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midnight-strays · 4 years

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Omggg what about sister Headcanons for them like older or a smaller sister.(You can pick any character)

//So many of these precious characters need the guidance of an older sister, so let’s do older sister headcanons! I could so do this for like, majority of the characters. As an older sister myself, all I wanna do is help these poor souls XD I may have gotten a little carried away here.

Atsushi Nakajima

As the older sister of Atsushi, it would be easy to compare your life to taking a burning stroll through hell. It wasn’t easy, having to watch on as your little brother is beaten for reasons he didn’t know or understand. You barely understood yourself, but you did try to take care of him to the best of your ability.

After leaving the orphanage, the two of you wandered together for a bit before eventually, Atsushi took it upon himself to keep you safe from the ‘tiger’ following him and left you. You looked up and down for him but to no avail, he was always on the run and because he was always running, there was no telling how far he would get in a day, what turn he would have made and if he was even alive anymore.

You had a better grasp as to what was wrong with him now, understood he was an ability user- you had heard of them during your time on the streets but wasn’t sure how to explain it to him, so you kept it to yourself for now. You’ve regretted that decision every day since because maybe, just maybe, your baby brother wouldn’t have run off the way he did.

You just thought for sure that while together, you had done enough for him to feel safe with you. You gathered as much food as you could- though it wasn’t much- you were more willing to steal than he was, kept him as warm as you could, told him stories you’d made up in your head to help him sleep and even stayed up at night to ease his mind about the tiger returning, despite you knowing that it was in fact him that was the tiger.

It was months after he ran off that you met again. Atsushi was on a job, nothing serious, and you were running down the street, still in ragged clothes and holding a loaf of bread close to your chest. You weren’t looking where you were going for a spit second, looking back to see if you were still being chased, only to run right into the boy, knocking him to the ground and making you drop the bread.

The both of you immediately sprung into apologising to each other, helping each other up before finally making eye contact. As much as I’d like to say you threw yourself at him and the two of you hugged in the middle of the street, the guy chasing you caught up and pulled you back by the collar of your shirt, yelling at you about stealing form him and how he was going to report you to the police and everything.

Atsushi almost threw himself at the man but quickly put two and two together when he saw the bread on the ground. Taking responsible action, he calmed the man down and paid for the bread to get you out of trouble and once everything was taken care of, he took you by the hand and brought you elsewhere, where you finally held on tight to each other, quietly weeping to each other about how much you’d missed each other.

From there, he takes you back to his apartment so you can get cleaned up and things go from there.

Being his older sister means lecturing him whenever he doesn’t take care of himself properly because he doesn’t exactly know how to or because he’s been too stressed out or distracted to do so. It means being scared for his safety often because he’s constantly dealing not only with the mafia but other dangerous people who could hurt him. It’s being so proud of the new skills he’s developing, the control he has over his ability and him finally finding people he can trust aside from yourself. It also means putting up with Osamu Dazai on the Daily because ‘Hey, Atsushi has a cute older sister.’

I don’t really think Atsushi would allow his older sister to join the ADA and would maybe insist she get a job in the café downstairs as it would be safer but still close to him. He feels like he should be the one protecting you because of what he does now. He knows he’s capable of taking care of you.

This does not, by any means, mean that you don’t treat him like your baby brother. This is the kind of relationship where you’ll openly be affectionate towards him in front of everyone, lecture him in front of others and so on. Embarrassing older sister anyone? I also see you bringing him lunch whenever he forgets or you’re feeling generous (which makes Dazai swoon and beg you to bring him lunch sometime- before asking you to commit a double suicide with him)

Oh for the record, Atsushi isn’t one to get too grumpy with Dazai, not openly at least, but he does get really fed up with him asking you to commit suicide with him all the time though so he has been seen passively telling Dazai off.

It’s a very loving relationship, the two of you supporting each other in ways you always have in the past, but now with the benefits of being able to eat properly, stay warm and healthy and not need to rely on each other to survive another day of hell, because every day isn’t hell anymore.

Kyoka Izumi

If Kyoka was to have an older sister, she’d be reasonably older, perhaps a stepsister that wasn’t around when their parents died. I imagine she would have been studying abroad or something of the sort, so by the time she arrived to be there for her baby sister, Kyoka was already gone.

This would leave you searching for her for years. Missing posters, private detectives, constantly bothering the police, asking if they had any leads yet and so on.

You would end up broke, exhausted, possibly depressed and unbelievably desperate, so much, that you would take one last chance at reaching out for help. The police had recommended the Armed Detective Agency to you after pestering them repeatedly, but you had been sceptical.

You still were after seeing them. They seemed quite… unorthodox. Not a very professional bunch but then again, they seemed to be focused on making sure the dramatic brunette left you alone.

That was last year and even they didn’t seem to come up with anything, so you slowly began to lose hope.

You didn’t find out that they had found Kyoka until after she had officially joined the Armed Detective Agency and you’d just about choked Dazai out for waiting so long to call you until Fukazawa explained their reasoning to you.

After that, you were a sobbing mess, in the middle of the office, just holding onto your little sister who seemed oh so unsure of how to feel. She had thought for sure that you had forgotten about her, that you’d not even bothered searching for her and continued on with your life. It took her a while, but she too broke down, more so from relief than anything else, as she had someone who actually loved her by her side.

You would be so grateful towards Atsushi for everything he had done for Kyoka, he was the reason she was still alive after all. This was after managing to sit through the explanation of what’s been going on for the last few years.

This being said, it was no big surprise that you, Kyoka and Atsushi started going out places together, having a good time and experiencing the many amazing things in life that they and even you had missed out on over the years.

I totally reckon Kyoka’s big sister would totally take Atsushi in as a lil brother or something thanks to all he’s done for the girl.

Alone time with Kyoka would often involve eating. The both of you are foodies and share a love for crepes. Your time together isn’t just spent eating though. It’s full of kept promises, getting to know each other again, teaching each other new things and rebuilding a bond that was never given a chance to bloom in the past.

Much like she does with the ADA, she looks to you for guidance since she doesn’t know how to live a normal life anymore, but she’s bound to adjust quickly.

You offer to take her away with you, away from the mafia and the ADA, but she insists on staying, leaving you to settle down in town so she can continue to stay with Atsushi and the others, keeping a close eye on her and giving her a place to live so she isn’t crowding Atsushi.

Chuuya Nakahara

Chuuya was a loner from the start, so you’re not his actual sister. Instead, you’re the one who found him on his own and offered him a hand up. Sure, he didn’t exactly trust you at first but over time, the two of you came to rely on each other and eventually formed a sibling bond. If someone asked if you were siblings, the answer was quite simple. Yes.

Even while you were members of Sheep, you, being relatively high rank thanks to Chuuya becoming the leader, the two of you remained closer than anyone else. You could see Chuuya, in a way, liked being relied on, gave him a purpose. You were of course, proud of his strength, but also a little concerned over the dangers that came with the Port Mafia fighting with the Sheep constantly. Of course, you were just as much of a delinquent teenager as anyone else was, but you didn’t want your little brother on the front lines like that.

Honestly, you’re concerned about him most of the time until he joins the Port Mafia. Whether you join or not doesn’t make too much of a difference to your relationship. If you don’t join, Chuuya would insist you receive the Mafia’s protection as a condition to him joining their ranks. If you do join, he insists you stay by his side.

I doubt you’d become an executive unless you’re able to develop quite the amount of skill like Dazai or have an ability that is of great value. You need to be ruthless to be an executive and I don’t quite see Chuuya being okay with you changing so drastically. He’s always been this way, while you’ve been softer, kind, helping those around you when they need it. So, you’d most likely end up a subordinate, but still ranking quite highly.

You’re not allowed around Dazai without Chuuya there and even then, he doesn’t want you around Dazai. Chuuya would rather die than allow Dazai to lay a hand on you. Not only because he sees him as a complete asshole who should kill himself already, but because he understands that Dazai is an incredibly dangerous, deceptive guy who can and will hurt you if he needs to. (Dazai would never hurt you).

You hate it when he uses Corruption. Seeing him or just hearing about him losing control in such a way hurts you deep down because you know that he could easily die after taking a whole lot of lives. You have slapped Dazai for being careless while he was in that form too. If something were to happen to your brother while they were together, and it could have been prevented, you will blame Dazai.

Despite this, you’re both heavily impacted by Dazai’s disappearance, but you step up to help your little brother handle his anger (mostly about his exploded car) and even became his new partner on important missions. Meaning, yes, you became an executive.

Do the two of you drink wine together? Hell, yes you do. It’s how you relax, unwind from all the stress of the mafia. It’s time for you two of open up to each other and reminisce about the past, even if it did suck.

You take care of him to the best of your ability, even if he is stronger than you in so many ways. He won’t say it out loud but you are his rock. He needs you to keep him grounded. If anything were to happen to his big sister, the one he relied on so much to get by, he wouldn’t be able to cope.

Days off are almost always spent together. Treating each other out to lunch, getting drinks, buying new clothes, and just acting like normal people. You’re both very ready to jump into action if need be, whether it’s against criminals, targets or just assholes getting in your way. Chuuya also doesn’t tolerate guys flirting with you. No one is good enough for you. In return, you tend to cockblock him when he meets someone because two can play at that game.

While being Chuuya’s older sister, you don’t always get to see him or act as an older sister to him. Actually, a lot of your time while you can’t be together and you’re not doing your own thing, is spent on Akutagawa and Gin. Having had a rough childhood, somewhat like theirs, you take it upon yourself to try guide them in the right direction and even too over Akutagawa’s training. Needless to say, you were a lot easier on him than Dazai was, but it was too late to make much of an impact on him. Gin, however, was easier, so you kinda have a younger sister now too. Aku is you new lil bro, he just doesn’t know it.

You and Chuuya don’t rely too heavily on each other. Well, you do but you don’t. You need each other, no doubt, but you can cope on your own as long as you know the other is okay. You don’t want Mori finding out about how much you guys need each other because while you’re both completely and utterly loyal to the man, you both are very aware that he is a bad man who can and will manipulate situations to his advantage.

So, just a headcanon of mine- obviously, but I feel like the two of you could share a penthouse apartment of sorts. Absolute comfort considering the money you both make and all that Jazz. You both have your own large rooms, your own bathrooms and all that, but you’re always close. Your rooms aren’t far from each other, you sit across from each other at the dinner table, sit right next to each other when watching tv and occasionally, when one is having a hard time sleeping, you’ll curl up beside each other to help ease you both into sleep, feeling safe in each other’s presence.

#bsd x reader #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bungou stray dogs x reader #sister reader #x reader #atsushi nakajima x reader #atsushi x reader #atsushi nakajima #atsushi #kyoka #kyoka izumi #kyoka x reader #chuuya x reader #chuuya nakahara x reader #chuuya nakahara #chuuya

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stripyhorse23 · 3 years

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TV of 2020

1) I May Destroy You

I May Destroy You might not have been written during the pandemic, but when it arrived in June it felt like the sort of complicated, cathartic show that could have been. Detailing one woman’s experience of rape and its aftermath, Michaela Coel (who wrote every episode) continually found rich narrative avenues in which to explore her characters’ individual experiences of sexual assault and consent. If that makes the series sound concept-driven, it always placed its characters first; the push-and-pull between Arabella, Terry and Kwame is key to the ways in which Coel’s tender, curious writing is able to explore power dynamics within relationships, friendships and hook-ups. Other, lesser shows that are this deliberately open-ended might feel opaque: it’s testament to the show’s confidence of voice that isn’t the case here.

2) Normal People

Like plenty of others, I binged the entire series of Normal People in a weekend, although one of its many pleasures is how Sally Rooney and Alice Birch’s adaptation teases out the episodic nature of the former’s bestseller. From Connell’s early days at university, to a Tuscan holiday turned sour, and an exchange year in Sweden, Normal People was about the ways in which the people we love move in and out of our lives over the years. It wasn’t immune to mis-steps (the show draws something of a crude line between the abuse Marianne suffers at home and what she seeks out in romantic partners), but the sheer emotional heft of the show was undeniable, nowhere less so than Paul Mescal’s floodgate-opening performance in Episode 10.

3) Adult Material

Perhaps one of the year’s most overlooked shows, Adult Material follows Hayley Burrows as she attempts to balance life as the harassed mother-of-three and the twilight years of her career as adult performer Jolene Dollar. The slyly comic edge of the first episode is quickly eroded after Jolene becomes embroiled in the abuse of another actor on-set. A stark portrait of alcohol abuse and loneliness, it’s also a sharp indictment of how little the so-called ‘culture wars’ surrounding pornography are meaningfully impactful on sex workers themselves. Hayley Squires gives the sort of white-hot star performance usually reserved for 90s Hollywood rom-coms, a veneer of frustration and resignation overlaying even her character’s most abrasive moments.

4) Cook, Eat, Repeat

Why not in this interminably shitty year, choose the one show that offered the sort of balm it’s impossible to reverse engineer? Following hot on the heels of a disappointing series of The Great British Bake-Off, Nigella Lawson’s warm, inviting half-hour new series was the televisual equivalent of a long bath and a facemask. Her fish finger bhorta, brown butter colcannon and black pudding meatballs have already made it into this household’s repertoire, but there’s something innately comforting about the luxurious silliness of Nigella that almost transcends criticism. Whether it’s the giddy nonsense of her liquorice box, the ‘did I hear that right’ moment when she revealed her pronunciation of ‘microwave,’ or the seductive self-care of making a creme caramel for one, no other show elicited such pure enjoyment from me this year.

5) I’ll Be Gone In The Dark

The true crime documentary series boom has increasingly leaned into a focus on the victims, from last year’s The Yorkshire Ripper Files to Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, but none so effectively or compassionately as I’ll Be Gone In The Dark. Less a story about the hunt for the Golden State Killer and more a study of trauma and obsession, the series splices together home footage of the late Michelle McNamara’s investigation with survivor testimony to create a haunting portrait of one man’s legacy of pain. The early episodes are replete with skin-crawling tension, anguish and tears, but the later episodes allow that to fall away, focusing on the mental fortitude necessary for the survivors at its centre and the sense of community fostered by meeting other women like them.

6)The Salisbury Poisonings

I had no interest in watching this BBC limited series initially: the advertising made it look dry, the story itself (the Novichok poisonings of 2018) seemingly devoid of juicy narrative material. That I’ve watched this three times in the space of a year speaks to its robust, urgent filmmaking. Like several other shows on this list, it arrived into the context of a pandemic it couldn’t have foreseen, but watching the rapid, careful response of local government (crucially and deliberately obstructed by Whitehall) to this crisis presented a sort of horribly watchable what-if scenario. What seemed at first blush to be middle-of-the-road programming evolved over three episodes into the sort of spare, quietly terrifying journalistic drama that invites comparison to last year’s Chernobyl.

7) We Are Who We Are

It turns out that Luca Guadagnino’s woozy, seductive style transfers perfectly to television, and despite We Are Who We Are lacking the timelessness that typifies I Am Love or Call Me By Your Name it thrillingly captured the turbulent adolescence of its teenage characters. Equally effervescent and raggedly emotional, the show’s joy always felt hard-won, bumping heads with the often cynical, unreadable motivations of the adult characters. A tender and frank depiction of queer identities within traditionally restrictive environments, it’s also a love letter to young friendship and the lifeline that can provide during our formative years. Spellbinding.

8) Selling Sunset

Perhaps the year’s most impressively constructed reality show, I was slow on the uptake with Netflix’s Selling Sunset only to have it take over my life for a few weeks during the summer. Manufactured reality series are tough to get right, but much like The Hills (surely this show’s biggest influence) Selling Sunset gains a lot of mileage from gaming pre-existing friendships for maximum impact. Christine and Mary’s beleaguered relationship and, obliquely, their respective responses to fame continued to provide wildly watchable fireworks, but the build-up to Chrishell’s separation from husband Justin Hartley was exquisitely handled. Suddenly Davina’s strangely uncharismatic shit-stirrer and Christine’s predictably OTT wedding were forced to take a back seat to something approaching genuinely moving television. Trying to tease out what was real and what wasn’t, and following the ways this all spilled out onto social media, was pure, unmitigated pleasure in a year sorely lacking in just that sort of unfettered escapism.

9) My Brilliant Friend

Two seasons in and there might not be another character on TV that I’m as continually frustrated and fascinated by as Lila, the eponymous ‘brilliant friend’ of the show’s title. Sparingly warm, often cruel, seductive, Season 2 of HBO’s masterful adaptation sees her trapped in a loveless, abusive marriage but as ever it’s her fractured relationship with Lenù that forms the emotional spine of the show. There’s often a strange sort of snobbery around the term ‘prestige drama,’ as if all that money on the screen is a smokescreen for a dearth of anything to say; My Brilliant Friend uses every colour in its paintbox to portray the yawning void that opened up between Lenù and Lila as they entered adulthood, from the lavish, provocative outfits Lila’s adopts after she marries Stefano to Max Richter’s evocative score and the detail poured into the show’s supporting characters. Rewardingly complex.

10) Mrs. America

I laboured over what would take my tenth spot this year since there was so much TV that I loved, and especially this year so much of it felt essential to how I was receiving the world around me. Ultimately, Mrs. America’s mixture of astute political commentary, character-driven writing and host of enjoyable performances tipped the scale in its favour. Cate Blanchett’s all-timer of a performance as Phyllis Schafly understandably received the majority of attention, but Mrs. America gave us so many memorable moments: Sarah Paulson’s Alice ringing the bell at reception whilst high, Uzo Aduba’s Shirley Chisholm speaking to a potentially bugged hotel ventilator, Margo Martindale’s Bella Abzug quietly realising she’s no longer the radical of her youth on a busy New York street. This sort of deft, smart political drama isn’t often this much fun to watch, and what an ending...

11) This Life

An honourable mention to a show made almost twenty-five years ago that nevertheless helped define the year in TV for me. Shows that were once considered part of the zeitgeist can often feel quaint and old-fashioned in retrospect, but Amy Jenkins rambunctious flatshare drama isn’t one of them. Whilst it can sometimes feel like the show’s characters are universally adverse to making even one good decision between them, there’s a compassion and care underpinning This Life that means it never comes across as overly cynical or sneering. There’s also a lot to be said for discovering a performance that you genuinely consider to be one of the best of the decade, and no other character this year frustrated and moved me in the ways that Daniela Nardini’s Anna did. Bonus points for the genuinely chaotic final episode, perhaps one of the best I’ve ever seen.

And FWIW, these are ten performances from shows not on the list above that I loved this year: Marielle Heller in The Queen’s Gambit, Nicholas Hoult in The Great, Sarah Lancashire in Last Tango in Halifax, Poorna Jagannathan in Never Have I Ever, Michael Sheen in Quiz, Imelda Staunton in Talking Heads, Leila Farzad in I Hate Suzie, Alison Pill in Star Trek: Picard, Gillian Anderson in The Crown and Andy Allo in Upload.

And ten episodes of TV that I loved too: ‘Terry and Korvo Steal a Bear’ (Solar Opposites), ‘The Gang Deals With Alternate Reality’ (The Good Fight), ‘Uncle Naseem’ (Ramy), ‘The View From Halfway Down’ (Bojack Horseman), ‘The Vat of Acid Episode’ (Rick and Morty), ‘I Am’ (Lovecraft Country), ‘No Small Parts’ (Star Trek: Lower Decks), Seven-Spotted Ladybug’ (Everything’s Gonna Be Okay), ‘Daytona’ (Cheer), ‘Whenever You’re Ready’ (The Good Place).

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fallintosanity · 4 years

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Since it's pride month, can I ask you what your headcanons are for everyones orientation in Providence? It's not something I can really see coming up in-story, but I'm curious nonetheless. :3

Hoo boy, anon, my answer to this is probably a lot more complex and in-depth than you were expecting, so BUCKLE UP Y’ALL LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION IN SOLDIER

(Note: I’m only going to talk about the original Compilation material for this, since that’s what TFA was written from and that’s what I’m writing Providence from.

Also all of my headcanons are colored by the fact that I am hella aro/ace myself so all flavors of allo are ??? to me)

First off, major credit to @ageofzero, who got me started down this headcanon path. The short version of their original headcanon is that SOLDIERs lose their sex drives due to the mako treatments, Jenova cells, and intense physical training regimen. After all, mako poisoning is a known Thing, and Jenova is a bizarre alien with no known gender (the original Japanese game never refers to her with any gender, and it’s strongly implied that her commonly-known feminine form is a shape she adopted to get close to the Cetra. Sephiroth only calls her “Mother” because Hojo lied to him that Jenova was his mother).

I find this idea fascinating, and think it makes a lot of sense. Of the SOLDIERs we meet, only Zack seems to have any interest in forming romantic bonds with anyone, and even his relationship with Aerith is remarkably chaste. It’s impossible to know whether this is due to an actual intent to depict a chaste romantic relationship, needing to keep the games at a family-friendly rating, cultural differences between Japan and America in terms of how romantic and sexual affection are shown (especially in the 90s), the limitations of the game engine in terms of having the characters physically interact, or some combination of the above, but the result is that the canon we are shown does not include anything approaching a sexual relationship between two characters.*

Given all that, and given the unsettling implications you find if you so much as scratch the surface of ShinRa’s human experimentation**, I think it’s eminently reasonable to believe that however they might have started life, SOLDIERs no longer have sex drives or sexual desire. Which is all an incredibly long-winded way of saying, I headcanon all the SOLDIERs as some flavor of asexual:

Sephiroth: Extremely aro/ace. I’ve talked before about how I think he sees people and relationships differently than humans do, and that extends to romance and sex. I’m not even sure “aro/ace” is the right label for him under those circumstances, but it’s close enough.

Genesis: Ace, bi- or homoromantic. TFA and its non-canon side pieces suggest Genesis is romantically interested in Cloud (which I’ve been carrying into Providence), and we have no idea if he’s ever been romantically interested in anyone else.

Angeal: Ace, probably either aro or heteroromantic. Like Genesis, we never see him express romantic interest in anyone, but it’s possible he does off-screen.

Zack: Probably would have been bi or poly if he wasn’t in SOLDIER; as is, ace and bi- or poly-romantic. (but really only has eyes for Aerith)

Kunsel: Ace, maybe demi-romantic? He’s eighteen in Providence and has been focused on rising through the SOLDIER ranks; I don’t think he himself knows for sure.

Cloud: A bit of an outlier because I headcanon that he would have been aro/ace even if he hadn’t gotten the mako/Jenova treatments. At no point in any of the original game or greater Compilation does he express romantic or sexual interest in anyone. He cares deeply about Aerith and Tifa both, but at no point says or does anything to suggest that it’s romantic or sexual in nature. Tifa occasionally says things which imply she sees her relationship with Cloud that way, but he never responds in kind. At best, his childhood interest in her could be a bit of a puppy crush, but that doesn’t rule out aro/ace Cloud since so many aro/aces do experience puppy crushes or squishes that aren’t sexual/romantic in nature. Or it could be as simple as, Tifa was the popular kid and Cloud was the outcast kid, and he was interested in her because if she was friends with him, then maybe he wouldn’t be an outcast anymore. (I lied, I’m going to talk about the Remake for a second because I’m intrigued that it appears to have doubled down hard on ace!Cloud, to the point where a lot of people have said “I don’t normally have ace headcanons, but Remake!Cloud is ace”. He’s either completely oblivious to, or visibly uncomfortable with, half the cast wanting to get into his pants. Even when Aerith warns him not to fall in love with her, his objection is to her telling him what to do yet again rather than anything about his actual feelings.)

Noctis: I realized as I was writing this post that I also headcanon Noctis as ace and probably aro- or demi-romantic. Like Cloud, we never see him express romantic or sexual interest toward anyone, which is notable given that he’s supposed to be marrying Lunafreya. He certainly seems to care deeply about her, but - like Cloud and Tifa/Aerith - his affection can be easily read as a close childhood friendship, and depending on which answers you give in the notebook choices, can canonically be brusque and uninterested. He’s also visibly uncomfortable with Gladio’s flirting (with other people) and Iris’s flirting (with Noct himself). Since we do see Gladio flirting, pretty brazenly sometimes, and we hear Prompto chatter about his crush on Cindy, Noct’s silence on the matter is telling. (He also throws an interesting wrench into the works around the SOLDIER castration headcanon, since he did get the treatments but they affected him very differently than everyone else. But I can’t say too much else there without venturing into spoiler territory.)

So anyway hi, my name is Sanity and I have a lot of ace headcanons. ^_^;

* The closest we get is the scene near the end of the original game, with Cloud and Tifa under the Highwind before the final battle. The scene itself is, again, remarkably chaste. Depending on your Affection value with Tifa, it’s not even all that romantic; it reads mostly like two friends who have been through a lot together. The few lines that do shade toward romance all come from Tifa herself, not Cloud. Also, what Tifa says the next morning on the Highwind changes depending on whether or not your Affection value is high enough; if yes, she asks the others, “Were you watching?” and if no, she asks, “Were you listening?”. So it’s possible to get a canon path which suggests Tifa and Cloud did something she didn’t want the others watching, but 1) that still leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and 2) it’s equally possible to get a canon path which suggests nothing happened at all.

** I’m just going to quote @ageofzero here because they put it best: “It might've been an unintended side-effect, of course, but idk how anyone could've thought 'let's put Mako inside human beings' when everyone knows what a powerful burning energy source Mako is and what the hell that might do inside a human when people have likely already suffered Mako poisoning from building Midgar/the reactors. And also considering that Mako is a 'refining' of Lifestream that basically strips away all the benefits of Life within it, there's no way it's not some kind of reproduction dampening substance, among many other negative consequences. [...] ESPECIALLY since a lot of SOLDIERs probably start out in their teen years (Zack, and Cloud's attempt). They're still developing humans, and who knows what effects Mako has on someone who's still passing through adolescence???? Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth are all even worse off because they were babies when they were made prototype experiments for the SOLDIER method. [...] I can't imagine mako doing anything but turning the body into a weird toxic mess even if it is controlled and regulated so they don't suffer the loss of their mind. And what the hell does it do to SOLDIERs on a DNA level?? With how much mako (and Jenova cells) there is in their body, it could turn body fluids into burning/glowing/toxic substances. All body fluids. Or at the very least make it Not Good to be exposed to said fluids, if they're not directly toxic/mako-infused. It might very well be the brain turning off reproductive desires bc SOLDIERs are a biological dead end by the time they're strong enough to be considered SOLDIER. What a chilling concept (also hello I like thinking about weird biology).”

#sanity replies #sanity talks a lot #sanity's final fantasy crossover fic #meta #anonymous

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aroworlds · 4 years

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Fiction: The Pride Conspiracy, Part One

December isn't the best time of year for a trans aromantic like Rowan Ross, although—unlike his relatives—his co-workers probably won't give him gift cards to women's clothing shops. How does he explain to cis people that while golf balls don't trigger his dysphoria, he wants to be seen as more than a masculine stereotype? Nonetheless, he thinks he has this teeth-gritted endurance thing figured out: cissexism means he needn't fear his relatives asking him about dating, and he has the perfect idea for Melanie in the office gift exchange. He can survive gifts and kin, right? Isn't playing along with expectation better than enduring unexpected consequences?

Rowan, however, isn't the only aromantic in the office planning to surprise a co-worker.

To survive the onslaught of ribbon and cellophane, Rowan's going to have to get comfortable with embracing the unknown.

Contains: A trans allo-frayro trying to grit his teeth through the holidays, scheming aro co-workers, a whole lot of cross-stitch, another moment of aromantic discovery, and many, many mugs.

Content Advisory: A story that focuses on some of the ways Western gift-giving culture enables cissexism and a rigid gender binary, taking place in the context of commercialised, secular-but-with-very-Christian-underpinnings Christmas. Please expect many references to said holiday in an office where Damien hasn't figured out how to run a gift exchange without subjecting everyone to Santa, along with characters who have work to do in recognising that not everybody celebrates Christmas.

There are no depictions or mentions of sexual attraction beyond the words "allosexual" and "bisexual" and a passing reference to allo-aro antagonism, but there are non-detailed references to Rowan's previous experiences with and attitudes towards romance and romantic attraction as a frayromantic. Please also expect casual references to amatonormativity and other shapes of cissexism.

Length: 4, 914 words (part one of two).

Note: You'll need to have read The Vampire Conundrum for many references to make sense.

Rowan should be assumed an Australian character in an Australian city. Our Christmas, therefore, involves hot weather, short sleeves, barbecues and confusion at certain holiday traditions common in the Northern Hemisphere.

They’re aromantic. How isn’t he obligated to help decorate her desk in as many pride-related ways as possible?

“It’s Secret Santa slash December Holiday Gift Exchange!” Damien emerges from the meeting room, shaking a paper-scrap-filled jar with the gleeful attitude of a toddler attacking a pile of presents. In order to give the occasion suitable gravitas, he draped a rope of red tinsel over his shoulders, the fronds glittering in the flicker-prone lighting. “Come gather!”

Rowan looks up from his computer, biting back a groan. This isn’t a surprise, given that Shelby answered his interview questions about “workplace culture” with descriptions of their celebrating capitalist-infused Christian holidays, and the office more than lives up to that promise. A tree sits on the front counter, its branches crammed with baubles. Tinsel hangs on everything from which tinsel can be hung and rests in snake-like coils over the computer towers, screens, desk partitions and the large corkboard. Ribbon-wrapped pencils topped with felt trees, stars and stockings flowered, overnight, from everyone’s pen mugs; Melanie gave Rowan three of them for his frayro mug. Every desk features a red bowl of tree-shaped marshmallows, candy canes or that weird Christmas lolly mix common in dollar shops.

Only the lack of music renders bearable this explosion of festivity. Damien said he drew that line last year after Melanie and Shelby alternated between Michael Bublé and Josh Groban’s Christmas CDs.

Rowan doesn’t want to think about that sublime horror.

Christmas to him means slipping a few TSO tracks into his melodic metal playlists and gritting his teeth until the new year.

“O come all ye faithful,” Melanie sings, spinning her chair around. Every day this week she’s donned a different Christmas-themed T-shirt; today’s features a screen-printed Rudolph head with an apple-sized nose made from red minky fleece. Rowan doesn’t understand the American “ugly Christmas jumper” thing—why?—but Melanie appears to be replicating the trend via short sleeves and jersey knits.

Damien jerks his elbow at the largest whiteboard, half filled with the Banned Holiday Decorations List—items including “music, carols, hymns and singing”, “all types of fake snow” and “Cadbury Crème Eggs”. “Didn’t we talk about carols?”

Rowan doesn’t want to be accused of being a dreadful, fun-loathing millennial about which too many articles have been written on dislike of office gift exchanges … but he doesn’t know how not to be one, either. Why do people like this? Buying presents for people who aren’t strangers but aren’t friends, hoping that his attempt isn’t too generic only to open something tailored to feminine cliché ... followed by the apologetic explanation or justification that Rowan isn’t easy to shop for.

Can’t he save himself fifteen bucks and skip the disaster?

He’s never understood how he presents a difficulty that isn’t cissexism and a lack of imagination: buy him good thread, expensive coffee, dress socks, a nice mug, food storage containers or fancy kitchenware. He’ll even take a cheap box of chocolates, since his housemates will eat anything should they believe it food. Just get him something that isn’t a floral-patterned bath set followed by the hand-wringing apology that the giver just doesn’t know what to get someone as confusing as Rowan!

Why don’t they ask him what he wants?

He’s over spending money and time on gift exchanges only to receive cissexism, dysphoria or stereotype wrapped in paper and tied with a bow.

Rowan draws a breath and slips his fingers under his thighs. He should have sent Damien an email when Melanie started decorating, but Rowan was thinking about pushing their print date back two weeks and not thinking about Mum’s out-of-nowhere request that Rowan attend the family Christmas. “Uh … Damien? Can I … quick word?”

Why did he get himself a new psychologist? One who says terrible words like assertiveness?

“Give us a minute.” Tinsel rustling, Damien crouches beside Rowan’s chair. “Will here do?”

If everyone overhears, Rowan can pretend he’s talking to one person while knowing they all benefit from his explanation. Besides, going into the meeting room makes this a thing. “Yeah. Um. I … I don’t usually get the right presents from people in gift exchanges. By which I mean ... presents that aren’t a reminder that they think me female, and if they give me enough nail polish and heart-shaped jewellery and glittery handbags, I’ll admit it. I don’t want that? Really don’t want that?”

Why do his parents want to play at being a happy family? Does Mum want to show off to Uncle Keith and his new wife? Have they forgotten how badly last Christmas went? Or is this just more cissexist assumption that Rowan will discard his masculinity when needed? If they behave as though Rowan should fit their expectations, will he—eventually—surrender to them?

I’m not being difficult because I want my masculinity and transness respected. I’m not...

Melanie leans over to poke Shelby’s shoulder, her bright red lips forming a ring.

Damien blinks, hesitating as if he doesn’t know how best to respond. “That ... sounds like my niece’s favourite birthday. Although she took the bag, put one of my sister’s dumbbells inside and swung it at the boy over the road who wouldn't stop calling her pretty. And then made an army of neighbourhood girls wielding heavy unicorn bags.” He shakes his head. “I mean that … you obviously aren’t a certain kind of eight-year-old or into glitter, so...”

If only Rowan had the nerve to do that to Aunt Laura! “I bet he never did that again.”

“No. I’ll make sure … that the person who has you gets you something appropriate.”

Inappropriately-feminine gifts aren’t his only difficulty. Rowan doesn’t how to voice something so complex (to cis, gender-conforming people) about gender and gift-giving without sounding like he’s complaining for the sake of complaining—the demanding, difficult trans man of his parents’ accusations. Most often he endures a cis female celebrity’s latest perfume, but well-intended “accepting” people give him an Old Spice gift set—acknowledging his masculinity at the cost of his personality. How do cis people not chafe at gift-giving traditions that assume people can be reduced down to one of two categories with narrow behaviours and interests ascribed to each?

It’s easier to draw the line at gifts that only avoid being the embodiment of the giver’s cissexism and donate everything else, as much as Rowan yearns for one year with a good present he doesn’t buy himself.

Will cis people ever understand that being trans means holding back on responding to cis nonsense?

“Thanks. Yeah, thanks.”

“Secret Santa slash December Holiday Gift Exchange rules!” Damien straightens, shaking the jar; paper rattles against glass. “Twenty-dollar limit, keep it fun, don’t give anything inappropriate for a professional environment. I want to be eating mince pies, not taking people into the meeting room for discussions on adulthood. We exchange on the last day, December 20.” He reaches into the jar, the neck a tight fit for his hands, and tweezers out a folded piece of paper before handing it to Rowan.

Damien shakes the jar again before offering another slip to Melanie and then Shelby.

Don’t people draw names themselves from the bowl or jar? Nobody else seems concerned by this lapse—Melanie starts laughing when she sees her name—so Rowan shrugs and opens his, deciding it must be normal enough.

The Aro Gods must be inclined to a little seasonal kindness, for he sees “Melanie” written in Damien’s handwriting.

No need to struggle through generic alternatives like food or wine; pride pins will make her happy enough. A pen? A mini aro flag? Choosing may be Rowan’s worst problem, but he can get her a few things and give her whatever’s over the limit after the exchange.

They’re aromantic. How isn’t he obligated to help decorate her desk in as many pride-related ways as possible?

“Rowan!” Melanie bustles over; he quickly slides his paper up his sleeve. She makes metallic jangling noises—words like “ringing” or “pealing” don’t apply—as she moves, thanks to a gold chain bracelet decorated with small bells at each link. Matching earrings dangle from her ears, clinking out of tune with the ones at her wrist. “Can I ask you something?”

He nods, hoping she’ll let pass unremarked his description of holiday cissexism.

“Where did you buy your flag patches? I want one. Well, maybe more than one, because there’s the aro flag, and the ace flag, and maybe one of the aro-ace flags, but I haven’t decided which one I like best since there’s several that are nice, and...”

Once-in-a-lifetime inspiration hits Rowan with finger-twitching force. “I don’t know,” he lies once Melanie runs out of steam. “Uh … a friend gave them to me and ... I don’t know where they bought them. Online, probably?” He swallows and tries for distraction, gambling his poor ability for falsehood against Melanie’s likely ignorance. “Maybe look on Etsy? I’d look on Etsy.”

“Etsy? What’s that?”

“Handcraft eBay,” he says in relief, thinking through his thread stash. “Where people sell handmade things. I don’t know when I’m seeing my friend next, but I can ask...?”

He’ll need purples, greens, greys, black, white—oh, and blues! A little orange, a little yellow. Has he enough fabric? What about time? Should he do the main ones first and then others as he can squeeze them in?

On the way home tonight, he’ll start by stopping at his local sewing store.

***

Rowan hits “send” on an email to Damien, ignoring Mum’s latest text, as Shelby bounds up to his desk. Like Melanie, she’s added Christmas T-shirts to her daily ensemble; unlike Melanie, Shelby’s T-shirts appear to come from a department store’s children’s section. Today’s shirt shows a cute-but-scientifically-inaccurate dinosaur in a Santa hat holding a red box. Also unlike Melanie, Shelby hasn’t added earrings, pins, necklaces, bangles or socks in honour of the season. “Yeah?”

Damien added “battery and USB-powered light-up objects” to the List after an office vote provoked by a flashing necklace that resembled miniature string lights.

Shelby whispers, meaning that she speaks in a raspier tone with volume enough that her standing on the other side of a crowded football oval needn’t impede one’s hearing. In fairness, Rowan has heard her speak over a hundred gossiping Year 7 students until they surrendered to the stubbornness of an older woman who doesn’t go to bed caring what they think of her. “Can you go through all the … the identities? Can you show them to me and tell me what colours go with them? Do they all have their own colours?”

Rowan can only sit and gape.

“Please? I need someone to go through them all.”

He lunges for his half-filled mug, hoping his perpetual need for coffee conceals his surprise. “You mean pride flags? Queer pride flags?”

“Please.” Shelby nods, grips his arm and gives a meant-as-comforting nutcracker-like squeeze before lowering her hand to fidget with her phone—a device likely dug up with the fossils from the dinosaur on her shirt. It doesn’t have a cover; he guesses she covered the back with multiple layers of washi tape coated in (yellowing) clear nail polish. He doesn’t ask why. “Maybe you can start with the ones you use, and that one Melanie has, and then tell me the other ones? There aren’t that many, are there?”

Rowan, lukewarm coffee in his mouth and heading down his gullet, chokes.

Several moments of spluttering and coughing, aided by Shelby’s enthusiastic back-pounding, pass before he can answer. “Uh … there’s lots, actually. Lots.” He considers explaining about Tumblr before deciding on the appropriate answer: a thousand kinds of nope. “Do you want gender ones, or sexuality ones, or aromantic ones, or...?”

Shelby’s blank, brow-creased expression shows that, if she read Rowan’s leaflet, his emails and the hand-outs provided by Damien’s trainers, the knowledge hasn’t stuck with her.

(They weren’t better than Rowan’s own and only mentioned aromanticism as a way of being asexual.)

“The ones you and Melanie use...?” She lowers her voice to a point where someone may, in theory, be unable to hear her from the other side of the room. “I want to get Melanie a little extra … something, this year. With a flag, maybe?” She jerks her elbow in the direction of Melanie’s mug, currently filled with something smelling of camomile and dish-water. “But I should know more about the other ones, too. Like yours. Can you show them all to me?”

There’s no way in this tinselled hell that Melanie can’t hear Shelby, yet Melanie appears engrossed in deleting emails.

Last week, Rowan said “aromantic” once to their newest volunteer in a conversation about the pride flags on their website. Seconds later, Melanie materialised from the hallway, passed over one of Rowan’s leaflets and introduced herself as aro-ace before giving a five-point rundown on ways to avoid casual amatonormativity—not that she’s yet comfortable saying the word—in the workplace. There’s no way she’s contemplating the mysteries of her trash folder while Rowan talks to Shelby about aromantic pride flags! Breathing “aro” aloud is now akin to summoning a demon—one revelling in the discovery of the identity that makes belated sense of her life.

“You want me to show you aromantic flags?” Rowan asks to clarify, baffled.

Shelby beams at him. “Yes, please.”

Melanie, frowning, deletes an email.

Did Damien have a word with her? Did the volunteer complain?

Rowan can’t say that he wants to play tour guide through the world of queer vexillology, but Shelby has gone five weeks without saying the phrase “you trans people” and two months without reassuring Rowan on the subject of pronoun-correction. He also knows Melanie and Shelby are friends outside of work, bonding over stage shows and music. If Shelby wants to support Melanie in her aromanticism, how can Rowan refuse?

While Rowan sat there planning the politest way to navigate the glaring error in the trainers’ leaflets, Melanie stood up, exclaimed that aromanticism isn’t the same thing as asexuality and demanded that they do some reading before engaging in “obvious aro denial”. He owes her. She scares him a little, but he owes her.

(Should Rowan master the ability to handle conversations and presentations, he may consider becoming a sensitivity trainer. That two-day workshop, while decent enough on gender and sexuality, left him again concluding that most queer alloros have no idea how to reference and include aromanticism in their conversations about queerness.)

Another Mum-authored text flashes up on his phone, displaying the words “Christmas”, “clothing” and “appropriately”.

No, no and hell no.

“Yeah, okay.” He bends down to grab his satchel, tucked against the left-hand side of his desk. A decent collection of patches and badges now covers the front flap, including his cursed-but-memorable “aro” patch. “That’s the trans pride flag, with the blue, pink and white, and beside it is the bisexual flag. The flag with the greens and black is the aromantic flag, and the allo-aro flag has the greens and gold. It’s pretty much the same as the aro flag, except with yellow and gold instead of grey and black.” He points at each patch as he moves through his explanation. “Allo—allosexual—aromantics are aros who experience sexual attraction.”

He’ll stick to simple definitions with Shelby, even if they lack ideal expansiveness.

Shelby nods, smiling.

“For me, it means I’m aromantic and bisexual. Aro-aces, like Melanie, are aromantic and asexual, meaning she doesn’t experience sexual attraction.” He almost asks her if she remembers what “aromanticism” means before realising that he’ll sound like a condescending primary-school teacher. “This flag with the blues, white and grey is the frayromantic flag, which designates the specific way I’m aro. The flag on Melanie’s mug—”

Shelby leans against his desk, her grey braid trailing over one arm. “So you have an aromantic flag and an allosexual aromantic flag? A special aromantic flag?”

Are they heading towards the sort of conversation that involves anger over “making up” identities outside the speaker’s reckoning of acceptable? Or does she mean “distinct”? “Ah … kind of? The green and black flag represents all aros—Melanie and me. The green and gold one’s just for me, and I don’t use her blue and orange one.”

For the first time in living memory, Melanie pays Rowan and Shelby no attention.

“I see! You want to reflect different types of aro.” Shelby almost says the word without unusual stress; Rowan considers applauding her but decides he won’t risk undermining his point on avoiding excessive overreaction to queer terminology. “Do you ever put the flags together? Like if you want to be both things at once?”

When isn’t he the state of multiple identities at once? Rowan decides she means “represent” instead of “be” and nods. “Yeah? Some people put a heart with the stripes of the aro flag in the middle of the trans or bi flags, but I don’t like that because using a heart to represent us all is a bit … eh. You know, heart, love, love hearts? Lots of people don’t care, though. I’ve also seen folks split them in an image, or have the stripes fade into each other. Like trans stripes fading into aro stripes.”

“And you like that better?” Shelby blinks, her blunt nails tracing the edge of the case. “Would Melanie like that? The aromantic flag fading into another one?”

There’s no way Melanie didn’t hear that—and no reason for her to say silent! Last month she told Rowan and Shelby to get mint chocolate cake for her birthday after walking in on them debating sponge versus cheesecake in the meeting room!

(Sponge, in Rowan’s opinion, is the classic cake format.)

“Yeah. It shows my identities together without using symbolism I find awkward.” Rowan lowers his voice, leaning closer to Shelby. “Melanie will probably go for the aromantic flag fading into or combined with the asexual flag, if you’re doing something with two flags. I don’t think she’d be into hearts, but a split image or fading? That’d work.”

Shelby straightens, beaming, and gives Rowan another firm arm-squeeze. “That’s great! Thank you so much for helping, Rowan!”

“Don’t you want to know more about aro-ace flags...?”

“No, that’s great!” Shelby, heading towards her own desk, no longer attempts to speak at anything not normal volume. “Aromantic into asexual! I’ll remember that!”

As Shelby turns, he catches a glimpse of the cracked screen on her phone—or, more specifically, the movement of her hand as she presses stop on her recording app.

Is that legal? It surely isn’t normal? Or is she an auditory learner, meaning she’ll learn best by playing the recording over … but in that case, why not say so? He could have directed her to YouTube videos and podcasts! Perhaps, though, she only shows her ignorance in digital etiquette, in the same way Rowan took Melanie aside to explain that the use of caps lock for the body of a promotional email violates good manners as much as—more than!—she thinks signing a form in red ballpoint? Should he complain about something suggestive of her willingness to understand him?

Rowan stares, shrugs and shakes his head as a third text pops up.

Sometimes it’s easier to just not ask.

Too bad that can’t apply as easily to family.

***

Rowan stands, yawns and stretches. His lunch half-hour beckons: sunshine spent with food, cross-stitch and a flock of pigeons tame enough to perch on the far end of his bench. Since today involved apologetic emails followed by a contrite phone call to his goddess amongst printers, time free of people feels like looming perfection. Just him, the pigeons, a sewing needle and the homemade pasty he hid from Matt inside a bag of frozen peas.

Any day in which he gets to enjoy his own cooking can’t be too terrible.

Perhaps he should do as his psychologist says: put a chest freezer in his bedroom and a lock on his door.

“Rowan!” Damien, his hair tousled enough to make Rowan think of a woolly mammoth in a sharp suit, carries a plate of something smelling like honey and chicken into the office. “While Melanie’s out, can you show me your mug shop? You said there’s a lot of aro-ace flags, right? Or would she want one like yours, the green one? I don’t get her something like your blue and green shield one, though?” He shrugs and sets the plate down on Rowan’s desk. “My wife’s friends with her sister and we got invited out, but there’s another swap. I don’t want to get her the wrong thing. Do you mind?”

At least Damien does the sensible thing of asking while Melanie’s out on lunch. Maybe this won’t take too long: Damien’s a terrible photographer with unreasonable expectations of Photoshop, but he does know how to buy things online.

“Yeah. Hold on.” Rowan opens up his browser just as his phone beeps. Nope, ignoring that. “I’ll show you what mugs I think she’d want.”

He hadn’t realised how many people here are friends with Melanie outside of work. It must be nice to have a regular social life that isn’t “being at work” and “sighing at housemates”, but there’s advantages in possessing the short holiday shopping list of family, a work gift exchange and a couple of friends. Besides, does anyone want one’s co-workers to know what happens at an outside party?

“Don’t ignore your phone because of me.”

“It’s Dad.” Since Rowan can’t find a pithy or amusing way to explain that Dad’s text message will be a guilt-trip ordering Rowan to come to Christmas for the sake of the family’s happiness followed by a second guilt-trip explaining how much his refusal to confirm has upset Mum, he just shakes his head.

You talked about this with the psychologist. Guilt. Trip.

He made an appointment for the second week of January; he should have made one in December as well.

“That bad?”

He can’t remember the specifics of his rant that day atop the desk, but he must have suggested at an interesting relationship with his parents. “Yeah.”

Did they forget telling Rowan that if he doesn’t like how they treat him, he can leave? They told Rowan that he isn’t welcome while he remains intolerant of them—while I expect them to treat me as I deserve. He left. Now they want him back to smile for the family photos?

What’s worse? Enduring a day of misgendering, deadnaming and cissexism, which shouldn’t result in unknown voyages of horror if he bites his tongue? Or avoiding short-term discomfort while gaining the long-term torment of the family’s schooling Rowan in appropriate Ross respect for blood and holidays? What chance is there of avoiding harassment if he doesn’t go?

Maybe he can leave off shaving for a week before Christmas and turn up with his new, albeit patchy, facial hair while wearing an op-shop debutante gown, so he “dresses appropriately” and “doesn’t confuse the relatives” as requested.

How many truckloads of Valium will he need for that?

“Rowan? Are you okay?” Damien, now sitting on an office chair, peers at him as though waiting for Rowan to do anything more than stare at the computer screen.

“Ugh. Sorry. Just thinking.” Rowan sighs and types in the shop’s name, bringing up their website, and then opens a second tab to another archiving different pride flags.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Damien asks in that gruffly-gentle voice, one that makes Rowan want to smash his fist through a window.

“Yeah, no.” Rowan draws a breath and points at the screen with a hand a too trembly for his liking. “So you’re going to want to know what flags represent what, because there’s a drop-down menu where you can choose from different flags...”

It’s easier to talk, easier to run through all the different flags in a depth of explanation Damien doesn’t request, easier to think about something that isn’t family—a subject with complexity enough to distract but without provocation enough to distress.

He doesn’t know if Damien asks questions from curiosity or kindness, but Rowan’s pasty becomes pastry crumbs scattered over his desk and keyboard; Damien’s chicken, half-eaten, sits cooling on its plate.

“So cupioromantic is the one where you want the relationship but you don’t feel romance?” Damien frowns and runs both oversized hands through his hair, now resembling a befuddled bear emerging after a long hibernation. “Why have a word for that? I mean, everyone feels like it isn’t one of those movies and dates anyway, so why specify that?”

“Where you don’t feel romantic attraction but desire a romantic relationship,” Rowan says, telling himself that Damien unknowingly regurgitates the tired “demiromanticism is normal” argument. Isn’t this better than looking at the fifth text message? “Some people need it to be a word. Movies aren’t that divorced from reality. They’re … too easy, too glossy, too perfect, too unrealistic, but...”

He sighs. Not dating brings many benefits, but Rowan has to admit that he misses the fun of falling in love, even if trouble always follows. Misses the fun of dreaming, hoping and fantasising; misses the bright, happy glow of being caught up in someone else. At risk of being considered a bad aro, he likes that glorious limerence pushing him to navigate people despite his gibbering anxiety! In some ways, knowing he’s capable of falling in love over and over feels heady and powerful; amatonormativity more than the nature of Rowan’s frayromanticism bestows difficulty on its aftermath.

I want to fall in love with you ... and after getting to know you, do it again with someone else, all the best bits of romance’s beginning on eternal repeat.

Instead, he avoids dating and the inevitable development of his partner’s hurt, surrendering to a world where his shape of attraction isn’t acceptable or reasonable. Albeit with a trace of bitterness that frayromanticism will be easier to navigate should Rowan not be an anxiety-plagued, bisexual trans man!

Of course, discarding romance makes pursuing his shape of sexual attraction unacceptable and unreasonable...

“How are they real? Nobody just sees someone and falls in love like that—”

“Dude, dude, I’ve fallen in love like that.” Rowan shakes his head and launches into the speech that’s the spiritual duty of any card-carrying aromantic: “Do you fall in love after you get to know someone? After they love you back? Do you know what ‘fall in love’ means to you? Because it’s easy to name all sorts of feelings ‘love’ and think they’re romantic when the world says you have to be alloromantic. It’s even easier to not be romantically attracted and not know! Have you thought about it?”

Damien, his eyes so wide that he reminds Rowan of a zebrafish with a brown wig, shakes his head.

“I swear, alloros like romance movies because while they’re a … a simplified, idealistic version of romance, they’re close enough to what people feel—or think they’re supposed to feel—that they … ring, resonate. They wouldn’t do that if it were complete invention. Just like science fiction isn’t real but talks enough about human experiences to have meaning to human audiences. Unreal, in so many ways, but just real enough. So—”

Damien holds up both hands, palms facing Rowan. “Stop. Stop.”

Now the anxious part of Rowan’s brain realises he’s lecturing at his supervisor in a way no need to avoid thinking of his family justifies; he gulps, fingers trembling. While the office code of conduct doesn’t specify things like unwanted speeches questioning another person’s belief in their romantic attraction, he doubts this acceptable behaviour. “I … shit. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I just...”

Will he ever stop causing a mess at work?

“You’re talking so fast,” Damien says, slow and careful in the way of a man talking to a panicked horse, “that I can’t keep up.” He sighs and runs one hand through his hair. “This isn’t something I thought we’d be talking about! I just wanted to check that everything was right...” He shakes his head, but he doesn’t sound annoyed or outraged. Just bewildered. “Okay. Right. What about all those sorts of things that we think are love? What do you mean by that?”

At some point during the resulting afternoon, Rowan sends an email thanking his printer for her willingness to amend the job queue, ignores his brother’s entry in the competition to provoke the most seasonally-appropriate guilt, and scribbles a note to ask the higher-ups if they’ll spring for a basket of expensive coffee and chocolates sent to said printer.

Damien nods several times, takes dot points on a flyer print-out and the back of the report draft for last week’s holiday event, asks more questions and promises that he’ll remind the higher-ups of their involvement in submitting January’s flyers two weeks late. After eating the rest of his re-heated honey chicken at Rowan’s desk and narrating the story of how his future wife followed him from pub to pub during a crawl for his brother’s buck’s night, Damien concludes that he only experiences attraction for someone after they express attraction for him.

Melanie, having rested her arms on the back of Damien’s chair to overhear the last half of the conversation, gives him a smothering hug and welcomes him to “the quiver” before cackling at Damien’s blank look.

Find a recipro mug, Rowan later scribbles on the bottom of his to-do-list.

At least that job doesn’t involve relatives.

51 notes · View notes

famous-aces · 5 years

Text

Alfredo Guttero

Who: Alfredo Guttero

What: Artist and Art Promoter

Where: Argentinian (active in Argentina and throughout Western Europe)

When: May 26, 1882 - December 1, 1932

(Image Description: Retrato del pintor, Victorica, 1929 [a self portrait]. It shows Guttero in his apartment. Outside is a very geometric skyline of smokestacks, steep roofs, and a brown sky. His room is slate colored and he sits in a chair in the foreground. He has a jacket thrown over the back of his chair. His pose is casual and he looks as if we [the viewer] have just distracted him from painting. He sits with his legs to one side, turned almost unnaturally toward the viewer. One leg is lifted slightly and one hand is on the chair's seat as if he is in the middle of turning completely to the viewer. He is a man with a receding hairline and a high forehead. He has a dark mustache and dark hair and low eyebrows. He is wearing a white shirt and bowtie and has his sleeves rolled up to the elbow and his collar is ruffled and loosened. The whole thing hangs very loose but you can still see some of his body's lines of musculature. His tie undone and hanging around his neck. His pants are ordinary and green/brown. His expression is calm but confident and he looks directly at the viewer. The colors are bold but not really bright. The style blends geometry and flatness and realism in a way I am explaining very poorly. End ID)

Guttero is not terribly well remembered today, which is too bad. Looking through his oeuvre I quite like his work. Maybe it is because he lacked the bombastic personality of many modernist artists, maybe it is due to his diversity of styles without one that seems to define his work, or maybe it is because he was one of so many talented artists of his generation. He was well renown in his era, however, and used his popularity and skill to foster the next generation of Argentinian artists.

Guttero's life began mundanely enough. He always loved art, appreciating it and creating it, but pursued a legal career instead. But he was unhappy with his life as a lawyer, so Guttero left it to become a painter. He pursued his dream and passion, inspired and pushed by other Argentine artists. In 1904 his reputation was good enough that the Argentinian government sponsored his move to Paris, then the epicenter of the truly exciting and revolutionary art world, its influence expanding outward. He studied there for a few years under Maurice Denis before appearing in the Salon.

He remained in Paris until 1916 when he began to travel extensively across Western Europe for more than a decade, first to Spain, then Germany, Austria, and beyond. He traveled to nearly every country in the area between the years of 1916 and 1927. His work was shown in various exhibitions around the continent from being featured in the Salon in Paris to a major solo exhibition in Genoa.

After that he returned to Argentina for the first time since his initial departure in 1904. Guttero remained active in his native country including creating free art classes called, aptly enough, Cursos Libres de Arte Plástico, with other Argentine artists. During this time he focused on his work as an art promotor, perhaps even more than his own art. During this time he introduced and showed new Argentinian artists to a wider audience. Indeed he created an organization for this purpose: the Hall of Modern Painters. He was dedicated to promoting and preserving modern art in the face of a world growing increasingly dark and reactionary. He died young and without much warning.

His art is undeniably modernist but trickier to pin to a specific movement. He has many different styles he utilizes with different degrees of naturalism and curves vs geometry. His scenes are by and large mundane and human, he uses bright colors, often huge central subjects, kinetic poses and positions, modern settings, and by and large human or urban subjects. He often painted on plaster using a "cooked plaster" technique of his own devising.

(Image Description: Martigues for Charles Jacques [1909], a brightly colored painting showing a scene in a Martigues canal. It is not completely realistic nor completely geometric and abstract. He favors color over outlines. In the background is a bright blue sky interrupted by yellow buildings with tile roofs, maybe houses, lit by the unseen sun. One of the building's lower doors is open. There is a small tree to the far right. In the foreground in the sparkling water of the canal are several small work boats, probably fishing boats judging by the silvery nets lying over the hulls. On the right a boat is coming in, there is a pale skinned, dark haired man working on one of the nets. His sail is red and white. On the left is a pale man in an orange hat and yellow shirt. He is stooped and just by his pose appears older, both of the men are too far away for many identifying details. End ID)

Possible Orientation: Mspec ace, gay ace, or aroace with an aesthetic attraction to multiple genders. (I am so unsure I have changed "probable" to "possible.")

I admit this one is a stretch on my part.

I am classifying Guttero based largely on absence, i.e. the absence of a remembered/recorded spouse, sexual/romantic partner, or liasian. I have no quotes or historical documents to prove my point. I have none of his personal philosophy or writings to draw from. Just the fact that he dedicated his life to art more than human relationshipa. That this is something I have seen before: Cause and its role in the life of many aros/aces/aroaces (outlined in Weil's entry the other day) and the fact that he had no recorded romantic/sexual partners that I can find in hours of research.

This illustrates why it is so, so difficult to find aspecs in history. We are not, as aphobes believe, impossible to locate, there is externally visible evidence, but it is less obvious than most other orientations. And cishets would rather we didn't exist so we are often buried under excuses. The easiest ways to find them are 1) if they were notably "married to their job" in their lifetimes (e.g. Jeanette Rankin and Carter Woodson), they talked/wrote about it in some capacity (e.g. T.E. Lawrence or Frédéric Chopin), they were distrusted because of it (John Ruskin and James Barrie), they made it part of their persona (Nikola Tesla and Florence Nightingale), aside from that I really need to search deep into their personal lives. Information not always available.

And often even when people essentially say "I am aromantic and/or asexual" the general population will not accept that. After all Newton is often remembered as allo and gay, despite never expressing interest in men. Chopin is often listed as allo and bi. Rankin is often considered cishet but too deeply concerned with her work. Barrie gets called a pedophile despite showing no interest in children. For eccentric aspecs like Weil/Tesla/etc. their being aspec becomes part of their oddness. If they weren't Like That they would be allo. Their being aspec becomes a symptom of their weirdness and would be unacceptable in a "normal" person.

History with a capital H does not want to acknowledge aspecs and, as with other queer identities, will go to insane measures to erase them. But even other queer historians will do this to aspecs. I am shocked how many people do exactly to Newton/Lewis/and the like what cishet historians do to Alexander the Great. In the case of Alexander the cishets ignore the obvious accounts that he loved Hephestian in nearly every way possible and queer historians and history buffs call them out, then often the non-aspec ones look at Newton and Lewis who had no interest in men and say they must have been gay. And it isn't really just history, Tim Gunn is by his own admission both gay and ace and the second part of that statement is either erased or, even crazier, I have seen aphobes say that he is mistaken about his own identity.

Anyway the root cause of this lack of nuance in the discussion of sexual orientation is a long sidebar that this is not the place to explore. I have left Guttero behind paragraphs ago. I have written a lot about how aces and aros end up getting erased from history and this isn't about that.

This is about Guttero and the difficulty of finding aros and aces. The presence of something is so much easier to find than the alternative, obviously, like if Historical Figure X exclusively slept with/courted men and was a man we can say he was (most likely) gay. But if Historical Figure Y didn't sleep with anyone/court anyone it is harder to prove. This is obviously severely simplifying identity but for the purposes of this example I beg your apology.

Long Story Short: the absence of evidence of something is not proof of the absence of something. A lot of aphobes will point this out and utterly ignore the fact that sometimes it is.

So, Guttero. The only thing I can say conclusively is that he never married and he was romantically or sexually tied to anyone as far as I can find. He was, in his time, very active in the art world. If he had been involved someone would probably have taken note. Especially considering his art is often very appreciative of the human form, especially the male one, it would not be hard to believe he was allo and gay or mspec.

I am going to take his art another way putting some dusty analysis/critique/art history skills to good use. Here's the thing, those who follow me on my personal blog or even here know I find the Death of the Author extremely important but it is also extremely complicated (it was actually the topic of my senior thesis). I don't want to use an artist's work to talk about their personal lives because art is often not reflective of life, but there is always some cross contamination in one way or another. I am going to explain what I mean on a superficial level, using myself as an example so I can say this is 100% accurate. I love the found family trope, and I think those relationships are the best in the world. So whenever I write something you can be damned sure if I can get some found family goodness in there I will. What I am saying is, I don't love or even approve of everything I write about, but I do write about some things because I love them and want to explore them and experience them on some level. The same may be true for Guttero and the subjects he painted.

Guttero often pays a lot of attention to human form. Look at his work The Market (I couldn't find a large enough image to put it in this post) and you will see his appreciation for amab musculature and on the other side of the male spectrum...

(image description: Retrato de Lucien Cavarry [1911] It shows a thin, lanky, and well dressed young man reclining on a green floral patterned couch and a black pillow. He is pale with neat, dark hair. He has a shadow of 5 o'clock shadow on his super hero jaw. His suit is white, his slightly rumpled tie is black, as are his socks and polished shoes. One arm is across the back of the couch and a red and gold pillow the other is dangling. This style is very different from the other portraits I showed/referenced. Still a modern but more realistic style, more flowing, less geometric. The man is drop dead gorgeous by Western beauty standards. End ID)

As for women...he seems to find them colder, more distant, but there is still a physical appreciation there. (Linking Mujeres Indolentes so I don't get flagged for "female presenting nipples" or whatever Tumblr's BS is. [The name alone tells you a lot]). Or the somewhat judgemental gaze of the woman below:

(Image Description: Georgelina. It shows a portrait of a pretty young woman sitting in front of a field. She is pale and long and beautiful. She has red hair, sharp eyes, a long flowing white dress with a gold sash around her waist, and a white hat with a black bow that is blowing in the wind. She takes up most of the frame and her expression is challenging and she holds eye contact with the viewer. The colors are bright and she is almost porciline in color. The background is mostly flat planes of color. In style it is somewhere between the self portrait and the portrait of Cavarry. End ID.)

Not all of his portraits of women have them so sour/distant but they all have a sort of challenging look. Beauty tinged with something dangerous, while the men always seem more innocent.

So here is why I say aspec rather than allo using his work alone, none of his work is particularly sexually inviting even with the sexiness/physical European attractiveness. The men are bashful or unaware of the viewer, the women are certainly not interested.

And back to the self portrait at the top: Guttero is in a fairly sexy pose, but it is sexy without being sexual. He is rumpled but the thing he was doing was painting, there is a sexless explanation. He is looking at the viewer, but you are distracting him from working. At first glance I thought his legs were spread, but they are simply in motion so he can face his guest more comfortably. This all could mean nothing, but I found it striking that this is how he chose to depict himself, at first he appears to be inviting the viewer in for a more physical interaction, but then it seems he is doing exactly the opposite, his passionate energy has been instead put into painting.

And in reality toward the end of his life that was what he did. He dedicated himself to his own art and the art of others.

So again, this could mean nothing. But...it could mean he is aspec.

And that is how the person I am least sure about got the longest entry.

(image description: Elevadores [1928]. A painting showing a factory complex. There is a raised platform running around it and several buildings in bright colors. There is a tree to the right side and a green hill. The building in the near-center [lightly left] is red. The sky is yellow and blue, perhaps the unseen sun is rising up behind the right-hand buildings. In style it is mostly geometric and flat color. End ID.)

#queer #lgbtq #asexual #ace #history #aromantic #aro #gay #mspec #20th century #artists #south america #Argentina #Argentinian #Alfredo Guttero

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cantskank · 4 years

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fuck this is long...tldr i’ve been lame but getting better

the last post is brought to you by me getting into the magnus archives for some positive ace rep

then having the absolute and overwhelming focus of the fandom be focused on that character’s romantic relationship

then the people who ignore or gloss over the fact that jon is ace or make him have sex anyway to make martin happy???? which just like fucks me up a bit

(esp bc exact quote, “jon...doesn’t” really disputes the idea that he would have sex with martin)

(also much more minor but it bugs me to see people in the fandom refer to jon and martin together as gay. jon is biro ace, i think gay is not particularly accurate. and gayness is excellent! don’t get me wrong. but that’s just not accurate to what jon is. and it would not at all bother me if there were equal amounts of “aww look at them they’re so asexual together!” and that description probably feels weird and wrong. but it’s just as correct as saying “they’re so gay and cute!” or whatever i keep seeing people say about it! it is just as accurate to call their relationship ace as it is to call it gay! and not wanting to acknowledge or even consider that is really telling in what it reveals about how non-aces feel about asexuality. it just builds to a picture of ‘we want our own representation and we will discard or ignore the ‘uglier’ bits of one of the ship character’s identity because asexuality is foreign to me/irrelevant/unnatural/weird/something i don’t fully understand and am afraid to/uninteresting.’ and i very much want to sympathize with the former (again, the whole reason i got into the magnus archives) and very much want to kill the latter with fire. this is also relevant to me in that about a year ago, i started thinking a lot about how as an aro ace, being told i had straight passing privilege, and the fact that i am not out (but would not lie and call myself straight) and just generally allow people to assume whatever they want about me when it comes to my orientation, whether that’s gay, straight, bi, ace, whatever, (and also having had mostly straight friends for the couple of years before that when it had very much been the opposite prior to that (and that does make a difference, to me at least),) had resulted in me very much creating this narrative of being ‘effectively straight.’ not at all in the sense that ‘yes i’m basically straight and i feel mostly straight’ but in that i felt like ace-ness and aro-ness, if i wasn’t going to be out about it (which i’m not but which i may end up changing down the line), was not something i was allowed to consider as separate and distinct and special and important about myself? because society would not like to think about aros/aces. what society wants is to send the message that “not having sex is not important. not having sex is not normal and makes you a loser. not feeling romantic attraction is shameful and unnatural. not feeling romantic attraction is something that makes you a monster. do not talk about your disinterest in these things, it is at once completely unimportant/irrelevant and for our comfort and to allow you to conform socially you should not talk about it AND it is disgusting and freakish and makes you broken.” so. it is somehow unimportant AND deeply disturbing at the same time. anyway, for me this resulted in feeling that my aro ace-ness was unremarkable and i should not consider it something exceptional about me, and i should just settle into viewing myself as close to the default. and maybe you would think i am part of the default, as a first impression, and that’s fine. but i realized i didn’t want to think of myself that way. even if people will insist it is this way, asexual =/= straight. i get to, and i want to, think of asexuality as its own distinct thing, and it does not have to fit into the paradigm of gay vs straight because it cannot fit into that paradigm. i had refused to give myself the space to think of it as special because no one was telling me it was special. and not being out definitely had a huge effect on this. but it is just factually untrue to view myself as unremarkable for being asexual and as ‘effectively straight’ because it’s wrong! it’s just wrong! and if i am firmly of the belief that i am not straight, i must be equally firmly of the belief that i am not gay. there is no judgment involved in either of those statements, but i must respect myself and my identity enough to firmly believe it is its own identity, and worthy of being considered that way, and not merely framed in which ways it relates the false dichotomy of gay and straight. meaning, i cannot frame my asexuality as “not quite gay but not quite straight” but as its own entity: i have my own distinct orientation and it is aromantic asexual and i do not experience attraction. full-stop.” which may seem basic (and may seem like a very minute difference) but it was an important step for me in my identity. i don’t think i’m quite explaining it right. i will say: whether they realize it consciously or not, i think a lot of people think of sexuality by how much you deviate from the norm. the norm is straight. the most extreme not-norm (by, again, the false dichotomy that has been set up) is gay. how different you are from the norm will probably determine how important your sexuality is to you because non-normative sexualities are oppressed and the fight to be allowed to feel you are worthy of respect means your sexuality feels and is highly personal. and, this would be a measure of how gay you are. before my perspective shift, i felt very little about my sexuality (other than mostly dread at dying alone. which i still feel!). therefore, i was not very different from the norm, and my sexuality was not worthy of consideration. it was not allowed to be very important to me, especially if i was not going to be very out. BUT! this is not a good perspective! again, false! dichotomy! there is no reason to view yourself on a sliding scale of gay and straight! i am Neither! and it is for this reason that i feel very strongly that gay is not the right way to describe jon! it can be, and if it feels right to him then that is a fine and excellent way to identify! but his identity is asexual and, by necessity, he is not gay. just as he is not straight. which is okay and allowed. and by many people choosing exclusively to refer to jon and martin as gay, while extremely understandable, feels like a failure to understand the above. allo identities do not hold precedence over aspec identities because aspec identities are worthy of their own consideration, not just as something “missing” and inherently lower priority to allo identities. and calling the relationship gay exclusively, feels like they kind of believe that. and any reluctance to call their relationship ace (which i think MOST people would find very strange and weird and uncomfortable) is a lack of education and understanding on what asexuality looks like, the kinds of relationships asexuals have. asexuals are not some remote, gross thing that cannot be understood and must be ignored, we are people and we are here. if you haven’t noticed, our entire online presence is BUILT around education and visibility. these are things you can find out and understand very quickly. and hopefully people will not view asexuality as something weird and shameful and something that should just be ignored. holy shit that was a long aside.)

and the post was precipitated by seeing fanart of a very romantically intimate moment and not being at all interested in that for myself. i really want to be close to someone (/some people which is too much to hope for) but just so emphatically not in that way. just...a lot of clarity in what i want? because i am sometimes so miserable for being aro specifically that i wonder if my identifying this way is wrong and unhealthy, whether it’s worse to consider myself aro and causing more problems than it’s solving. sometimes i wonder if i was too quick to dismiss romance and all my self-discovery and self-reliance has been for nothing? maybe being miserable about amatonormativity has just been because i’m alloro but just miserable and self-hating and trying to ruin the fun for everyone and the problem is not that romance has been artificially elevated but just that i have deep-seated issues with romance?

anyway it was more of a relief than anything to have my aro-ness confirmed by my gut reaction. um, i still think i need to let go of some of my bitterness about amatonormativity, only because it’s not serving me to be my happiest self (not because it’s not bullshit), but it’s not because i’m unconsciously not aro.

here’s what i think i want for myself:

like i said above, letting go of some of my anger at romance and at amatonormativity in general. there’s definitely a place for that in me, but people talking about romance should not make me miserable like it’s starting to do. in a lot of ways this comes from me being jealous and bitter about not having this supposedly wonderful, normal, natural experience, and not being confident in it being okay- great, even!- to be aro and not experience that. i want to become more neutral about romance, since it is equally okay to not experience that. my existence and validity is not threatened by other people having romantic relationships. it’s okay for that to be an important thing for them, and (/because) it’s equally okay for it NOT to be important to me.

sorta referenced in my point above, but i want to rely less on other people to make me valid. it doesn’t matter how anyone else feels, i am the way i am. i want to be much more confident in that for myself. i can’t progress and build a better relationship with myself if i don’t trust my own experience and emotions over what other people would tell me is true about myself (or how the rest of the world works).

i know this is kinda what got me feeling not great in the first place, but i want to find more ace/aro rep for myself. potentially this could make things worse (in the way i mentioned above; relying on that representation to really speak to my experience and finding that it does not, and that fandom in particular is very caught up the romance- and just generally allo- side of things). but i am hoping/relying on the possibility that increasing ace/aro rep will give me way more options and a higher chance that i will have my own experience reflected. i want to start listening to the penumbra podcast, since i’ve heard there are at least two aspec characters, one of whom is even aro ace! side note, thinking about it a bit: the first ace rep i had was a few months ago, when i watched bojack horseman and saw todd’s story. i think i was a bit spoiled in that rep. todd’s story was really focused on his own self-discovery. he was alloro and wanted a relationship, but in my mind he didn’t care so much about getting that. even when he was in a relationship, he still got to be cool and have his own adventures. having a romantic relationship was secondary to his story and, you got the sense, secondary to him as a person. and, his asexuality was very important to him once he realized he was ace. he was very open about it to people, not ashamed, and he did have a journey with his sexuality that the audience was brought along. that is everything i want in an ace character!!! then i got into the magnus archives, expecting to have a similar experience. instead, we find out jon is ace because we as the audience hear him being outed without his knowledge between his friends, based on information from his ex (again, presumably without his knowledge). and word of god says "although whether that’s how the archivist himself would actively identify, who knows?” also a very different take on ace rep than bojack horseman. and i love jon and martin as a couple, but i have just been really overwhelmed with how much of that is the focus of the fandom (plus my normal/main fandom is hockey and that can be VERY platonic. i can make it as platonic as it gets). those are two different ways of being asexual, and they are both valid! they probably each ring true for many. from my perspective i prefer the bojack approach because i feel more affirmed by todd’s rep than by jon’s, but that doesn’t make todd more accurate representation. i guess the moral of the story is, not all ace rep is the same, and don’t get invested in seeing yourself (or the kind of rep you want) in every ace story. and my solution is to broaden my ace rep rather than only have a few and ultimately not be happy with it. (also i want to be very clear that the importance of ace rep is something that is built up entirely in my mind. jonny said they always considered jon to be asexual from s1, way before he was revealed to be in the show. they were not going for ace rep, they just felt asexuality fit his character best. it is me (and others like me probably) who came to this story knowing this and placing expectations and stakes onto this character as The One Who Represents Us. i relate waaaay more to martin (as we all do i’m sure) but because my other options are so! very! limited! when it comes to asexuality i put all my emotions and expectations and self-worth on how this one character could represent my entire experience. which has nothing to do with the creators of the show, who are just telling the story they want to tell. so they can’t give “bad ace rep” because there are so many ace stories to tell and it’s not their fault or their problem that options are so limited that we end up building up any character that is ace into the one who represents all ace experiences. my fault, not theirs, is what i’m saying.)

probably obvious after my word-vomit but cut back on actively seeking out magnus archives fandom/content!!!! it does not make me feel better about myself. romantic relationships do NOT make you more worthy.

just generally being more positive and affirming about being aro ace (and being aro in particular!) it is excellent and there are so many good things about being this way! i would like to focus on those more for myself :)

holy shit i wrote a lot. i had a lot of feelings that i wanted to get out.

#i almost want to legit tag this #(with like aro/ace tags)#because i wrote a lot in here about being aspec that i'm really proud of and i think should get more consideration!#but this whole post is a mess and that's not why i wrote it #i did not write it to be consumed by other people :P #i think what i will probably do is take the parts that i think are good points and put them together into a post on my main blog.#also this was basically motivated by tma and idk how much i want to call that out.#like i'm not looking to start discourse in a fandom (which i most definitely will not do anyways)#but i think it's important if you're a fan of a certain piece of media that has certain identities represented #that you respect and have a lot of consideration for that? and that you don't generally choose to ignore our of disdain/ignorance for that #identity #idk apparently there are exclus who are fans of tma? and it's just like...how?#you know the main character who you presumably like is exactly the sort of person you would sneer at right?#even an exclu with the mildest feelings on asexuality (of the 'idc just you are only queer if you're otherwise lgbt also get out of my face'#variety) must feel some discomfort in their views given the fact that they appreciate jon as a person #how do you like and respect jon but still look down on aces????? i don't get it #and the people who ignore jon's ace identity give me similar vibes to that #like jon being ace is an unpleasant truth that they can just ignore their way out of #since deep down they don't respect us and don't find asexuality worthy of consideration #what they want out of this character is his ability to be in a gay relationship #which okay #i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about how feeling nothing when it comes to romance and sex makes me feel like a non-person a lot of th #e time #which makes me feel like just a tool to use a lot of the time #which i might write about later #'oh you need someone to comfort you? i've got no one else in my life and i crave human contact i will drop everything and comfort you'#'oh you need someone to run an errand for you? i am so desperate to keep people in my life because i know most people will not stay in it fo #r me that i will run the errand for you and tell you i don't mind and it's fine and i will really really try hard because i have not yet int #ernalized the fact that being useful to people will not make them want me around any more'#'oh someone might need to take care of mom and dad when they're older? i won't have a family so it will probably be me'

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id0l-atry · 5 years

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Thank a person for your awesome In-depth Guidebook, There are learnt some new SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Strategies, I will start along with improving my site's Dwell Period Beside Creating Visual Content, We SEO 2019 Slide will really appreciate In situation you could Write an In-depth Guide about Creating Embeddable Images”, I have to understand it better. The biggest trend for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in 2018 is evergreen, long-form blog content. Guest post- Guest post will be second smart and effective away page SEO technique after hyperlink building. So, the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION experts will try to web page link your app with many additional business apps so that the particular search engines can index plus rank the app. You must become witty enough to select greatest SEO Company that handles cultural media marketing technique very properly. The SEO trends with regard to 2018 and the years in order to come are not some separate concepts you need to deal with separately. SEO, within general, covers all types associated with businesses, blogs, and websites. I indicate, most websites outsource their SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION for an agency - it can just not cool ripping lower someone's online presence for activities they did not take. You can build links through Digital Marketing or content advertising blogs too, because these are usually (SEO, Digital Marketing or Content material marketing) closely related topics. A successful SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION campaign always begins with key word research. SEO strategies that as soon as were along with the sport may not apply to the particular current search engines like search engines. But, the most substantial SEO announcement might have already been Google's mobile update of Apr 2015 - this update triggered non-mobile-friendly websites to get reduce rankings. Amongst the traditional strategy and the particular backbone of SEO, Content, plus Links continue to be mainly because worthy as they were. Digital marketing trends have got become more affected by interpersonal media, so keep it within mind when planning your 2018 SEO. Since a internet search engine trainer, I always suggest people in order to see SEO as a marketing and advertising process in addition to the particular technical aspects. SORTS OF SEO There are two main sorts of search engine optimization, whitened hat search engine optimization (the ‘good' kind), and black head wear (the 'not so good' kind). With a shift to mobile-first indexing, the biggest SEO craze we'll see in 2018 could be the adoption of accelerated mobile web pages. Information analysis of keyword triggers plus user queries can be utilized to allow experts to spot client intent and plan their SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and PPC campaigns accordingly. By focusing upon these best SEO trends within 2018 and actualizing particular strategies, it will guarantee that the site is completely streamlined plus prepared to get targeted customers. The SEO professional analyzes and decides effective key phrases for your website promotion, plus suggests you the expertise upon different factors of SEO. Agreed, but above compensated links, stuffing, seo, invisible textual content, additional options, you can simply buy traffic. This is an excellent illustration of a digital marketing weblog on this list that's a lot broader than just” an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION blog, however it contains a lot of valuable SEO-related information. Most SEO focuses on optimizing for Google's search engine, which dominates the overall search market with a share of over 90%. In contrast, black hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is about trying to consider shortcuts and game search motors. The purpose associated with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will be to increase web visitor matters by ranking quite high in the particular results of searches using the particular most suitable keywords describing the particular content of your site. Portable search has entirely reshaped the particular realm of SEO in previous few years. Lastly, Amazon may dominate e-commerce queries in 2018 via Alexa voice, touch, plus other innovative interfaces, leaving a lot of e-commerce SEOs to concentrate in upon the content-side of their advertising. So, make certain to focus a bit upon these trends and search go through more about them in purchase to make your SEO online game stronger. Indeed, I agree with you Karthikeyan Maruthai, We ought to Understand Above Off-page SEO Methods to Obtain Very Good Ranking. Additionally, it provides me a place to embed the video (giving it more views, embeds, loves, etc) which improves both the video's SEO and my home page's SEO as well… people are usually more prone to share, link to, plus spend more time on the particular page if it has the nice video. Allow me to operate you through the top SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION vogues and what you need to do, to improve the rank your website. In SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION NAP stands for Name, Deal with, Phone #. While it might appear innocent enough, people mess this up time and period again, and inconsistent information on the particular web will destroy any prospect you have intended for ranking in local search. Most of us cover technical SEO in very much more depth in future articles, but in short, it offers things like site speed, examine errors, redirects, duplicate content, canonicalization, mobile optimization, sitemaps, markups, organized data, and various HTML labels, like rel=nofollow, that might become needed sometimes. Traditional SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION techniques are still effective, yet a number of trends are usually in the works that can significantly alter the practice of customization for search. Whatever you do, be sure you don't fall in the trap and begin doing some black-hat SEO techniques like cloaking or spammy backlink building, it may get you seriously penalized by Google. Unless you upgrade your own SEO strategy and just stay to traditional methods, you may find hard to push your own website pages in top ten results, and even worst, obtain penalized by Google for moving forward aggressive and forceful SEO strategies to gain ranking. The blog post of interest in order to SEOs from is this a single: 4 Search Trends That Produced Waves in 2017” This article begins using a paragraph that would certainly resonate with those who have got searched on Google (or some other search engines like google, intended for that matter) for many yrs: For the past 2 decades, the particular pinnacle of search sophistication had been talking to a search motor like you're Tarzan. I think the particular biggest SEO trend in 2018 would be voice search marketing. Among the essential SEO tips for you in order to follow is to not select keywords which have already already been used by multiple businesses plus websites. In situation you are improving user encounter by focusing primarily on the particular quality of the MC associated with your pages and avoiding : even removing - old-school SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION techniques - those certainly are usually positive steps to getting a lot more traffic from Google in 2018 - as well as the particular type of content performance Search engines rewards is in the finish largely at least in relation to a satisfying user encounter. Off-page SEO is vital, even more because it helps in offering your site out in top of the hundreds of hundreds of online users. The SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION services are usually cost efficient and they can be actually helpful in diverting traffic in the search engines to your internet site. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION helps to get a brand name recognition searching engine by obtaining ranking of the business internet sites at the same time this improves the traffic of the website. Whether you are usually a marketer or a company owner, or even a business for SEO, it's always helpful to research and learning brand-new SEO tactics. I'm curious - sometimes along with your chapter-based guides, you have got them all on a one page like this one, yet sometimes they're separate pages along with an overview page like a type of intro + table associated with contents, like the Keyword Analysis for SEO Definitive Guide. More significantly for us as SEOs, this means that the power of hyperlinks to rank websites is arranged to decrease, as well since the power of good user-engagement metrics on the website (and anything that improves them) will be increasing. Even as we head in order to 2018, SEO is becoming significantly important as more businesses are usually aware they require it in order to get found online. If youโ€d like to know more about doing keyword research that will give a boost to your SEO activities, head over to our completeย long tail keywords research guide and find out some of the FREE tools in action. SEO is about the consumer experience and creating great sites for your users. This particular really is more tedious plus tasking than inorganic SEO due to the fact this is where all associated with the keywords get a complete blast of attention. In the article, we will consider ten important SEO trends, which are worth watching within the coming year 2018. Users' happiness is furthermore an excellent factor, that's exactly why one of the best strategies for SEO is to reduce down on as much articles as possible and only compose necessary information with necessary phrases to make the website super-fast for users. 5. SEO or search motor optimization helps you in obtaining good Google page rankings. Links and technical SEO are usually the largest pieces of the particular pie, but multimedia efforts like video, photos, and podcasts would certainly be the game changer plus differentiator in several competitive markets. In case we're looking regarding a bigger trend it's that will SEO and what we contact real marketing” will continue in order to blur the lines between all of them as the job of a good SEO becomes that of the conventional marketer - having in order to understand the user, the rivals, the marketplace and also the particular implementation side. Today, some website themes furthermore come with a built-in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION tool kit which allows a person to definitely monitor the key phrases you use. SEO is definitely conducted for the understanding that websites rank because of how related a webpage is to analysis online query and how a lot of links point out that web page. You might be which owns a growing and growing business, the webmaster of the dozen sites, the SEO expert in a Web agency or even a DIY SEO ninja fascinated in the mechanics of Research: information is meant for a person. In truth, this SEO method is regarded as deceptive since it tricks research engines in order to obtain the desired ranks for focus on keywords. Black Head wear SEO's tend to look intended for loopholes and for you to game” the particular search engines in a method that causes massive results, plus fast results. In order in order to maintain the right track, we all have come up with the particular new SEO Trends that will certainly be necessary to overcome your own competition in the year 2018. Because organic brand mentions become even more essential for SEO ranking achievement, you need to monitor plus grow your positive brand plugs. Even though, it is definitely bit time consuming to generate a quality video, it actually is more than worth this. Great for traffic and SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION as well. When you are usually under the guidance of skilled SEO professionals, you may understand the particular real need and significance associated with improving visibility of the web site through search engine optimization strategies. Eventually a person can submit these pages upon various SEO sites or just submit the web page therefore the search engine spiders may crawl in your created content. Traditional SEO is focused upon building (keyword relevant) links plus (keyword relevant) content. Don't get frightened by them but make certain to use only natural hyperlinks and keep in mind that will their SEO potential may become a bit lower when in comparison to single links. SEO could be the bit of a minefield regarding small business owners; with normal Google algorithm updates and rumours over what is changing, it can hard to keep up along with the latest news, including SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION trends for 2018. It is usually quite true how the search rank depends on the WEB two. 0, content, Blog, keywords, higher quality links, and technical search engine optimization and UX easy to use design. With the rise of tone of voice search more than half associated with Google's searches should come from cellular devices, so you clearly can not afford to ignore mobile SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION anymore. Anyone can find out basics of SEO and integrate it into their digital product sales, advertising content strategy. This can help drive spreading, links and mentions of content material that can affect SEO ratings and traffic. Because a savvy company owner, you understand how important keyword research is usually and always has been intended for SEO. This ‘what is SEO‘ guide (and this entire website) is definitely not about churn and burn off type of Google SEO (called webspam to Google) as which usually is too risky to set up on the real business site in 2018. Organic SEO Competitors: Like commercial intent, evaluating the keyword's competition in Google's natural search results takes some even more digging. Enter: SEO : a method to filter plus organise websites depending on key phrases. SEO today is producing sure a user's experience will be optimal in terms of the particular content they're consuming, how they may consuming on various devices, plus what action they're lead in order to take next. And as over 55% of search results on Search engines contain one or more movies — almost all of which usually are YouTube videos — submitting SEO-optimised YouTube videos will obtain you more Google search direct exposure and increase your online presence exponentially. In situation your website is on the particular newer side, you can prioritize your PPC campaign first because it can take a whilst for SEO rankings to turn out to be established, but don't ignore your own SEO in this process. In truth, you're going to see even more and more people investing within SEO as paid traffic stations will get expensive. Google failed to impact web pages so much right after updates, quickly but they gather data on a regular basis so they are usually testing their algorithms then this effects all directories in search engine optimization.

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