#<- explicitly aro

[antiparticular]

realising im aro has really explained the majority of my ocs ngl

[toupee-or-nottoupee]

my favorite ship dynamic is "I've had to watch you go into the path of no return and I love you" and its just blonde boys watching dark haired guys literally make the worst decisions known to man

[bogkeep]

being in aroace education mode has me all fired up...... one thing i talk about a lot when given the opportunity is Deconstructing How We Think About Relationships - in short, if we put all of our relationships with other people into a pie chart the 'romantic partner' slice is likely to be a very small slice but gets a disproportionate amount of Relationship Infrastructure compared to other categories, such as vocabulary, rituals, attention and narrative scaffolding - entire systems such as dating / finding "the one" / break-ups / the relationship escalator, etc. on the flipside, 'friend' is such a vast category consisting of a plethora of different relationship, all ranging from Friendly Acquantaince to Extremely Close Childhood Friend You Share Everything With, but we have a lot less language and structure for how we think about these relationships even though many of them can be deeply important and intense to us.

the line between romance and friendship is really blurry, maybe even non-existent, but it feels like the way we think about these categories is that Romantic Partner is this one very specific, formalised box of a category, while Friend is a vast and vague landscape where anything can happen - and it's on this free real estate we have built structures like Queerplatonic Partner. the concept has probably existed since forever, along with many other different types of relationships throughout time and cultures, but it's our current attempt at having a Word for it.

are you with me so far? i want to write a blog post about Deconstructing Intimacy.

just putting a CW here that i'm going to say the word sex a lot and touch on the topic of sexual trauma.

one of the very thorny things about This Whole Topic is that sex and sexuality is extremely political. we just do not live in a world where there's any neutral ground to stand on regarding sex. every demographic comes with a lot of assumptions and expectations and moral judgement tied to sexuality. some demographics are desexualised, some are hypersexualised, some are Both At Once, and in addition to that there's lots of stigma, moralizing, pathologizing, and lawmaking. just a whole mess.

so all of That makes it kind of impossible to fully Dethrone Sex. and by dethroning sex i mean stripping it of the baggage it's accumulated in our cultures. Sex Is A Thing You Can Do With Your Body (And Your Mind?). this does not have to make it any less or more meaningful to you than what it already is. what each person considers intimate is very individual. many people find hugging completely inconsequential and will hug anyone at any time, and for some people a hug is A Lot. For some people, sex is a very fun and casual activity, and for others it's Sacred and carries a lot of meaning and a very close bond. sex is intimate - it requires trust and vulnerability.

it is not the only way to achieve trust and closeness, nor the only thing that requires it.

whenever i take the bus somewhere, i trust the bus driver to take me there safely. i put my literal life in a stranger's hands, but it's a very casual affair i don't think about too much. it's not an act of intimacy, just someone doing their job.

i think the way we talk about sexual assault as the evillest most horribly irredeemably worse-than-death thing, and sexual trauma as a unique kind of trauma amongst traumas, is... indicative. and please do not get me wrong, SA is a horrible thing in every way. it's a violation of trust, vulnerability and personal space. it's an abuse of power. those are the things that make it so horrific - but it's not unique.

an abuse of power, a violation of trust and vulnerability, can happen in so many different forms. emotional abuse, non-sexual violence, medical abuse, et cetera - i don't think it's possible to place trauma into a hierarchy from least to most bad. trauma can be incredibly complex and it's different for everyone. if one day the bus driver on a whim decided to drive off a cliff, i think that would severely fuck up my ability to trust other people to drive me around. if i trusted someone with my innermost thoughts that i have never shared with anyone else, and they used them to be cruel to me, that would severely impede my ability to connect with others.

i just... don't think it does anyone any favours to separate sexual trauma from all other trauma - making it seem like sexual trauma is The Worst Trauma Possible You Can Never Heal From, and on the flipside, make it seem like Well Your Non-Sexual Trauma Cannot Possibly Be That Bad.

TRAUMA TOPIC ASIDE, i think the concept of intimacy has a tendency to get flattened into just the one kind. there are many, Many ways for people to be intimate, many activities that require some form of mutual vulnerability or physical contact, but it seems like we're just very used to placing Acts of Intimacy into the Sexual category. kind of like a venn diagram where the two circles are Sexual Intimacy and Non-sexual Intimacy that are largely overlapping. but what if, instead, it's more that Intimacy is a really big circle, and sex is just one of the circles within it?

the way i think this slots into the whole Relationship Infrastructure thing is that We Like To Categorize Things. if we see two people being very intimate in a way that's not explicitly sexual, it's tempting to think ah yes they are in love AND they're having sex, OBVIOUSLY, because they are clearly capable of having that level of trust and vulnerability together. but what if they're not? does that devalue their relationship? does it make them any less close? these are very chewy questions to ask even without bringing shipping discourse into it, and i would prefer Not To because sexuality is political and there is no right answer.

another way this flattening can be frustrating is all the times non-sexual intimacy is treated as Sexual By Proxy. let's say, for example, you're telling a story, and all forms of intimacy within that story get read as metaphors for sex, despite your actual intentions. there's nothing wrong with using metaphors for sex, especially since Sex Is Political and sometimes we gotta be clever about the storytelling - but it can get very messy if people read sexuality between characters who don't have that, especially characters between which it would be very problematic to portray that. we gotta be able to tell stories about all kinds of close relationships, and surely it should be possible without bringing freud into it at every turn.

intimacy is context-dependent, i would say. a moment of vulnerability can be platonic or romantic or sexual or maybe something else depending on a situation and all the factors involved. human connection is an boundless spectrum, not just a couple boxes.

did any of this make sense? they're just my Thoughts, i'm not a scholar on this i just

[sandpaperoctopi]

aro ace cuties

[altschmerzes]

if your response to an aromantic person challenging assumptions and norms about relationships and standing firm on the fact that no actions or degrees of affection/commitment/intensity of feelings etc are inherently romantic and the only people who get to define a relationship are the people in it is to get so mad you feel the need to pitch a fit at them about how guess ALL WORDS ARE MEANINGLESS and there’s NO POINT in even having words like romantic and platonic WHY BOTHER (implying also that they’re being stupid and ridiculous in the process) then there’s some things you clearly need to work on and unpack and you need to do that in a way that sucks less.

[ale-arro]

sorry we gave your boyfriend a copy of Relationship Anarchy by Juan Carlos Pérez Cortés. yeah he's deconstructing amatonormativity and reconsidering the hierarchical nature of your relationship. yeah he's not breaking up with you but he Has been radicalized. sorry

[rockinmusicquarterly]

actually. shoots damsel & hea with my aromantic beam

[aro-culture-is]

Aro culture is knowing the phrase "bros before hoes" waaay before I realized I was aro and

So that's why that phrase resonates so much with me back then because it is aro coded af in a sense that, your bros shouldn't be lesser than the gf

And i think that's actually nice to know that there had been aro sentiments way before the term aro was popularized

... hm. tbh i've always heard it actually used in one of two ways:

bros (male friendship only) before hoes (the women we fuck and consider lesser than as people, typically not someone we are dating)

the meme-y version that typically just has lesser intensity on the male-focus.

[atlasrainerot]

Happy Sonic Movie Anniversary- I mean Valentine’s Day 💖

(apologies to those of you who don’t follow me for pr content but this is all I’ve got~ u-u)

[hephaestuscrew]

“This has both our names on it”: Viewing Fleet and Clara’s relationship in Victoriocity through a queerplatonic lens

TL;DR: By Season 3 of Victoriocity, Fleet and Clara have developed a committed emotional partnership that certainly moves beyond the purely professional. Whilst very much operating as a duo, they can be interpreted as often rejecting or subverting romance-coded elements in their relationship, instead embracing a unique dynamic that can be read as resonating with the concept of a queerplatonic relationship (QPR).

Buckle up because this is over 2,500 words long! If you'd rather read it as a document, you can access it here: Fleet & Clara QPR Google Doc

Disclaimer: I'm not making any claims about creator intent, nor about how anyone else ought to interpret Fleet and Clara's dynamic. It's also worth acknowledging that queerplatonic relationships are inherently defined by the people in them and any attempt to apply such terminology to a story set in 1887 is obviously anachronistic (although whether that should matter when said story also contains a cyborg Queen Victoria is up for debate). 

With that said, if we define a QPR as a committed personal partnership which is not entirely captured by the typical expectations of either friendship or romance but may contain some elements typically associated with either (other definitions of QPRs are available), I enjoy viewing Fleet and Clara's relationship through a QPR lens, and I want to talk about some of the reasons why I think this reading works.

***Spoilers for all three seasons of Victoriocity and the novel High Vaultage***

Detective duos

Even before we actually get into Fleet and Clara's particular bond, detective / crime-solving duos as a general concept have QPR energy to me (which probably predisposed me to this interpretation). It's the Holmes-and-Watson legacy. It's the use of the word 'partner' in a non-romantic context (‘associate’ or ‘companion’ can also serve a similar purpose). It's the intense trust and reliance on each other. It's the sense of being a recognisable pair, always appearing together, known as a duo, with skills and attributes that complement each other. 

Romantic assumptions

Moving on to Fleet and Clara specifically, one aspect of their relationship that can be read through a QPR lens is how they are often in situations where other people believe or imply that there is a romantic relationship between them. Sometimes this is a deliberate strategy of theirs, and sometimes it’s imposed upon them by others. But I’d argue that there’s never a point where they both simultaneously seem entirely comfortable with that romantic narrative for their relationship. Usually one of them will actively deny the assumption or react negatively to the implication:

When Mrs Hampshire interprets Clara and Fleet as a couple experiencing “young love”, Clara might be happy to adopt this as an effective cover story, but Fleet seems unsettled and keen for them not to be perceived this way: “No. No. You’ve misunderstood, we are not, that is to say I am…” (S1E2)

When Warden Hughes assumes Fleet is the new Warden and Clara is the new Warden’s wife, Clara says “I am certainly not”, with emphasis on the ‘certainly’. (S2E2)

Fleet definitely doesn’t sound enthused when he realises Clara has gone for a married couple as their cover story at the Grand Salcombe: “I am sure I’ll regret asking, but by any chance am I [Mr. Theasby?]” (S2E2)

When Titus Byrne tells the pair “I take it you're happy sharing [a room]”, Clara responds with a horrified “What?” (S3E4) (Obviously sleeping in the same room isn’t inherently romantic, but it is often perceived that way.)

Of course, fake dating and external assumptions of romance are very common tropes in romantic will-they-won't-they dynamics, and these moments could definitely be interpreted that way for Fleet and Clara. But I prefer to read these instances as reflecting a different kind of closeness between these two characters. They have a sense of emotional partnership that allows a marriage cover story to seem plausible to others and that other people sometimes automatically assume to be romantic (obviously with some period-typical heteronormativity at play). But to me, it doesn't seem like either of them are fully comfortable with their relationship being perceived in a directly romantic way. Perhaps they are a couple in a different sense…

Proposal via door plate 

The way that Fleet asks Clara to be his business partner has always seemed to me like a platonic version of when people find personal ways to surprise their romantic partner with a proposal:

CLARA: You bought me a door plate for your office? [...] This has both our names on it. FLEET: What do you think? CLARA: I like it. (S2E7)

Fleet could have just asked Clara outright, without going to the trouble of buying a sign that would have been useless if she’d said no. If it was purely a professional business proposition with no emotional meaning behind it, I think he would have just asked verbally. But instead, he gifts her a sign with their two names paired together: Fleet-Entwhistle Investigations. There's something so intimate about that to me: about Fleet asking Clara whether she would like to be a duo with him in a more formally-defined but still non-romantic way; about him choosing to present this offer in the form of a gift; about the way he presents her with their two names joined together etched into metal and asks what she thinks; about the significance that this gesture attaches to their partnership; about him having enough trust that she'll say yes that the effort and vulnerability of presenting her with that sign seem worth it for him. And the gesture means an awful lot to Clara:

She thought about the door plaque he’d had engraved with both their names on it as his way of inviting her to be his business partner – typical Fleet, refusing to tell her so much as his favourite breakfast food and then to go and do something like that. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. (High Vaultage, p187). 

Anniversaries

In the special episode ‘Murder in the Pharaoh's Tomb', Clara says “And you know what else is a big occasion Fleet? It's our one-month anniversary.” She wants to celebrate the anniversary of Fleet-Entwhistle Investigations. Their partnership holds a significance for her that means key dates associated with it are worth remembering and remarking upon. 

When Clara first mentions their anniversary, Fleet nearly chokes on his drink, which seems like an instinctive reaction to the usually romantic connotations of an anniversary (see my point above about Fleet not being comfortable with their dynamic being perceived as romantic). But when Clara clarifies what she means, Fleet seems much more cheerful about the notion of their anniversary: “Ah, so it has.”

“Miss Clara Entwhistle, my partner”

I get extremely strong QPR vibes from this moment, when Fleet introduces Clara to the sailors at Grave End:

FLEET: This is Miss Clara Entwhistle, my partner - in business, my business partner. CLARA: I'm also his friend, but he doesn't like to say it. (S3 E3)

Fleet and Clara are partners, but not in the way the average person might assume from that word, which Fleet realises mid-sentence here. This is another instance of Fleet reacting negatively to the idea that their relationship might be interpreted romantically (see above). And yet, 'partner' (rather than, say, ‘colleague’) is the word that comes naturally to him in this moment to describe who Clara is to him. He then frantically emphasises the professional element of their relationship so as to avoid the romantic implication, but Clara is keen to proudly assert that there is a personal, emotional aspect to their dynamic too. They are first-and-foremost partners, and they are friends, and they do not want to be seen in a romantic light - this post basically writes itself... 

“Her ridiculous detective.”

When Clara fears for her life at the display of the Lanterns, the narration tells us:

“she thought of her brother, her sister, her parents... Her ridiculous detective.” (High Vaultage, p172) 

The fact that Clara thinks of Fleet in this moment of fear clearly indicates his importance to her, but I think the phrasing of this quote is particularly interesting. The narration lists Clara's immediate family: two of whom are dead (her sister and father), one of whom is publically mourning Clara's life choices (her mother), and only one of whom we have any real evidence of her having a positive relationship with (her brother). And then, separated from these complicated familial relationships by an ellipsis, the narration tells Clara also thinks of Fleet, “her ridiculous detective”. 

Parents and siblings are familial relationships that tend to come with established expectations, in which the use of a possessive pronoun (i.e. her brother) to indicate the relationship is a norm. ‘Detective’ does not fall into this category; unlike ‘brother’, ‘sister’, ‘parent’, ‘friend’, ‘partner’ etc., ‘detective’ is not a word that inherently implies a relationship or that we'd usually expect to see preceded by a possessive pronoun. The idea of ‘her detective’ therefore stands out, giving the sense that there is a unique relationship being indicated here. The way in which Fleet is ‘hers’ is something that Clara has chosen for herself, something that they have shaped together. Who they are to each other can't necessarily be fully expressed using standard phrases that traditionally describe relationships between people. But Fleet is Clara's detective, of which she only has one, and who she'll think of in the midst of “the screaming of the heavens at the end of the world”.

Fleet is also the only one in this list of Clara's loved ones who gets an adjective - her love for him has detail. And while “ridiculous” might often be perceived as negative (it's certainly not a classic romantic endearment), it seems to me like there's such fondness in it in this context: the recognition of and affection for eccentricities, the idea that his importance to her is not (purely) based on his professional strengths but on Fleet as a whole - perhaps at times ridiculous - person.

“Settled”

When Clara and Fleet talk about Clara's mother’s expectations for her, they have this exchange:

"She's still living in hope that one day I'll settle down."  "You're not settled?" asked Fleet. "I am." (High Vaultage, p259) 

By ‘settle down’, Clara's mother of course means ‘marry’, ideally into “at least a minor baronetcy”. But Clara already considers herself "settled", just not in a way her mother would understand or appreciate. She's not looking to "settle down" into a lifestyle other than her current one. She is settled in a situation where Fleet is certainly her closest personal connection in London (and perhaps anywhere), and where the two of them work closely together, operate as a duo, and then go back to their separate homes. And this partnership with Fleet is a comfortable set-up that feels right for Clara exactly as it is, rather than being a precursor to, or a distraction from, the marriage ambitions that her mother wants for her.

I think this exchange also contains an implicit sense of the commitment between the two of them. Fleet wants to check that Clara is ‘settled’ in her current situation, of which working closely - and platonically - with Fleet is obviously a major element; Clara confirms she is. There's a subtle indication of their shared intention to be in this for the long haul.

As a sidenote, Fleet and Clara’s implicit assumption that their partnership is a long-term one can manifest itself in joking contexts as well as serious ones. Look at this exchange from S3E5: 

FLEET: We're not bandits, we're just going to flag it down. CLARA: We'd be terrific bandits! FLEET: Let's just see how our current line of work goes.

I think it’s notable that, in this joking speculation, both Fleet and Clara use ‘we’ and ‘our’. The joke could have been phrased just as effectively if they were imagining only Clara becoming a bandit. But the suggestion is that, if either of them was a bandit, they’d be bandits together. Even if they changed their lives entirely, they'd still approach life together.

Inseparable 

Fleet and Clara have become a nearly inseparable duo in a way which is noticed by others. For example, after Clara and Fleet fall out in High Vaultage, Fleet meets with Keller, who says: 

"You're here with me instead of barrelling across town with her, so I'm just assuming there is some thickheaded puffinry for which you need to apologise to Miss Entwhistle" (p335)

Keller, hardly the most emotionally perceptive man in Even Greater London, automatically infers from the fact that Fleet is on his own that he has had a falling out with Clara, rather than that they just happen to be in different places. When all is well, Keller expects to see the two of them together, whether or not they are in a position to be actively working a case.

Going back earlier in their partnership, Keller makes a similar assumption about Fleet and Clara being inseparable in S2E6. When Clara shouts her name amidst Keller's anti-Vidoc booby traps, Keller asks "Entwhistle? Which means… Fleet?" Again, there's this idea that if one of them is there, the other is likely to be there too - they come as a pair. (It's worth noting that this scene takes place less than two weeks after they first met.)

“Like a friend might?”

At the end of S3E7, Fleet suggests that he and Clara go to the theatre together. It would have been easy for this invitation to have been explicitly framed as a romantic proposition, or even for the nature of the offer to have been left more ambiguous. But Clara says "Archibald Fleet, are you inviting me to a social activity? Like a friend might?" The use of the word 'friend' directly labels this as a platonic interaction. And it's with that platonic lens on it that Clara is extremely excited to spend non-work-related social time with Fleet.

“Maybe it'll just be my good luck charm.”

CLARA: My grandmother's ring, I don't suppose you managed to hold on to it? [...] FLEET: Oh, it's been crushed.. I'm sorry Clara [...] CLARA: No, you keep it. FLEET: What? No... CLARA: Keep it. Maybe it'll remind you not to run towards trains. FLEET: Maybe. Maybe it'll just be my good luck charm.

In S3E7, Clara gives Fleet a ring, which - as a gift from one person to another - is traditionally a symbol of a particular, legally recognised, kind of personal commitment. But when Clara tells Fleet to keep the damaged ring, down in the Underground tunnels after the destruction of the beast and Fleet's latest brush with death, it is quite a different situation to a wedding or a proposal. A married man would traditionally wear his wedding ring on his finger for all to see, but Fleet won't ever wear this ring like that. The ring itself has been bent into a different shape between the wheels of their misadventures, subverting the usual associations of a ring given from one person to another. (In a heteronormative world, those associations are particularly strong when the two people in question are a woman and a man.) 

That ring is not an engagement ring, but it is Clara’s grandmother's ring, an inheritance from the blood family she never really felt she belonged in, now given to the man who might be a very different kind of family for her in London. That ring - with which Clara saved Fleet's life - is a symbol of their bond. And it therefore serves as a reminder for Fleet “not to run towards trains" and as a “good luck charm”. I like to think he'll carry that ring with him, perhaps in his jacket pocket - a little piece of his partner, kept close to his ticking heart…

Thank you for reading all of this!

If you’ve read all of this, I'm assuming you also enjoy the concept of Fleet and Clara as a QPR (unless you're really a glutton for punishment) and that makes me very happy! This was long because there's so much to say about them… And I wrote all of the above without even getting into: the potential to headcanon Fleet and/or Clara as aspec (which I don't think is necessary for QPR headcanons, but which is also fun); Clara's baggage around and discomfort with marriage in general; the speed with which Fleet and Clara become a ride-or-die duo; and the many other demonstrations of care, understanding, trust, respect, and affection between them that didn't feel as directly QPR-coded to me but are nonetheless wonderful. Please do feel free to share your own thoughts!

[anistarrose]

So the thing is, if people ship characters who are explicitly not into romance (whether aromantic or otherwise), that ultimately doesn't affect me on a level beyond "annoyance" — I can blacklist tags, and blacklist or block people who don't tag it. What I have to ask myself every time I see these things, however, is this:

"Does this reflect how this person feels about romance-averse people in real life? Does this reflect how this person treats romance-averse people in real life?"

Because how someone engages with fiction doesn't have to be a reflection of how they treat real people, obviously — and in this case, I would of course hope that it isn't. But if you know anything about what being aromantic is like, in real life or on the Internet... you'll understand why I'm not optimistic.

Thinking two characters are so cute together that you reject a bunch of their characterization to make it happen is just annoying, not a crime! But the second you make the leap to telling a real human person things like:

"I don't care how much you say you're not interested, because you just won't realize that you and X would make such a cute couple,"

or:

"I don't care how much you say you're not interested, because you're clearly just in denial which the Right Person has to come along and fix,"

or:

"But — but — but not falling in love is just so tragic! I want you to be happy, not sad and lonely your whole life!"

like the rationales that apparently motivate so many people to ship? Then that has crossed the line into harming real people.

I don't actually think that shipping aromantic characters is the primary cause in the cause-effect diagram, when it comes to the correlating the shipping with "likelihood to say these terrible, invalidating, autonomy-undermining things to real people." Precisely, I don't think it's a cause to a meaningful degree when you compare with the opposite direction — I think people who say these things to real aromantics (or anyone else who just isn't interested!), because of what they think about these real people, are in turn more likely to think amatonormative things about fictional characters. I think that there exists a feedback loop to some extent, because fiction can influence people's beliefs to some degree, but it's not symmetric. Real-life amatonormativity causes mass amatonormativity in fandom spaces.

So... at this point, do you see why aromantic people in fandom get a little defensive about aro characters, and about other characters who overlap with aro experiences? You see why we get kind of pissy when people very selectively throw a very specific part of their characterization out the window? You see why we maybe don't want to associate with those people? Why it makes us so uncomfortable?

"Stop shipping romance-repulsed characters," in my opinion, is a understandable outcry from the community that I obviously sympathize with — but it nevertheless conceals the core of the issue, especially from non-aromantics who aren't living with amatonormativity shoved down their throats at all times, and therefore might not be able to read between the lines. At the core, this isn't actually a debate about the morality of shipping in fiction, despite overlap with that discourse on the surface.

The real cry for change isn't "stop shipping that character." It's "start accepting me for who I am, without trying to either undermine or mourn it at every opportunity." Because at the moment, the overlap between people who erase fictional aromanticism and real aromanticism is significant — and even where they don't overlap, you know what? Romance-averse folks just trying to live in peace can't fucking tell the difference.

[bloggingboutburgers]

Hey there's something you might wanna know

George Cubbins/Karim from Lockwood and Co. is aroace :D

It's not openly stated or anything but like c'mon its obvious as shit

For example, in the last episode of the show George is helping Lockwood walk after he got injured and says "This is so touchy-feely." And you might think thats just his autism or something BUT THEN Lockwood replies "It's a medical necessity, George, it doesnt mean a thing."

:DDDDDD

Hey! Thank you so much for the recommendation^^

Personally, I haven't touched upon it much in my latest post but I'm pretty strict with what I consider rep and if asexuality or aromanticism isn't explicitly named in the story, or at the very least laid on very very very veeeeeeery thick with no possibility AT ALL to interpret it any other way (but really mostly... Yeah explicitly named), I don't consider it actual representation. (On that note, no, mere Twitter-or-Tumblr-confirmations don't count as proper representation to me either, if you have to go to a social medium to know about more things that "are in the show" then they're not really "in the show", are they.)

The reason is I think a- people who watch the series and don't know what asexuals or aromantics are won't know any better if it's not named, and b- I actually trust society on that so little that I doubt most writers even know what asexuals or aromantics are, OR if they do, CARE about representing them at all, so unless it's actually named, I'll mostly come to the conclusion that it's done by accident. In short... Maybe it's obvious to US who recognize ourselves in that orientation but to the average person, characters that only exhibit traits of asexuality and aromanticism without it being explicitly named are "haha so quirky" and kinda nothing more.

Basically we're at a point where asexuality and aromanticism are not public knowledge enough yet for mere hints to count as rep imo. Which is tricky because mere hints are enough for most orientations, but... I don't think the knowledge about us is there yet to the point that it'd be enough.

But... Yeah that's my take on it, and I AM pretty strict about those things, so I don't mean to ruin that for others if that's enough for them TwT Cus regardless it can be pretty great to recognize oneself in a character. So this is pretty good to know for people who don't need the orientation being named for it to count as rep in their book! So thank you for that^^

[icy-book]

Listening to Kissaphobic and Not Another Song About Love for aro reasons, only to discover that they are very much love songs

[77ngiez-archive]

project sekai is crazy because literally every character is queer trans neurodivergent physically disabled or some combination of the above

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Gods Below

high fantasy, start of a series

a world in ruins after a divine war, which ended with one god taking over and slowly spreading magical Restoration - rejuvenating the land, but transforming any any humans who survive

follows two sisters who are separated when the Restoration sweeps through their home: one who becomes a sinkhole miner, collecting precious gems, who becomes part of a resistance when she discovers she can channel the magic from them

and her younger sister who becomes changed, and is rescued by a woman who trains her into a devoted godkiller, hunting down all other remaining gods

as well as an inventor traveling deep into the earth with his best friend, in hopes of finding the gods’ realm to find a cure for her sickness, and his cousin, searching for a way to restore her family’s ruined reputation

and a god far in the past, at the beginning of the war

bi, aro, m/f & f/f

[ernmark]

In one of my books, there's this one scene that I'm stupidly proud of:

A new character has been through the wringer with the two protagonists, and finally there's a quiet moment for her to talk to one of them alone.

Newbie: "So... are you ladies, like... together?"

Protagonist: "Her and me? Nah."

Newbie: "Are you sure? Because you're very-- uh--"

Protagonist: "Oh, I know. We've tried having sex and all, but we decided we're better off platonic. We're just Like That."