aroaessidhe

[aroaessidhe]

reread a master of djinn recently!! that one scene where siti shows up on a motorbike

[aroaessidhe]

Good god I just saw the most transparently obvious reworked fanfic cover do you people have no shame anymore

[aroaessidhe]

Really cannot explain how absurdly charming I find the plot beat of 'demon possesses magician, gets really enthusiastic about the chance to be human and kind of scandalized by what a bad job its host was doing beforehand. Immediately pours out liquor cabinet, starts eating exclusively healthy, home-cooked meals, working out daily, and spending all its leisure time keeping up with relevant news and academic literature'.

[aroaessidhe]

aro & ace books read in the last month or so

Ten Incarnations of Rebellion - historical alt fantasy with an aroacespec sapphic MC. She feels no attraction of any form when she's younger, and can't reciprocate a crush from her lesbian best friend - then years later, she slowly does develop feelings for her (in a way that feels demiaroace?). They have a brief relationship but ultimately her priority is the revolution. I thought this was done well for a subplot.

The Javelin Program/The Antarctica Conspiracy - sci-fi duology*, with an aroallo MC. It's only lightly brought up, there's a brief mention of hooking up nonromantically a few times, and their culture's attitudes towards normalised casual sex and nonnormative relationships. main focus is on other plot things.

*it's actually free online and one serial story that's split into 2 for the ebook versions. unsure if there were edits to release. (narrative pacing-wise it feels like a handful of novellas more than a duology)

A Letter To The Lonesome Shore - sequel, which made Henery's asexuality more explicitly clear. There wasn't any specific mention of E's maybe acespec coding. Also a side character is aromantic/aroace!

The Lighthouse At The Edge of the World - contemporary fantasy, the MC is demisexual/acespec. It's set in 2005 so doesn't have the vocab - it's pretty much only directly brought up in the one scene (before they sleep together, a quick rundown of Every Aspec Experience she's had kind of thing), but before that the romance certainly feels more on the ace/romance side of things, and she only just realised (or confirmed) she's a lesbian (bc of the never really having felt attraction before now)

Ymir - scifi thriller, with an aroace man MC. just briefly mentioned a few times. no romance, very much focused on the MC's personal journey and relationship with his brother. I think there's some interesting things to say about taking a character who is undoubtedly a villain from some perspectives & giving him villainised traits (aroace, disabled/facial difference) but having it be a very personal and humanising story & depiction of those things. shoutout to the person who told me to read this 2 years ago, i do get to these things eventually

Benothinged - horror-comedy. MC is "asexual and maybe aromantic". The premise is a nothing-creature finds people who are isolated and feel othered from society to absorb into itself - and it explores a little how being nonbinary/aroace adds to the feeling of being 'nothing' (along with their general mental health issues). it's alright. weird in an interesting way. friendship saves the day etc

Beautyland - braced myself for another litfic ' this person is so weird and othered because they're [aroace] [autistic]' and it kinda is that, but it's with a lot of empathy I think. She's confused about sex/romance but it never outright says 'this is an alien thing' (obviously implied by the book's concept but I appreciate the fact that it didn't try to say it outright). she is in a relationship in the last 1/3 but it's ultimately not very happy, she sleeps with him even even though she doesn't enjoy it but obviously that doesn't last long, and she never romantically loved him, just the companionship and understanding (to a point). she identifies as asexual (just near the very end, in her twitter bio). a ymmv kind of one, i thought it was decent considering I had kinda low expectations

The Map and The Territory - one of the two MCs is an aroace woman, it's briefly brought up a couple times with her mentioning she's not interested in romance at all, and then a discussion about her being annoyed about allo/amatonormativity in stories. The other MC does have a romance subplot but the main (or at least equal) relationship is their friendship

Lady Dragon - I made a post about this. any aspec-ness present felt like negative stereotypes and also the book was just kinda not good

a few upcoming or tbr books that I would like to pick up if i can get em:

ruined history (nerezia 6) comes out on sept 9

one morning sun (saoni cycle 3) comes out sept 27

Demon Song - gothic horror + chinese opera house novella, demi MC?

The Divide that Binds Us - YA dragon fantasy by a Black author with ace & demi MCs? might be interesting, I had to get my library to buy it (waiting for them to get it still)

Cinder - m/m from D.N. Bryn with an aro(spec?) MC I think

Demon Engine - some kinda ocean/steampunk/horror situation which I think has a demi MC and no romance. i am intrigued

[aroaessidhe]

still at war wth my art block but these babies deserved at least a doodle since I finished Emberclaw

[aroaessidhe]

I saw Lady Dragon by A.M. Strickland mentioned to have demisexual lesbian MCs and was mildly interested so i picked it up but.... yeah nah. DNF at 30%ish (i did however skim through the rest because i like to be an informed hater)

the writing is. i could say maybe it feels younger-YA and i'm not the audience but honestly I think it's just not great. one of those books where you glance at the first page and immediately know the writing style is not for you lmao. it just feels very repetitive and immature?

it all feels very basic, the worldbuilding is sparse and explained awkwardly, everything seems to revolve around putting the two MCs together Into Trope Situations with no build up or detail to anything else. I think if this had been marketed in more of a dramatic/comedy/adventure direction (at least partially) maybe it'd work? but the seraphina/priory comps......lol. lmao, even,

they have random conversations about sexuality and stuff within a day or two of meeting each other - some of that comes down to being two different cultures meeting & asking things about each other but it felt awkwardly placed. There's a trans woman SC who basically feels like she's there to prompt the dragon (from a female-only species) to a) learn about trans women b) say 'what if men pretended to be women to-' etc etc and for the other MC to explain why that's wrong and it felt.... well intended, but a bit. hm. And there's a lot of 'i'm not a lady, i'm a dragon' which I think is trying to say something nonbinary gendery about the dragons but it just does not feel like it's actually explored at all [obviously i did skim the latter half of the book, but still]

acespec-wise......they seem to both be attracted to each other immediately? they kiss after a few days? that didn't read as demi to me at all. The dragon society is all women and reproduces asexually (and also bond pairs are more to care for young than love) and the dragon MC is like, sex and love is gross and unnecessary, and it's very intertwined with her being cold/logical/warrior vibes and euhhhh idk I don't love that as aspec rep tbh. and of course her slowly becoming more human and caring for the other girl is intertwined with her feeling love and i'm gonna be honest it straight up felt like it was saying romantic love & physical attraction = humanity. again, I think maybe it was trying to say the pair-bond feeling is different from love (like queerplatonic) but what we're shown in the narrative contradicts that and it all just 100% read as her denying her feelings rather than anything aspec. I will also note that she appears to be sex repulsed and I don't think that changes [again, skim read], - a more accurate description might be ace & demiromantic? my issues would still stand.

the human MC is like - there's nothing that actively contradicts her being demi (other than thinking the dragon is attractive immediately), an offhand she's never been attracted to someone like this before, but that just as much reads as lesbian-awakening, there's not much exploration there

oh also the dragon antagonist's issue comes down to thinking love between a dragon and human is an abomination [aroace species is evil because they think love/sex is bad]

like I think asexual-species-asexuality/aromanticism is something that can be explored interestingly, when it actually delves into the intricacies of how that works socially and who conforms or diverges from that (and also for example real life asexual reproducing species do engage in sexual activity to bond) but it does not feel like that's what's happening here, and it's. yeah idk man. maybe more a result of the *gestures at everything else about the writing* thing than ill-intent, but,

[aroaessidhe]

I’m so excited I can finally share this- I had to redesign a book for a graphics project and I picked priory of the orange tree

I love the original anyway but here’s mine : ps: all the hand rendered stuff like the map and dragon skull (that was a mono print) were super fun! Hopefully I can design more book covers in the future :}

I also made tote bags, bookmarks and a website I can show later if people are interested

[aroaessidhe]

VERY EXCITED TO FINALLY SHARE.... The endpaper illustration I did for the @rainbowcrate edition of Peter Darling (by @essaychant)! It was an honor and an absolute delight to paint this view of Peter, Neverland, and [sexy sexy] Hook. (In Rainbow Crate's "Hoist the Colors" July 2025 box! Extras are available now. Link to get your very own, very fancy copy of Peter Darling. )

[aroaessidhe]

my new icy bookmark ❄ you can get them here!

[aroaessidhe]

[aroaessidhe]

helo thank you for the aspec database i'd never seen representation (as an aroallo person) before actively looking for it and stumbling across your list

aw yay, I'm glad!

[aroaessidhe]

Books of 2025: POWER TO YIELD AND OTHER STORIES by Bogi Takács.

Y'all we are SO back. @aroaessidhe put this collection on my radar with these posts, which had me super intrigued, and I devoured the whole book yesterday.

Overall, I liked these a lot!! Short story collections always have that element of hit or miss for me--not every story lands Just Right, usually, and (unlike in a novel) each story is taken as a separate whole. However!! Of the eleven (11) stories here, I liked six of them a lot, and I REALLY liked four of those, so: Great collection!

Takács has a really interesting perspective (from the foreword: "Bogi is a multiply neurodivergent, multiply disabled, queer, trans, intersex, Jewish immigrant from a non-Anglo country"), and I really enjoyed how the stories in this collection dug into different facets of identity. The neurodivergent takes on alien communication were especially cool to me, and I loved how religion was worked into speculative settings.

From the bonus notes in the back, it looks like not all of these stories are entirely standalone, which explains why I did feel like I was Missing Context in a few places, but for the most part I found them self-contained enough to enjoy.

My favorites, in order of appearance:

"Four-Point Affective Calibration"

"An Errant Holy Spark"

"And I Entreated"

"The 1st Interspecies Solidarity Fair and Parade"

"A Technical Term, Like Privilege"

"Power to Yield"

[aroaessidhe]

2025 reads / storygraph

Girl In The Creek

horror

a freelance journalist goes to a small pacific northwest town to investigate some unexplained disappearances - including her brother, 5 years ago

she joins up with some friends and locals, who go into the woods one night - and come across a body

they’re immediately thrown deeper into the mystery of town secrets and something strange about the forest…

fungi, climate themes, grief, bi MC

[aroaessidhe]

like 1/3 into The Art of Legend and WHERE is my wife salminde. she's on the cover. where is she

[aroaessidhe]

His hand on my jaw tightened. I gripped the nape of his neck, hard. We glowed together, gold between our lips. Threads of blue and red wove around us, tying us tight.

another design from the officially licensed Dragonfall sticker collection!

[aroaessidhe]

of course!! <33

ps if you wanna see more this is how you lose the time war cosplay you should go check out @woodsorrelwitch & @shesjustjosie on instagram!! love their versions!!

(cropped screenshot to make you actually go to their accounts to look. thanks)

[aroaessidhe]

comics read in august

Gwenpool vols 3-5, Love Unlimited: Gwenpool

read the rest of this - it gets better as it goes along definitely, i enjoyed it going a bit more back into the real world + her family etc. the fourth-wall stuff is fun though it gets to a point where just. well I guess anything can happen, do I care about the stakes? Then Love Unlimited is essentially her aroace journey. I did like some of the aspects included in that - trying to apply the romance stories she likes into her real life, drama included lmao, talking about the isolation she felt from all her friends pairing up and forgetting about her leading into who she becomes & her narrative, etc. It's definitely pretty fast paced and just About being aroace - a bit substanceless in every other regard. So I think reading her other comics helps give context to her character. but I mostly just read these to say I have, I guess. success.

Dark Fairies Zine

collection of art, short stories, comics based around dark fey. so so good! beautiful art. the comics were my favourite!!

Evil-Ish

cute fantasy comic about a potion barista teen who really wants to join the evil villains but fails at the tryouts. when they go back to plead their case, they accidentally kill the leader......making them the leader. at first they enjoy doing whatever they want and reinventing the villains but things get a bit out of control... it's cute! but very fast paced, I don't feel like I really got to know the characters quite enough?

Monstress vol 2 & 3

part of an epic dark fantasy comic series about a girl semi-possessed by a tentacley demonic creature.... I will be honest it's been a few years since I read the first one - and this has some very complex and detailed worldbuilding and politics in the narrative, so I'm kinda only surface level reading these. i can't remember all that stuff. but the worldbuilding IS fascinating, the art is so beautiful and detailed, and I love the horror aspects. And it has some relationship types I love: demon possession/bodysharing and accidental orphan acquisition. I do find the cute kid & cats a little uncanny in the way they're drawn compared to everything else lmao, but also they are cute. (also oh god cliffhanger)

Welcome To St. Hell

a graphic memoir about a trans man retelling his younger self's journey to figuring out his identity. funny and hopeful even while telling of some of the more serious struggles of his teen years.

Simplicity

in a dystopian future, a trans man gets a job for a museum, to study a commune of people living in the woods. he slowly grows to like the place, which embraces nonconformity, but has strange dreams of monsters - and then people start getting murdered by something in the woods. weird and strange and horny and very anti-capitalist with a lot going on. i enjoyed it