#aro. but also i know you can be so fulfilled without romance! you can have such a good and complete and whole life without romance!

[ooc-themis-cattails]

Can I just say how much I appreciate the diversity of ace identities in ISAT and all the detail about it?

(spoilers ahoy)

I love how at first Sif sees the porn scroll as "people doing fun things" but later admits it doesn't interest them at all. Their first response is to say what they know they're "supposed" to think it is, what everyone else is probably going to think it is. But then they learn that it's really ok to admit that they're not into it.

At first Sif is like "why does Beau like me?" but after a while they start to find him cute because they understand the emotion behind his feelings, and while they're not sure if they can actually take it as far as a sexual relationship, they're interested in figuring it out, because for them, that doesn't gross them out, it's just not a drive. This is so relatable to me and I love seeing it bc it's not the typical ace in fiction where like, this character is ace so we mustn't put them in a ship because we should assume it'd gross them out. Sif can be ace but not entirely horrified by sex, and Sif may be romantic (I don't know if even Sif knows whether they are romantic or not)-- I suspect they are demiromantic because it's the intimacy and familiarity of Beau's emotions that makes them start to feel things about the moment by the tree, to the point where they miss it when he doesn't try.

Mirabelle going through the dating service papers is the most wonderful scene because this is what it was like to be ace when I was in my early twenties. Most people didn't know it was a thing, and friends/family were very helpfully concerned that you should find a partner in order to not be alone, because the theory was that it was a basic human need for everyone. I did exactly what Mirabelle did, and had the same kind of reaction: "I have to pick one of these people to try dating because I have to figure out how to be sexually interested in someone so that I can do the whole partnership thing that everyone says you need to do in order to have a fulfilling adult life." Looking at pictures of people trying to figure out how to be attracted to them, or what you like, when the answer is really that you're just Not. And you're kind of torn because some part of you knows that this isn't going to work, but the other part of you legit believes that it's like staying hydrated, you have to do it for your own good even if you're not thirsty.

Mirabelle's being into fictional romance and shipping, just not into doing it herself, is also such a good detail. I'm not aro so I can't speak to that myself, but still, it's a thing. She's emotionally invested in the dynamics between people, she loves watching the details of how they play out, and that's completely separate from ever wanting to do it herself. I've seen it in others and I definitely get that from the perspective of an ace person reading smut-- you can very much enjoy a dynamic without wanting to BE in the dynamic yourself.

Sif coming to understand how attraction works from the outside: "Wait, you can't choose who you get a crush on? That explains so much!" The line made me wince because it's so self-deprecating-- they're probably thinking they're not good enough for Beau-- but I also very much appreciate the realism of how... nobody explains to you how attraction works because they assume you know what it's like, and you probably don't ask because it's embarrassing if they assume that you're an immature late bloomer with no experience of the world, rather than someone who will never have a libido no matter what they've seen. It's so easy to feel infantilized or to infantilize yourself if you're not comfortable with your ace identity. Both Mirabelle and Sif are young enough that they struggle a bit with whether this is really their identity or whether they've just not figured it out yet. In reality, at their age, this probably IS who they are. But they're also a bit hesitant to rule it out because it's really hard to know that you are NOT something, and (given that Mirabelle hadn't really considered the possibility that she's aroace) the culture doesn't seem to have a lot of representation or support for the idea. It's obvious to the player, well, if this is how they feel, then they're ace! But neither one of them can quite settle on that for sure. Because, unlike being attracted to someone where you can go "well that sure did happen", being not attracted to someone is a nonproof. So Mirabelle keeps trying, and Sif doesn't know that their reaction will seem valid to others (as evidenced by the change in how they describe the scroll). Odile, who is aro and who seems to be not entirely ace but isn't exactly the thirstiest plant in the garden, has a different position. She seems to pretty much know where she's at, which makes sense for her age, but we can't really tell if she's always been okay with it or if it's been an issue. We don't know if Ka Bu is a more uptight culture, or how long society has been normalizing non-hetero identities, but we do know she had no female role models, so if any of this heteronormative business was an issue, I imagine it contributed a lot to her feeling of outsiderness. I'd love to know more about how Odile's sexuality impacted her life but she's obviously not about to infodump it on a bunch of 20 year olds, so it remains a mystery. Nonetheless it's pretty great that there's an older aro character, illustrating that people have always been this way, it's just easier for young people to discover it now because they feel more allowed to not be heterosexual. [eta: @butterflyknifepoisoning reminded me that I've misremembered this and Odile isn't actually aro, she's had hatecrushes before and explained them to Mirabelle. Which I kind of sort of remember now! Not sure why I thought she was aro, my memory is crap sometimes. It's still a far cry from yamato nadeshiko, but yeah. Point taken]

...In the end, I find it extremely refreshing that there's a whole RPG party here and only ONE of them experiences sexual attraction, and it's a flamboyant gay-seeming dude with a poorly-kept-secret crush on an enby they/he. ISAT is so cool, it's the best aroace representation I have seen in fiction so far ever.

#isat #in stars and time #ace spec #ace representation

[aroaceleovaldez]

Tumblr kept breaking when I tried to reply to the ask about this since the post is too long, so answering this here finally:

A non-comprehensive list of misc things I’d change in HoO, since apparently people wanted me to elaborate further (Re: [This post]). Semi-off the top of my head since I don’t feel like re-reading all of HoO with notations right now. Also this will be followed up by a Things I Would Change About TOA post as well at some point, since that was also requested and kept breaking, but my brain is exhausted from getting this post set up so that will wait. I will link it [here] when I complete it.

Going under a read-more cause it’s very long. Literally Tumblr crashed like three times while I was trying to answer the original ask:

As said before (and what is a given):

1. Goes without saying - fix all the distasteful offensive character descriptions/traits. Similarly, fix the whole "these characters inexplicably look down upon their cultures" cause that's stupid and it's really annoying every time one of the Argo 2 crew brings up something about their cultures only to immediately go "but THAT'S SILLY and WEIRD."

2. Remove Calypso from the active plot, rather than the current canon retconning that doesn’t work saying that she was never actually released from Ogygia like she was supposed to be. There's no excuse for why she wasn't, unless it's supposed to be the gods sent Leo to release her to fulfill that promise, but that's not really implied to be the case at all. There's no excuse for the Olympians to just go back on their promise, since Hephaestus is established to visit Calypso regularly and basically is her only friend. It isn’t the type of thing he’d let be overlooked given all the characterization we know about Hephaestus, and given they are explicitly friends it can’t be that Olympus just “forgot” either. Also Calypso doesn't actually add anything to the plot of HoO or TOA besides serving as a love interest for Leo (not even a motive, just a love interest that "fixes him,” because he already has motive in saving Jason from being the hero of the prophecy and helping save the Argo 2 crew/camp/etc from Gaea etc etc.  Leo's romance arc completely derails the established depressive spiral/destructive character arc that's been set up for him and it basically ruins Leo's entire character. He's a tragic character! Let him be tragic until he's done being tragic and then the end of BoO and TOA can be him starting his recovery arc! (I have some thoughts for how Calypso could work removed from HoO but an active character in TOA but that’ll be for the TOA post.)

If Leo still ends up on Ogygia, then have it be clear that Calypso's already left and the island is abandoned (which imo is WAY more narratively compelling for readers of the first series, because you already know the context of the island, but for readers who don't have that context it leads to this being an interesting mystery - who was Calypso? What was this island and why do all the signs/notes left by her imply she wasn't always alone but usually was and was desperate to leave?) and Leo has to collect the scraps left behind to build an escape for himself while he goes through a fun identity crisis. At some point maybe Hephaestus shows up and Leo gets an interaction with his dad that probably does not help his identity crisis and then he goes back to the Argo 2 to have a further identity crisis about how the rest of the crew got along in his absence (a good identity crisis or a bad identity crisis? depends on how they did without him! you decide! I personally like "they managed okay" and Leo feels Really Horrible About That Cause It Feels To Him Like They Don't Need Him. I like Leo's tragic arc, okay? It's compelling.) Iirc Leo’s also the only member of the Seven who doesn’t get to have some kind of direct conversation with their godly parent, at least in-person, so yknow. It’d be nice to have. Also if you want Aro/ace Leo Valdez this is the perfect spot to put it while he's having his identity crisis on Kiss Kiss Fall In Love Island, or when he gets back.

3. Jason's stab wound in BoO is not healed by the Power Of Friendship, and instead they use the Physician's Cure for that so it doesn't feel like they're literally deus ex machina-ing their way to cheating death like 3 times in the same book. It makes more sense to use Potion Of Don't Die on Wound Of Excruciatingly Painfully Slowly Killing You instead of Whoops You're Already Dead, Just Get Better. Ctrl+Z That Real Quick.

Given they already used the Physician’s Cure on Jason, Leo doesn’t die/get revived at the end of BoO. Instead he just almost dies, probably lands in CHB’s woods somewhere, and is found and patched up with the series ending on him being on the mend and starting on the path to healing and getting help for his Numerous Issues that he was putting off for The Entire Series. Which parallels nicely to Nico basically having the same thing (overexerting his powers to near death, ends series getting medical treatment/being on the mend and the indication that he’s moving on to a happier period of his life). Again, grand happy ending rather than aggravating fake-out.

Further notes: 

- Heavily tweak Ella's character cause I get what Rick was going for, but the execution is… not awesome! Please, there's already so much ableism in HoO just. hmm. We can do better.

- Jason and Piper break up in HoO, probably around MoA when they start seeing Percy and Annabeth interacting and after they’ve had time to hang out with each other and realize their arranged relationship is Kind Of Fucked Up, Actually. (Probably something something them having gotten to spend time actually getting to know each other between TLH and MOA while they’re both at camp.) They have no problems with each other specifically and do genuinely like each other, but it just gets really awkward given all the memory manipulation and being set up as a "picture perfect couple" - emphasizing stuff like them both being children of really famous movie stars in their universe, or Jason as a son of Jupiter/Jove (an "all-father" type god) [and Juno - mother figure goddess and goddess of marriage]/"son of Rome" and Piper as a daughter of Aphrodite (goddess of love, also Aphrodite/Venus indirectly is associated as a sort of "mother of Rome" due to Aeneas). They just feel like they have too many expectations being put on their relationship and even though they do both like each other it feels too forced for them, but they’re comfortable staying just friends. This just gives way more opportunity for low-stakes character conflict among the Argo II crew outside of Monster Of The Week Chapter so things don’t feel unreasonably busy and chaotic and we actually get some consistent development. Just a nice mini-arc to follow in the downtime. Also while we’re here, more directly establish Piper’s bisexuality earlier on. If she’s already having an arc where she’s contemplating her romantic life, throw in a couple of nods to like “Piper thinking about her old childhood crush on Shel, the kid of a family friend she’d see when her and her dad visited Oklahoma” or something. Literally anything just to establish some kind of set-up to her getting a girlfriend later. Just for consistency’s sake.

- Bunkernine has a very good post about wishing the Argo II didn't have the magic plates from CHB, which I agree with in concept. Like I was just saying, MoA through BoO lacks a lot of little moments where we get to really focus in on the characters, probably in part because Rick was struggling to juggle so many parties given this was his first foray into writing a major cast that size. We can definitely cut out a lot of the random unnecessary fights and dramatic moments that don't really do anything for the plot and instead replace them with little moments of casual life on the Argo II - the scenes like those that do exist in HoO are some of HoO's most memorable moments to me! And they'd help a lot with how the characters never felt fully and properly fleshed-out. Let them exist as a cohesive group without two-to-three of them being absent at any given time! I don't think we necessarily have to remove the magic plates entirely because they do solve a fundamental problem ("where are these kids getting food?") but like, there is nothing stopping them from still cooking and just using the plates to get ingredients! Let these kids bake or something! Even just for fun! Though also I have personal headcanons about the Argo II crew's cooking skills and I really like the concept of like, during HoH or something at like 3am everybody hears something and they all suspiciously shuffle into the mess hall. And it’s just half-dead Nico standing there in his PJs making food for himself because Dammit They're IN VENICE and he’s FROM VENICE and they DON’T HAVE TIME TO STOP AT HIS OLD FAVORITE RESTAURANTS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT STILL EXIST and he Hasn't Had A Proper Meal In Weeks so By The Gods He Will Make His Mom's Old Recipes At 3am before he keels over from this quest. He just stares at everybody and goes "What are you all looking at. go away." and the rest of the crew just shuffles away awkwardly and leaves him to it. (Is Nico’s 3am meal actually good? Who knows. It is left a mystery.)

- Tweak the god characterizations. Remove the "gods splitting" thing and maybe play more with different aspects of gods/verisons of gods across history/city-states/etc presenting themselves instead. The Roman gods are not wholly equivilent to the Greek gods and it's actually really interesting from a historical perspective, and I think there's a lot you could do with that but instead it gets flatted in HoO which is sad to me. Just generally though, with the god characterizations, like. [uncomfortable pagan noises]. Which is almost impressive because it is difficult to write the Greco-Roman pantheons poorly since a good portion of them are basically just very complicated metaphors turned into personifications and characters. So they work fine for narrative purposes when applied accordingly, and yet! and yet!! Rick managed it! He managed to really bungle it in HoO and TOA. Because instead of leaning into the aspects of metaphors and dynamic characters he just fell into 2D tropes, gimmicks, and stereotypes. Off the top of my head the only deities written Okay in HoO is like. Hades/Pluto and Thanatos. (even Chiron in TOA is extremely lackluster, it's sad.) In the first series it ranges from “okay” to “actually really interesting” so it’s sad to see that drop-off and I would like it to be fixed.

Some potential examples for this: Play with the historical ties combo of like, Athena, Minerva, Enyo, Bellona, and etc! Annabeth and Reyna parallels! if the first 2 books are about the trios, let MoA be about Annabeth and Reyna and both their connections to Athena(/Bellona). Let Reyna be a second half in the Athena prophecy! It'd be cool and fit with her thematically and would set-up the whole Getting-Blessed-By-Athena thing later in BoO and make that scene feel so much cooler!

- Also retcon the whole "Hestia appears as an 8 year old for no reason" thing. And maybe also Artemis only appearing as a teen, because while Artemis has a mythological excuse, Hestia doesn't, so it just feels weird and at worst comes off as a little aphobic (depicting a character who explicitly is uninterested in relationships/romantic love as a child despite them being an immortal god with no basis for appearing as a child or even being comparatively young to other gods) with how it relates to aphobic tropes about disinterest in romance being "childish".

- Remove the "no children of Minerva" thing. Also maybe emphasize the aro/ace vibes there cause Athena being implied to be the only ace character in the entire series who a.) isn't literally a child/teen nor appears as one, and/or b.) hasn't had an unfortunate relationship that makes them disinterested in romance, but also at the same time being the only one out of herself/Hestia/Artemis to have relationships of some sort (having kids, implied to possibly be romantic but unclear) issss bad! actually! Bad tropes, don't like that. (Again aphobic tropes of disinterest in romance being “childish” and something that can be grown out of, or a result of trauma. Also it feels weird that the only a-spec characters in the series are all women. Can we have a male a-spec character please.) Just let Athena be aro/ace and vibing and occasionally having brain children cause she can do what she wants and everyone is aware of this and chill with it (And being a-spec doesn’t mean she’d be disinterested in having kids). Also maybe make her feel less cold cause "a-spec character is cold and loveless" is also an aphobic trope that PJO!Athena falls into, actually.

- Speaking of aphobic tropes, fix the Hunters! Please. Please just redo the Hunters of Artemis entirely. Holy cow. I wrote up an entire alternate oath/rules set for the Hunt because it's just so weird and poorly done. There were male Hunters of Artemis in Greek Mythology! Multiple! And most of them were chill! The "swearing off all romance" thing is also questionable, because depending on what versions of myths you’re looking at it’s potentially implied the Hunters had romantic relationships among themselves. And in Greek Mythology all the Hunters were definitely not all pre-teens. And it feels especially bad that the only adult Hunters we ever see are explicitly ex-Hunters who are heavily implied to be not ace and definitely aren't aro and are also implied to have "grown out of" being disinterested in romance. (That gagging noise you hear is me being sick of how many aphobic tropes the Hunters are juggling).

The version of the Hunters i have written up is, and I quote (from my notes): "Hunters can be any age, species, and gender identity (so long as they are comfortable enough being occasionally referred to as “Huntresses,” “Sisters,” “Maidens,” and etc). Relationships between Hunters are allowed so long as it will not endanger/distract from the Hunt or endanger any other Huntresses. Having a child is not allowed within the Hunt and any Huntresses who wish to do so must leave (purely because having a pregnant person/young child on the Hunt is dangerous, and safety is the number one priority - especially as Artemis is a protector of youth and goddess of childbirth. Once they turn like, 12 they can join, that’s fine. Everyone knows middle schoolers are the optimal combination of bloodthirstiness and ability to wield a weapon)." Also, just as like, a side-thing, I wanna see a clear-sighted mortal Huntress, because we're told thats a thing but we never see them. Closest we get is like ancient semi-immortals and Technical Nymphs, or other Huntresses who are of unspecified mortal/demigod status.

- Similar deal - fix the Amazons. they're… better but still a little wonky.

- Some slight tweaks to the Cupid Scene - Nico still has a confrontation with Cupid cause that is a very compelling scene that works well for Nico's character and informs a lot about him (and serves a purpose in a very meta way - not so much for the plot but reflecting something the first series did occasionally which was a kind of showing an example of a situation, usually a negative situation that either mirrors or directly references a type of situation a kid may find themself in, and explains and shows sympathy for the character being hurt in that situation. Which is notable because the demographic for the series is young middle schoolers and particularly neurodivergent kids, who are probably approaching a lot of new social situations or may struggle with empathy. It acts as an introduction to “unfortunately this is a bad thing that happens sometimes, and it hurts people, which is why you should be nice to this kid. Look at beloved character. Here’s an elaboration on why they’re hurt so you can understand.” So for the purposes of that, the scene of Nico getting outed would likely remain, but it would still keep the very overt “WOW THIS SUCKS, THIS IS A BAD SITUATION.” stuff) Most of the tweaks are just slight adjustments to minor prelude dialogue and/or setting, like. Jason does not forget that being gay is a thing for a second. And etc. But Nico having a very literal metaphorical conflict about grappling with how he views the concept of love by LITERALLY GETTING KICKED AROUND BY THE GOD OF LOVE is actually kinda badass from a narrative analysis perspective. This is exactly what i meant in the previous bullet points about the gods in a lot of myths and classical stories playing the roles of personifications of metaphors and that being used well. Admittedly I'm 50/50 on tweaking Cupid's general attitude in the scene itself, because a more hostile Cupid lends itself better to the meta use of the scene as described before but a more sympathetic-to-Nico Cupid who is nonetheless still kicking the shit out of him is interesting from a metaphor standpoint (something something Nico overcoming internalized homophobia but in the very literal form of it’s the god that literally presides over protecting gay love [yes that is an actual thing Eros/Cupid is the god of] beating him up).

- Remove Reyna's “prophecy” entirely. It's stupid and pointless and doesn’t make sense with her character at all. Just say she's ace. There is not a single scene in any of the series that ever indicates that Reyna believes that she can only be happy if she’s in a relationship and that’s some kind of internal struggle she needs to overcome. The closest we ever get is Reyna being upset that her best friend disappeared and when he returns she finds out he had forgotten about her completely. Which does not apply to the “prophecy” at all. We just don’t need it.

- Absence of "a character" can work! Jason's lack of personality and backstory can work but it works best if it's absence is felt and properly explored. This works best if we get more information about Camp Jupiter from SoN and from the other Roman characters, especially Reyna (and maybe even Nico referencing his trips there!) because that inherently informs us about what Jason's life was like there. Have other characters note things about Jason and highlight the fact that this is absent from Jason's own POV! He's lost that part of his life! It was taken from him! That's such an interesting dynamic to have and explore! But we don't get any of that!

Side-note: Part of the problem with Jason's amnesia is that it feels so awkward especially compared to Percy's amnesia because we already know what Percy can't remember. We have the context that informs his character, even though he can't remember it, so that absence is felt and it feels really compelling! Also, Percy is unfamiliar with Camp Jupiter, and we're unfamiliar with Camp Jupiter, so it feels new and interesting (even though we don't actually get much about it so we never actually form any real attachment to it and that's a problem later on in every subsequent scene when we're supposed to care about what happens to Camp Jupiter but we. don't). The reason it doesn't work for Jason is because we don't know what's absent and we already know CHB. Jason also already knows about demigods and stuff, so if you're a new reader starting at HoO it just doesn't work. Because Jason already knows everything and we're being led from his POV primarily for that portion of TLH, and even Piper and Leo's backstories both heavily include being pushed around by Gaea/and or Hera/Juno, so if you aren't familiar with the universe you're just being hurried along and it ends up feeling weak. At least with Percy even if you don't know the contexts of his backstory, we can feel the implications of other characters referencing things about him extremely often, so you feel the weight of his memories being gone, and he doesn't know about the roman gods and you, the reader, aren't expected to know much if anything about it either. We don’t get the full demigod debriefing (but that's also the second book) but we at least get a Camp Jupiter debriefing. The first two books are a bit messy in those specific regards with setting up the camps for the series, and we don’t really see the camps much for the rest of HoO (except for CHB, of course).

This is personally why I stand by that if we ever get a roman series it should be a three-part series from Reyna's POV, because leading with Jason is basically like trying to lead PJatO with Annabeth - a demigod raised in camp and surrounded by the knowledge of this stuff their entire life. It doesn't work as a character who's acting as an introduction to this world for the reader. There's no real clean way to work that out for HoO unfortunately, since literally all our protagonists are given established pasts involving knowledge of Greco-Roman mythology being real and half of them are either already at camp or have been to a different camp. I'd say best solution would probably actually be leading from Piper for TLH and tweak her character set-up slightly in that she Does Not Know What's Going On At All re: Gaea and the Giants. She just knows Something Happened To Her Dad and she's the POV we follow into TLH, because that mirrors Percy in beginning of TLT well (with Sally being kidnapped)! It's a fun call-back for the old readers and a good lead-in for the new readers.

- Fix Nico backstory inconsistencies caused by Rick almost making his birthday in March and confusing himself over it. He's 12 in TLO, 13 in HoO. He was born January 28th, 1929, and got put in the Lotus Hotel and Casino in 1939 (If you wanna be cute, we can specifically say May 1st, 1939, to reference the musical). Hazel is one month older than him chronologically and one year older than him post-revival. Something something also smooth out the inconsistencies about Nico being raised in Italy and how Maria met Hades and stuff. Fill in the rest as you will.

- I do stand by that the entire PJO timeline is not one-to-one with the real world. That's always been a thing with the series. We're basically condensing everything from ~1998 to ~2020 into an 18 year timeline. We don't need to be exact with things. Don't get too bogged down with it.

- Make the whole "injuries caused by celestial bronze/imperial gold for demigods makes their souls self-destruct" thing specifically relating to cursed weapons/materials or feature some more volatile abomination combo weapons like Backbiter (with Backbiter being described as unstable due to being both celestial bronze and mortal steel). (Ex.: the spear used to stab Jason in BoO is just cursed, and maybe Octavian's catapult plan is a "well i put a bunch of mortal steel and imperial gold in a pot and melted them together a bit and now it really wants to explode so im gonna just chuck the entire thing and hope it kills everyone lots and lots <3" which is tbh significantly more dastardly and fucked-up, which makes Octavian a bit more compelling). Having it just be a plain trait of celestial bronze/imperial gold doesn’t make any sense and is only referenced like twice in HoO and never again in basically the entire three series. Again: consistency.

- Make a more prominent reference to the whole "btw there are retired adult Romans just living wherever but they're legally required to help any campers who request aid" thing, cause you could totally do something really fun and cool with that but idk what.

- PICK A THEME! First series theme was family! Second series theme is….. we don’t know! It felt like maybe a theme was intended at some point but we lost it. Forging a new life for one’s self/choosing your own path/etc could be a good theme, or something similar. or found family. or both. We’ve got a bunch of characters absolutely ripe for “I didn’t think i’d get this far and now I have to like, actually consider what i want to do in life. huh” arcs! (Frank! Leo! Hazel! Jason! Percy! Nico!) Do something with that!

- Lean more into the characters having aspects inspired by myths, or legends being mirrored in plot points: 7 against Thebes, the Argonauts, etc etc etc. The first series leaning into it heavily worked really well! More of that! HoO and TOA suffer a lot from lack of mythological basis to lean their plots on, despite there being plenty to work from. It instead just kind of messily mashes random misc myths (haha, alliteration) together into a very incoherent plot. Annabeth is known to be explicitly based off Atalanta, Percy is mostly based off Perseus and Theseus, Leo has loose connections based off of Demophon of Eleusis and possibly also his brother Triptolemus, etc etc. There’s stuff to work with! Poke around at the mythological figures of the original Argo and maybe match them up a bit (though most of the Argonaut myths were used in Sea of Monsters, so focus more on the figures/archetypes rather than just exact myths of what they did. For more plot-things, maybe consider Seven Against Thebes, though admittedly the plot of that is just Kinda Depressing.)

- Slightly related to that - lean into Piper presumably mirroring Orpheus! Or even if she isn’t supposed to, let her do that, because it fits with her thematically SUPER well. Her charmspeak is OP and that needs to be appreciated. In canon she brings Jason back from the brink of death in TLH and just straight up gives Festus a soul/free will/sentience. Let her go Orpheus-mode on everybody. You can even tie that in with the half-hearted snake theme that Rick tried to throw in there that didn’t work at all. We can make this work, just lean into it. It’ll be fun.

- Remove scene of Nico confessing to Percy at end of BoO. it’s just. random and feels sudden and OOC. Give Nico time. You could maybe replace it by having him come out to Reyna on his own terms while they’re on their quest discussing their adventures thus far and them having a very sweet little emotional moment rather than it being a weird out-of-place afterthought comical scene.

- Remove Bob and Damacus. They’re just half-literal dues ex machinas for Percabeth in Tartarus that don’t make sense. It feels extremely cheap and doesn’t fit with the established mythos of either figure (and Bob feels extra awkward without the context of knowing Sword of Hades). If they do run into a figure who helps them out in Tartarus, Arke could possibly be a good option - especially since in SoN Percy meets Iris. There’s a lot potentially you could do there with Percy mistaking her for her twin and stuff like that. If we want a figure to more-so take the role that Bob fills (Nico encouraging an immortal to be sympathetic to Percy and thus indirectly helping him later) that role could be filled by Nyx instead of making her a minor antagonist - imply Nico encountered Nyx in Tartarus or something and she took pity on him as someone who also understands the dark, and he told her about Percy and so Nyx is willing to help Percabeth escape. Plus imagine how COOL a Nyx & her children vs Tartarus/Titans/Giants fight would be. That’d be a significantly more memorable scene than the Tartarus fight scenes we did get. (“Why would Nyx help though?” One of Nyx’s kids is LITERALLY a goddess of friendship [Philotes], we have excuses.)

- On a similar note, this is more of a TSATS thing, but for goodness’ sake STOP THROWING CHARACTERS INTO TARTARUS. You’re overusing it! It only works when we use it sparingly! In fact, just in general Tartarus works better the less we see of it! Nico going through Tartarus once in SoN-MoA, yes, that works! Especially since we have almost no idea what happened to him down there, just that it was Terrifying and Horrible and he Barely Survived. Not going into much detail means we get more out of it. The only exception to that really was when Percy realized that Nico saw Tartarus as it truly was the entire time, because that’s one hell (ha) of a punch to the gut in terms of added information! Percabeth falling into Tartarus in MoA? Eh, fine, sure, because we’ve established that Nico (who is implied to be more resilient to that environment on virtue of being a child of Hades) talked about his experiences down there so they know what to expect and how to survive. Though it does kind of just feel like Rick went “Oh wait hey I can use this to make angst!” and then overused the hell out of it. It feels way weaker in general in HoH because of how much detail we get, because Tartarus has been built up so much until that point that literally anything we get will feel lackluster in comparison, especially with how it kind of feels like Percabeth just. breezed through it with little more difficulty than they’d usually face on their quests. Solangelo jumping into Tartarus in TSATS is honestly just a blatant “Oh boy we can make Solangelo into Percabeth 2!” and it doesn’t work at all because NICO HAS ALREADY BEEN TO TARTARUS.

The only way you could make Nico going into Tartarus two times work is if he fell into Tartarus a second time to replace Percabeth falling down there. Because we’ve established he knows what it’s like down there, he survived it once, and he is actively sparing someone else he cares about from suffering his same fate. And then he can return once again even closer to death and A Little Fucked Up and it turns into a rule of threes where we know “Oh, Nico can’t go back to Tartarus again because if he does he’ll Lose Himself Completely” which is way more interesting than romance angst for the sake of romance angst. Especially since again, we don’t see it, it’s all only implied. Also it then also turns Tartarus into even more of a “Nico is probably the only demigod who could ever even hope to survive Tartarus” which keeps Tartarus as an ominous thing. Percabeth falling into Tartarus lessens that by a lot because it implies that it doesn’t matter that Nico is a child of Hades; that had absolutely no bearing on his ability to survive down there. TL;DR: Stop throwing characters into Tartarus. Either throw Nico in twice in a row and no Percabeth or Nico and Percabeth once only and never touch it again.

- More heavily set up Percy’s emotions/mood/etc being influenced by water around him. If we keep most of Percabeth in Tartaurs, then this would really make the Achlys scene pack a bigger punch. Up until HoH everything is “oh how quirky” but the minute Percy’s surrounded by the rivers of the underworld and the acid/poision you get hit with the “oh shit” realization that Percy Is About To Get SCARY.

- Maybe have Annabeth keep her blindness from Tartarus, or trade Jason having glasses to her having glasses as a result of that, since vision is actually an aspect of Athena so it kind of fits her more, thematically-speaking.

- Change the judo flip percabeth scene in MoA to Annabeth picking Percy up and spinning him around in a hug/swinging him into a dip cause that’s cuter, makes more sense given Percy’s PTSD, and still highlights Annabeth being very strong and showing off in front of the Romans while they’re still being lovey-dovey.

But also, related to that, you could potentially make a sub-arc for Percabeth throughout HoO (so that they actually have like. some type of character development that fits them rather than them feeling stagnant the entire time) about Annabeth learning she doesn’t know as much about Percy as she thought (learning about Gabe [since as far as we know she actually doesn't know much if anything about that!], seeing his behavior change with different types of water, etc) kicked off by the judo flip scene, and possibly vice versa (Percy learning more about Annabeth’s time spent traveling with Thalia and Luke, growing up at CHB, her relationship with Athena and other campers at CHB, etc) so they gain a deeper understanding of one another. If Percy keeps his curse of Achilles, that could also factor in (contrasting Percy’s “perfect” image [relationship, near-immortality] against Annabeth realizing she doesn’t know as much about Percy as she thought [could also parallel that dynamic to Jaspiper, which opens opportunities for Annabeth/Piper and Jason/Percy bonding] [Or Annabeth/Jason and Piper/Percy bonding! I want more Annabeth/Jason and Piper/Percy parallels so bad. They’re almost there but we never get them. Please.]/ the Argo II crew learning about Percy’s past) with Percy being more prone to seek out conflict or solve problems with violence due to the Curse of Achilles and eventually recognizing that [possibly after Tartarus] and it scaring him just as much as it frightens Annabeth. Maybe at that point Percy tries to make some sort of deal to rid himself of the curse.)

- Maybe also explicitly parallel Percy getting the curse of Achilles with Nico’s help to Poseidon giving his lover Caeneus iron skin. There’s no really smooth way to do it, but maybe even just a during Nico’s pov him going “I heard about this myth once and got an idea. It didn’t work.” Just for that added through-line of connecting the series and further establishing “yeah, no, Nico’s been gay this whole time. this isn’t a new thing. we aren’t pulling this from thin air.”

- Give Piper a different weapon than the knife from the beginning cause she stops using it eventually anyways. Also just... no cornucopia. That part is just stupid and there’s no point for it. If we have to keep it as a plot object, give it to someone else - Nico could work because then there’s actually at least a valid relation there regarding his godly parent (yes, Pluto sometimes has cornucopia associations). Also Nico having a cornucopia would be kinda funny in a subversion of expectations thing. Maybe even have Nico go on a little exposition-y rant complaining about Hades/Pluto versus Plutus (the Greek god of plenty/wealth, later merged with Pluto).

- Similarly, either remove Diocletian’s scepter (if we have multiple characters who can boss around skeletons, why do we need an entire separate extra object whose sole purpose is to let them boss around skeletons?) or let Nico keep it but it loses its abilities, so it’s literally just “well now he has a cool bashing stick for bashing things.” Or let him use it as a cane to highlight him being disabled!

- As I slightly touched upon in a previous bullet point, give Piper more connections to her dad’s community in Oklahoma - where’s all her family friends? Tristan is a major pop culture figure in the Riordanverse, so it’d make sense that people from the community he grew up in would like. know him? But all we ever hear about is Piper’s Grandpa Tom. Even though apparently Piper is already good enough friends with Shel presumably before Piper moves to Oklahoma that the two start dating soon afterwards. Heck, again, have Piper reference Shel specifically. Just at any point. For any reason. Just to establish that she knows people her own age that exist outside of CHB.

Similarly, flesh out the background Romans in Camp Jupiter more in SoN and possibly also BoO, particularly the ones Jason references by name but we never see anything of, besides at most maybe more background references. Highlight them either through the SoN trio interacting with more characters while at camp (and we’re left to glean specific details of Jason’s past through others, which would make Jason more compelling and how these details are absent from himself but present to those around him, playing into his memory loss more) and possibly also through Reyna (and maybe Nico)’s POV(s) in BoO. (And maybe if we get a Reyna POV in MoA, then there as well).

- Let Reyna use magic! We establish that she studied under Circe and then never see anything come of that other than referencing her Tragic Backstory™. It could be a fun point for Reyna and Hazel to bond over, even!

- Remove the random “Hunters of Artemis death fodder” scene with Orion in BoO. There’s no reason for that. It’s just kinda dumb and feels bad given it’s basically just “We’re gonna kill a bunch of nondescript allegedly a-spec coded characters now for no reason. <3” like ???. That served no purpose. It just felt weird.

- Also just as a like, logistics thing - change the route Team Statue takes in BoO from the huge jump over the Atlantic into Peurto Rico into them traveling up into like the UK, then over to Iceland and Greenland and then Canada and down the east coast rather than the huge jump and up the east coast. The smaller jumps make more sense given the entire POINT of their quest taking as long as it does is that Nico can’t make extremely large shadow-travel jumps at that time. Plus if they’re traveling south then they could pass through Maine and we could maybe cameo Nico’s old school and that’d be fun. The pit-stop in Puerto Rico doesn’t really give us much that we couldn’t have just gotten from Reyna explaining it anyways. If they pause in Maine that can be where Nico and Reyna have a heart-to-heart about their tragic backstories and past experiences with horrible ghosts that they had to exorcise.

- If Team Statue travels a northern route we can make jokes about Nico learning specifically 1930s British English before he moved to America. The gang goes to London and Coach proceeds to incessantly make fun of Nico for not only using British slang, but using OUTDATED British slang (which is made weirder given he doesn’t have a British accent).

- Also extremely tiny detail but a specific acknowledgement that Piper was helping out Nico once they got back to the ship when Nico’s getting rescued from the jar. Since Piper just kind of drags him off-screen. Just any kind of follow-up to that. Like Nico doing his classic “You were vaguely nice to me. I would now Die For You.” Just them having basically any kind of interaction or acknowledgement of that scene, mostly cause I think it’s funny.

- Let Annabeth keep her laptop, and get rid of the sphere of Archimedes cause it just feels kinds pointless and random? We don’t really have any emotional connection to Annabeth’s laptop (and her hat gets replaced in Demigods & Magicians anyways) so her losing it doesn’t really feel impactful at all. Maybe have Leo use Annabeth’s laptop while she’s in Tartarus and that acts as the point of guilt for him rather than weird random curse stuff with a random new introduced object. Instead of “oh no fortune cookie thing or whatever” it’s him feeling guilty he saved Annabeth’s laptop but couldn’t help Annabeth herself. Especially since Leo would also have his Ogygia identity crisis in the same book so he can feel extra bad about himself for a bit, to lead up to his role in BoO nicely (sometimes a character negatively spiraling is more narratively compelling than them having positive development for the majority of the series and that’s okay! Let him be tragic but again he gets a happy ending and an implication post-BoO that he’ll begin a road of healing/recovery surrounded by loved ones. It works out.) AND there could be a very sweet moment once Annabeth gets back from Tartarus and Leo gives her the laptop back and it’s a huge relief to her that one of her prized possessions was in safe hands while she was gone and that she has it back when she thought she might have lost it.

- Further highlight Jason’s whole Greek/Roman/etc identity crisis. Bonus points if we go further into acknowledging Jupiter/Zeus’s epithets and roles and Jason having some epiphany that the Romans look to him with the expectations of Jupiter/Juno as king and queen of the gods making him some kind of perfect leader, but he’s not that at all. He’s the son of Jove and Juno, father and mother of the gods. He doesn’t want to be a general or praetor or anything like that, he wants to spend time with his friends and family at a summer camp where they’re safe. He wants to regain the childhood he lost being raised as a perfect soldier and get the chance to go to school and learn about his long-lost family and do cheesy summer camp activities. He is a wolf but he is not a creature built for the hunt - he is part of a pack.

- Touched upon it briefly in a previous bullet point but Curse of Achilles can stay/go, does not particularly matter to me either way. I do think it’d be funny though if Percy does keep the Curse of Achilles that he also randomly gets the Nemean Lion’s pelt back. Initially maybe as like a gift from Hera/Juno to help him cover his Achilles’ Heel while he’s running around with no memory just as insurance so he doesn’t die (with bonus points of the Romans being introduced to Percy either wearing the stupidest looking coat ever or wearing just a straight up bullet-proof lion’s pelt, which would even further solidify his “Are We Sure This Guy Isn’t A God In Disguise” vibes). But then later on into the series it’s just kind of part of his outfit or maybe even a running gag. The praetors have their magic bullet-proof cloaks, Percy has a very silly looking bullet-proof fur coat that is sometimes a whole lion.

- Keep Hazel’s blackouts. There’s not really a reason for them to disappear altogether for her? They’re somewhat tied to her powers and are a consequence of her coming back from the dead, which also helps keep the concept running in the series that death is a consequence that can’t just be easily evaded, even while we’re operating with the Doors of Death being open. That way future deaths in the series don’t feel like they could be as easily negated/avoided. Also, Hazel is disabled! This is a disability of hers! Why are we somehow magically getting rid of it without even an explanation as to why? Heck, if we’re getting rid of Piper’s knife, Hazel’s dreams when she has her blackouts could be used to supplement the dagger’s insight into the future, since we’ve already established that Hazel gets prophetic dreams sometimes anyways. Also fun thematic matching for the Death Sibs with them both having disabilities and random ways to glean the future (Hazel’s blackouts, Nico talking to ghosts). Her blackouts would probably improve slightly over the course of the series but never fully disappear, and it ends up mostly a thing of she can tell when they’re about to occur and prepare quickly for that or let someone know before she passes out.

- Get rid of Frank’s curse in SoN instead of waiting until The Tyrant’s Tomb. If we’re going to get rid of it eventually anyways, do it during the big scene of him freeing Thanatos. Let him have his cool big moment of embracing his destiny and that breaking the curse the first time he does it rather than him doing it twice but it only breaking the curse the second time? Also if the curse is broken earlier on then Frank’s entire arc gets to be about him realizing he has a life to live, since in SoN a major part of his character is that he’s not afraid of death because he’s used to the idea that his curse could kill him at any point. He’s actually pretty reckless for the beginning of HoO because of that. If he realizes that he no longer is at risk of dying at any given moment because he thought about candles too hard, then that opens the opportunity of him having a whole existential crisis about what he actually wants to do with his life and him looking to the future for once.

Bonus opportunity for this - maybe Frank actually gets fire powers as a result of his curse breaking. Ares/Mars has an association with fire so it would fit for him as a son of Mars. Plus, then we could also have an even more overt dynamic of Frank and Leo acting as each other’s parallels and foils and the two of them slowly growing more used to one another and actually becoming close friends. Lots of bonding over getting used to their fire powers and overcoming their mutual fears of fire and probably also solidarity in having lost their moms. Just - the boys are bonding! The boys are bonding. Fire boys hours.

- Related to Frank’s curse, give Hazel and Frank parallel narratives of them realizing they have a future ahead of them (Hazel re: getting a second chance at life and Frank re: realizing he’s no longer at risk of spontaneously combusting) and them grappling with trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives and how they want to live them after everything is said and done. And also being motivated for once to make it out the other side in one piece because they’re determined to not waste the opportunity they’ve been given. The two of them coming to terms with realizing they have a future if they can make it through this (which is also a fun contrast to Leo and Nico actively almost sacrificing their own lives for others and having essentially an opposite character arc for the majority of the series).

- Especially while Frank (and Hazel) are having these arcs, going back to the idea of Leo getting stuck on Ogygia alone for a bit - very strongly contrasting the arcs of Frank’s mental health improving over the series while Leo’s is very steadily decreasing (until BoO at which point again the series ends with Leo getting help and beginning to improve/heal).

- Also further emphasizing Leo and Nico’s parallels throughout HoO. They’re both autistic on top of the usual adhd/dyslexia and have issues with social interactions and care a lot about Hazel and are having a majorly bad time throughout the entire quest and are pretty depressed, etc etc etc. Again, parallel narratives at the end of BoO with them healing and things looking up for them - I think I’ve mentioned that like four times now you get the idea.

- Make Frank ADHD/dyslexic. There is literally no reason for him not to be and him being the outlier for being neurotypical feels weird and doesn’t fit with the literal entire worldbuilding we have for demigods. If it’s part of “demigod instincts” or whatever then Frank should be ADHD/dyslexic! And it’s not even a “the Romans aren’t ADHD/dyslexic” because we’re explicitly told they are! They are specifically also ADHD and dyslexic! So why isn’t Frank? There’s no reason. It annoys me.

- The Frank/Hazel/Leo “love triangle” can stay but it’s significantly more one-sided. Frank is mostly just intimidated by Leo for multiple reasons (mostly fire-related reasons) and Leo is mutually intimidated by Frank (because Frank is bigger than him and Leo is scared of everyone, really, but especially people who are bigger than him, because they could beat him up. Which is basically everyone). Hazel is not romantically interested in Leo and Leo is not romantically interested in her, though they are very close and do have a very confusing time trying to figure out the whole Sammy situation. Frank still misinterprets this as Hazel and Leo being romantic. Leo does not realize Frank is misinterpreting that as them being romantic and think Frank just hates him for the general reasons that Leo has found people usually hate him for no reason over. Leo wants nothing to do with that situation though. Eventually they all sort it out and become a very strong trio.

- Again as I briefly touched upon before, maybe give Reyna a protagonist role in MOA if not an outright POV. Probably an outright POV, with the main POVs of the book being her and Annabeth. Again, themes of historical associations between Athena and Bellona and playing with that, alongside making Reyna more of a prominent player earlier on in the series and letting us see more of the Romans. Use this opportunity to heavily parallel her with Annabeth (and also highlight her parallels with Percy, and Annabeth’s parallels with Jason).

- Really I just want more Annabeth/Jason and Percy/Reyna parallels. There’s so much you can do there. The blond(e) gifted kid/smart aleck raised at camp and their best friend, the former newbie raised with a difficult home life. Percy and Reyna both have dogs (Mrs. O’Leary / Aurum and Argentium) and pegasi (Blackjack and Skippy). And a sibling they don’t see often (Tyson / Hylla).  You could have notes about Jason and Thalia and Annabeth and the dynamics within that and how those internally parallel each other. Or more about when Reyna encountered Percy and Annabeth while on Circe’s Island. Really anything more about Reyna’s time on Circe’s Island. Heck maybe you could parallel that to Percy’s difficult time in school, since Circe’s whole thing was that she was training the sorceresses living there, so that’s kind of like a school environment. Paralleling first quests between Reyna and Jason with the events of the first series with Percy and Annabeth.  Etc. etc. etc.

- We are taking BoO and just. Throwing it out the window, really. We don’t have time to unpack all of that. Just start mostly from scratch, same extremely rough overarching elements are there.

- Also actually just. Rework the whole main prophecy too while we’re at it. It kinda sucks. It’s just kind of a weak prophecy. “To storm or fire the world will fall” or whatever; we can do better. I don’t have the brain power to write a better prophecy right now but just [see my recent post] for notes about what I think makes for a good prophecy in the series and why the main HoO one is kinda lame.

Footnotes:

Again, I will be following this up with part 2 electric boogaloo: Things I Would Change About TOA* (*That I can say without spoiling Deadangelos too much) at some point and I will link that when I make it. If you made it this far, gold star.

#pjo #percy jackson #riordanverse #hoo #heroes of olympus #leo valdez #frank zhang #jason grace #piper mclean #Hazel Levesque #reyna ramirez-arellano #annabeth chase #nico di angelo #toa spoilers #toa #trials of apollo #(< for that one bit about Frank) #and maybe also the bit with Shel I guess #tsats #the sun and the star #(< for that one bit about tartarus) #bunkernine #< mentioned briefly. good post. #analysis #meta #< i suppose #long post // #< not an exaggeration. my apologies for those of you who click on that read more #ask to tag #i dont even want to think about how to tag this further

[philicheesecake]

Heyo, so I’ve been getting a LOT of comments on my comic ever since I started releasing it suggesting Eli and Warren have got romantic chemistry and I have clarified many times that Eli is aroace and specifically on a part of the spectrum where he is not interested in s3x or romance in any way, and Warren is also on the aroace spectrum, similarly aligned.

It’s okay to have your own imagination on literature as long as you don’t erase queer identities, and ace and aro identities are erased a LOT and have very little representation in media.

I know as an author I can’t control how people interpret my works, but all that I ask is that readers remain respectful of asexual and aromantic identities and do not try to insistently publicly erase them in order to fulfill their own fantasies. I understand these people don’t have any malicious intents when they want to ship Eli and Warren together, but just please try to be more conscious of your thoughts before pushing it onto aroace authors online. Aroace people on my side of the spectrum hear it ALL the time where our identities are belittled and erased, or shoved onto another side of the spectrum where we don’t align, or completely outside of our orientation altogether, and it can feel kind of icky for that to happen to our characters as well. Sometimes us aroace authors just wanna write a story where two characters can be around each other without being in a relationship.

Anywho,

Aromantic people who like to be in relationships are valid.

Aromantic people who don’t want to be in a relationship are valid.

Asexual people who like intimate relationships are valid.

Asexual people who don’t want intimate relationships are valid.

All parts of the aroace spectrum are valid.

It’s all a spectrum, and one side existing doesn’t negate the other.

That’s all I’m sayin’ 🤷

#cake talks #UL characters #asexual characters #aromantic characters #aroace representation

[sabo-has-my-heart]

hello hello :3 ive been LOVINF ur scenarios soo much lately!! do u think u could write some for zoro/sanji/ace/law dating gn!reader who is aromantic but enjoys dating and doing romantic things (ie. going on dates, kissing, cuddling)? they could either be in a queerplatonic relationship and also aromantic, or in a traditionally romantic relationship but reader doesn't *always* feel romantically towards them/attraction fluctuates? maybe u could include crewmates being a little confused by the nature of their relationship, or navigating the boundaries of a non-traditional relationship? if not thats okay! ik aro relationships can b hard 2 understand for some ^^

Aw, thank you, I'm so glad you like them. I actually finished this a lot faster than I thought. So I don't know much about being aromantic, asexual, demi, pan, whatever sex-romantical (IRL, I'm actually the opposite, I want a romantic relationship but am not particularly touchy). That being said, I did look it up. There's still a lot I don't understand but I tried my best. That being said, please, please, please, please, please! Tell me what you think and give me feeback. I can't learn if you don't help me.

Warnings: GN!Reader, Aromantic!Reader, queer!Platonic relationships

Word Count: 1200

     He’d been your best friend for years, or well, maybe friends wasn’t quite the right term. You weren’t just friends but you weren’t dating either. You enjoyed the comfort of romantic things, enjoyed the warmth of cuddling, enjoyed the fun of dates, but you didn’t have ‘those feelings’ for him, or anyone really. That being said, just because you didn’t feel like that towards him, didn’t mean you didn’t sometimes enjoy the activities included in such a relationship. Was he in the same boat as you as an aromantic? No. But he understood your desire for it and was close enough to provide you with the peace and serenity of such things. Sometimes, sometimes, you wished you could feel that way towards others. It would make everything so much easier if you did. You’d be able to actually date, to tell him you loved him in that way, people wouldn’t be confused by your relationship. They understood when you said aromantic, what they didn’t quite understand was being aromantic while enjoying romantic things. Even still, they did their best to understand, or at least not give you hell for it, you were you, you liked what you liked, that was what mattered. So they let you do what made you comfortable. 

Zoro

     He liked sleeping with you, sprawled out in the warm sun on the grass, one arm around you, one behind his head as you snuggled up to him and dozed off in his arms. Honestly, your relationship worked quite well with him. He hadn’t found anyone he felt that way for and honestly didn’t care enough to look. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in finding someone, just that he was focused on other things at the moment. That being said, he still enjoyed the comfort of having a warm body next to his, it brought a sort of… peace and contentment that he didn’t otherwise get. A relationship with a crew member was always a bad idea in his mind, nor was he interested in them; he doubted any of them were particularly interested in him or simply want to cuddle with him for the sake of physical contact. Well, Luffy might, but Luffy was… interesting. You were different though, the two of you were close enough to share a bottle of sake on a moonlit night and enjoy the romantic things but without needing to be romantic. You did have an understanding that in the chance that he found someone he felt that way for, he could break it off if necessary, but until it was necessary, he was more than happy to fulfill your need for romantic actions without the romance.

Sanji

     At first, he’d been a little hesitant. A relationship that wasn’t romantic? He’d understood that you were aromantic, but he didn’t quite understand your desire for romantic touches without the actual romance. Didn’t understand wanting to cuddle or kiss or hug but not be together together. That being said, as your closest friend, he’d listened to you and was at least open to attempt it on the condition that if he was uncomfortable, you end things amicably. You’d agreed, he was your friend, you understood that he might not be comfortable with such things just as you weren’t comfortable with actual romance. Surprisingly, he found your agreement to be more comforting than previously thought. There was a warmth and tenderness in holding each other, a sort of softness and care in the kisses he placed on the top of your head. The two of you even enjoyed cooking together, just without all the lovey-dovey romance that came with a romantic relationship. Moreover, you seemed to curb some of his womanizing habits. He still fawned over women left and right, but not quite as much. While he might want a romantic relationship at some point, at the same time, he really enjoyed what he had with you.

Ace

     Ace was all over the romantic-sexual spectrum. Some days he was more interested in men than women or vice versa, some days he didn’t want a relationship with anybody, other days all he wanted was sex. The boy’s romantic and sexual preference was so all over the charts it was hard to keep up. But there was one constant. His desire for human affection, his desire to be held. He was touch starved and wanted somebody to love him, romantically or platonically, he just wanted to be held or to hold someone. Meaning that a queerplatonic relationship worked perfectly fine with him. He got to hold you, got to be held, but he didn’t have to worry about stumbling around and being romantic. He could go on a date with you, but have it be comfortable, not stumbling over his words as he tried not to mess things up. The two of you were still friends, maybe slightly more than friends, but first and foremost, friends. This also meant that he had somebody looking out for him. Somebody who would keep him from falling face first into his food, but he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed because ‘oh what will they think of me’. Someone who didn’t mind his dumbass shenanigans and not fret over him getting hurt. Hell, you joined in! And with his whole son of Roger thing, he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted a romantic relationship, a romantic relationship, whether or not he had those feelings, would just complicate things, just make things harder. No, he really liked what you two had.

Law

     The doctor had never been particularly affectionate, meaning that when you came to him with this, he was confused as hell. Why him? He wasn’t cuddly, he wasn’t loving or doting, so why him? That being said, after your first time holding him, cuddling up to him, nuzzling against his chest, he found himself desiring more. He didn’t care much for romance, he wasn’t interested in it, he didn’t have a need for it, and he didn’t have a place for it in his life. He was a pirate and a surgeon, he was fairly cold to a lot of people, he’d done things that some people might call horrible, and he had other things he wanted to accomplish. Romance with anyone outside his crew was a no go and dating among crew members in such a small crew was inadvisable. As a doctor, he also understood the need for physical human affection and interaction, understood the brain’s need to be loved, even if you weren’t romantically interested. This fulfilled both of your needs. He still wasn’t very affectionate outside of his room or office. He didn’t go around holding you or kissing you, wasn’t particularly close to you, but when it was just the two of you, he enjoyed the feelings of keeping you close, of resting his head on your chest. Being the doctor that he was, he’d listened to plenty of heartbeats, but there was something soothing about the drumming in his ear. The crew knew that the two of you had taken to sharing a bed, they didn’t quite understand, but you and Law were happy in your strange non-romantic relationship, so they didn’t question it. 

#one piece #one piece ace #portgas d. ace #fire fist ace #portgas d ace #queerplatonic #aromantic #one piece sanji #op ace #op sanji #black leg sanji #sanji vinsmoke #vinsmoke sanji #ace x reader #fire fist ace x reader #portgas d ace x reader #hiken no ace x reader #hiken no ace #vinsmoke sanji x reader #sanji x reader #sanji vinsmoke x reader #one piece zoro #op zoro #zoro roronoa #roronoa zoro #roronoa zoro x reader #zoro roronoa x reader #king of hell zoro #king of hell zoro x reader #pirate hunter zoro x reader

[the-heart-of-a-monster]

Hey just wanted to let you know that I personally really appreciate that Sonic's and Shadow's dynamic is not romantic in this comic. Not that I dislike the ship per-se(I actually enjoy it depending on how it’s done) but I love strong bonds that don’t actually involve romance. As someone that is kinda confused and fluctuating from an asexual identity to the aroace spectrum, it actually gives me a little bit more of courage to believe that it’s possible to find people that make you feel safe and support you without needing to be necessarily in a romantic relationship with them.

and i really appreciate that you reached out to me about it ♥

ive personally made the comic the way it is to give myself representation. as an aromantic myself i found it frustrating to always only see inherently romantic approaches to sonadow, so i literally went. everything in this house you need to make your-gotdamn-self!!!!

AND IM REALLY HAPPY THAT OTHER AROS/ACES CAN PROFIT FROM THIS!!!!!!!!

also i can confirm its 394837% possible to have a non-romantic partner in a non-romantic relationship that is still very emotional and fulfilling ♥ me and my bf are best friends but like. gay. yeehaw!

#fan lore #aro rep positivity #i wanna save these moments it makes me happy

[aro-culture-is]

hello i’m so sorry to bother you but i think i might be aroace

i already have worked out that i’m ace, but recently i’ve really been questioning if i’m also aro

i’ve been in a relationship before but it lasted a week and the most we did was hold hands. i’ve been identifying as a lesbian for a while.

anyway my reason for questioning was that i don’t really think i can feel anything? i’ll see a pretty girl and go oh she’s cute but i don’t really feel anything more and i feel like i’m supposed to. recently i think a girl was crushing on me, but when i thought about kissing her, i felt really sick.

i still really, really, want a relationship, and i know im not interested in men at all.

i just don’t know what i am and i kinda hate myself for it

hi! it sounds like this has been a pretty rough time for you. I think it might be worthwhile to consider a few things here - the way you're describing your feelings sounds to me like you are actually pretty sure that you're aroace, but that you don't want to accept it.

in that case, i have a few thoughts. first of all: take a deep breath. it's okay. i promise you that this is not some kind of terrible fate. it's just one of many, many ways of being. there's a few different things you might want to think about while you process this self-discovery. for one, society often encourages a view of life in which romantic(/sexual) monogamous relationships are seen as The Ideal, and that life will be sad and unfulfilling without it. I don't know how much time you've spent talking to folks in their later years of life, but I can tell you that I've met plenty who never married and describe a happy life. it might be worthwhile to read up on amatonormativity to get an idea of this social pressure, and think on how it affects your feelings.

this isn't to say you can't still want a relationship, but, in my experience, I find that it's very worthwhile for many new aros to start with truly exploring if they want a romantic relationship, or if they want a happy and fulfilling life, and thought that meant they had to have a romantic relationship. if you do still want a romantic relationship - you're far from alone! even if you feel neither romantic nor sexual attraction, you're in good company. the same way that asexual folks can have sex for a variety of reasons, including enjoying it, aromantic folks can engage in romance. as long as everyone is comfortable, labels aren't really a big deal. do what you enjoy.

some labels that may lead you to communities or ideas that I suspect might help: romo aro is a term for aro folks who want romantic relationships, oriented aroace (such as lesbian aroace) is a term that may be worth looking into if you feel some attraction to women that doesn't fit well into romantic or sexual categories, and romance favorable aromantic works exactly the same way sex favorable asexual does - a quick way of saying "i'm a(-ro, -sexual) and i enjoy (romance, sex)".

I hope this helps!

#Anonymous #not aro culture #aro #aromantic #actually aro #actually aromantic #ask #mod kee #mod phoenix #aroace #am i aro #oriented aroace #romo aro #for safety: #internalized arophobia cw #because ngl these asks sometimes are like. a little much on the sadness about being aro

[sevarix-blogs]

Hiya! I'm asexual/aromantic myself, and recently I've been learning that platonic love is just as important as romantic love and that romance shouldn't be considered this holy grail of relationships, but I still have trouble describing the difference between the two without still having this feeling that romance is "special" or "above" friendship 😔I was wondering how you'd describe it if that's okay to ask?

well, i think it can just be as simple as like, knowing that kissing/romantic gestures/etc aren't the highest form of intimacy. some people don't even like intimacy at all! friendship is also very special, and just as important as romance. a high-five or a hug can be just as fulfilling to someone as a romantic kiss can be. the platonic love someone has for a dog can be more powerful than the love a married couple can have for each other.

amatonormativity tells us that everyone should have 1 romantic partner, and that that romantic partner is the most important person in their life. that their friends are now lesser once they get into that romantic relationship. that's simply untrue!

sometimes platonic love is mixed in with romantic love. sometimes friendships are still satisfying without any platonic aspect at all. platonic and romantic are not a binary! they are simply two different concepts that can describe a relationship (and not the only two types of relationships!)

i think what is sometimes appealing, especially in fiction, about romantic relationships is the 'specialness' of having That One Person whom you trust and devote your life to. but could this not also be the case with friendship? could you not also have two characters who trust each other more than anyone else without being romantic about it? two people can understand and trust each other deeply without even a hint of romance. to me, that is what makes platonic relationships interesting in fiction. it is what makes me want to write about deep friendships in my fics. sure, they might not kiss or anything like that, but there are other ways of showing affection, perhaps even ways that are unique to the characters that make that kind of intimacy special without needing romance to portray it.

and also, i will throw in a few caveats. some relationships are neither platonic, nor romantic! aplatonic aros exist as well, and the way they interact and feel about others is also just as valid. some people don't experience love at all, not even platonic love, and they can also have friendships that are special and important even though they don't experience love.

i encourage you to explore these ideas! maybe take a fictional ship you like, and think about them in a platonic sense. for example, i love yurileth. but if someone made them besties instead of spouses, i would still be delighted! bc in my mind, that is just as special and meaningful as being romantic partners. if you take a romantic ship you really like and make it purely platonic... does it make you upset? does it make you feel like the 'specialness' has gone away? if so, ask yourself why. that might help you uncover what's holding you back from seeing platonic as lesser than romantic.

in fact, i encourage everyone to try this exercise. take your otp, make it platonic. do you feel like it's now lesser? not as special? ask yourself why. think about amatonormativity, and whether or not that might be clouding your judgement. i'm not saying you have to prefer platonic over romantic! we all have preferences of course. but non-romantic shouldn't feel lesser in your mind to romantic.

anyway, sorry this got a little long. hopefully that helps, anon! you're welcome to ask followup questions as well!

#asks

[aro-sora]

As the Daylight Breaks

An aro Strelitzia and aro Ventus fic for Aggressively Arospec Week!

Hearts will find their strength. Strelitzia and Ventus are proud of who they are, but even strength of the heart can't always save them.

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts

Rating: Gen

Characters: Strelitzia, Ventus

1078 words

No warnings

Read on AO3

@aggressivelyarospec

- Strelitzia reginae -

The decorations for Pride always made Strelitzia’s heart skip with joy. Rainbow streamers decorated the lampposts, and flags hung from the clock tower and waved in the wind. Her favorite part was the flower garlands around fountain square. Strelitiza promised to herself that next year she’d sign up to help set up the flower displays. Maybe then she’d also meet some new friends. 

But first, Strelitzia had a personal mission to fulfill.

She browsed the market displays and moogle shops. Many of her fellow wielders sold handcrafted Pride merch at the stalls, and Stelitzia bought a pair of green and white ribbons for her hair. The green was a dramatic difference from her usual red, but Strelitzia was excited to wear them later as a subtle display of her aro pride. 

But that wasn’t the specific item she was looking for. She stopped at a jewelry stand to inspect the rings. 

“Happy Pride! Anything I can help you find?” the wielder running the shop asked with a smile.

“Um, do you have any white rings?”

The shopkeeper’s eyes lit up in knowing delight. “Of course! They’re right over here!” They showed Strelitzia a box of white rings, exactly the kind she was looking for. She tried on a few different sizes until she found the perfect fit. 

“I also do engravings on them if you want a little extra decoration.”

“I’d love that!”

The shopkeeper passed her a page of sample designs. Strelitzia picked out a pattern of the bird of paradise flowers she was named after. The design would be ready tomorrow, and Strelitzia waited out the rest of the day in giddy anticipation. When she returned to pick up the ring, her face hurt from smiling so much. 

“Thank you so much for this,” she told the shopkeeper.

“Hey, it’s Pride, you gotta be loud and proud of who you are,” they said with a wink and showed off a bracelet with beads the colors of the aroflux flag. “It goes great with your dress, too.”

“Thanks.” Her face blushed from the compliment, and she laid her hand over her heart. “May your heart be your guiding key.”

-

The rest of the month passed without much fanfare for Strelitzia. She wasn’t out to anyone and mostly spent the days in the company of Lauriam or Elrena. But she got a few compliments on her aro ring. She cherished those small interactions and considered properly coming out to her brother. 

But her joy vanished the day Master Ava spoke with her. 

A day later, inside the abandoned house, Strelitzia held her Chirithy tight. For once, the ring on her hand provided no comfort. She stumbled toward the door where golden daylight beckoned. She sagged against the doorframe, the last of her strength spent. She should cry for help, but she only had the words for a desperate whisper.

 “I wish . . . I’d had the courage.” 

As her body faded, her heart held two regrets. First, she never spoke to her squish. And second, she never told Lauriam she was aromantic.

And she’d never get another chance at either.

- Union (X) -

Ven had celebrated Pride for a few years now, ever since he figured out his gender troubles and started transitioning. But recently other thoughts had been weighing on his mind. It wasn’t hard to notice romance was a large part queer pride, and for good reason. But nothing ever clicked in Ven’s mind about his lack of romantic attraction, and he focused his attention on untangling his gender identity. 

Becoming a Dandelion leader meant he helped organize the Pride events. It was a wonderful experience to work alongside the other leaders. Ven’s celebrations in the past were always a quiet, personal affair, but now he shared the joy and pride with his friends. Skuld coordinated support groups, Brain helped other trans wielders with paperwork changes, and Lauriam oversaw the decorations and flower arrangements. As for Ephemer, Ven found him in the meeting room one day making various flag pins.

“Hey, Ven!” Ephemer waved him over to the table. Two pins—pan and nonbinary—were already displayed proudly on his jacket. “I have something for you!” As Ven approached, he held up a trans flag pin. 

“For me?” Ven’s heart leapt in gratitude at the thoughtful gift. He smiled shyly as he accepted the pin.

“I’m in the middle of making some for other flags. Are there any you’d like?”

Ven eyed the pile Ephemer already had. Trans was the only queer identity of his, as of now, and he passed over the many orientation flags. But his gaze caught on one he didn’t recognize.

“What’s this one?” Ven asked, picking up a green/white/gray/black striped pin. 

“That one is aromantic, for people who don’t experience romantic attraction.”

Oh. There was a word for that. A sudden giddiness rose in his chest. “Aromantic,” he repeated, testing the word on his tongue. The identity felt right at home in his heart, slotting easily beside the familiar comfort of transness.

“You want to keep that one?” Ephemer asked, a knowing smile on his face.

Ven clutched the pin close to his chest. “Yeah! If . . .  that’s all right.”

Ephemer reached out to clasp his hands over Ven’s. “It’s no problem at all.” He took the pin from Ven and placed it on his shirt, right over his heart. “May your heart be your guiding key.”

-

Each time Ven’s memory failed him, his heart still remembered old bonds. Names and faces escaped him, but his heart always warmed whenever he touched the trans flag pin he always carried with him. He was too shy to wear it around his new friends, but he knew Terra and Aqua would accept him unconditionally. 

Something in the depths of his memory thought there should be another pin as well. Green with white and black. And a friend who’d helped him realize that part of his heart. One day, he promised himself, he’d be reunited with that friend and reconnect the pieces that were missing. 

But this would not be that day. 

Glass shattered. 

So this is it, he thought as he fell into darkness. He’d given his word he’d destroy Vanitas, even at the cost of his own heart. Ven’s eyes closed. His body faded, and his heart rose toward the light. 

I wish I could see Aqua and Terra again. I wanted to tell them . . . 

The glass shards glittered around him—green, white, and black.

#aggressivelyarospecweek #kh #strelitzia #ventus #aro strelitzia #aro ventus #aro #aromantic #kingdom hearts #arospec #my fics

[moremysteriesthantragedies]

I am curious about your general advice when it comes to writing asexual characters as an asexual yourself. 😊 /gen

Oh boy. I am going to try to keep this brief, but I could go on for hours about this subject. It's still long though (just not as long as it could be). so I'll put it under the cut.

Here is a list of things a lot of people assume makes a character asexual that just don't:

*Being aro/Uninterested in romance

*Being celibate

Having no interest in sex or sensual things for whatever reason.

Hating sex or sensual things for whatever reason.

*Notes: Someone can be aroace, but romantic orientation and sexual orientation are different. All romantic orientations or sexualities can also be uninterested in romance for their own reasons.

I would recommend avoiding language like "asexual lifestyle" when you mean celibate. It's offensive for the same reasons the phrase "gay lifestyle" is. It's assuming people of an entire sexuality all live the same type of life and shows what little one knows about the sexuality.

These can be traits of an asexual person, but these are all romantic orientations, personality quirks, or life decisions that don't make someone asexual. The only thing asexual means is that a person does not feel sexual attraction to others (though keep in mind asexuality is a spectrum). Sexual attraction and drive are separate, and how an asexual deals with this drive or lack thereof can vary from asexual to asexual.

Let me try to explain this in a way that allosexuals (anyone who experiences sexual attraction) can potentially understand: Your hunger (drive) and what you want to eat (sexual attraction) are two different things entirely. Asexuals can be offered a whole platter without any of the food looking that appealing. It may look pretty, but an asexual isn't going to be frothing at the mouth to consume it. Yet, some asexuals still get hungry, and food tastes good, so some asexuals will want to eat just to fulfill that hunger or because it tastes good. Asexuals are of course aware of food and they may have thoughts/fantasies about food because it satisfies this hunger or because it tastes good. Whether an asexual wants to eat alone or with others if this does interest them is entirely up to them and can depend from case to case (for some having dinner guests is fun! For others it is a royal pain).

Keeping this in mind, I would recommend people avoid the trap of treating some representation as better than other representation. Asexual characters that have their own personal interest in sex, asexual characters that have no interest in sex but may show interest/participate in some sensual activities, asexual characters that have no interest in either, and asexual characters that are repulsed by either are all valid.

I just don't agree with the idea that "sexually interested asexuals are not good representation" because there are real asexuals who have this experience and deserve to have representation as well. I think the main thing to remember is that asexuals can have a very different relationship with sensuality than those who feel sexual attraction. Aka avoid writing an asexual character that is basically just another allosexual with a few quirks.

It is so important to keep in mind that labels like "demisexual", for instance, are not just "allosexual light" . Demisexuals only feel sexual attraction after they feel a deep connection to someone. If you have a demisexual character being sexually attracted to complete strangers, then you're not actually writing an asexual character. If you have a demisexual who is called that because they're only interested in sex for specific, personal reasons not connected to their sexual attraction, you are not writing an asexual character. I will admit I don't know much about gray asexuals, but, from what I do know, it is often a title used by those who experience sexual attraction differently from allosexual individuals, so keep that in mind as well.

The way they experience sexual attraction is still different from allosexuals. Don't write an asexual as an allosexual making a personal choice. For instance, a character who is actively choosing not to have sex until they know someone better is not demisexual, demisexual individuals do not feel sexual attraction until they feel close to someone. A character that abstains from sex is not asexual, abstaining from sex is a personal choice not all asexuals make.

Here are some things to avoid when writing sensually interested asexuals:

I am just asexual myself, meaning I have no sexual attraction to others ever. I also only ever participate in sensual things for emotional connection reasons. This list pertains to this POV, as I am more experienced with that type of asexuality and treatment of sensuality in this context.

*Asexual characters suddenly having sexual attraction: In and out of the sheets, a character is still asexual. It is not a flip we switch to participate in these things, and sex does not "fix" our asexual state (we aren't broken to begin with). It doesn't mean we don't find our partners gorgeous though, it is important to separate aesthetic attraction from sexual attraction. Aesthetic attraction also does not go away during sexual activities.

Asexuals having no experience just because they are asexual: It will depend on their previous interest in the subject/opportunities in that department. Totally fine to make an unexperienced asexual character, just don't assume them being asexual means they have no experience.

Asexuals being apathic to sensual stimulation: We still have physical bodies that can feel pleasure. We still find sexual thoughts and scenarios stimulating. Us not being sexually attracted to the individuals involved does not mean sensual things stop being sensual. And yes, when someone we care about does any of these things, it is definitely stimulating.

Asexuals can't be "freaky": Asexual individuals with drives can have kinks just like everyone else. We too have sexual preferences and things we're really into, and they're not always "vanilla".

Notes: Let me put aesthetic attraction this way. You don't want to screw a painting because it's pretty. But, if you're feeling a certain way, you might imagine/bring that painting into that context. The painting still isn't sexual, but it can still be fun getting intimate with something that is pretty or that potentially has emotional value to you. (Don't take this too literarily).

Here are some general stereotypes I'd like to see less of:

They're so cute and innocent: Asexuals know what sex is. Again, some may not be well versed in it while others are very well versed. Even if they aren't well versed in it, that doesn't mean they have a "cute" and "innocent" personality. Asexuals are not children (unless the character literally is a child lol).

Prude to the max: Some may be uncomfortable with the topic of sex, but that doesn't mean they are just being "overly sensitive" nor does that mean they are rude about it. There are also plenty of asexuals that are very vulgar, some for humorous reasons and others due to simply being comfortable with the topic.

The cold/heartless asexual: I wrote a post about this once, but I'll repeat my point. Assuming the only reason someone can't feel sexual attraction is because they're "closed off" not only paints a lack of sexual attraction in a negative/unhealthy light but treats asexuality as a choice only "mean" people make. Totally okay to have a cold asexual character but, as I keep repeating, separate motives from sexuality, they are not the same thing.

They're just repressed: Asexuality is not "repression". Asexual individuals can be repressed in some ways just like everyone, but it's important to walk the line between repression versus lack of attraction and/or disinterest. They're not the same thing.

Remember, sexualities do not come with set personalities.

[frays-monster-yuri]

Weight of Broken Promises

I'm getting near a critical point in Weight of Broken Promises where a lot of what I've imagined this story can be is within pages of being written.

I know it's had a slow start, but I committed to shoving 1 chapter out the door a day and I've never done that before. That's been kind of an exhausting pace to keep up. But I've produced a lot of quiet scenes that mean the world to me. If anything, it's the quiet chats and endearing moments between plot that matter most to me.

Soleil and Maeve's relationship is going to be a slow burn. I know I've presented a lot of interesting characters and then just walked away without much significant seeming to happen, only for Soleil to recruit the seemingly most milquetoast human in the cast. But these two are intended to grow and develop together. Their relationship is meant to picking up the torch of how Ruinous Hearts handled character relationships. They're trying to be delicate and awkward with each other and their own feelings as they begin to change and find their place in the world.

Soleil hasn't even hit level 10, and she's already admitted multiple times that she's not okay. She's already got entirely too much on her shoulders. But I never intend to stop shoving problems her way. I am gonna push her until she hits her breaking point. And then have her friends step in.

Soon you're going to see Maeve camping outside Soleil's room in an inn. And a yet to be introduced waifu will keep a watchful eye at Soleil's window so everyone's favorite demon princess doesn't sneak out to try and solve the world's problems on her own without risk to her friends. This story is going to be about Soleil taking on unimaginable amounts of heroics, and pushing past what breaks other characters. Learning to cope, handle falling apart, and fucking everything up is where I'm most interested in handling the subject matter well as a writer.

I crave stories that plunge into absolutely unimaginable struggles. But I can't stand it when those stories are unpleasant. So Soleil is going to have a whole harem of people who will love and protect her as best they can, each in their own little ways. (There's gonna be a lot of Ace/Aro rep in this polycule.)

I've been at odds of whether to slap romance and tragedy tags on the story, because this is a story about making the absolute best of an increasingly hopeless story. And finding joy when and where you can.

It's mostly gentle now. But it won't always be that way.

I'm STILL uncertain of a cover, but I really want to paint a picture that has Soleil resting in front of a towering memorial or gigantic graveyard. I've even entertained the idea of having a character attend their own funeral.

Anyway, even if this doesn't entirely interest you, you should still support a trans author filling a story with three lesbian demon lord mothers all doing their best to raise the most stressed monstrous heroine ever.

Money would also be nice. Living in America is kinda scary right now.

#weight of broken promises litrpg #litrpg #messy queer relationships #fantasy #demon protagonist #slow burn #enemies to lovers #lovers to enemies #magitech #obnoxiously long web serial #i have no idea when this story will end #But I just never wanna stop writing it #trans author

[acespec-ed]

Good day and hello.

So first of all - thank you for running this blog. Thanks to you I came to terms with my sexual identity and deepened a knowledge about ace and aro culture.

Second part is actually not that merry - I have a little problem when it comes to my romantic attraction. I always wanted to be in romantic reliationship, I always wanted to feel romantic love and I was always deep inside envy and sad that others find their partners so easily and I can’t even immediately make bonds with mine own friends, but as I started meeting with more people more of them were saying how much they love me after 2-3 months and I was always honest with them. I was telling them ”Hey, listen fella - I’m ace and need some time to feel it”. Responces were mixed but I learnt how to deal with them. The problem is that after some time I realised that no matter the time I just can’t feel it. I can’t feel something I’ve been craving for such a long time. I have no idea what kind of romantic attraction it is but it hurts deeply. I want to be in love, I want to experience love, I want to love back person who loves me, but further I go into this forest I more realise that maybe I’ll never feel it and that parts of myself which are responsible for romance are way to detached to ever find a middle ground.

Forgive me for sudden change of tone but I had to vent a little and in the same time hope that maybe, just maybe you will help me a bit in finally understanding what kind of punishment it is for me. I know I shouldn’t reffer to this that way but it truly hurts, the realisation that you can’t love back even if it would be your dream come true to hold hands with someone and say true ”I love you”.

Even if you can’t answer thank you for even reading that. You are amazing and great person!

You're welcome and thank you! 💚💜

I wish I knew an easy way to fix the problem. But I think this might be one of those things that takes time. It's a lot of internalized aphobia to overcome. I can sit here and tell you that you don't need romance to live a happy and fulfilled life. That romantic attraction isn't all it's cracked up to be. That you're not being punished for anything. But you probably already know that. You've got to reprogram your brain into believing it. It'll help to spend time in ace and aro spaces. If you can come across any aros pass child-bearing age, you could see how they navigated their lives being aro. I have two aunts who never had partners or children, and they seem happy enough living alone. They have pets and hobbies that seem to keep them fulfilled. There's other things in life than romance. It's just that romance is practically everywhere, that it's hard to see things otherwise.

Come to think of it, it might help to take a break from all things romance. It's probably making you feel worse about yourself. But again, romance is impossible to avoid. Not even children's shows are safe.

You can also try coming up with good things about not being in a relationship, and focus on those whenever the bad thoughts happen. For one, you don't have to worry about any relationship drama. You don't have to worry about what would happen if your long-term partner had to move far away. Whether you'd have to uproot your life to move with them, or break up with them after many years together, or go long distance which just sucks. You don't have to stress out over weddings or marriage. You don't have to worry about getting divorced, which can be even more stressful than getting married! You can do whatever you want to do, without taking a partner into consideration. Because once you're in a long-term relationship, especially marriage, just about every decision you make needs to have that person in mind. From where you're going to live to Friday night plans. You can decorate your room however you want. You don't have to wake up in the middle of the night all cold because your partner accidentally hogged all the blankets in their sleep. No dealing with snoring. There's lots of stuff. Being single has perks.

Hopefully some of this helped. Good luck. 💚💜

[turtlegirlave]

Quick thoughts on the sims 4 sexuality update in terms of aspec gameplay (from an ace)

After the recent sexuality update made it possible to have asexual and aromantic sims, naturally I tested it by making twins that were biromantic asexual and bisexual aromantic. I figured I’d share some of my thoughts on it:

Asexuality:

The first thing I noticed was that after my asexual sim got a partner the option for woohoo never came up. Initially I was really happy about this, since I didn’t expect choosing asexuality to actually have any effect on gameplay. As a sex-repulsed ace I was glad to see that it actually carried the sims sexuality into their relationships. My sim was able to get married and have a good relationship without woohoo and the game didn’t even allow for the option to further reinforce the importance of their identity. However, since this sim was marked as not exploring romantically I assumed the woohoo option not being there was just for sims not exploring, and that ticking the exploring romantically box would allow asexual sims to woohoo. Despite “exploring” not being a great way of showing sex-favorable sims, it still allowed for people to make asexual sims who could woohoo if they wanted a sex-favorable ace sim. Unfortunately upon making some new sims to test with I noticed that even asexual sims with the “exploring” box ticked still had no option to woohoo, meaning that from my experience playing there is no way to make sex indifferent or favorable asexual sims. While I appreciate that their sexuality has an impact on gameplay, since being ace does have an impact on irl relationships, it was very disappointing to see that only sex-repulsed asexual sims can exist.

Asexuality glitches:

My sim’s allo partner got a want to try for baby with my sim, but since my sim was ace the option didn’t show up for either of them so I couldn’t fulfill that want. Wouldn’t be a big deal if we could delete certain wants but it’s annoying when a want I can’t fulfill sticks around. Also there was one instance where I clicked on a bed as my sim’s allo partner (he usually didn’t have the woohoo options since his partner is ace) where the options for woohoo and try for baby came up. The buttons were gone the next time I selected the bed it was just odd.

Aromanticism:

My aromantic sim had the “exploring romantically” box checked initially and because of that had all of the romantic interactions available, although I did forget she was exploring and got really annoyed with her for autonomously flirting with another sim when I didn’t ask her to but that’s more on me than the game. I also noticed a new friendly social called “ask to be woohoo partners,” so it’s cool that there’s a type of queerplatonic relationship option that allows for sims to woohoo without having to be romantic first. The person my sim was flirting with did refuse to be woohoo partners so I didn’t get to test this feature, but I did have my sim drag her on social bunny. I mean I barely knew her so fair to refuse but making social media enemies was fun. I ended up going back into create a sim to tick the “not exploring romantically” mark for my sim afterward, leading to all interactions under the romantic category disappearing except for asking about someone’s romantic or woohoo preferences. After asking those the romance category disappeared altogether (but not before a sim responded “not you, so don’t worry” to me asking their romantic preference, ouch). The aromantic feature seems a bit better than asexuality since you have the option of making romance repulsed, indifferent, or favorable sims (again through the “exploring” mark which isn’t great wording but at least in gameplay works for repulsion levels) and has a unique interaction for woohoo partners, though in my gameplay friendship has to be really high for a sim to accept. Also note that I am not aromantic so aro people may have a different opinion on this representation, if you’re aro please let me know your thoughts

Aromantic glitches:

I didn’t find any in my gameplay but I’m sure there are ones similar to the asexual sims where occasionally romantic wants pop up or something. If anyone noticed any feel free to add

Overall thoughts:

I think this update is fantastic for aspec identities even if it has a while to go. The options to make sex or romance favorable sims could be better, and aspec labels like grays or demis don’t really have any option for their identity. However, the range of aspec identities is vast and probably hard to implement for a game that took like 6 years to add pronouns. I am happy that this update adds a split attraction model, especially since for a lot of allos it may teach them what the split attraction model is. Overall the way that the game has implemented the split attraction model seems to do much more good than harm. End thoughts, I’m very happy with the update! Sure there’s room to improve on aspec fronts and gender binary fronts, but I doubt this will be the last update we get on the sexuality system.

Terms:

Ace: asexual

Aro: aromantic

Allo: someone who is not asexual or aromantic

Also this is just in my gameplay experience, the sims tends to have glitches that vary wildly from player to player so I’m sure I didn’t catch everything.

#I’m just happy I can live out my dreams of having way too many asexual sims in my legacy family #the sims #the sims 4 #asexuality #asexual #aromantic #aroace #lgbtq

[aro-comics]

Aro Joy

Aro Joy, 1/1 - it’s almost AUTUMN!!!! 🍁🎃🧣 ✨ (and I’m very excited lol, early fall is one of my favourite times of year 😂). Ok but back on topic - I’ve actually had a vision for this specific comic for ... a while 😭 Like, half a year ago. It’s been a journey, accepting my arospec identity (and from what I’ve heard talking to y’all, it’s been like this for many of you too), and though I’ve been open about the bumpier parts of the experience, I wanted to also talk about the positives, all the joys of being aro, too 💚💚🐸

As a general disclaimer: The sentiments here aren’t meant to speak for all aros - because some aros want to be in romantic relationships (or be otherwise partnered), and of course this is equally valid and should be respected! And on the same note, allos can be happy with being, or just want to be single, because again - this isn’t something defined by orientation.

But I think for a lot of us, our arospec orientation can be tied to how feel about our lives in relation to partnership ... which is that, we're okay (or happy) being single! For the longest time, I held it against myself that I wasn’t in a relationship, but not because I wanted to be in one - I just thought it was a milestone that would make other people think of me as a 'real' adult 😭😭 Realizing I was aro gave me the opportunity to reassess how I viewed myself, and my relationships with other people. I was able to actually let go of that idea of having a “””missing piece”””, and appreciate everyone and everything I have in my life. I sound kinda cheesy saying this, but for the first time, I think I have everything I've ever wanted, relationships wise? I'm at peace, and I really appreciate it.

__

School's gonna start soon for me and for some of y'all, so I hope that goes well for everyone! Please take care, and as always I'd love to hear what you think! What are your favourite things about being aro? 🐸

[Image Descriptions:

Slide 1: “I find it fascinating, the way alloromantics value romance.” Celia stands outside in front on a vibrant fall day. She seems to be on a walk on a trail.

Behind her, the leaves are a bright orange, and she is wearing a white wrapped top, jeans, and an orange ribbon choker.

Slide 2: “When I bring up the fact -”

A flashback to an earlier time, where Celia is talking to another girl (who is alloro). Celia says “You know, life without Romance is not inherently bad, or unfulfilling -” 

The other girls says, “yeah, but it’s DIFFERENT.”

Slide 3: [Pure text] There’s this really deep, engrained idea, even amongst people who are accepting and understanding of the idea that being aromantic is valid, that romance brings a new level of joy to life. A kind of special fulfillment they would be lost without.

Slide 4: “And I’ve got to say …” Celia speaks to the viewer.

Slide 5: “That sounds really hard, yikes” She shrugs nonchalantly.  

Slide 6: Celia speaks from the bottom of the panel, and a big speech bubble says, “People seem to have such a hard time with dating? Pining? Trying to court people? (I actually do not know much about romance, despite my love of the genre) It just seems like so much work, just to feel fulfilled.”

Extra doodles of character struggle with online dating, pining with writing love letters, and dollar bills with a rose exemplify the various struggles mentioned.

Slide 7: Shot switches back to Celia in the forest. She’s now holding a maple leaf in her hand, staring down at it contemplatively as she speaks. “I’m … actually feeling pretty good about my life.”

Slide 8: She holds the leaf up to the light now. “I don’t really feel like there’s something missing without a partner. Although, maybe one day -” In the bottom half of the panel, the perspective switches to her POV centered on her hand with the illuminated leaf, “I’d also be happy with a QPR.”

Slide 9: It’s one of the things that makes me grateful that I’m aro.

The shot has switched to be from behind Celia, staring out at the landscape of mountains, the fall foliage, and the river below. Celia has let go of the leaf and it drifts away in the wind]

#RegularComic #AroJoy

[transmasc-wizard]

alloaces are NOT aro experts.

so this is something ive been contemplating posting for awhile. im only now doing so bc of some things arospec mutuals (& arospecs in general) have posted that i strongly agree with, and i want to put in my hand.

So, being ace and aro are different. (Duh.) now, i am bi aroace, meaning (for me) im not sure if my attraction is alterous or romantic, and the definition of aro is experiencing "LITTLE to no romantic attraction", which i fit. (Im just straight up ace, probably; again, the "little" could be there, idk.) I know what it's like to be ace, what its like to be aro, what its like to be bi. (these are not contradictory.) as an ace, i can talk about ace experiences, and as an aro, i can talk about aro experiences. i can also talk about aroace experience, and vaguely relate with aceallo experiences (bc i have experienced The Romo Feels a few times).

I cannot speak on aroallo experiences; never once have i felt sexual attraction to someone without romantic feels. Never once have i felt sexual attraction to someone, period, but the first sentence is still true because of that. So, while i am oriented, angled, whateverthefuck aroace, i cannot speak on ALL aspec experiences. That makes sense, right?

Right?

then why the fuck do i constantly see double-allos asking ace-allos what it's like to be aro???

It's infuriating. Because the fucking alloromantics pull the answers out of their asses, and then the double-allos go on their merry way with a completely wrong impression.

Don't get me wrong--i fucking love ace-allos, they're part of my community and part of the big queer family. But being ace doesn't mean you automatically can speak for aros, and vice versa. We have things in common, of course, but we have to support each other in the areas where we don't; ie ace-allos should absolutely fight with aros and trans people on removing "love is love" as the main queer slogan. (If you're wondering what the problem with LIL is, i'll be explaining in another post within a week from now.) Similarly, aroallos should fight with aceallos when aceallos are trying to affirm that fulfilling romance can exist without sex.

Basically TLDR: its very late and im kinda incoherent but im tired of aros being shoved aside so alloaces can pretend they understand everything/anything about being aromantic, because they dont, just like aroallos dont understand everything/anything about being asexual.

#aromantic #asexual #aspec #acespec #arospec #arophobia #acephobia #aphobia #queer #queer stuff

[andragoras-in-vanity]

i dont know who has been on the internet so long theyve got brainrot thinking that platonic love isnt as important as romantic love. like....you need both unless you dont experience romance. but if you do you need both.

but if you fucking go outside for once in your life and interact with other human beings instead of marvel movies (wtf), you'll see that NO ONE ON THIS PLANET actually treats friendships as lesser than romance. not a single damn person, in fact for most of us its been the opposite way around, struggling and crying because you do experience romantic love and you WANT it, you NEED it because youve never been that important to anyone or safe, and yws i adore my friends but theyre not fulfilling in the same way and theres no words for it. but everytime you try to say it some idiot tries to tell you bullshit like "you're whole without a relationship!!! you dont NEED a boyfriend to be happy!!!", and some posts on this infernal site are just as much of a dig.

like thats great for you!!! maybe you dont need to be in passionate love to feel complete, but some of us do and that doesnt mean theres something wrong with us, especially as people who have never had the luxury of dating, of even crushing or finding random strangers good looking. yes, ive tried, but if im not in love with you i cannot date you, which means trying to do typically romantic things with friends ...just feels gross.

and some people seem to have misconstrued romantic love with sexual love. not the same, often intertwined, but not the same. the same way you can be ace but want romantic affection, or aro and want sex. if you dont know the difference im begging you to pick up a fucking book.

not to mention the security and safety of a partnership that some of us seek, yes we can share a bed with friends, maybe cuddle them too, but maybe its just be being disabled but theres a level of reliability that even my friends who know the worst of me cant give. its a feeling in your heart and chest that feels light, but cool like the ocean just running through you and your body feels weightless when your In Love.

and if you dont experience romance then cool, thats your life, but dont be a fucking cunt about it like this guy:

who is just fucking wrong, and also should go die in a gas station fire 😊.

if you dont know what being IN love means, just say it. dont tell the rest of us we need therapy because we want to date someone whod be good to us and we can shower in devotion all day long, and you cant relate.

platonic love is necessary to get through life and everyone knows this, but romantic love is just as pure if not more raw, its harmful and especially homophobic to dismiss that some people need it.

#tw ableism #im giving these trigger warnings only because uhhhh thats some fucking bullshit that person wrote #i cut out their name but they either need to be bullied back into real life or pick up a book sometime #but yeah im fucking tired of seeing posts that just arent even positivity posts thwyre just straight up dismissive bullshit #like theres some kind of animosity that certain people have towards those of us who are stupidly sappy #and i dont get it #cause NORMAL people aka the vast majority dont have an issue with how everyone else lives their lives #but i sure am getting a bit spiteful having to hear this shit all the time from every direction #but god forbid you call anyone out on their ableism or you're being pHoBiC #which yes!! some people are and a lot of people have experienced exclusion #but is that a fucking excuse to say this like this when you DO NOT UNDERSTAND the world the way you think you do? #anyway theres a few people i think i need to unfollow or block cause ive seen ignorant ignorant takes lately #maybe not directly harmful or ecil but incredibly misguided and dismissive of people like me who are hurting #and feel unloved and unworthy and ugly in all aspects because we've had to watch everyone else be pursued #and then those same people turn around and tell us 'you dont need a man to be complete!!!' #okay hypocrite????? ive literally never seen you single while im only asking for ONE SINGLE PERSON im meant for but arite #its bad enough i have to be dismissed by friends and family for knowing ill be healthier and taking better care of myself if i were doing #it alongside and for the one im in love with. to impress them and to be good for them as they deserve #so dont let shit ideals like that and homophobia and ableism invade the queer community or spaces online #where a disabled person like myself really only has access too #i know the world is more forgiving and understanding than tumblr but unlike most of yall who choose to be stupid #i dont have the ability to go out or occupy my time otherwise im trapped her and i know this and i hate it #and i definitely wont magically be healed by a loving romantic relationship but it would make all this pain and loneliness bearable #i love my friends but its not the same and the loyalty is there but the devotion is not #and even then i dont have many of them #if it were as simple as dating the first person i saw i would but thats not how love especially true love works at all #so ill get off my soapbox now if you will yours but i think ive found another hill to die on

[aro-culture-is]

Romance adverse aro culture is not understanding why some aro's are mourning being aromantic and not feeling romantic attraction. Like I won't say what they are feeling is wrong because it isn't, I just never had that reaction when I found I was aro. I just don't get why ppl are sad they "cant have a romantic relationship" like... Can't they choose to have one anyways? Also different kinds of relationships exist why not have one of those? Idk I think I'm missing something here and I hope my confusion doesn't come off as rude....

basics: feelings are extremely complex and there are so many factors that I can only provide a very few basic idea here, and this will not apply to everyone, nor provide the details on everything I do bring up.

1) culturally, a lot of individuals expect that romantic relationships are only for those who experience mutual romantic attraction. the reality is more nuanced, but whether from not knowing, or being in a logic =/= emotions response (which is normal and valid), those who are aro and do want romantic relationships may mourn many things while learning, understanding, and accepting this.

2) amatonormativity my beloathed. imagine that you, in accordance with the culture you grew up with, have always associated a happy, fulfilling life with romance. a lot of people never have to question this. how might you feel, if, without encountering the concept of amatonormativity, identifying it in your own expectations, or being provided alternative ideas of what a happy and fulfilling life could look like, you realized you didn't feel the very thing upon which that happiness supposedly rested? grief is a very expected response. "I will never be happy and fulfilled" is an understandable, if incorrect, conclusion.

3) last of the things I will be addressing: when romance is held on a pedestal, and your current thoughts have been strictly around your romantic identity... it's a practiced, learned skill to be able to step back and ask about alternatives. in my own culture, i'd go so far as to say that skill is actively discouraged by many people, and treated as a fallacy within discussions about romance. even discussing widly known familial, platonic, or unspecified other relationships, otherd are quick to remind you that amatonormativity is King, and to suggest otherwise is literally treated like giving up on happiness. idk how many aros are aware of QPRs coming into the community, but there's more layers there, and i'm not the right person to unpack them. grief here can come from many, many places, including conflict with people who were previously part of these other relationships.

#aro culture is #aro #aromantic #actually aro #actually aromantic #ask #mod kee #but also. ew romance involving me.