#half joking. i was just thinking about how 'lesbian who is into yaoi'' is a widely recognized phenomenon but the opposite isnt

[princehendir]

Fandom will continue to suck until we can get large numbers of gay men intensely and passionately invested in femslash. Only then will the scene become bearable and good.

[sweatydelusionpaper]

before 231 i actually don’t think i considered osaragi being attracted to miko — or at least, not seriously. that said the new chapter’s latter half raises a Lot of eyebrows — and if i wasn’t already a bit convinced from just 231, the analysis you did does raise some points that make me go “hmmmm. This Definitely Doesn’t Add Up.”

basically: i do support the “osaragi’s got a thing for miko” (we’ve also seen some. gay jokes before with chika/hayasaka and nagisa, so if this were to be played with a little bit i would be pleasantly surprised but not feel like it’s super out of the realm of possibility) pretty strongly? i’d have to go looking for more evidence again and i’m not exactly sure yet how aware of it osaragi is, if she’s even at all aware, but i’d love to hear your thoughts (and others’) on the matter !

This is like my first ask and i am not gonna lie ,i let out a very ugly squeal after reading it.

Okay now to answer your question,see the only reason why i discard the theory of koba chan having feelings for miko is because i dont really see a lot of gay/lesbian representation in mainstream anime. Obviously we have the bls and yaois but its very rare to see a homosexual pairing in the other ones. Even if they are present, they tend to be very subtle about it,so you are always kind of left wondering,"Are they--are they in love with each other or just really close friends?" U know. But with that being said, since kaguya sama as a story centers around different types of love and how various people react to it and maneuver through it, there is a high possibility that we might actually get to see same sex relationships/love.

And also, with chapter 231, so many of the things would make sense if koba chan were to actually be in love with miko. For example as i mentioned, koba chan doesnt dislike miko as a person, we know that because she cried when miko was being acknowledged by her peers, was constantly by her side through the election arc and was genuinely worried for her, the same goes for the sports festival arc and the cultural festival arc. In all these chapters, koba chan never seems to look like she is annoyed or irritated by miko's presence. Its only when miko realizes that shes in love with ishigami that she starts to distance herself.

If shes really in love with ishigami, it makes sense that she would see miko as a rival. But why not tsubame? Cause she was nice to her? Cause she projected her feelings onto her? Okay. Then she says that she would be happy as long as ishigami is happy but just not with miko. Why not her? Why is she specifically threatened by her? I wouldve understood her feelings if she thought miko was a bad person and not a good friend. But thats not the truth. Because you obviously dont cry for people you secretly hate and are just forced to be friends with.

So heres what i think, as kaguya mentioned that koba chan was projecting her feelings onto tsubame, what if that was true? But instead of tsubame, it was ishigami. When she saw how in love miko was with the person who gave her the sutera flower and felt jealous, she probably thought it was because of ishigami, because of internalised homophobia and overall denial. And since then has been viewing ishigami as a romantic prospect when all along it has been miko.

One more thing i wanna add, is that in the end of chapter 231. She mentions how miko would either have to choose between her and ishigami. Now i dont know about her but if i was in a situation like her, were i was friends with someone i hated and was in love with their crush,the last thing i would ask them is to choose(although koba chan didnt literally ask her, but its our bad luck that miko overheard), i would cut ties right there and then. And miko did. So for her to still want miko to choose between them is kinda suspicious.in my opinion

Or it is obviously possible that i am overthinking this lul

[xianglingslesbian]

oh I'll give u a character alright: Izuki, Kiyoshi, Riko and Aomine <333 technically that's four, but what goes around comes around (I'll keep this circle of love goin forever buddy)

VICCCC ily my man <33 thank u!!! aight putting this under a cut bc it got long

Izuki

Why I like them: izuki’s just overall so amazing! he inspires me to give my best in the stuff i do, and although it sounds a bit silly i try to be a person that he’d be proud of. his puns are hilarious and well-thought-out (as a person who loves words and word jokes, i’m naturally drawn to him lol). they’re also a way to take the heat off the team, he’s so hardworking and never views obstacles as obstacles, rather as hills he must climb to find newer skies. he’s also rather clever and employs his brains to great effect when his body fails him! izuki embodies the meaning of ‘eagle’ in the truest sense - waiting to strike when the time is right and not failing when it is.

Why I don’t: *sweats* can’t really think of a reason i don’t like izuki, at all??? i guess he can overwork himself a lot and tends to keep his true emotions hidden which could lead to misunderstandings between friends (although this is totally headcanon territory lol)... i also didn’t like the ableist comment he passed on hayama (“i’m just glad you weren’t smarter than me”). but i think he can (and will!) grow from that kind of stuff, he is that kind of person so yeah no particular reason for me to dislike him at all

Favorite episode (scene if movie): how dare you make me pick s3 e8 izuki vs kasamatsu, hands down. i know its like cliche or whatever but that moment just told me so much about izuki as a character? he’s willing to do what it takes to win, he’s adaptable and dependable and he doesn’t let shit get him down ever. it’s gorgeous

Favorite season/movie: s3, he got some fantastic moments in there!! although i will say i loved the spotlighting he got in s1 in the seihō match

Favorite line: “Fear isn't a bad thing. There are some things that can only be done by cowards.” this is first of all such a nice thing to say. ‘fear is not bad’ is just... so fucking wise? keep in mind that this boy is 17, i’ve met 30 year olds who are less mature. secondly it feels like izu’s speaking from experience?? like he has a lot to be scared of, i’m sure. particularly of falling behind and being a burden to his teammates. but it’s that ‘cowardice’ that drives him to practice so so hard. that visceral terror of weighing on seirin is what pushes izuki beyond his limits - which is why here he can empathise with furi’s fear, and knows how best to employ it.

Favorite outfit: look i hate last game w/ a passion but that lil tie/shirt/hoodie thing he had going? that was literally so cute. izuki in general has a p great fashion sense but his last game outfit takes the cake <3

OTP: hyuuizu oh my god i could talk for years about them but since this post is gonna be very long i’ll refrain. just. they are perfect they are fucking perfect

Brotp: kiyoizu!! kiyoshi is izuki’s biggest enabler and i love that for him <3

Head Canon: izuki can be very very passive aggressive when he’s angry at someone/sad and gets cold and withdrawn. it’s not fun to experience but tbh if you upset him you probably deserve it

Unpopular opinion: izuki should’ve been naturally better in canon. it’s not fair to shaft him and give the ‘trier’ thing off to himuro. that being said i am p happy with who he is as a person

A wish: i want to know how izuki felt after middle school! izuki’s and riko’s backstory focuses so much on hyuuga its dumb >:( he also would’ve been demoralised but he didn’t quit bball and i would like to know his thought process!

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: i. uh. i guess izu quitting basketball. because i genuinely cannot see that happening. it brings him so much joy, he should never stop cold turkey. i can imagine old man izuki hobbling about a court giving little kids pointers and making them laugh T-T

5 words to best describe them: “big brain caffeine-powered clown baby” 

My nickname for them: babyzuki/izu/shunshun

Kiyoshi

Why I like them: lots of reasons! kiyoshi is an admirable person. he’s strong, yet friendly and gentle, and he loves his team above all else, which i just find beautiful. i find his manipulative side also pretty cool, bc it shows off how multifaceted he is.

Why I don’t: this is more of a fandom reason but i really dislike how kiyoshi is always said to have had the greatest impact in hyuuga’s story. he badgered and manipulated hyuuga, and while some may argue hyuuga needed that push, it only worked bc hyuuga had had time to think about shit. he’d also been given space by riko and izuki (two integral parts of his life whom the fandom looooves to sideline for uwu kiyo//hyuu). 

Favorite episode (scene if movie): yousen match (can’t pick the episodes)! i loved the backstory we got for kiyo vs mura and i loved how kiyoshi was willing to smile and play but also refused to lose. he truly stole the show despite kagami being the one to finally take down murasakibara, it was gorgeous <3

Favorite season/movie: s2 for sure. kiyoshi wasn’t allowed to shine much after yousen imo - all the focus was on hyuuga kagami and kuroko, and to a lesser extent izuki. not complaining, but yeah

Favorite line: “Let’s go have some fun.” i know it’s kinda cliche but i do love how kiyoshi’s always thinking about playing a good game and enjoying basketball. he wants to play because he loves it and as someone who loves a sport as much as kiyoshi loves b-ball, that love is so poignant and tender

Favorite outfit: practice clothes! kiyoshi looks great in pink <3

OTP: kiyohana. hateshipping amirite ;)

Brotp: kiyohyuu! i love them as friends so so much <3

Head Canon: kiyoshi is half-iranian on his mother’s side and is muslim. i won’t say too much because i am not muslim myself, i need to do more research into this but i’ve had this headcanon for quite a while now!

Unpopular opinion: he should be bullied more for the fact that his canon power is having yaoi hands

A wish: kiyo finds something he loves as much as b-ball. he can’t canonically play at this level again, so if he found another sport/competition/anything, it’d be amazing

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: he should never become demoralised. kiyoshi at heart is a dreamer, so let him dream, let him look towards tomorrow with a smile always

5 words to best describe them: “useless dreamy dumbass cheerleader clown”

My nickname for them: kiyoyo, bc my feelings about him have yo-yoed a lot lmao

Riko

Why I like them: im a lesbian, next. /j i love her because she’s so tenacious and driven. yet she’s also kind and gentle, and never loses her humanity. she cares, and she cares hard. she’s so fucking smart too like... coaching a hs basketball team at 17 against players of NBA calibre and making them win? i could never. seirin without riko is nothing.

Why I don’t: i dont like the constant slapstick of her beating up her boys. also, i dislike how the narrative forces her to act ‘feminine’ and then has the boys think of it as nothing. like first of all if someone like her offered me a kiss i would so take 100, and secondly... why is a girl’s worth so tied to her femininity? it’s awful

Favorite episode (scene if movie): her sending in furi vs kaijō, early in s3. it was an exceedingly smart move that could have only come from her knowing her players’ strengths and weaknesses intimately, and being a brilliant coach. just amazing <3

Favorite season/movie: all of them! riko has some amazing moments each season, so i can’t really pick

Favorite line: “Humans grow. Don't act like you understand when you don't even realize that!” here, riko knows and knows well that she is in her element. momoi might have the data, but riko understands adaptability and knows how to predict stuff. in that way, one can draw parallels between takao vs izuki and momoi vs riko: takao and momoi are recon experts, whereas riko and izuki are strategists. momoi uses raw data; riko manipulates the data to her advantage

Favorite outfit: idk if this is exactly an outfit but her glasses are so cute oh my gosh. (i’d kill to see her in a leather jacket tho)

OTP: rikomomo!!! i’m 100% sure that momoi’s fixation w/riko’s boobs is just... repressed lesbian sentiments. also sports girlfriends gimme

Brotp: hyuuizuriko. i hc that hyuuizu were tgt since elementary school and riko joined them in middle school so... childhood friends feels!

Head Canon: riko knows how to shoot a gun. her father owns one so it makes sense

Unpopular opinion: riko does not need to have bigger boobs in fanart. please stop sexualising a 17 year old girl

A wish: white suit riko please

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: her ever leaving behind sports in any way shape or form. it’s her thing. in the same vein, she should never have to change herself or become more traditionally feminine to be ‘appealing’

5 words to best describe them: perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect

My nickname for them: ai/riri

Aomine

Why I like them: aomine is just a pure, hurting young man that deserves help. he’s passionate, and his fire died down out of no fault of his own. that fire’s reignition through kagami is one of my favorite scenes <3

Why I don’t: he’s perverted as hell and i dislike that. it plays into the ‘brutish dark-skinned pervert’ stereotype which is yikes. also i thought we were done with pervs in anime

Favorite episode (scene if movie): s2 seirin v touou when kagami enters the zone!! aomine’s finally happy and it’s so amazing to watch <3

Favorite season/movie: s2, he finally got happiness and peace of mind

Favorite line: “You’re the best!” there’s just so much of pure joy in this line. he’s so so beside himself that he finally has someone he won’t destroy. kagami sees aomine the person, and that person is so happy, it’s beautiful

Favorite outfit: the leather jacket from the finale lmaooo he looked so cute

OTP: AOKAGA BABY i could write an essay tbh

Brotp: aomomo!! theyre such good friends and bi/lesbian solidarity too!

Head Canon: aomine cannot dance. he has stepped on kagami’s feet multiple times. he has also attempted to twerk when drunk. kuroko recorded the whole thing and uses it as blackmail in case the puppy eyes and “but aomine-kun you didn’t fist bump me back” don’t work

Unpopular opinion: more a fandom thing, but you all need to stop making aomine the aggressive/possessive top/‘seme’. it’s racist as fuck

A wish: aomine goes pro. it’ll be amazing for him, a huge challenge and kagami will be there too so its a win-win ;)

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: he quits again/b-ball loses its allure. aomine at heart is someone who needs passion to drive him so i just want that passion to always burn bright within him

5 words to best describe them: “bastard baby needs a hug”

My nickname for them: dai-chan, momoi rubbed off on me

[sparklyjojos]

Some final commentary on Cosmic

which turned into yet another analysis of JDC, Tsukumojuku and Jorge Joestar because I have zero self-restraint. Half this post is searching for overarching themes and wacky theories, have fun with my ramblings I guess

[big spoilers for Cosmic and Tsukumojuku, not really for Jorge Joestar]

While I decided to finish Cosmic first, the recommended reading order is Cosmic (1st half) -> Joker -> Cosmic (2nd half). I guess this better ties both books together and helps avoid some Joker spoilers that are in Cosmic. The new edition even encourages it by labeling the tomes of Cosmic with Ryu and Sui, and Joker with Sei and Ryo. So you’re supposed to read “Seiryo in Ryusui” *rimshot* The cover art is also meant to be put together in that order (notice that the last cover also connects to the first though, and you can try putting the shorter edges together too):

On the book’s theme, and some meta:

I’m actually glad I’ve read Tsukumojuku before this, as it gave me a solid grip on the meta and the ridiculous detectiving. It made me LOVE the very ending, especially the “walking towards the end of the story with this tiny last moment lasting forever” part -- in hindsight of Tsukumojuku’s ending I almost cried at this point. The meaning’s a bit different, of course: Tsukumojuku has the triplets realize they should leave their daydream, and so it was both a sad and joyful ending, with them trying to stretch their last moments being ‘Tsukumojuku’. Cosmic has Juku and Yasha being a little apprehensive but determined to reach ‘the end of the story’, and at the end, they’re happy and joking around while (wittingly or not?) walking into eternity as the book ends, and with it their existence (...which doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic when you know there's a sequel).

Adding to that, I believe the last words imply the author (=the heavens forever watching over the characters) is joyful about the end (’the heavens themselves laughing’). Note that when Juku (or is it?) first appears in the book, in that post office scene, right after the 19 consecutive tragedies we just had to read through, we learn that ‘the heavens have been crying, but now it was as if they started laughing’, and Juku looks up at the sky and smiles. The end of the epilogue has the second-person someone (the reader?) be sad about the book coming to an end, with statements like ‘just two paragraphs remain until the end’ (and there really are only two short paragraphs in the book left after this!), and describing the heavy rain that starts in those two paragraphs as ‘the heavens crying’ (so... the sadness of both the reader and the author?). Finishing a good book, whether as a writer or a reader, is indeed both a joyful and a sad event. Similarly, the detectives are all happy and inexplicably sad when Juku claims the case has been solved. (There’s an echo of this theme even in Jorge Joestar, when with mere 15 pages left until the end of the book Jorge cries because ‘this adventure’s almost over’.)

I love the reccurring existential theme having to do with being a fictional character. It wasn’t as in-your-face as in Tsukumojuku, but it was there. While I skipped that in recaps, one of the locked room stories features a delusional man who believes he’s just a character in a novel. While scary, this belief is somewhat comforting too, and he notes it’d be nice to have a role to fulfill; to die with the sense you achieved all that you were meant to do, that The Author loved and appreciated you for who you were, and that you’re going to live eternally through a novel. (Jorge Joestar has Tsukumojuku mention how having a role to fulfill under Beyond’s care gave him comfort -- same thing, really.) But the character understands that all stories will eventually undergo destruction, and dreads it. Of course, the final message of the book, strengthened by the final events (the cult’s failure, Shiranui dying right after Juku’s birthday, and even --the book itself ending--), is that we have to accept that nothing can last forever, and the old will be replaced by the new, stories included.

When Juku and Yasha revealed the culprit’s initials, I honestly thought that he’d turn out to be the author, and the reason why they got different initials was that Juku saw the pen name (Seiryoin Ryusui) and Yasha the real name (Kanai Hidetaka). Since Yasha seemed shocked that Juku said ‘S’, I thought it meant that Yasha saw a full name but neither of the initials was ‘S’. I also thought Otohime’s advice -- to ‘look at the events from a distance’, to ‘withdraw yourself from events’ -- actually meant you have to look at the story from a distance... that is, lean back and look at the book you’re holding, which has the author’s name on the cover. Later, the sudden fourth wall break during the press conference scene, with the author prompting the reader to think carefully about who the Locked Room Lord may be, and writing his signature right under that question, only made me more sure. And there were a bunch of scenes before the Big Reveal in which other JDC characters reacted to the solution with feeling as if their world was destroyed, or getting drunk, or stressing out rather hard, so I expected they got hit with existential crisis upon learning The Truth, and that Juku will just go full meta and say that the culprit is the author: the one who really designed and 'committed’ the murders. Though with the book ending as it did, it’s not a stretch to say that Seiryoin really IS confirmed to be the true Locked Room Lord. In a way.

Other random comments:

This book is positively untranslatable. It features stuff like extensive kanji wordplays; messages in Caesar cipher but using the dictionary order of hiragana; deciphering a number as if it was an old-fashioned pager message; or reading the final message by putting the first syllable of the last kanji of the victims’ names together. And that damn Matsuo Bashou pun. All the name puns, really.

The language is rather hard, definitely harder than Maijo’s works. I think I’ll take some time to get better Japanese skills before going for Joker. (The JDC book I expect to enjoy the most is The Simons’ Case, though -- young Ajiro dadding over solving a case with kid Juku sounds amazing, and it’s a lot of fans’ fave)

For some reason, the main characters sure like to have the ‘castle’ kanji (城) in their names, like 鴉城 蒼司 (Ajiro Souji), 龍宮 城之介 (Ryuuguu Jounosuke), and  天城 漂馬 (Amagi Hyouma). ...I can’t help but notice that a certain 城字 ジョースター (Jouji/Jorge Joestar) would fit right in, lol. He pretty much is a meta-detective already, what with all the confidence and insight he gets from his Beyond.

I live for Ajiro’s and Juku’s relations. LOVE this stressed detective dad being proud of his ridiculously kind detective son.

Unexpectedly I also loved the friendship between Juku and Yasha. (With added tears because, y’know. Inugami Yasha. Investigating with Tsukumo Juku. Being friends and stuff.)

I like Ryuuguu Jounosuke quite a lot, both because of his character / reasoning skills, and because he’s as canonically aroace as he can be in a 90s book. not that you’d know that with all the Hikimiya/Ryuuguu yaoi fanart on pixiv

Unfortunately, I can’t praise Seiryoin for good rep as he’s miserable with other representation. The locked room chapters feature the depraved rapist bisexual trope, then a Bury Your Lesbians trope, and then this weird thing where a young guy has a gay crush and concludes that he must have become gay because he was abused by his mother (???)... but as it later turns out, in reality (ie. not in the manuscript) the object of the crush was a woman, so the gay part didn’t even happen. The fuq? Also there’s a one-scene-only black woman officer who’s only there so we can be told how physically strong and intimidating she is and I’m not sure how I should feel about that. I’m also pissed off that when a male detective uses vague reasoning out of nowhere, more a supernatural feeling than anything else, he gets called a meta-detective and is oh ah so elite and amazing!, but when Nemu does it it gets called ‘woman’s intuition’ and ‘fuzzy reasoning’ and she’s not considered a meta-detective, fucking really? (Maybe it is a little different, idk, she wasn’t detectiving a lot in this so we didn’t really see what she’s capable of)

On the other hand, I liked that the way Juku encouraged Nemu to become a detective involved using his connections to arrange meetings with other disabled detectives, so she could talk frankly with them and get a feel for how high-tier detectiving while disabled (esp. in terms of sight-related disabilities) is like. That’s a nice detail.

Speaking of him... Tsukumo Juku is pretty Mary Sue-ish in this, which I don’t mind (and I would be more surprised if it didn’t turn out to be intentional later), but I can imagine other readers not really liking him that much. I’ve read that Juku unfortunately doesn’t really get deeper characterization until the Carnival books, where we learn fun little stuff about him, eg. he’s horrible at cooking, and his ringtone is the opening for Manga Nippon Mukashi Banashi (an old anime introducing little kids to folktales). (I’m wondering whether or not the Kintaro thing in Jorge Joestar is related to this somehow? I don’t have many spoilers for Carnival, maybe there’s more folktales references... aside from the Ryuuguu family’s names referencing Urashima Taro, that is. And now I wonder why Jorge gets a folktale-related kids song stuck in his head so easily hmmm)

It was never explained who sent the manuscript to JDC. So far, judging by the scene with the beautiful androgynous person at the post office, and retroactively by the entire Story-sending mess in Tsukumojuku, I’d say it was Juku himself, somehow. A time-travelling Juku from the future, maybe? I don’t know anymore, man, but I’ve read that previous cases of the series come together in Carnival, so here’s hoping it gets explained better than as “a ghost did it maybe”.

For the longest time I kept wondering where the personality dissonance between this Juku and the Detective God in Tsukumojuku came from. Why would this ever gentle, kind and forgiving character be written as some vore murderer monster dude? So, here’s my current Reaching Theory TM. We know the Detective God really is ‘an Angel’ as he claimed, since in the Seventh Story, Tsukumojuku realizes that he himself is actually not ‘the Angel’ but ‘the Beast’ (he thinks about it during that, er... awkward chest pipe moment, if you remember). Now, canon Juku actually is compared to ‘an angel or a god’ in Cosmic, and it’s a good descriptor: he’s kind and forgiving, but has the sorta detached, not-quite-human air; he’s androgynous, unnervingly perfectly beautiful, and one shouldn’t look directly at him for too long. The Detective God, on the other hand, is an Angel in the same way those demons from Jacob’s Ladder are: only when you stop holding onto mortal life (the imaginary world in Beyonds’ case) and accept your death (accept you have to go ‘outside’), you may notice they’re actually angels who have been trying to help you realize the truth. Through brutal means, but still. I guess the Detective God was created by the part of the Beyonds’ subconscious that understands they have to accept the reality, or something. He’s a bit like Silent Hill monsters in this way. Note that the person the Detective God mainly attacks (and possibly talks with him off-screen earlier) is the Original. And the Story it happens in, Fourth (II), is the point after which the Original probably started thinking about the plan involving killing everything they hold dear to make them face reality. It was really Detective God who first made the Original and the Second One aware of ‘God’ -- even if indirectly: getting them to think about ‘God’ by making them refute the claim that Seiryoin is their God, getting them to think about what the presence of ‘the canon Tsukumo Juku’ before them means for their own existence. Or Maijo just likes to write hard vore and i’m thinking too much

[greyliliy]

You know what? It’s the end of the year. Let’s have a giant personal confessional I’ll probably regret later because I’m oversensitive and trying not to cry while reading this book.

But I haven’t been real with you guys in a while and I feel like getting it all out at once instead of putting it into a conversation with one person and burdening them with it, and who knows, maybe it’ll help someone younger who’s dealing with this stuff now.

So let’s get real & it’s under the cut if you wanna’ read it.

I’m reading a book called Torn by Justin Lee about being a gay christian growing up in the church and it’s sort of terrifying how easy it is to relate to (up to a point). Needless to say, it’s got me thinking about life, my own frustrations, and topics about sexuality that have been weighing particularly heavy on my mind this past year as I approach my mid 30′s.

The first part where he’s discussing that he realizes he’s not attracted to women and that fear that something’s broken in him, is a feeling I know that very, very well. And when he starts talking about how he started to notice guys instead, funny enough, that’s when I realized that I...didn’t experience that either, though I could still relate to his fear of admitting this to other people.

I can’t ever remember being sexually attracted to anyone, or at least I don’t think I have (it’s so hard to pinpoint what exactly sexual attraction is and the nightmare of figuring out if it’s happened or not--but then again, I feel like if I’d felt it, I probably wouldn’t be struggling to figure out if I had or not). I remember wanting to be around people, and to have relationships, but thinking back, I don’t think I experienced it the same way other teens did.

I mean, my first serious boyfriend dumped me because as he put it: "I think you just want to be friends.” Thinking back, I went out with him for a year and we never did anything more than hug, so I can see where he’s coming from.

At the time, I sure didn’t though. I really liked that boy. We went out on dates & did stuff for Valentines and I thought we were happy, but I never made any moves physically and neither did he  (at the time I was so happy we were on the same page, because I wasn’t ready, but I guess we weren’t as in sync as I thought) and well, I was informed later by a friend that getting dumped because I “just want to be friends” means “You didn’t put out, idiot, so he found a girl who would.” (They didn’t say the “idiot” part, but it was strongly implied by their tone).

I haven’t had a boyfriend since, because I realized that was part of dating and if I went out with boys they’d expect me to kiss and do things with them and I just...wasn’t ready for that. Dating became something I was terrified of; I couldn’t repeat that experience again. It wasn’t even until after college that I tried dating again, and I can count the number of them I’ve been on in my lifetime without using two hands.

I don’t think I realized it at the time, but I was a little repulsed by guys touching me. Girls were fine, boys not. I think it was a little switch in my brain going “Girl touches are platonic so they’re fine, boy ones have sexual meaning so it’s not.” that meant any time I boy touched me I panicked.

And then college hit.

I kinda knew people were having sex in high school but no one talked to me about it. There was this understanding that I had no clue about anything to do with that subject and they liked to keep it that way.

In hindsight, it hit me how much they teased me about it. I was that person who asked once at a friend’s house “How do lesbians have sex?” and they giggled “They scissor.” while miming the motion with their fingers - I didn’t get the joke and thought they were entirely serious and just accepted that answer and tried to picture how that would work. Imagine my face years later when I saw an episode of a certain show that that quote came from and I died a little inside because “Oh. They were making fun of me.”

(I also found out years later pretty much everyone I knew were all convinced I was a closeted lesbian and waiting for me to just come out already, which makes that confrontation all the worse, somehow.)

But if I wasn’t getting teased about how little I knew, they just didn’t talk about it at all.

College was an entirely different matter because I frankly couldn’t avoid the topic if I wanted to. It was in my health class (one of my gen ed. classes ended up being half Sex Ed.), it was in the free condoms they handed out, it was in my major classes (a film class I was in had a long segment that took up most of the semester titled “Sex in film” and I ended up seeing a lot of rated r films and sex scenes I had avoided in high school just because I tended to watch animated films & pg-13 ones more than anything), and well, college kids have a lot of sex, I discovered.

On my first day of  freshman introduction week I ended up in a guy’s dorm who already had a “women I’ve slept with” chart on the wall that already had tick marks on it (I was there for all of five seconds while the person I was visiting got his things and we got out; I never saw any of them again the rest of the year). 

Culture shock is an understatement.

And all of it made me uncomfortable. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it in high school when people talked about wanting other people that way, and I sure as heck didn’t get it in college. But I had convinced myself one day I would. I kept thinking: “One day, I’m gonna meet that one guy that makes me feel all this sexual tension I keep hearing about and then we’ll date, and fall in love, and get married, and it’ll be great.” That’s what people kept telling me. “When you meet the one, you’ll know.”

(For the record, it still hasn’t happened, or if it did, it wasn’t over a boy and I’m in deep, soul crushing denial about it.)

I never did find that dating scene but instead, I discovered Boys Love (”Yaoi” at the time.) At first, it was a really guilty thing because I grew up Christian--and still am--(another relatable thing in this book I’m reading; the fear of your own church) and it was “Sinful” but...the stories and art were so good, and I felt bewitched. I remember reading FAKE and seeing how much they loved each other and I don’t know, it was just. Good.

And it was safe. I didn’t have to think about my sexuality when it was only boys on the page. I wasn’t an issue, or a topic, or had any part in it. I was reading about other people and it was fictional which meant it wasn’t real so I didn’t have to feel guilty trying to fantasize about real people (something that still makes me feel really skeevy.)

This went on for a few years and BL was pretty much the only thing I read/watched/did anything with. My roommates knew me as that obsessed BL fangirl and loved to tease me (but also encouraged it; my one male roommate in my senior year apartment expected my “couple of the day” picture posted to his door & bought me doujinshi as gifts. Thinking back, I’m blessed and grateful no one gave me a hard time about it).

I eventually discovered the more graphic, erotic side of BL and that was an experience, because I liked it.

A lot.

This is embarrassing to admit, but the first time reading a couple of those more graphic stories I felt different, and weird in my own skin, and kinda awkward (it freaked me out at the time). I described the exact symptoms to my friend in an IM because I was confused and she laughed at me: “You’re turned on, idiot.” (Again, the idiot was strongly implied but not straight out said. Not that I noticed at the time.)

It was like a bomb dropped. That was what people felt when they talked about getting hot and bothered. That’s what the people in high school and college were talking about when someone touched them. I had a point of reference.

And it hit me that thinking  about a living, breathing person had never made me feel that way. Not even close.

That was the first time I felt really broken.

And that was when I got desperate to fix it.

In 2007 all of those feelings exploded into an art project I called “Shout it Out.” (It is my one and only Daily Deviation to this day), and that project is the only reason I can share all of this with you right now. Because in 2007 I wrote down every guilty thought, every embarrassing fact, and every thing I was ashamed of & proud of and at this point, there’s not much I can tell you that can top it.

And maybe also, I read the description and realized I should follow my own advice: 

Someone told me once, that she believed we make life hard for ourselves by keeping things bottled up inside. Whether it be due to shame, embarrassment, fear, pride or some other emotion we don't share the things that are on our hearts like we should. We wallow in them and never realize that everyone else feels the same way. Our conflicts, our dreams, and the things that make us who we are should be free to be spoken out loud.

It was a big deal for me at the time, and sometimes I wonder where all that courage went. I don’t feel the same way as I did then on a lot of the topics, but at the time, that’s where my mind and heart were.

Over half of the text is related to sex. Reading it now, it sounds like I was a lustful, sex-crazed twenty-something who struggled to keep myself from jumping everyone (”I want to have sex so bad it hurts...” to quote one of the lines).

But the truth is, while I was obsessed with sex in media (manga, BL, romance novels, health sites,) learning everything I could, I’m learning more and more that how I experienced an obsession with sex wasn’t how many other people experience it.

I was obsessed with reading everything I could about sex because I was desperate to relate to some of it. I had fantasies about sex and myself because I kept thinking that maybe it’d click one day (and boy did I try thinking about a lot of different scenarios desperate to find myself attracted to anything). But many of those thoughts ended up forced or ineffective. I kept trying anyway.

I wanted to feel normal.

(Though that sort of failed too, since most of those fantasies ended up being about girls, and myself wasn’t necessarily involved in the picture.)

I remember desperately wanting to have sex because I thought if I did that then I’d suddenly have a light pop on in my brain that goes “This is why everyone else loves it! This is what I’m missing!” I’d have sex and then I’d be normal and feel attraction like everyone else does because I’d know what it feels like.

In the end, my strong conviction of “No sex until marriage” won out (For the record, I’m still basically of the philosophy that sex outside of committed relationships is a bad idea), but I kept reading smut.

So much in fact, that it became an addiction and it was all I looked at or did. It wasn’t a healthy place for me, and I’d rather not go into exact details, even if this has been a rather detailed sharing session. But I can say that it got so bad that I had to remove myself from the subject entirely at one point and pretty much cut myself off from the BL Community cold turkey. If it was digital, I deleted it. If it was a fanfic site, I stopped visiting. No anime. No manga. No doujinshi. No nothing. My physical media was shoved in the closet (that was a lot of money I wasn’t just going to throw out) and called it a day.

Heck, part of the reason I try to avoid a lot of erotica works is just because it reminds me of those bad times. (And the funny side effect that I read so much of it at one point that now it’s kinda boring because I’ve seen just about all of it).

But as I’m sure you’ve seen from my fanfiction and books, I slowly found a path of moderation. I’m re-reading my old BL books that I’m taking out of the closet and remembering why I loved these stories and art, and just coming to terms with myself in general that BL & straight romance novels might be the only way I’ll experience those sorts of feelings toward another person.

It’s probably why I like the genre so much, while I’m reading I can pretend, and that’s good enough for me. I can write romance without having experienced it and that’s a win in my book.

The truth is, I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that while I’d love a spouse of some sort and who knows, maybe something still might happen yet if there’s someone out there willing to be patient and wait, I can admit that I just don’t experience attraction to other people.

If I could go back to a young me, I’d tell myself to learn more when I’m younger so I didn’t feel so stupid when I was older.

I’d tell myself that it’s okay that I didn’t like anybody and that I didn’t have to feel obligated to find a boyfriend.

I’d tell myself that even if I’ll be struggling with trying to figure out myself and my feelings for the rest of my life, that it’ll be okay.

I’d tell myself that I’m not broken.

So on this last day of 2017, before I go back to reading my book and the rest of things I was going to do to day, I’m going to find a little bit of that courage I used to have in 2007 and just say now what I wish I’d known ten years ago.

I do also get the irony that I’ve sort of indirectly been admitting to it for a while now, but this is me saying it:

I’m asexual.

See you all next year, and now if you don’t mind: I’ve got books to read, random things to reblog, and a comic to draw.