn to laugh at her own awkwardness. “I should probably be getting up. I need to sneak back to my room to get ready to see the happy couple off on their honeymoon.”

“You don't have to do that. You can get started here and I’ll get your luggage.” He dressed quickly in fresh clothing and was out the door in the next instant with her key card in hand, but not before twirling a lock of her hair on his way out and motioning toward a covered breakfast.

Certainly know how to treat a girl, don't you, Hideyoshi?

Hideyoshi! That's his name!

She rushed through the fastest shower on her personal record once the door clicked behind him, utilizing the complimentary toiletries provided by the hotel and stepping out just as Hideyoshi returned with her overnight bag. Pointedly focusing on her own reflection, she couldn't help the slight tilt of her lips as she saw him freeze in his tracks through the mirror at the same vision he had given her moments ago.

“Like what you see, Hideyoshi?”

Okay, so maybe he hadn't purred her name like she just did his but the pink coloring his features was definitely worth the effort.

“You might want to text Princess.”

“Why?” Her brows knit in confusion for only the second it took him to cross the distance separating the two of them.

“We're going to be late seeing them off.”

~*~

They weren't terribly late to the departure party. Princess and Nobunaga hadn't even shown up yet by the time Hideyoshi turned in his room key to the receptionist. After their morning interlude, Duchess had agreed it wouldn't be ideal if they arrived together and made her way to the lobby ahead of him. She’d already made herself comfortable in the sunny waiting lounge with a prepared coffee in hand, engaged in lively chatter with the other two bridesmaids as well as Mitsuhide and Masamune-- who was currently taking up the whole couch with his legs dangling off the other end and head rested in the fair haired bridesmaid lap.

“Really, Masa?” Hideyoshi scolded as he halfheartedly kicked Masa’s boots off the edge.

“Really, Hide?” Masa mocked as he resettled in place, tucking the woman under his arm and resting his head on top of hers.

Hideyoshi arched an eyebrow at the duo but kept his thoughts to himself as he sat across from Duchess. She had also noticed the closeness of their friends but continued to sip her coffee with indifference before sitting up and continuing the conversation. “So, what all do you guys do for a living? Princess hasn't said much other than Nobu being a business CEO she met while tailoring his suits.”

“Yes,” Mitsuhide answered. “Of a technologies corporation.”

Duchess sat straighter and her eyebrows arched with new interest. “What kind?”

Mitsuhide simply smirked. “A little bit of everything. Ieyasu is head of a med-tech firm, Masamune is in charge of military research, and I control the communications and security properties.”

A laugh escaped the second bridesmaid who had remained silent until now. “So let me get this straight… Nobu is CEO of a corporation involved in medical, military, and security advancement. Is he trying to be the next Batman?”

Amicable laughter rang through the group a moment and then Duchess’s smiling emerald eyes fell back to Hideyoshi. “What about you?”

“Vice President,” Hideyoshi sat a little taller as he boasted his own title with a grin.

“Don't be shy,” Mitsuhide sneered. “Mother Dearest here doubles as head of Human Resources. As well as meddling in all of our own work.”

A crumpled napkin flew across the open space, pelting the silver haired kitsune between the eyes. “If you kept me updated, like you're supposed to, then I wouldn't have to meddle.”

A familiar chuckle resonated from the other side of the lobby, alerting the group to the newlyweds’ arrival. “Should have known the lot of you couldn't go long without discussing work.”

“Duchess!” Princess scowled down at her friend. “I thought I told you no business talk.”

“We're not discussing my work.” Her emerald depths glittered with such mischief, Hideyoshi could have thought she were related to Masamune in that moment and that edge of challenge was back in her voice. The same one that reignited last night’s flames within him when she purred his name that morning.

“Close enough,” Princess huffed. “I would like everyone to relax and avoid anything business related.”

“You do realize you're talking to Duchess, right?” This from the friend sitting next to Masamune. “You know, borderline workaholic? I'm surprised she's survived this long without checking in at work.”

“Baroness, you know well why I do...”

“Yes, and I also know there are two capable VPs to handle things should the ice queen himself refuse to emerge from his frigid fortress.”

“Eh… ‘capable’ may be a questionable term right now with everything.”

“Anyway!” Princess butted back into the conversation. “It's getting late in the morning and our driver will be here soon so let's get some final pictures done!”

The receptionist was more than capable of taking a few group shots before the gathered bunch split to finally wish the couple well on their honeymoon.

“Hideyoshi, be sure to send me the minutes from the shareholder--” Nobunaga attempted one last order but Princess was quick to shut it down by covering his mouth her hand.

“No. You. Don't. The company will be fine without you for a short time.”

Light hearted laughter echoed through the car drop off. Masamune clapped Nobunaga on the back. “Don't worry, Devil King, it will take more than two weeks to bring down Oda Tech.”

Baroness and Countess gasped sharply at that just as Princess cowarded behind her husband. Duchess froze stock still, all color draining from her face.

“O-oda Tech?” She blinked twice before her thoughts seemed to catch up with her, breaking the spell as hysteria laced giggles bubbled from within. “I am so fired!”

“They can't dictate what you do on your own time!” Princess squeaked from her behind Nobunaga's shoulder.

“I have a competitors fraternization clause, they most certainly can! Oda Tech is listed by name. I have no idea what they did to my boss but that man hates Oda and-- oh God.” All the fury left her as suddenly as it came, freezing her in place with an emotionless mask. “I won't even be eligible for severance… I--I have to go.”

Turning again on her heel, Duchess snatched her bag off the ground and started toward her car before marching back when she realized her mistake. She pulled Princess into a tight hug despite the wrinkle still etched into her forehead. “Have fun! I love you. I'm upset with you right now, but I love you. I have to go. I have to call the photographers to make sure they don't post any pictures yet. Ah, hell! Social media!”

The frazzled ball of nerves continued muttering to herself as she settled into her car and drove from the parking lot. A heavy silence surrounded the three remaining women as they gazed after the tail lights of their friend while the men glanced to one other, each failing to make sense of the scene they had witnessed until Nobunaga finally addressed his new wife.

“Princess, mon amour, would you like to explain and translate what just happened?”

“Uh, no. Not really.”

The fair haired bridesmaid known as Baroness rolled her eyes. “Duchess is a higher-up at one of your rival companies.”

“And Princess thought it a good idea to keep that fact from everyone.” Countess finished.

“Shame,” Mitsuhide smirked. “I do so enjoy networking… from whence does she hail then? What does she do?”

Countess and Baroness pointedly glanced to Princess with tilted heads and strained smiles, preventing her from escaping the topic.

“I was just trying to avoid any awkwardness and, personally, I feel I succeeded. But, if you must know, Duchess is an Executive Assistant.”

“To who?” Nobunaga persisted.

The forced innocence of her smile faltered as she realized avoidance was no longer an option, releasing a single name on a defeated sigh. “Takeda Shingen.”

Hideyoshi had been mid sip of his own coffee when the name choked him, causing him to double over in a coughing fit to push the liquid back out of his lungs.

“Oh?” Mitsuhide’s eyebrow rose with the corner of his smirk. “Looks like one of us networked quite well after all.”

~☆~

❤💕Tag List💕❤

@notsafefortum-blr @pseudofaux @jennacat84 @lulis-dungeon @valfraeyja @captdrobvious @refrigerated-bread @sevenswifey @starry-wei @sengokuotaku82 @kaisimplerandomness @pirateprincessyuki @kitsune-mana @aromantic-misguide-to-romance

P.s.: Let me know if you would like to be added to the tag list❤

~☆~

Prologue

Master List // Ao3 // Ko-Fi

Bookmark Fraternization on Ao3!

[kelownahq]

WELCOME TO KELOWNA, MATÍAS BELMONTE

Age: 38

Gender: Genderfluid

Pronouns: He & Him

Sexual & Romantic orientation: Aromantic & Bisexual

Occupation: Painter

Hometown: Guatemala City, Kelowna since the age of 8

Triggers in bio or character: Criminal (older brother), parental death (adopted child), abuse (adopted child)

BIOGRAPHY: 

The Belmonte family started off with Félicia and Antonio in Guatemala, a local medium and a private detective, who proceeded to have two children named David and Matías – both showing off talent and grave intelligence from an early stage in their lives. Much like his father, David was sharp and driven, known to bargain with his supposed classmates during recess and gain control over certain areas around the school yard in which the other children had to pay a fee or a favor to pass through. No matter what the parents did, or teachers, David found loopholes to climb through and continued to hold a reign.

Matías was thrown aside quite often due to David’s behaviors, being two years younger than his brother he merely kept to the sidelines as his focus laid on his imagination and play on colors – however there were some choices of his that struck his parents as odd. Instead of a child’s typical grass and sunlight Matías seemed to have shifted around the colors of the grass and the sky, being the opposite of one another, as well as have coated the sun in a bright violet shade. When asked about it, the child held no clear answers besides “that was what it looked like to him”; and it would take Matías another five years before he was properly diagnosed with tritanopia, also known as a form of color blindness, and had teachers scold him for trying to break normal patterns.

When David was ten and Matías eight, the family was prompted to move to Canada for a brief time as Antonio’s work reached far beyond what their country had to offer, and he was not keen on leaving the three on their lonesome. A case that would leave Antonio hospitalized for three weeks and for him, and Félicia, to fall in love with a nurse named Miguel. The trio were soon spotted sneaking around behind the children, as they began to explore the possibilities of a third lover in their lives. Five months later the parents explained to David and Matías that Miguel was to move in with them and that they were to stay in Canada, an addition to their family that would lead to a third child one year later that gained the name Rosalie.

Now stuck in the invisible middle between a controlling older brother and an infant, Matías did his best to cope and the one he found himself leaning against more than anyone happened to be Miguel – who had adapted the name of “uncle” as to not cast any bright lights on the on-going relationship. Miguel was the first one to notice sharp changes in Matías mood and behaviors as he moved closer to his teenage years, developing strange patterns he was unable to break free from that tossed him into temper tantrums and anxious breakdowns whenever people tried to rush him through them. He had to put on the left shoe before the right one and tie his laces twice before feeling settled and ready to move, only to redo it five minutes later. The books he packed for school had to land in alphabetical order and be removed as such before and after class; or be stuck with the compulsive need to sharpen his pencil ten times – no more or less – otherwise the pen was deemed unusable and he had to throw it away for another.

Miguel talked the other parents into an investigation that lead Matías to be diagnosed with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and moved into a form of cognitive therapy to rework his mind. Today most of the compulsive needs have vanished and been reworked, but he still finds himself fixated with the way he paints and handles his brushes before he can sit down and breathe – making his development of the canvas slow and tactical. However, it was during his time at therapy Matías began to fully develop his voice in terms of art as to cope with the changes. He had formerly kept to mainly sketches in black and white to avoid using mismatching colors but found himself going back to his childhood roots to play around with the idea of abstract and the nonsensical, as some would call it.

Matías thus began to reach out with his ideas, attempting to sell a few pieces around the city as a mere seventeen-year old boy. It would take him until the age of twenty-four to find a channel to voice himself through, and it came in the shape of his brother David. No one truly knew what David was up to or meddled with since moving out of home, the Belmonte family simply knew he was married and had a daughter of three-years, but for some reason David reached out to Matías with ideas of how to properly sell his art. Matías never fully questioned his brother’s intentions, wanting to believe in the better of him, and thus began to produce art pieces that David swept out of his hands and somehow managed to sell off.

Matías gained a small profit out of this and used some to start exhibits under the guidance of his brother, but now also with the full support of their half-sister Rosalie who found joy in her brothers’ business. It would take him another four years of meddling until Rosalie overheard David speak one day about “how he was swindling his dumb brother who basically put money into his hands”, and as she brought this to Matías attention they went through their father to snoop out the facts behind David and his “heart of gold” as it showed the brother had kept the majority of the profits to himself, offering Matías scraps for his hard work and that, he in fact, claimed to be the artist behind the work.

Matías cut David off in every way and sense, reclaiming what he owned and ventured forward on his path to success. It, thankfully, wouldn’t take him long to find his clients that soon came to know him as the colorblind artist, a gimmick he still uses to boost his profits and work his way up the ladder of cultural fame. His life was far from the stage of calm, or past his brother’s mistakes, as would come to show when David ended up in jail for another round of fraud exposed – leaving his wife and daughter to mend for themselves. Without any money ,and the child in need of medication for her epilepsy, the mother reached out to Matías (whom had recently bought himself a house) to please take on his niece whilst she found herself a stable job; although she felt guilty for her husband’s actions towards her brother-in-law.

The niece, Natalie, became the first of four to move into the house with Matías and to become adopted under his name, as her mother never reached the full potential to care for her daughter’s wellbeing. The second one showed up two years later named Lillian, after her father passed away in an accident and left her standing alone; the third was a transgender boy (who has named himself Pollux) that got taken away from his parents due to a harsh environment; and the last (and youngest) is a rather new addition named Xander, and the only one to have come to his family through an orphanage. So, these days Matías paints just as much for his own interest as he does to keep his children fed and happy – viewing himself as a proud parent and artist. What other challenges life has in store is left to see, as he says with a light-hearted wave of his hand, willing to take on whatever gets in the way of his happiness.

PERSONALITY: 

Matías is a man of his words, working by the actions that people should be seen and heard due to his own childhood of half neglect. He knows his parents meant no harm and that they care about it, but it has still put a damp on his self-conscious and has developed a fear of disappearing and being forgotten. Most would describe him as humble with a sense of dark humor weaved into his speech, willing to learn and adapt to his situations and has through Pollux begun to explore genders and gender identities. However, one of his biggest fights as an established aromantic is to make society (especially people around him) understand that neither he nor the children crave “a mother” in their lives to be complete. He will never shoo away people who mean well and wish to help him out in terms of family trips or babysitting, but the second they try to give him or his family any type of pitiful look they’re out of his house.

He is working towards progress and is also known to learn skills and hobbies just for the sake of being able to, this tend to be his own coping mechanism of sorts and something to break through his head whenever the brush between his fingers refuse to move. Whether he's good or not is a different question, which something therapy has helped him move by, recognizing not everything has to happen a certain way or in this particual pattern as long as he gets there at all. By the end of the day he does things for fun, to be able to tell himself he tried and he'll happily welcome anyone who has something new to put on his plate.

MATÍAS reminds me of OSCAR ISAAC and is written by SARA