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lovelivingmydreams · 3 years

Text

A story by heroes and villains

Janus Bullard: Drift away

When you don't let people close, they tend to drift away. Janus seems to struggle to understand that.

Masterlist

When sophomore year started, Janus had few comforts in their lives. One, Virgil and uncle Lo and their parents. Their constant pillars of support and comfort. And two, they were really good at languages. Which boosted their confidence quite a bit. They breezed through the curriculum for Spanish of last year and studied the rest of the material in their free time, because learning it was fun to them. They already knew French, and by the time finals rolled around they got to take a special test that had effectively gotten them a free period where their language elective should be for the rest of high school. The school prided themselves on adjusting the curriculum to the level of the students. And the best performing students even got to go on a weeklong trip after finals were over. The rest of the school had showcase week. Which meant that all the clubs and electives got to show off their stuff. Janus was not particularly interested in the showcase. He didn’t participate in anything and he knew no one who would be showing anything. So he chose to go on the trip. Virgil didn’t come along despite qualifying. He didn’t want to leave his dad by himself for that long. It was very sweet really. Janus would have argued against it, but it occurred to them that maybe if they were away from Virgil for a bit, then the feelings would calm down and they could just come out and get back to normal without Virgil having to learn that they ever were attracted to him in the first place. It didn’t work. They missed Virgil a lot, to start with. Missing makes the heart grow fonder indeed. It really drove home for him how much he couldn’t stand to lose his friend. On top of that the guys that were with them on the trip were… not the best company to keep. It all started out well. Virgil had made him a special shirt to congratulate him with passing his advanced Language exams. It was a black shirt with a yellow print. A minimalistic open snake mouth on their chest with ‘hiss hiss’ above it. Scales scattered along the left side to match their marks. They loved it. It was a reference to Remus’ old nickname for them. ‘Snakeface’. From anyone else it would have been an insult. But Remus meant it as a complement. Their travel companions, from schools all over the city thought it looked bad ass. It was a great ice breaker if nothing else when they wore it on the first day. That didn’t last long though. On the second night they were talking with the other guys in the boys dormitory. One mentioned a cousin of theirs came out not too long ago. “And his folks actually let him stay. My parents cut ties right away. Can’t believe I used to play ball with a twink.” Janus just barely managed to hide how the word hit them. The other guys agreed and, as much as they hated it, so did they. To say that that was the last time they were confronted with the fact that if these guys were to get to know the real them, they’d make their week hell, would be a lie. And as they heard slurs and jokes about the LGBTQ+ community tossed around as if it was nothing, they started to wonder. Would their parents be okay with it? They thought they would. They’d never seemed to be against the community. They recalled hearing their mother gush about the cute pride stuff they’d spotted in the mall a few times. But accepting that other people were queer and accepting that their son was sometimes more like a daughter and also gay and aromantic… That was something entirely different. And Virgil? Saying you don’t care and actually having to live with the knowledge that your best friend was… broken… What kind of freak were they even that they couldn’t pick a gender? Why couldn’t they fall in love like normal teens? Virgil’d had plenty of crushes already. He’d admitted he hadn’t even told them about all of them! So clearly it wasn’t that hard. Except for them. Because they had to be messed up in every way possible. The way they looked, the way they felt, what they were… When they got home Virgil was at their bedroom door almost within ten minutes of them putting their bag down. “You’re back!” he grinned, excited to see them again. “Tell me everything! Was it worth it letting me die of boredom?” he teased, throwing an arm over their shoulder in a sort of sideways hug. Janus flinched away from Virgil’s proximity. Being close to him made them want to be closer. But still not in the way Virgil might understand. If they just kept him on arm’s length, then things would be ok… Right? Virgil let them go. It didn’t look like he found it odd that Janus wanted distance. Janus tried to remember last time he’d initiated a hug or anything of the sort… With anyone… Maybe they had been a little more distant lately as it was. Good, then it wouldn’t be too obvious if they pushed a little more. They had to. To protect Virgil, to keep him in their life. No one could know. They couldn’t risk it. “It was cool. Saw lots of awesome stuff. The guys were dumb though. Guess no one can replace you,” they smiled carefully. “Aw, J. You’re such a sap,” Virgil teased with a playful punch to the arm. Was that bad? Did straight guys say stuff like that to their friends? Were they being obvious? “Shut up,” he retorted with a push. Not mean. Just playful. That was still okay right? “Movie night?” Virgil suggested, holding up his bag with his part of their collection. Janus hesitated. They needed time. “I’m beat. Maybe some other time,” they shrugged. Virgil nodded. “Okay. See you later J!” And just like that Virgil was out the door. They let themselves fall onto their bed. They had to figure themselves out. Again. Summer passed and Janus found a system that worked for them. It wasn’t great, but it would have to do. They had bought a few cute tops they enjoyed on Janice days. So they wore those when they were needed underneath a baggy hoodie or something else that would hide it. If there was a chance of them needing to take off said ‘cover item’ they’d wear a shirt that was too big like the band shirt. In addition they made sure to act plenty masculine on those days. They hated that part the most. But it was needed. When it came to Virgil, since their problem was just physical all they had to do was make sure they weren’t too close. Which was easier said and done. Hugs and pats on the back and the like used to reassure them so much and now they were a risk. Even if they never acted on the thoughts when they appeared, Virgil might notice. So they had a plan. Not the best plan. But to keep Virgil with them. To keep them both safe. They would do it. First day of school came around and Janice found themself alone at the bus stop. Which was odd. Virgil wasn’t usually late… Maybe he accidently took a bus too early again. Was that going to be a first day tradition? Janice couldn’t be too upset by that. It was just so typically Virgil, and they already looked forward to teasing him about it later. What wasn’t typically Virgil however was him not texting Janice to let them know his mix up. Maybe he hadn’t realized he was early yet? Janice wondered if they should ask Virgil where he was… Better not. They’d see Virgil soon enough. And he’d probably feel bad if they made too big a deal out of it. Again, typical for Virgil, making everything his fault or responsibility somehow. When they got to school though, Virgil was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t in their homeroom either. Which Janice wouldn’t have found too odd. There was always a chance of homeroom getting switched around. But then the teacher handed them two schedules. One for themself and one for Virgil. Virgil was late? Was he sick? Janice looked at the schedules. They shared their first two classes and then they had language electives. Which meant Janice would have a free period while Virgil should be in Spanish. They promised themself to call if Virgil hadn’t shown up by then. Two hours late was a reasonable time to get worried right? They checked their phone as they walked to science class and took a seat. Virgil hadn’t texted at all. Was he ill? Should they text anyway? “Mr. Johnson. You may take a seat next to Mr. Bullard. Class will commence soon.” Janice, mentally cringing at the male honorific, glanced at the kid that just entered. Ugh, they remembered him. He’d had a locker not too far from his last year. He always got in their way, the amount of times he’d bumped into them was infuriating. And now he was about to take Virgil’s seat. But not if they could help it. “Ma’am, I was actually saving this seat for…” “No one. This is my class and I say Mr. Johnson sits next to you.” Janice was taken aback. Most teachers at least heard them out if he asked something. And in almost every case he got what he needed even if he didn’t always get what he wanted. This one didn’t even want to listen though. They glared at the boy… Carlton, if they remembered correctly, as he took the seat next to them. The boy shrunk away, he was trembling… Janice supposed they had been pretty rude to him last year. Not that they cared. It just would make being desk mates very annoying. Janice didn’t waste time on wanting others to like them.

“It’s your lucky day Mr. Castile,” the teacher said dryly the second the bell rang. No… Janice looked up, there he was. The school’s golden boy. He looked slightly out of breath, and smiled sheepishly. “Apologies miss,” he replied as he looked around, probably looking for an empty seat. For a moment his eyes found Janice and he was clearly about as happy as they were with Janice being here on the seat right behind the only empty bench. Janice had an extra reason to be upset though. Castile would be sitting next to Virgil. He took the seat next to the window, right in front of Janice. Janice’s thoughts were racing. How were they supposed to function with that idiot around? They hadn’t had to interact with him too often last year. And when they did Janice had made sure he knew that they saw right through the knight in shining armor act he put up for the rest of the school. He only acted like that to impress their classmates. He was in theatre. He lived for the praise. “I hope you like where you are sitting… Ah, so glad you could join us Mr. Anker.” Janice tensed up when they saw the way Castile’s head snapped up, a bright smile on their face. It was such a genuine reaction… Why though? He had enough friends. Why was Virgil so important that he seemed genuinely happy to see him? “Take your seat and spare me your excuses,” the teacher snapped when Virgil opened his mouth to speak. “I was just telling the class that these are your seats for the rest of the year. So I hope you like your neighbor, they are your new lab partner.” Virgil’s face fell and he looked around. His make up was gone and he looked a mess, but other than that he seemed fine. Janice would have to ask him what had happened this morning later. To their annoyance, Virgil’s gaze didn’t even make it to their seat. Once he spotted the empty seat next to Castile, he too, lit up. Why? What did Castile have that was so special? Other than a pretty face? They watched Castile wave at Virgil, getting rewarded with a smile from their best friend.

“Man, talk about a lucky break,” Virgil said as he sat down. That hurt. Didn’t he want to sit with them? They tried to calm themselves. Virgil had simply not noticed them. He wouldn’t have said that if he knew they were in this class too. “I agree,” Castile grinned. That smug piece of… He knew they were here. He was taunting them! Class started, and Janice managed to ignore the pair in front of them. They even calmed down. Found themselves a little amused at their neighbor’s not so subtle glances at the desk in front of them. They’d spotted the pride flag stitched in their assigned lab partner’s pencil case. Maybe they should lay off a little. Poor kid had a crush on Roman Castile. He had enough to deal with. But then the experiment started. They divided the work so Johnson wouldn’t have to talk with them too much. they did their best to focus on their part of the assignment. But it proved difficult. Virgil and Roman were doing every step together and they were having fun. They talked and joked with familiarity that told Janice that somehow, Castile had managed to weasel his way into Virgil’s life, despite their efforts to chase him away. Sure they’d overheard from conversations in the hallways that Virgil was still standing up to bullies and that the Hispanic teen had joined him on occasion. But had that really been all it took? Suddenly Virgil got up, bringing a paper to the front. Damn, they had to focus. They managed to block out their surroundings for a good while. Until Virgil’s laugh pulled them out. He was looking very comfortable, sitting there with the enemy.

“Only you can pull of talking like a Shakespeare character,” Virgil grinned. “Well, only you can pull off dressing like a dark knight and still looking like a lost kitten,” Castile shot back. Janice tensed. How dare he ridicule their best friend like that? Virgil gave Roman a shove. “You take that back!” he demanded “I am dark and mysterious and intimidating!” Janice had to interfere, before Virgil got himself in trouble. they took an empty page from their notebook, crushed it in their fist and tossed it against Castile’s head. Both boys turned to look at them. Their attention was on Castile though. “What gives Bullard?” he hissed. No, it wasn’t attractive when he got that serious and intense look in his eyes. He was annoying and a danger. He was going to hurt Virgil. Or take him away and then hurt him. “You take Smellington next time. Virgil is sitting with me.” It was a good solution. Castile would be unable to resist being a knight in shining armor, so Janice acted as if they were the big bad Johnson had to be saved from. Carlton got to sit next to his crush, and Janice and Virgil could sit together. Like they should have been. Everyone happy. “Excuse me? His name is Carlton.” Just as Janice suspected. There was the hero complex. “And you don’t get to say where I sit J. I’m fine sitting with Roman. Besides you heard the teacher. No switching seats.” That… What? Virgil wanted to sit there? And he was offended that Janice tried to help? “We always sit together!” they reminded him. They were a team right? Them against the world? They’d have each other’s back no matter what… Right? Virgil’s jaw set. “Exactly. The world won’t end because I’m Roman’s lab partner J.” Where was all this coming from? What had Castile been poisoning his mind with? “Am I interrupting?” Janice looked up to the teacher. She still didn’t look like she was in the mood to listen to Janice. But they had to try. “Mr. Bullard,” once again, that stung. “I don’t have you and Mr. Jonson’s assignment yet, which means you can’t be talking with anyone else besides each other right now.” Oh, she really wasn’t in the mood to listen. Against better judgement, Janice gave her their most charming smile. If they knew that they were being perfectly reasonable, people usually followed along with their way of thinking. “Ma’am, I can’t work with him. Virgil and I never had a problem in projects, can’t we…” “No.” Janice nearly flinched at the finality of that word. But the teacher wasn’t done yet. “I put Mr. Jonson next to you because you are much too dependent on Mr. Anker’s presence.” She’d done it on purpose? And dependent? What did she mean? They weren’t that… Had it been so obvious to outsiders? Did she know? “You won’t always be able to hide behind him Mr. Bullard. You better learn that now.” They hadn’t! They’d stopped hiding in middle school. They’d been trying to be the shield! “And if I see any more problems here then all that’ll change is that Mr. Castile and Mr. Anker will be moved to the front of the class so you can’t distract them anymore. Is that understood?” She had it all wrong. She didn’t understand. But Janice knew they couldn’t do anything about it. So they nodded and returned their attention to their assignment.

They finished up the last of their notes when Virgil laughed again. “Charming huh? You certainly have a high opinion of yourself.” Janice’s jaw clenched. They agreed, but Virgil’s tone was too playful. Like it was when he was teasing them. “Oh, my knight, why must you hurt me so?” Castile objected dramatically. Janice did their best to block out the rest of the conversation and focus on finishing the assignment with Johnson. Whatever was said between Castile and Virgil after that, it had him pretty excited.

He dragged Janice to the bathroom where he started to apply foundation and a two second version of his usual eyeshadow. “Where were you?” Janice asked on their way there. Virgil bit his lip. “Dad was home late yesterday and forgot to tell me…” he told them. Oh, now Janice understood. Virgil was the kind of guy who saw you fall and worried if you’d broken something while rushing you to the nurse no matter what you said. He worried a lot. He was a lot like uncle Lo in that way. His father not being his punctual self without warning must’ve been very stressful. “And you didn’t go to bed until you were sure he was safe and sound,” Janice nodded in understanding. “Yeah… I must’ve forgotten to set my alarm or something.” At this point they’d arrived in the bathroom and Virgil took out his foundation and started fixing up his appearance. Needlessly in Janice’s opinion, but they had bigger things to worry about.

“Listen, I’m sorry for being so snappy earlier. I know you worry about me and stuff but Roman is really not as bad as you think. He even invited us to sit with him and his friends during lunch!” he announced excitedly as he put away his make-up. “Then you'll see for yourself…” Lunch with Roman Castile and all his friends? All people who could discover their secrets? One slip up on a Janice day, one lingering look towards Virgil or Castile and they were out.

And being around not one, but two guys they found attractive… they couldn't bear it.

“Absolutely not!” they objected in a panic. “Jan, it’s just lunch,” Virgil argued gently. “If it’s not fun then we can bail on them any time. You are the one who’s so obsessed with our spot on the social ladder. What do we have to lose?” He made good points. And part of Janice wanted the protection a group like that offered. But Virgil didn't have the full picture. Janice cast their eyes to the heavens trying to hide the conflict within, to play off how worried and scared they felt. “I don’t expect you to understand this Virgil. But the offer wasn’t for us. Castile wants something from you. And he’ll have his friends be nice to me around you to get it.”

Virgil was clearly not impressed. “I know I’m not exactly mister sunshine, but that’s overly dramatic and pessimistic. Roman is cool. Like, genuinely. And if you gave him a chance…” “Oh please Virgil! You are not this naïve!” Janice exclaimed. Harsh in their desperation to finish the conversation.

“Why do you want his friendship so badly that you blind yourself like this?” Weren't they enough? What did they do wrong? “He can have anything from anyone he wants! Why would he want to be around some awkward outcasts?” Why did he insist on pursuing the only person Janus cared about at school? “Except to make himself look good? What end does that serve? Everything anyone ever does serves some selfish end Virgil. Even the most noble of deeds are ultimately out of desire to be seen as good.” Just because Janus hadn’t figured out what Roman Castile had to gain from talking to them, didn’t mean that there wasn’t some end goal. “Except for you of course, you only have my best interest at heart!?” Virgil’s statement caught them of guard. He had a point. Part of this was their fear of being alone, being found out and rejected. But it was also for Virgil's own good. They needed Virgil to understand that. To believe them. And so they did something they had been avoiding. They got close. Stepped right into Virgil's personal space. If they wanted, and Virgil hadn’t hidden them behind his foundation, they could’ve counted the freckles on Virgil’s cheeks. But now was no time for those observations. They had to get through to him. No matter what. “You are my only friend Virgil. Of course I want to protect you, even from yourself. Don’t let Roman’s flowery words and cute pet names get to you.” Kitten, knight. The nerve of that guy. “I give him a week before he gets bored of you. And I don’t want to see you hurt by that.” That last part was the most sincere he'd been about how he felt towards Virgil in what felt like forever.

All fight left Virgil’s frame and he nodded. Janice relaxed and led the way to their first CPR training. They made sure to wait for Virgil when he left Spanish. Virgil was quiet all day. He got like that sometimes after a disagreement. Janice tried to give him space. They had been a little harsh. And after Virgil had a rough night already. They knew he needed comfort and support on those days. No wonder he’d gravitated towards Castile this morning. All that positive energy probably drew Virgil in like a moth to a flame. Janice should have been more understanding. Maybe they could have a movie night next weekend. With V's favorite snacks and movies.

They’d make it up to him. And then they could get back to something somewhat normal.

It worked. Virgil seemed in better spirits after they suggested the weekend plans. Janus paid closer attention and ensured that Virgil wouldn't fall for Castile's tricks though.

They stuck together like always. Janus had started chatting with native Spanish speakers, learning more regional words and slang. They were also learning ASL. Virgil laughed when they explained the name signs they made up for him, uncle Lo and their parents.

Things were going well. Until Halloween came around. Virgil loved Halloween. He didn’t show it off at school, considering he put the least possible effort in his school costume the past two years, but when at home, he was a master. Janus had enjoyed watching him and uncle Lo dazzle the trick or treaters. They’d considered asking Virgil to give them a spook up as well, but that would mean close proximity for extended periods of time. And they couldn’t handle that. This year Janus had drawn some scales on their face and assembled a dragon costume. They’d even gotten crafty with the wings. Using a pair of children’s fairy wings as a base. Virgil had complemented them, which had made them feel pretty good about themselves. Virgil was texting with his dad that morning. Apparently he had a thing coming up that weekend and was rather nervous. Janus was happy to hear that their honorary uncle had exciting things happen in his life. They didn’t pry for more information though. Surely Virgil would’ve shared more if there was more to know. And then Castile had walked in. Looking ridiculously handsome even if he was trying to look like a crazed dark prince. Redish circles under his eyes, run out make up. As if he’d recently cried a river. His costume was dark and slightly torn and crumpled. And still he looked good. He made a big show of his entrance and made a tour around the classroom before climbing on his desk and continuing his tale of conquest. Janus, not immune to the boy’s massive charisma, made sure to glare at him so that if the prince would happen to glance their direction he wouldn’t give anything away. Glaring at the dark prince wasn’t hard, considering he also had his neighbor’s attention. Virgil was enjoying the show.

And apparently Castile noticed. He made a grand gesture towards Virgil. “And you, my coldhearted friend, may rule at my side!” Janus’ eyes narrowed. Was this the thing? Was Roman looking for a second in command? It was a good picture they supposed. The nickname ‘Knight’ suddenly made a lot of sense. It would fit. They both stood against the bullies, no doubt earning them both a good image in the public eye. If they were considered a team all the time, Roman’s spot on the social ladder would get even more secure. Was that it? “Is that a fact?” Virgil chuckled, pulling Janus out of his thoughts. Was he… Was he seriously going along with it? “Of course!” Janus hated how excited Castile seemed. “You, dear count, are the only other of noble lineage! No one else is worthy of a throne!” “But ruling sounds like a lot of work,” Virgil whined. Janus held their breath… But the laughter that followed… Wasn’t bad. Castile immediately rolled with Virgil’s contribution. “Then you may feast on my enemies!” To Janus’ great relief, the teacher entered in that moment. Their nerves couldn’t take much more than that. On the way to CPR Janus tried to get Virgil back with his feet on the ground. “You were lucky, but that could have gone so wrong!” they exclaimed. Virgil, surprised them however. “Roman and I are lab partners, and we’re going to talk,” Virgil reminded them. They knew that. But they got on fine with minimal communication with their neighbor. And Virgil had been doing fine too… Or… Well, maybe he hadn’t been happy about it… “And sometimes we’re going to have fun doing so. You have zero right to tell me who I can and can’t spend time with. I’m not your pet.” That hit Janus hard… Was that… Had they been acting that badly? Maybe they’d been too clingy. Overcompensating for the physical distance they’d forced themselves to maintain? They let Virgil walk to Spanish alone and spent their free hour thinking things through. Maybe they were a tad controlling… And Virgil talking to Castile a little during science might not be the end of the world… They could try to live with that right? When they saw Castile drag Virgil to his table during lunch they could barely breathe. Virgil looked so happy about it too. Had they been too late to make adjustments? Was this their life now? The very nightmare they’d tried to prevent? But then, Virgil and Roman made a bow and Virgil walked back to Janus. People watched him walk by the way Janus had seen them do with popular kids. They admired him? Was… Had Virgil become a popular kid without either of them realizing? “Talk about putting yourself on blast! What were you thinking?” they snapped, still reeling with emotions. “Yolo,” Virgil shrugged. And ‘cool’ was the only term Janus could come up with to describe the way he held himself right now. “No one says that anymore,” Janus pointed out, as if to convince themself that Virgil wasn’t that kind of cool. “It’s what I was thinking.” Or maybe he was… Janus tried not to bother Virgil about who he chose to hang out with after that day. It wasn’t easy though. Virgil and Castile were almost flirty with each other and Janus found that very distracting. Add that to everything else that frustrated them and you better hope you didn’t cross Janus on a Janice day after a bad night. They picked a lot of fights. Partly to prove themselves as a cis. Partly to vent these frustrations on something other than Castile. Speaking off. It was nearly always him or Virgil or both who stopped the fight. Roman would stare them down until they left. Virgil would tell them off and drag them away if need be. Both were… possibly… another reason why they picked a fight. Negative attention was still attention after all. On a particular bad day, a senior decided to pick on them. And they were not having it.

Castile and Virgil put a stop to that one. But the principal called them to their office anyway. “He started it,” Janice insisted. They were sitting in the office for a couple of minutes now, with the Principal just looking at them expectantly. “Oh? How’s that?” Janice gestured to their face. They’d gotten good at ignoring the jabs the past few years. Knowing that they couldn’t do anything against an upper classman and having bigger things to worry about. But today… Today it had just been too much. “It’s not the first time you got into a fight Janus. We want to help. But you have to let us. What is bothering you? Really. Why are you so angry?”

Oh, where to start? Janice just shrugged, not comfortable opening that can of worms in front of this adult. They wouldn’t understand. Janus heard they’d been vocal about their sexuality and gender since middle school. All they would do was tell them to just come out already. The principal sighed. “We’ll have to inform your parents of this Janus…” “No you don’t,” Janice stated. He wasn’t even scared. Stokes was a reasonable person. “Why’s that?” They wondered. “I didn’t hit him. And he didn’t hit me. No one got hurt. What’s the point of calling my parents? My grades are good, I never skip. So I don’t let people walk over me… Is that so bad?” they explained. Stokes frowned, but then relaxed. “Fine. But at least consider going to the school counselor. At least once. There are systems here to help you. You just have to ask.” Yeah, they’d get right on that. “Tanks Mx. Stokes,” they muttered as they left. A few weeks later Janus was looking over elective courses with Virgil. Janus had been careful about selecting courses for them. They could pick two courses each year. One every semester. First year, Virgil had made a deep dive into some articles about how messed up the education system was and how useless the curriculum was. So Janus suggested Personal Finances and Home economics. Which was basically the: ‘how to adult’ elective packet. This year they’d picked CPR, which Virgil had enjoyed a lot and Philosophy. They’d suggested it out of personal interest. They’d known it might not be Virgil’s cup of tea, but to their pleasant surprise Virgil had agreed. “Sociology would be a good choice,” Janus suggested, testing the waters. They really hoped Virgil would be okay with it. It seemed very interesting. Virgil only made a vague sound of acknowledgement though. Well, there were other interesting subjects… “I was thinking to take an art elective,” he told Janus after a few moments. Janus was surprised. Virgil never cared about electives before. And art? “Why?” “Because I’d like to actually learn some techniques? I dunno. They say to pick something that fits our interests. I’m interested in art.” Janus had no idea where the annoyed tone came from. Sure Virgil drew and he was good. But… To make it your elective? Virgil knew that those choices would affect their chances at getting accepted into college right? Especially for the next two years. “But we can’t do anything with that in college,” they reminded him, just in case. “I suppose it’s a decent extracurricular,” they admitted, wanting to find a compromise. But saying that reminded them. They should probably pick some good ones for the next two years as well. They looked good on application forms.

“But…” Virgil objected interrupting Janus’ musings on the pro and cons of joining a sports team. “I really want to do art. The new teacher is a pretty awesome artist I’ve been kind of following for a while. This might be my only chance to learn from him.” The arts program was heavily volunteer based, which allowed the school to offer many different electives and even more extracurricular. The teachers largely donated their time and switched around semester to semester. If this artist was indeed someone of note, they might be gone after Christmas. So on some level Janus understood. But why would Virgil need to spend a perfectly good elective on something he was already good at? He could probably teach the class himself. “Don’t be dramatic V. It’s not like you can make a career out of drawings,” they pointed out dismissively. Maybe they were a little crass. But Virgil couldn’t afford to live in a fantasy. Art was personal and showing it gave other people a weapon against you. And Janus really felt they should start picking electives based more on what they wanted their career to be. Janus was thinking journalist or lawyer for themselves. They weren’t sure what Virgil would pick. Last time they’d talked about such things was… Back when they still thought they were cis and straight. And they’d been joking about going into hero business. Daydreaming about opening a specialized store or becoming heroes themselves. But maybe Virgil would be a lawyer too. He’d probably like defending the little guy in the courtroom. He was already doing that in the hallways. Or some other function in law enforcement. Janus couldn’t imagine Virgil not trying to make the world a better place. “It makes me happy,” Virgil pointed out, though barely audible. Good, he was realizing there was no point to that class. “A career isn’t about what makes you happy, it’s about what gets you ahead in life.” And with that, Janus returned their attention to the electives. Not aware of the mistake they’d just made.

Mistakes

@cirishere @hestianerd1 @moonlightshow00 @naturallyunstablegamer @alias290 @meowthefluffy @frida0043 @angelic-cali @selenechris @theblackveilinreverse

#sanders sides #ts sides #janus sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #background prinxiety #tw homofobia #tw seldepriciation #tw internalized homofobia #janus makes bad choices #angsty

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traggy-faggy · 3 years

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Hello, dear! You've been visited by the random character question fairy! :D ~☆

What is your character's type or archetype? (For example: the Fool, the Lover, the Fighter, etc.) Why do they fit this archetype?

Quinn is absolutely the lover! Which I think is clever since he’s canonically aromantic, just a nice little twist to an archetype commonly used for romance. He’s really magnetic with his energy, people feel like they can trust him easily and he trusts just as easy in return, even if it bites him in the ass later. This is both a positive and negative aspect of him, seeing as often it gets him on good terms with people, but that’s not always the case. He’s really passionate about his friends and people he holds close. Regardless of the nature of his relationship with you, he will always be passionate about you. Whether you’re just a project partner or his best friend since preschool. This is usually a positive for him, though sometimes people are weirded out by it. He’s always working on himself, which usually isn’t a good thing when it comes to him. Most people try to fix things about them that are actual fixable flaws, but Quinn? He tries so hard to make himself palatable to everyone, going as far as to willfully hide important aspects of himself just to avoid rejection. When he’s not erasing his core identity to make people like him though, he’s trying his best to rectify that behaviour. He knows it’s unhealthy and that he needs to fix it before he ends up destroying himself, but it’s really difficult and he needs help doing so.

He’s absolutely terrified of being alone. That’s the core thing that causes most of his faults. He has this need to make everyone like him, because if one person doesn’t like him then how could anyone like him?

It’s arguably the most dangerous part of him, causing harm to himself in the form of trying to make himself good for abusive people, and harm to others by trying so hard to pry into their minds to figure out what he needs to be for them. He’s practically obsessed with being “good enough.” He spends more time trying to make himself good for everyone than listening to what people who actually care about him think of him.

But on a lighter note, he has an entire schedule for taking care of his plants. It’s so thorough that it generally takes about 2-3 hours per day (even more if he gets particularly doting that day), but his plants are absolutely thriving.

Botanists hate him. This simple 4 hour schedule will have your plants thriving like no other!

That’s all for now, you don’t have to scroll through any more Quinn Rambling™

#the rat answers #quinn heartly #oc infodump #long post

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jowritesthingss · 4 years

Text

All the Time in the World

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing(s): Logicality (Logic | Logan + Morality | Patton)

Rating: Teen

Content Warning(s): mentions of childbirth (nothing graphic), bullying mention, divorce, swearing, lmk if there’s anything else I need to tag!

Length: 7,971 words

Brief Summary: @tsshipmonth2020 ’s Soulmate September, day two! For as long as Logan can remember, his soulmate timer has read zero. Only, he's never met his soulmate. (Or has he?) Conclusion: he does not actually have a soulmate. (Or does he?)

TS Masterlist + AO3 Links

Logan’s is not been a typical birth.

His mother is taken to the hospital in an ambulance, having gone into premature labor almost a month early while at work. His father comes racing in just in time to see his wife wheeled off for an emergency cesarean.

When she comes back out, there is a tiny baby boy in a cradle beside her, a child that she has brought to life—even as she is barely hanging on to life herself. The as-of-yet unnamed baby is alive and just well enough that he sits off to the side, wailing and hiccuping, as his mother struggles to stay alive through a blood transfusion and his father begs her to survive.

His mother’s condition eventually stabilizes, and she comes out from under the anesthesia just long enough to rasp out the name chosen for the baby boy—Logan. She quickly succumbs to a well-deserved sleep, and her spouse remains with her, while for the moment the boy is left to the nurses to care for.

It isn’t until he is brought to the nursery with the other babies that one nurse realizes the timer on his tiny infantile wrist reads zero.

---

As a child, Logan does not understand what this zero means, or why his mother and daddy take him to all of the big doctors in white coats, or why his teachers give pitying looks and his classmates give mean taunts.

“Out of time,” someone says. But, but he just learned how to tell time with the big hand and the little hand and the sec-owned hand, and the clock on the mantel is still ticking.

“Alone,” someone laughs. No, Logan has his mother and daddy, and they’re happy just like that because three is a magic number!

“Soulless,” someone accuses. What’s a Soul? He’s a Logan. And he likes being a Logan, even if that means he’s not a Soul.

Mother says nothing, staring blankly at the other mothers in the preschool picking up their children. She only pulls him up by his arm, dusts him off, and brings him home, saying not a word about the crusted tears on his cheeks.

But....

“You’re special,” Daddy promises, shushing him gently and wiping away his tears with careful gloved hands. “Sometimes others might say it and mean bad things, but it’s all good, Logie-bear, I promise. You’re so special and smart. You’re my special Logie-bear.”

See? He’s a Logan. And Daddy says he’s a good Logan. So that’s all that matters, even if the other kids make him cry like a baby. Daddy says crying’s okay, that he isn’t a baby, that he’s special. Logan is special. Isn’t that cool?

---

By the time he’s reached middle school, Logan knows what it all means, and it isn’t so cool after all. He knows what he is, and he knows the words people whisper behind his back.

Everyone is born with a timer on their wrist, counting down to when they meet their soulmate—the person destined to change their life forever, be it through the power of love or the power of friendship or the power of family or through the power of whatever cheesy thing the movies are showing this week. Some people meet their soulmates as children, some meet their soulmates on their deathbed.

Timers can change as plans and people do, so it’s a rather pointless system, if you ask Logan. Especially since some people’s timers keep dragging out and dragging out until they finally blink out. Some people never meet their soulmate.

Logan, however, is an odd anomaly that nobody has ever seen. He was seemingly born with a timer already at zero, and none of the doctors and specialists his parents take him to manage to puzzle out what this means.

Perhaps this could mean it is a familial bond with his mother, some suggest. But those are rare, and the two of them are not particularly close, so Logan privately thinks that this theory is utter baloney.

Perhaps this could mean that he’s aromantic, others suggest. But plenty of aromantics out there have platonic and queerplatonic soulmates, and besides, Logan is just starting to discover how pretty boys are, so he quickly dismisses this as well.

Nobody really knows for certain. All they know is that his timer is out of time. All Logan knows is that big, black zero tattooed across his wrist.

So. The timer on his wrist has run out, and there is no soulmate in sight. 0:00.00. The timer on his wrist has run out. Or maybe he never even had any time on it at all. So it is.

This is fine, Logan tells himself clinically as he lies awake at night. It simply means that he doesn’t have a soulmate, or that his soulmate is dead, or something of that sort.

It’s not like it matters all that much.

(It matters, it matters—)

Plenty of people have lost soulmates, and plenty of people don’t even settle with their soulmates. It is quite common for soulmates to simply remain friends or acquaintances. It’ll just be like that, like not settling with one’s soulmate—except he just never had one to settle with in the first place.

And this is fine. He can still find himself a romantic partner if he so chooses, and maybe if the kids at school stop gossiping about him he can make some friends, or, you know what, he doesn’t even need a partner or friends, anyway. He just wants to go to school and get good grades and go to university to become someone cool and science-y, oh, and maybe get a pet hamster.

But all the same, Logan looks up at the stars from out his bedroom window, and he wonders how it would feel to know that someone out there matched him, someone out there for him, someone out there looking up at the same stars even as they are worlds apart.

---

In high school, his schoolmates are better. There is no more teasing, and there are plenty of apologies as they realize how cruel they were, but Logan politely refrains from making friends, remembering just how easily their hatred turned on him as a child.

And as his peers slowly but surely start meeting their soulmates, there is still the ever-present reminder that they have what Logan will never, what Logan can never.

Logan maintains his grades and his emotions, keeping both squarely in check. All interactions with his classmates are strictly centered around class projects and tutoring. When not in class or at home, he tucks himself into a small corner of the library, hiding from the silence of his peers and the growing chasm between his parents.

High school is when his mother finally decides she has had enough of him.

She disappears under the pretense of an out-of-town trip with some girlfriends, and when the weekend is over she just...doesn’t come back.

The divorce papers show up on their doorstep a week later.

Logan watches his father’s face crumple. He feels a stab of bitterness as he watches his father read through tears and sign the spotted, drippy forms. He knows this is his fault. He knows.

He already doesn’t have a soulmate of his own, and now he’s driven off his father’s soulmate, too.

“It isn’t your fault,” Dad reassures him weakly as the two cuddle that night for the first time in years. “It was between her and I. Sometimes things just don’t work out. It isn’t your fault, Logie-bear.”

He repeats the phrase like a mantra, until it rings through Logan’s ears and means nothing.

Logan twists to look up at his father. “You know that it is not your fault, either, Dad.”

Dad smiles down at him, wet and weary, but his mismatched eyes are rimmed red, so full of tears and yet so empty all at the same time. “Oh, but I think it is.”

Logan wants to contradict him, wants to call him out and say it’s his mom’s fault for abandoning the two of them like this. He wants to repeat that Dad shouldn’t blame himself. But to do so would be hypocritical, when Logan blames himself as well.

And so the two sit on the couch, in tense silence, hugging each other as each other’s only lifeline, and Logan thinks, maybe not having a soulmate isn’t so bad after all, if it means he doesn’t have to go through this.

---

Logan’s Uncle Remus comes around a few days after the divorce papers do, and he announces in his crackly-weird voice that he’ll be crashing on the couch for a while. Dad hems and haws over it and pretends to be annoyed, but Logan privately thinks he seems relieved to have Remus’ voice to fill the silences. Logan and his dad have never been all that good at talking, anyway.

Of course, Uncle Remus isn’t actually Logan’s uncle. He’s just Dad’s best friend from when they were in college. He shows up in town every once in a while, though usually he’s off travelling who knows where and doing who knows what.

Remus is...weird. But as somewhat of an oddity himself, Logan can’t exactly judge. Especially not when he finds that Remus is a CSI and extremely enthusiastic about true crime. The two of them quickly establish a routine of watching Buzzfeed Unsolved together after school, and sometimes they even manage to drag his father out of his study to watch, too.

It is just about a month later, while Logan is preparing snacks for a Friday afternoon marathon, that the doorbell rings.

Logan frowns, cocking his head slightly. He can’t recall his father or Remus mentioning anything about having anyone over, and he certainly has no one to invite over himself.

Unless....

Sucking in a sharp breath, Logan freezes in realization. Could it be his mother? Could she be back—to beg forgiveness, or to add insult to injury, or...?

The doorbell rings again, and a loud crashing sound echoes through the house before Uncle Remus is tearing down the hallway, a blur as he passes the kitchen. “Shit! I got it!”

Bewildered, Logan hears the sound of the front door being unlatched and yanked open. “Babe! Baby cheeks!” Remus’ voice echoes through the house.

A few moments later, Logan’s dad pads down the hallway, holding his reading glasses in one hand and blearily rubbing at his eyes with the other. He pauses in the kitchen doorway to nod at Logan before continuing. “Remus, what on Earth....”

Deciding that it should probably be safe to venture out into the hallway without one of the kitchen knives, Logan puts the bowl of popcorn down on the table next to the carrot and celery sticks (Remus always complains, but proper nutrition is necessary). Then he carefully ventures out into the hallway to see what commotion is brewing.

Remus stands in the front doorway, giving an unfamiliar teen what Logan believes is colloquially referred to as a “noogie.” Leaning against the porch railing behind them is a light brown-skinned man Logan vaguely recognizes from photographs as Virgil, another of his father’s old college friends and Remus’ soulmate.

“I am not baby cheeks anymore!” the boy huffs, struggling in Remus’ grip, although he’s smiling all the while.

“Eh, once a baby cheeks, always a baby cheeks, ya li’l chipmunk,” Remus dismisses, grinning like a madman.

Logan turns to his father to gauge how he should be reacting to the two unexpected guests.

To his surprise, Dad is smiling, actually smiling, for the first time since long before Logan’s mother left. Not one of those sarcastic little half-smirks he often shoots in Remus’ direction, not one of those false reassuring smiles he forces on when Logan is around, but a full-on genuine smile.

“Remus, do you mind?” Dad says. He rolls his eyes, mock-annoyed, and Logan is glad to see some of his old flair shining out once more. “I’d love for you to move so I can talk to Virgil.”

“Maybe I don’t, maybe I do!” Remus cackles, but the teen uses this as a distraction and takes the opportunity to finally escape from his grip.

Giggling, the teen darts further into the house. Upon looking up and meeting eyes with Logan, though, he pauses, and the brilliant beam on his face diminishes to a smaller, warmer smile. “Hi!” he says, breathless from laughter.

Logan, however is breathless for an entirely different reason.

The teenager looks to be about his age, although slightly shorter. His brown eyes are bright with mirth and, and the light coming in through the windows shines off his tan skin and his shock of black hair. His cheeks are indeed somewhat round, and his braces and the gap between his front teeth certainly call to mind the idea of a chipmunk. It isn’t meant to be an insult at all—to be frank, the teen is...Logan is loath to use the word ‘adorable’, but it is all that seems to fit the boy smiling and sticking out his hand for a shake.

“H-hello,” he manages to stammer, reaching out with a suddenly-clammy palm and shaking the boy’s hand.

Behind the teen, Logan’s father moves beside Remus in the doorway, exchanging hugs and conversation with Virgil, and Remus kisses Virgil’s cheek and latches onto his hand. But Logan is more focused on other things in the moment—more specifically, on other people. One other person.

“I’m Patton,” the boy introduces himself genially. “And you must be Logan! Pa told me all about how we used to play together as babies!”

“...We did?” Logan is still shaking Patton’s hand, he should really stop shaking Patton’s hand. He stops shaking Patton’s hand. “I am afraid that I do not recall such a thing.”

“That’s okay! I don’t really remember, either,” Patton admits sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck. “Pa and I moved away when I was, like, three, so that’s probably why.” He brightens once more. “But that’s fine! We’re moving back here for good, so I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to make lots of new memories!”

Patton’s hand falls from where it previously was resting at the nape of his neck, and the motion catches Logan’s eye. He manages to catch a glimpse of what looks like a zero on his wrist, and oh. So Patton’s already met his soulmate, too. So he’s most likely unavailable, then.

Something Logan didn’t think he had in him breaks.

It doesn’t matter, he reminds himself impatiently. Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. If he says it enough, he’ll start to mean it. Logan has no soulmate. He has no soulmate, no romantic partners, no friends, no acquaintances, and it’s all the better that way.

“It is a pleasure to meet you again,” Logan says formally. “Would you like to come in? Uncle Remus and I were just preparing to watch Buzzfeed Unsolved together, although if you would like to join us we can always watch something that would be more suited to your tastes.”

“I’d love to!” Patton enthuses. “Although I do gotta say, I’m not the biggest fan of Unsolved. It’s scary to think about real-life bad guys.” He pauses and thinks. “Have you ever watched Buzzfeed’s series on the Sims?”

Logan furrows his eyebrows in thought. “I do not believe so. What is the ‘Sims’?”

Hands flying up to his cheeks, Patton gasps. “You don’t know the Sims?”

Feeling somewhat foolish, Logan shakes his head. “I generally do not keep up with modern trends,” he admits.

“That’s okay! Boy, we have lots to talk about then!” chirps Patton, bouncing past Logan and further into the house. He pauses, cheeks darkening slightly in hue. “Oh, wait. I don’t know where I’m going. Silly me.” He giggles, then turns back to meet Logan’s wide blue eyes once more. “Would you mind showing me around?”

Overwhelmed, Logan can’t help but look back to his father for assistance. He hasn’t spoken so much with another person his age—or another person at all, really—in years, quite possibly.

His dad is of no use, merely smirking at him. “Go on,” he shoos, while Remus waggles his eyebrows at Logan in a manner that makes it clear his ogling had very much been noticed.

Logan whirls around, cheeks heated. “Right this way, Patton.”

---

Patton, Patton, Patton.

As he and his father Virgil move in across the street, Patton rapidly becomes a part of Logan’s life, unintentionally yet thoroughly.

At home? Patton comes over bringing smiles and cookies—which, isn’t it the older residents who are supposed to bring food to the new neighbors?

At school? Patton enrolls just in time to spend senior year at Logan’s high school, and he enlists Logan to be his guide around campus. Logan, who is becoming increasingly worried over his inability to say no to Patton’s big doe eyes.

It’s ridiculous, really, the whole of it is.

Logan tells himself that it’s just because he hasn’t had a friend his age before. He’s only overreacting because he doesn’t know how to properly maintain friendship. Yes, that must be it.

A part of him thinks that it’s something else, but that part of him isn’t allowed to see the light of day.

Patton is—dear lord—Patton is painting Logan’s fingernails one afternoon, Logan is letting Patton paint his fingernails, when the topic of soulmates finally comes up.

The two of them sit in the tub in Patton’s bathroom (Logan insists on the bathroom, so if any spills occur they can easily be cleaned. Patton insists on the bathtub, because he’s Patton). It isn’t exactly the most comfortable place, especially for two teen boys, but they make do.

Patton gently grasps Logan’s hand in his own, painting a layer of midnight blue on the last of his nails. “All-righty! Now we just have to let those dry!” He goes to set Logan’s hand down on the edge of the tub, then pauses, twisting it up slightly to look at it.

What—oh. Logan’s thoughts sour somewhat as he realizes that Patton is looking at the soulmate timer on his wrist—or, rather, the rigid zero in its stead.

“So you’ve already met your soulmate too?” Patton smiles.

“Ah—no,” Logan says awkwardly. “I, erm...I do not actually have a soulmate.”

“Oh.” Patton’s smile wavers. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring anything bad up.”

“It is quite all right,” Logan reassures. “It’s natural to be curious of such things. You do not need to apologize for curiosity. Besides.” He reaches up to adjust his glasses, then freezes in midair, remembering the still-drying nail polish on his nails. “I have had almost eighteen years to come to terms with this fact, and it says nothing about whether I end up in any relationships in my life, so it is not a metaphorical ‘sore spot’.”

“Well, that’s good,” Patton says, although his enthusiasm has decidedly lessened.

Logan doesn’t think he likes that, so he attempts to engage Patton in conversation once more. “What about you? Have you met your soulmate yet, Patton?”

“Oh! Yeah, I have!” Patton grins. He laughs, face flushed, as he shows off the zero on his own arm. Shameless, nonchalant, just as Logan wishes he could be. “I don’t remember it, but I know I’ve met them. It was when I was really young, though, and it must’ve just been in passing.”

“I see.” Logan nods. He wonders which is worse—knowing there is no soulmate out there for you to meet, or knowing that you’ve encountered them, cannot remember them, and likely will never encounter them again.

“Okay! This layer should be dry by now.” Patton scoops up Logan’s hands once more. “Let’s add some little white and yellow dots to be stars!”

Well. Patton seems to be doing well enough for himself, Logan notes, watching the eager boy in front of him. And if neither of them are in any danger of meeting a soulmate, then the two of them can remain together, correct?

Logan quirks his mouth up in a half-smile. Patton catches the movement and coos, booping his nose and then giggling at the yellow polish now stuck on the tip of Logan’s nose.

Yes, perhaps the two of them can at least remain together, sans soulmate and standing strong.

...Although, ahem. Perhaps they can accomplish the ‘standing strong’ part later, once they get out of the bathtub.

---

Fall passes quickly, then winter comes. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s are spent at Virgil’s, a mish-mash of Logan and his dad, Virgil and Patton, Remus, and Remus’ brother Roman, who pops by just for a moment but ends up staying solely to chat with Logan’s dad, no matter what Dad tries to say to the otherwise. (Logan, Patton, Remus, and Virgil laugh over how oblivious the two of them are, and even if Logan doesn’t quite know how to feel about Roman yet, he’s glad to see his father looking and feeling so much better.)

Soon enough, Logan’s eighteenth birthday is just around the bend, and, well, that’s supposed to be a special one, wouldn’t it? So he supposes that it might be fun to see if Patton would like to go to the science museum with him. Not as a date, of course, not as a date. He truly doesn’t feel that way about Patton.

...Or, at least, he doesn’t think he does. And he knows that Patton doesn’t feel that way about him.

It’s a bright, blustery Saturday afternoon, and Logan stands in front of the door to Patton’s house, steeling himself to knock and ask Patton.

He’s pulling his hand back to knock on the door when it swings open.

Patton is looking down at his hands, determinedly pulling on his gloves, so he doesn’t see Logan standing there, frozen in surprise. Walking out of the door, he runs directly into Logan.

“Oh!” Patton very nearly screeches. He jumps backward as Logan stumbles back a bit himself. “Logan! Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!”

“It—” Logan is still largely frozen, and it isn’t because of the cold weather. “It is all right, Patton.”

“Here—come in, come in,” Patton ushers, his cheeks darkened in embarrassment. “I was just about to head over to your house, actually!” He laughs. “Funny, huh?”

“And I was just about to knock on the door,” Logan responded, a wry smile on his lips. He could admittedly see some humor in the occurrence. “I had something to ask of you.”

“Whatcha wanna ask?” Patton asked, pulling off his outer winter layers and gesturing for Logan to do the same. “If you’d like, we can go in the kitchen and make some hot chocolate. Pa actually remembered to buy almond milk this time!”

“That sounds most excellent,” Logan responded, hanging his coat up on the rack by the front door. He slipped off his boots and padded after Patton into the kitchen.

The two of them make their cocoa, exchanging comfortable banter as they do so. This is by far not the first time that they’ve made cocoa together this winter, and at this point it’s almost like a well-practiced dance routine, darting back and forth between refrigerator and pantry, pantry and stove, stove and countertop, countertop and kitchen table. Patton almost drops the marshmallows no less than three times, but Logan is right there to catch them for him.

“Wow, Lo-lo,” Patton finally comments as Logan catches the marshmallows a fourth time. “Those marshmallows must really love you!”

Logan raises an eyebrow as he sets the bag back on the counter, a nice, good distance from the edge this time. “Marshmallows do not feel anything,” he tries to tell Patton, but the half-Filipino boy shushes him.

“Ask me why, Logan, asks me why.” Patton is practically vibrating, and Logan sighs, because he knows that means he is about to be subject to another of Patton’s horrendous puns or dad jokes. But he humors Patton nevertheless.

“Why do the marshmallows love me, Patton?” he asks, resigned, but Patton barely waits for him to finish speaking before answering.

“Because they keep falling for you,” Patton gushes out, grinning mischievously.

Logan groans good-naturedly, but there’s a fond smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he sits down at the table.

The two sip at their hot cocoa in silence for a few moments, before both open their mouths to speak at the same time.

“Patton, I would like to—”

“Logan, I was thinking—”

They both pause mid-sentence, and Patton laughs. “Go ahead, Lo-lo. You go first! You did come all the way over here, after all.”

Logan nods. “Very well, then.” He takes one more sip of his cocoa before setting it down at the table and looking at Patton, hoping he doesn’t look as nervous as he feels. “You see, my birthday is next Friday, and I was wondering if—”

“Wait, next Friday?” Patton interrupts him, looking surprised. “Like, Friday, January fifteenth?”

“Indeed.” Logan frowns. “Why do you ask?”

“That’s my birthday too,” Patton explains, grinning from ear to ear. He bursts into laughter. “Gosh, that was what I was going to ask you about too, kiddo!”

“We are the same age. You cannot call me ‘kiddo’,” Logan says, scandalized, but this only makes Patton laugh more.

“Oh yeah? Well, what time of day were you born then, hmm, mister?” Patton teases.

“Five fifty-four in the evening,” Logan recites.

“Oh.” Patton’s smile disappears, and for a moment, Logan is worried, but it just seems that he’s lost in thought. “You know, Lo, my dad had me at right around the same time. I don’t remember when he said, exactly, but I sure remember him complaining that I interrupted his dinner.” He giggles, but quickly sobers up.

“Is...is everything all right, Patton?” Logan asks cautiously.

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine! I just....” Patton looks down. “I actually met my soulmate while I was in the hospital, as a baby. Pa said my timer looked awful short when I was born, but he was so tired that he didn’t really think too much of it until it had already hit zero by the next day.”

That’s possible? Logan pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he thinks. Then...could he possibly be....

“He thinks my soulmate was one of the other babies or kids in the hospital,” Patton continues, “but we were never able to figure out who, cuz your...uh, your mom nearly...you know. So he kinda just focused on keeping me alive and keeping an eye on your dad.”

Patton looks up at Logan with hopeful eyes. “Are you certain that you were born with a zero on your timer? Because if not, then maybe....”

The thought hangs in the air between them, burning hot and freezing cold all at once.

Logan swallows thickly. God, he wants it to be true. But it...there are simply too many variables and possibilities.

“I...don’t know,” he finally says aloud, hating how Patton’s shoulders slump. “My father informed me that no one glimpsed my timer before it had hit zero, so we all just...assumed. I can ask him to clarify again, but...there just isn’t any conclusive evidence.” He shrugs.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Patton says morosely.

The two sit in silence once more, before Logan nervously breaks it.

“...Say, Patton, I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to the museum of science next Saturday,” he says carefully. “Your dad is welcome to come, of course, and Remus as well. Afterwards, my father is planning to make a celebratory dinner, since Friday is my birthday.”

“Oh!” Patton’s eyes light up a little, and Logan can’t help but feel relieved at the sight. “I’d love to!”

“Excellent,” Logan says, pleased.

“Will there be cows there?” Patton asks.

Logan blinks. “Excuse me, what?”

Oh, dear, Patton has that glint in his eye again. “You know.” He wriggles his eyebrows up and down. “Since we’re going to a mooseum.”

“I rescind my invitation,” Logan says, straight-faced as Patton jokingly pouts and begs him not to. And he has a lot to think about when he goes home, but in the moment, he just wants to spend as much time as he can with Patton.

---

Logan finally works up the courage to ask his father about his birth Sunday night after supper.

He lingers in the doorway of his dad’s study until the dark-haired man finally notices him.

“Logan?” Dad raises an eyebrow, turning away from his work. “Can I help you with something?”

“Yes, I....” Logan licks his lips nervously. His mother has been a sore subject for months now, but Logan’s been doing better, Dad’s been doing better, this should be fine.

“I would like to inquire about the circumstances of my birth,” Logan says delicately.

Dad goes still. After a moment, though, he sighs heavily, getting up from his desk. “All right, but I don’t know what there is to tell you that I haven’t already.” He goes over and sits on the couch usually reserved for his clients, and gestures for Logan to sit next to him.

“You know, you’ve always been ahead of schedule,” Logan’s father begins as he always has, a rueful smile on his face. “Early to walk, early to talk, early to read, and now you’re early to every appointment and every encounter. But before all of that, you were early to your own birth.

“We were getting ready for you, but we hadn’t expected you so soon,” Dad explains, his mismatched brown and gray eyes glazing over as he reminisces. “Your mother was a few days from going on maternity leave at work. I had only just put in for paternity leave with my boss when I got the call that you were on your way.

“When I got to the hospital, I barely was able to see her before they were wheeling her back to do a c-section. You’re so smart, I’m sure you know what a breech birth is, right?”

Logan nods.

“When she came back, you were by her side, and I was so happy to see that you were okay, but...your mother wasn’t so okay.” The smile on Logan’s father’s face fades. “We weren’t sure that she was going to make it for a long while there, and regardless of whether she survived or not, she wouldn’t be able to have any more children.

“One of the on-duty nurses offered to take you to the nursery with the other babies, that way you would be safe and cared for while I focused on helping your mother.” Logan’s dad pauses. “While you were being examined in the nursery, that was when someone realized your timer read what it does...although we weren’t told about that until the next day.”

“Do you think....” Logan collects his thoughts before continuing with his sentence. “Were you or anyone else, by any chance, able to see what my timer read when I was born?”

Dad shakes his head, and Logan’s heart sinks. “I’m sorry, son. There was so much happening that I don’t remember catching a glimpse.”

Logan nods mutely. Then, quick to change subjects before the silence stretches on too long, he speaks up again. “Patton has confirmed that he can to go to the museum with me this coming Friday. He has also informed me that his father and Remus have offered to come with as chaperones.”

“Excellent.” His dad sounds relieved at the change in conversation topic. “That gives Roman and I some alone time...to make your birthday dinner, of course,” he adds hastily when Logan gives him a suspicious look. “Don’t you have homework or something to do, Logan?” He makes a shooing motion with one two-toned hand.

“Indeed.” Logan doesn’t, not really, but he can tell his father wants to end the conversation, and to be honest, he’s feeling similarly. “I think I will go finish my homework and then go to sleep for the night.”

Logan stands and walks over to the door. At the last second, though, he pauses. “Dad, why...why do you think Mom is your soulmate, when she...?”

The question hangs in the air for just long enough that Logan begins to regret asking it.

“I...don’t know, son. I wish I could lie and tell you that I know for sure, but....” His father shrugs, helpless, and there is another beat of silence. He fixes his gaze on Logan, piercing and warm at the same time. “But I like to think that it’s because she changed my life for the better when she gave me you.”

Logan isn’t sure how to respond to something so blatantly heartfelt from his normally cool and collected father, so he stays quiet on the subject, mulling it over in his head.

“Goodnight, Dad,” Logan finally says. “...I love you.”

“Goodnight, Logan,” his father says, looking mildly surprised. They don’t need to say it, not really, so they usually don’t. They both know it’s an implied thing. “I love you too, son.” He smiles.

Logan isn’t usually one for such outward displays of emotion, but this is his father—his father who forgives him, even as they both struggle and make their own mistakes, his father who stays by him, even as his mother left, his father who loves him, no matter what.

Logan smiles back.

---

The Friday of Logan and Patton’s birthday is cloudy and overcast, with the threat of cold, sleeting rain or possibly even snow on the horizon, but it matters little, since most of it is to be spent inside—first at school, then at the museum, then at Logan’s house for dinner.

Virgil and Remus pick Logan and Patton up from school, shuffling the four of them to the museum of natural science downtown. Virgil insists on driving, and Remus uses this as an excuse to sit shotgun and blast whatever weird music is currently to his taste. He and Virgil bicker about volume the entire way there, while Logan and Patton sit in the back, exchanging knowing glances.

At the museum, Logan tries to pull out money to pay for everyone’s tickets, since he is the one who invited them, after all. But Uncle Remus quickly tells him to put the money away.

“For the birthday boys!” he crows, roughly ruffling Logan and Patton’s hair as the person behind the desk counts out change. “Oh, and you too, I guess.” He winks exaggeratedly at Virgil.

Virgil smiles wryly. “Oh, gee, thanks.” But when Remus drags him into a ridiculous bear hug, he concedes, laughing.

Their tickets paid for, Patton bounces up to the map laid out on the wall. Logan goes to follow him, but a hand on his shoulder pulls him back. Turning around, he sees Virgil, a half-serious look on his face, with Remus right behind him.

“Yeah yeah, y’all are cute together,” Virgil inclines his head between Logan and Patton, “but do I have to give you the Talk?”

Logan blinks, befuddled. “What talk?”

“The sexytimes talk!” Remus interrupts, grinning like the Cheshire cat, and oh, oh god, no, Logan does not need to hear this from Patton’s dad and Patton’s dad’s queerplatonic partner. It was bad enough when his own father sat him down for that particular conversation.

“I don’t believe that to be necessary. Sir,” Logan tacks on, stammering. “I think that I am...adequately knowledgeable in those area. U-uh, just in a clinical manner, o-of course.” He looks around desperately for a way to escape the situation. “I, ahem. I shall go catch up with Patton now, if you will excuse me.”

“Wrap it up!” Remus screeches gleefully as Logan speedwalks over to Patton, grabs his hand, and yanks him away.

“Whoa!” Patton follows behind him without much of a struggle. “I-is everything okay, Lo-lo?”

“Perfectly,” Logan says primly, desperately fighting to maintain his composure and keep his blushing to a minimum. “I simply am...very eager to see the dinosaur exhibit.”

“Oh!” Patton laughs. “I guess it’s a pity we can’t dinosoar on over there, then.”

Logan rolls his eyes at the pun, but when Patton doesn’t stop holding his hand, he allows a tiny, amused smile to dance across his face.

What would it be like, if Patton truly were his soulmate? Would it be like this, but nicer? Or would it even make a change at all?

As Logan and Patton pull each other from exhibit, talking animatedly and still holding hands, he decides that he would really rather not think about the possibility. Besides, Logan quite likes things as they are.

---

Dinner that night is a bit of a messy affair. As it so turns out, like Logan’s father, Roman is not a particularly good cook, and when put together the two are more prone to...distraction. Logan helps Roman scrape the burnt remains into the trash can while Dad and Patton call a local Vietnamese place.

“So, ah, Logan,” Roman says nervously as the two of them pile crusted dishes into the sink. “We’re planning on announcing this at dinner, but I wished to tell you personally. He smiles, but it isn’t his usual boastful grin. “Janus and I...your father and I are—”

“Involved in a romantic relationship?” Logan interrupts, looking wryly at the adult as he turns on the sink.

“Yes, I—” Roman cuts himself off mid-sentence. “Wait, you knew?”

“Neither of you are particularly subtle,” Logan comments offhandedly as he wipes off the counter with a slightly damp sponge. “Which, that is saying something, considering I am not particularly fluent in understanding human relations.”

“Oh.” Roman blinks. “Ah. Well then.”

“I do not object, if that is what you are worried about,” Logan responds. “As ‘extra’ as you may be, you make my father happy, no matter how much he attempts to deny it.”

“Really?” Roman smiles, and it’s soft and warm as opposed to his normal big, brilliant grins. “I’m glad to hear that, kid.”

“I am not a kid,” Logan protests, but Roman ruffles his hair (the habit must run in the family) and walks off, whistling jauntily.

Once Virgil and Remus return with take-out, dinner follows similarly, full of all manners of banter and quips. Logan has never been much of one for small talk, but conversation flows surprisingly easily. Roman, Virgil, and Remus almost devolve into a food fight over analysis of the Nightmare Before Christmas, but Patton hastily steps in and reveals the cake that he baked for the occasion, and all parties compromise on singing “Happy Birthday” as loudly and irritatingly as they can.

Armed with copious amounts of cake and ice cream, the six make their way into the living room to watch a couple movies. Logan’s father sputters as Roman drags him into his lap, and Patton’s dad and Uncle Remus sit by them on the couch, so Logan and Patton sit together on the ridiculously oversized armchair in the corner of the room.

“Spill anything and you get to clean it up,” Dad threatens Remus when he gets a little too reckless with his plate of dessert during the first movie.

“Anyone want popcorn?” Roman questions as he stands and stretches in between the first and second movie.

“Stop trying to tickle your brother, mahal,” Virgil chides when Remus starts to get fidgety during the particularly fluffy movie Patton chose.

Logan says nothing, but when Patton lays his head on Logan’s shoulder halfway through the next movie, his chest and cheeks feel oddly warm.

The movie after that is Roman’s choice, and it’s an incredibly cheesy soulmate romance. It’s an extremely awkward choice, considering most of the people in the room aren’t involved with their soulmates—and, of course, Logan doesn’t even have one to be involved with.

But the movie reminds Logan of the possible revelation he and Patton shared just the week before, and apparently he isn’t the only one.

“Pa,” Patton calls across to Virgil, “did I tell you? Logan and I might be soulmates.”

Remus drops his popcorn. Logan’s dad is too busy gaping at the two teens to scold him for it.

“W-what?” Patton’s dad manages, his voice octaves higher than it typically sounds.

“Yeah! Right, Lo?” Patton glances at Logan for a moment, grinning, before he turns back to look at the adults. “So, so we were born in the same hospital on the same day, right? We were in the nursery together! Same place, same time! Since nobody saw for sure whether Logan’s timer read zero right when he was born or not, we think it might be because we met in the nursery or passing in the hall or something.”

“You think,” Logan interjects weakly. “There is no way to know for certain.”

“That...would actually make a degree of sense,” Patton’s dad says mildly.

Maybe it does. But it also does not. There are so many variables involved—so many possibilities...there is no way for this to be confirmed as fact.

“Aww, how romantic would that be?” Roman coos.

Logan flushes cherry red. Why are they all discussing this so openly?

“So you met your soulmate...as a baby?” Logan’s father asks, eyebrows raised as he contemplates the notion. “Considering we never officially confirmed that he was born with the zero, it could theoretically be possible.”

Logan grits his teeth.

“Yeah! It would just be so cool if it turned out we had been soulmates all along, wouldn’t it? What do you think, Lo?” Patton turns to look at him, smiling, and Logan just can’t take it anymore.

“I don’t care!” Logan finally bursts out.

Patton looks like he’s been punched in the gut. “You...don’t?” he asks, his voice hollow and his eyes dangerously watery, and Logan realizes all too late how his words can be misconstrued.

“Wait—no, that isn’t—” Logan hastily tries to correct, desperately trying to catch Patton’s eye, but Patton looks down. “I don’t mean that how you think I do.”

“How do you mean, it, then?” Patton sniffles.

Patton’s father looks about ready to murder him, but Logan’s dad murmurs something in his ear and decidedly steers the other three adults out of the living room.

Standing up from the armchair, Logan takes a deep breath. This is not at all how he expected the night of their birthday to go. He’d been hoping he could keep these feelings held close to his chest, so that he might figure out what, exactly, they mean, but.... “Patton, I feel very strongly about you. I—emotions are not my strong suit, so I do not know if it is romantic, or platonic, or something else, but...I do. And...regardless of whether we are actually soulmates or not, I....” Logan steels himself for his next words.

“I would like to remain by your side.”

Logan looks at Patton’s surprised expression, and he wants to run and hide. “If you will have me, that is,” he adds, fidgeting with his glasses. He slides them off, so he won’t have to see the rejection in Patton’s eyes, and he lowers them to the hem of his shirt, wiping furiously at the lenses.

Patton is quiet.

Logan knows it’s illogical, he does, but he feels like he has to fill in the silence, to stave off whatever Patton’s reaction will be. He knows what cognitive dissonance is, and he knows that he’s overthinking, but he can’t seem to stop.

“I just,” Logan stops, then starts. As he stares down, the lenses start to look even blurrier. No, no, no. He blinks furiously. “I do not want to forge our relationship solely on the concept that we might be soulmates.”

“Oh, Logan, no,” Patton murmurs, finally speaking up again. “If we’re soulmates, then I think that’d be neat! But that isn’t the only thing our relationship would be based on, honey. It would just be like a cool little add-on.”

Something cool touches Logan’s face—Patton’s fingers. They gently tease him into looking up and meeting Patton’s intent eyes. A second hand grasps his, taking his glasses and sliding them back into place on his face.

“It doesn’t matter if we’re soulmates or not,” Patton says softly yet stubbornly, his cheeks darkened slightly, “because I like you either way. Either way I feel the same for you, Logan.” He blinks slightly watery eyes. “I don’t know what this is, but maybe we can figure it out...together?”

Logan nods mutely.

“Can I hug you?” Patton asks carefully.

Again, Logan nods.

Patton slowly crowds into Logan’s space, and just like in the past, somehow his presence is welcoming, not oppressing and claustrophobia-inducing, unlike when their classmates shove by in the halls.

Patton takes him into his arms, and Logan falls.

Holding Logan close, Patton awkwardly sits the two of them back down on the armchair, half in each others’ laps, arms around shoulders and waists, legs tangled with legs, faces tucked into shoulders. Their breaths are silent and quick, their eyes watery but not quite crying.

Logan isn’t sure how long they sit like that before he becomes aware of a buzzing sensation in his arm. He makes a jolting motion as if to separate slightly from Patton, who quickly lets him.

“Apologies,” he murmurs. “My arm seems to have fallen asleep.”

Patton laughs. The sound is choked. “Yeah, my leg’s all buzzy and tingly too,” he admits, kicking out his legs a bit.

A rustling noise sounds behind them. Logan turns to see his father, Roman, Patton’s dad, and Remus piled in the doorway to the living room. Dad at least has the grace to look sheepish at being caught, but the others don’t even try to hide the fact that they’ve been eavesdropping.

“’S it safe to come back in?” Remus asks. “No war zones or anything? Nobody that needs fighting to the death?”

“None,” Logan confirms.

“Good, because I want to finish my movie,” Roman declares, striding into the room.

The four adults re-situate themselves on the couch once more, and everything resumes almost exactly as it had been before.

Dad, sitting the closest to Logan and Patton on the armchair, scrutinizes the two while the other three adults become immersed in the movie once more. “All good, son?” he finally asks, so quietly that Logan almost thinks he’s imagining the words.

Is all truly good?

Logan doesn’t know. Just like he doesn’t know if Patton is his soulmate, just like he doesn’t know how things are going to be now. But like Patton said, they can figure it out together. It’ll take time, but they have time, no matter what the timers on their wrists read.

Logan nods.

“All good.”

---

Logan does not have a soulmate. Or maybe he does. He doesn’t know.

All he knows is the zero that has been on his wrist since before he can remember. All he knows is the time that had run out, or so people have always told him. But perhaps...perhaps it isn’t that the timers count down to an ending. Perhaps they count down to a beginning. And perhaps, in having an ended timer, or in having no timer, or in whatever the zero on his wrist means—perhaps this means he gets to decide when his beginning is, not fate.

Logan does not have a soulmate. Or maybe he does. Who knows?

What he knows to be fact, however, is that he is a Logan, and he has a Patton, and they have all the time in the world.

Fin

Day 1 || Day 2 || Day 3

Yeah, this one’s late because my dumb ass decided to pull a sickfic, except I’m lonely and had to hold back my own hair :’) Never fear, though! I am entirely stuck in my bed now, so I’ll have plenty of time to write more stuff. :’D

Want to be added onto any of my taglists? Shoot me an ask or a message here or via my other social media!

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letstartdiggingpod · 3 years

Text

I've been editing episode 6 recently, which is our first episode on amatonormativity, and I've had a lot of thoughts about some stuff we talk about. And while the episode is mostly about our experience being on the asexual and aromantic spectrum, there's one bit I keep thinking about.

At some point (this may not stay in the episode), Meghana mentions how they always say "I wish someone had a crush on me", which ignores the very real people who did when they were younger, and I agreed with that sentiment, but upon reflection, the disconnect for me is that people who had a crush on me very clearly didn't have a crush on me, but the idea of me.

From what I understand, crushes usually work as the following: you meet someone and start to like them, and when you get a crush on them, you want to know them better and start dating them. Sometimes the result of this is you find out the person sucks and you no longer like them anymore. The desired result is that you'll get to know them better, becomes closer to them, and find yourself loving them. Ideally, getting to know someone better results in your like of them becoming a stronger like of them and a mutual like and/or love.

And that has never happened to me! Of course, I understand that I might just be extremely unluckily, but everyone who has had a crush on me that later got to know me better has always regretted it, backtracking on liking me because they actually don't like me as I actually am. To be clear, I don't blame them. I have never wanted to date anyone seriously, so it sucks, for them, that they get to know me and then realize I am probably never going to date them, but it is curious to me that the result of them finding that out is "I will never talk to you again" rather than "we can stay friends and keep our fairly close friendship".

This is particularly about the guys who had crushes on me in middle school (which, sidenote, a lot of them only had crushes on me cause I was the only girl who spoke to them -- I had a lot of male friends in middle school, and many of these male friends rarely actually spoke to girls other than me). In middle school, I would frequently hid large chunks of myself from all my friends (including my close friends! all my queer friends from middle school came out to me years before I would come out to them, if I ever did, even though I realized I was queer around the same time as them), because I was afraid of the consequences of actually confronting my real self and realizing who I was to other people and who I actually am are almost two distinct entities. So obviously, and to no real fault of their own, when these guys had crushes on me, it was very much the idea of me they had a crush on, and they -- very pointedly, in some cases -- expressed an interest to get to know me, got to actually know a more real version of me, and then decided I wasn't worth liking anymore. This happened to me multiple times!

I never liked any of these people back, so it wasn't particularly painful in that regard, but I do think for the longest time, my desire for someone to have a crush on me (despite the fact several people had) comes from that disconnect: it was super clear that the person they had a crush on was not me, but some ideal of me that would be the perfect girl and girlfriend I could be if I was more malleable. And the idea of me is malleable, so I'm not as outspoken or angry or independent or intelligent or stubborn or whatever. They can have a crush on an ideal of me that isn't annoying to be with, that doesn't actively challenge them on their misogyny.

The weirdest part about this all is that I still have plenty of male friends, some of whom are from middle school, and none of these male friends had any trouble befriending the real me or anything. I have good friendships with these guys, who didn't have a crush on me and who were more receptive to who I genuinely was, when I did feel like opening up. And I value all their friendships! But there comes a point where I did start to question maybe friendship is all I'm worth, because the people who actually care about me don't want to date me, and the people who want to date me don't actually care about me. That is some idea to internalize, and it's even more complicated with living in an amatonormative society and being someone who experiences a near zero romantic attraction.

#phoebe.md #episode 6 #aromantic #asexual #crushes #repeating the disclaimer that Meghana and I are not the same person #and thus none of this reflects what they think #also I'm not a cis girl but I didn't feel like overcomplicating my point #with my overly complicated gender identity and experience

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tiger-moran · 4 years

Text

Cut for ranting about ace/aro/oriented aroace shit, don’t reblog this, probably don’t even read this, I’m still cranky from pain and rambling and this probably doesn’t even make sense

The thing about that oriented/angled aroace stuff is...

I don’t give a fuck who identifies with what, it doesn’t matter to me who calls themselves what and while I do consider myself oriented aroace it isn’t particularly a term I would use to generally define myself, it’s more something that’s just... background information I guess but what I do give a fuck about is how that is yet something else that’s isolated me even further from the so-called “aspec community”, because it has yet again revealed this so-called community does not actually accept or like people like me much.

I mean I say “community” like that in quotes because there is no single cohesive community, for anything, not really. In reality these are all different scattered groups, there is no single aspec or ace or aro or anything else community. But to whatever extent there actually is one cohesive community, I’ve never felt a connection to it. Not really ever. I called myself asexual many years back totally independently of anyone else. Some years later I came across a few other people who also called themselves asexual, but it was never some ‘community’, it was literally just stumbling across a couple of similar people on blogs that were about other things entirely, and stuff like that. And even as awareness of asexuality and aromanticism has spread, at least online, I’ve really only become more detached from that “community”. The only communities I’ve ever really felt any kind of connection with are the bi community and the queer community.

And I get totally that most of the hate and bigotry towards ace and aro people is coming from total outsiders, both people who are not aspec and not remotely queer or LGBT+ or anything like that. But there is still a lot from within it too, within the actual aspec “community”. And that shit, while it may be from a small minority, is still way more fucking grating overall than the external stuff from the more general aphobes and the aspec “””””exclusionists””””.

Because it’s people within the aspec community (as far as one does exist) who have consistently or repeatedly essentially told me that:

we all have to use the split attraction model, despite plenty of us not actually seeing any meaningful distinction or split between sexual and romantic attraction and despite many people using the word asexual to refer to both sexual and romantic attraction way, way before aromantic seemed to have been possibly even coined or at least commonly used.

if I’m not completely terrified of even the mention of sex/read smut/have anything resembling a libido/write smut/am kinky/ever so much as even think about having sex I’m not really ace

and very similar things about romance and being aro too

as an aroace it’s somehow my fault, not the fault of bigots, but my fault and the fault of other aroaces simply for existing that everyone thinks all aces are aro and vice-versa.

as an aroace I’m basically not really aro and will always prioritise asexuality because I don’t see aromanticism as meaningful or important in any way

and yes, that if I experience other forms of attraction or desire any kind of intimate relationship I’m not really aroace. Sometimes it’s a denial of being aroace full stop. A lot of the times though it’s trying to force grey/demi identities or labels on me when I am not grey/demi. Both of those are shitty things to do because speaking over someone about their own identity and feelings and experiences and acting like you know their identity better than they do is always a shitty thing to do.

So yeah, while none of these are things that uniquely come from within the aspec “community” and while I don’t actually care who calls themself whatever, I have basically been told over and over by certain other aspecs for years and years now that I’m doing asexuality/aromanticism/being aroace wrong and that I’m not those things. And this fairly recent thing with another person whose orientation and experiences connected to it seem to be extremely similar to mine creating a term for themself (I’m afraid I can’t remember their pronouns offhand) and people very similar to them and then a lot of people piling onto them and essentially screaming at them that they’re a bigot for that, and much of this shit often coming from people who claim to be so accepting and supportive of microlabels and more specific terms for identities that can’t be adequately expressed in a more simplistic way too... I get completely why that creator of ‘oriented aroace’ was pissed off by this because instead of going after the actual bigots and saying ‘maybe it’s shitty to try to force terms and labels onto people and tell them you’re not actually X you’re Y’ and insist people use labels that don’t fit them, they went after that person, just for trying to express their own identity. And as far as I can remember that person too was made to feel so very isolated and excluded and generally shit on by the overall aspec and aroace communities and having people try to force terms like grey or demi onto them despite those not being their identities and not something they experienced, that was why they created that term, but then a load of people started demanding no it HAS to be for everyone and insisting that no you can’t have a microlabel for yourselves and actually angled aroace (which again as far as I know was not intended to be a synonym or interchangeable with it by the creator of that term) is just an interchangeable synonym now. (And no pointing out that you’re not grey/demi and wanting some way to distinguish yourself from people who are in order to find people who you can relate to in that very specific area is not bigotry. It’s creating a microlabel for a subset of aroace, that’s like... the entire point of microlabels, to describe particular parts of one’s identity; the overall term is aroace, anything else is a microlabel for a subset of aroace).

It has shown yet again, the aspec community doesn’t care about aroaces and it especially doesn’t give a fuck about us when we ‘do being aroace wrong’ according to them. And no it is not that saying that people who are aspec as in grey/demi rather than ‘full’ aroace don’t also experience shit from the overall communities (and the idea that somehow one group or subgroup experiencing some kind of bigotry or oppression or anything negative and being upset about that is somehow saying anything at all about any other group or subgroup is just totally absurd and probably entirely the product of all these silly 14 year olds running “discourse” blogs full of their inane “hot takes”, and that idea needs to die now). As far I know the creator of oriented aroace never tried to claim other aspec groups or subgroups did not experience their own issues either, but people still piled onto them and attacked them over it instead of ever bothering to address the aphobia that does exist particularly towards certain subsets even within the aspec community.

I mean so far I don’t feel any need to actually stop identifying as aroace or ace or anything like that (possibly because, you know, spite) but if I ever do despite literally still being aroace, it’s not going to be because of bigotry from outside the ‘aspec community’, it will be entirely because of that probably actually small but still annoying as fuck minority within it and it’s like... I will defend other aspecs to the ends of the earth but I still don’t actually feel any connection with most of them, mostly because of all of this stuff.

#not tagging this I don't want it in any of the tags

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obeymematches · 4 years

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Hi! Can I get a matchup?

I'm a chaotic neutral Aquarius who uses they/them pronouns. I'm also aro so I dunno if that affects the matchup? I'm super affectionate though, and I think that links to being aro? Romantic norms usually mean people are select on who they're affectionate to, but without that, I just get cuddly with (nearly) anyone. But I do like the idea of a relationship and would be okay with open or poly relationships, so long as my partners understand im aro and that I'll cuddle most people.

I'm also extremely open. So much so that I'm willing to share my interests immediately, as long as I quick judge the person as likeable. I've discussed smut fiction with people I didn't even know the name of. But, on that, I'm bad with names if it isn't constantly mentioned or immediately memorable, but I care for people deeply, regardless.

I really love soft things. Plushies, hair, clothes, blankets, animals, whatever. So long as it's soft, I adore it. This leads me to splurge a bit on soft stuff. I suppose the way to my heart is plushies and cuddling then, huh?

I'm also an animal person (not just a dog or cat or bird person, an animal person). I'd love to have so many pets and raising pets with people I care about? I adore the idea.

I also like to read. A lot (Smut being a prime interest)! So I'd like to just read to pass most of my time, if I'm not drawing or something.

Another thing I find myself loving is a deep clear voice (regardless of accent). I've fallen in love with people's voices as I am, in fact, an extremely sensual person.

Truth be told, I'm sensual before I am sexual as the idea of intimate activities like sex are appealing, yes, but not something I actually want? But I'm not opposed to making out with someone or getting near to doing the do. Also, I may be aromantic, but I adore romantic acts.

I'm squicked out by obsession. After having a stalker once (who actually haunted my dreams) I hate the idea of intense obsession.

Also I hate slimy things. Touching? Gross. Eating something like tres leche (three milk) cake? Gross.

Oh and I don't do well in big open rooms. At least for bedrooms. It makes me feel exposed and anxious.

As for my faults, I'm lazy. I procrastinate on work (personal or business). And sometimes I don't spend time with people because I'm lazy.

And, as emotionally aware as I am, I'm blind to when people don't want me around. I can get needy, and it hurts me to know that I bothered someone so much, but sometimes I want to be selfish. Though I never do act selfish, I feel bad for feeling selfish.

Im not exactly picky over who I would date, as they really just need to be pretty, bonus if they've got soft hair or a nice voice. Cuddly too? And someone who's not insecure with themself, at least not in terms of a relationship.

I would, however, not like to date particularly judgemental or strict person. It's very limiting and I want to be me before I'm a partner.

Thanks, in advance! <3

---------

Hello darling!

Thank you for sending in a request, I had fun writing this! I hope you like the result!

Oh!!!!!!!!!! Now this!!!!!!!! is a really good match for my boy Asmo!!!!!!! Hold onto your hat because I have the ideas for you!!!

If you open the dictionary at “affection” you’ll see Asmo’s picture attached right next to it.

He knows it all about that and the secret to a relationship that lets you be free!

Honestly he would be thrilled to be able to cuddle you any chance he gets, whether or not you’re in a relationship. That’s just the details.

He also has his own sexual experiences, so you could talk about that stuff any time you have something to say. He’s the only one whou wouldn’t get too embarassed to talk about it. (honestly most of the brothers don’t really have much canon experience. Lucifer most likely does have quite a bit but he has too much pride to talk about that stuff with someone who’s not his partner)

Asmo is also soooooo soft. His hair, face, voice, everything about him is as soft as it can get. If that’s not enough for you then here:

He would totally like to have a bunny with you later

He is a sensual person also, depsite not having a deep voice.

I imagine him as a very romantic person. Gives you flowers or perfume as gifts at unexpected times!

Love-poetry reading / writing while drinking champagne or wine

Naah, he’s not the one to get too obsessed. He isn’t very likely to get jealous either. I think he would also prefer an open/poly relationship.

He would pay attention to what makes you uncomfortable and avoid places that are just big, open rooms.

Well, you being lazy means more time to cuddle, so 🤷

I don’t think he’d mind the attention, he can be rather needy too.

I mean what you described in that paragraph is just Asmo!

He agrees with you last statement. Yeah relationships are cool and all, sex is also fantastic, but love yourself babe.

He’d talk about his interests as well though, and involve you in them. Be prepared to go shopping with him!

#obey me #obey me!#obey me asmo #obey me asmodeus #obey me matchup #obey me shall we date #obey me swd #swd obey me #submission

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swimmingnewsie · 4 years

Text

Of Coffee and Cookies (Chapter 8)

Ryder is not having a good day. At all.

Link to AO3

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Ryder focused intently on the wood in front of him. Even after work hours, he couldn’t help but come out to the shed he and his dad had built so many years ago and work on things. There was something soothing about carving that managed to silence his brain in ways nothing else could.

It had started as a way to help him focus when he was a kid. He was always rambunctious as a child, far more than most of the other kids. Dad tried to run out his energy with sports, but there was no one sport that he could commit to for too long. Football was too rough. Basketball was too complicated. Soccer was the best contender, but even that only held him for one season.

One spring day, Dad brought him back out to the yard after a particularly rough day at school. He got detention again. He left his homework in the wrong folder again, and he couldn’t focus on what his teacher was saying, and everything was simultaneously too slow and too fast. He was expecting Dad to yell at him, same as the teacher did.

But instead of yelling, Dad handed him a pair of gloves and a hammer. Dad wanted to him to build something. He’d never done anything like that before, and he knew he couldn’t do it nearly as well as Dad did. But Dad didn’t care. They weren’t going inside until he built something. It felt impossible.

Dad worked with him in the yard for hours. He helped him draw out a small table- one just big enough for him and his sister to sit at all to themselves. He took him to the hardware store, helping Ryder pick out wood and materials. He helped Ryder painstakingling hit each and every nail, put each board in place. By the end of the day, Ryder was exhausted, but proud. A small wooden table sat in the bedroom he shared with Maren.

As Dad tucked him into bed that night, he would never forget his words. “Whenever it gets too much or too hard to focus, remember your table. You did that yourself with your hard work and focus. And sometimes I know it takes you a little longer, but I know you always get there. You don’t ever give up, even when it seems hopeless, understand?”

The small table sat in the shed, near his current work bench. The memory made him smile. Things were so much simpler then.

Ryder sighed, moving from one project to another. His stomach tightened, thoughts distracted. He was doing this all wrong. Why couldn’t he just feel the way Kristoff obviously did? Kristoff had been hurt enough already, and he couldn’t bear the thought of adding to it. But that article... It made everything he had ever felt make sense.

A bottle slamming on his table pulled him away.

“A bottle of whiskey as requested.”

Ryder smiled at his sister. It didn’t surprise him that she actually bought them a bottle after their conversation then night before. That’s just how Maren was.

“Relentless as always,” he teased, getting off his bench to grab some cups.

“It’s why you love me,” she said, settling on the other side of the table.

Ryder stood, pouring a generous amount into the homemade shot glasses. It certainly wasn’t the first time they had done this. “How’s Elsa?”

Maren sighed. “Still sick as a dog. She texted me this afternoon after she went to the doctor. Somehow she’s managed to outdo Anna with three infections- the flu, strep, and bronchitis.” She took the shot glass. “Thanks.”

Ryder sipped on his drink. “What are you doing messing around with me rather than making sure she’s actually resting?:

Maren shrugged. “She has her own sister to look after her for a bit. And if they need anything, Kristoff isn’t too far away.” He could feel his face fall at the mention of his boyfriend. He just hoped she hadn’t noticed. Her hand cupped his face. “And I think my big brother needs me more tonight.”

“Thank you.”

He sighed. His heart felt heavy, and it wasn’t from the alcohol. “I- I don’t think I love Kristoff.” There. Now it was out in the open. The thought that had nagged on his brain for weeks on end. Ryder looked up at his sister nervously.

Maren pursed her lips, looking back at her brother.”Okay. That’s not what I thought you were going to say,” she said with a look of concern. “What happened? Did you have a bad fight or something else? Do you have feelings for someone else?”

He nervously ran a hand in his hair. “The- the opposite problem actually. I don’t feel anything for anyone. Not in that way at least.”

Maren raised an eyebrow at her brother. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just when we kiss, I don’t feel anything. At first I thought it was just I wasn’t experienced and it had just been overhyped for me. But then it kept happening. You had always talked about what magic it felt like when you kissed Elsa or the guys at work talk about it when they get back from a good date, but I just- I just don’t feel it,” he rambled, feeling his heart rate speed up.

“And then I went looking online to see if this happened to anyone else and- and- and well one thing kept coming up. Well two things.” Ryder kept his head down. He didn’t want the tears brimming in his eyes to let loose, even it was just him and Maren.

Maren reached out and put a gentle hand over his. “And what was that, Ry?” she asked quietly.

“Aromanticism and asexuality.”

Tears flooded down his face as waves of emotion flowed through his body. He had never said it out loud before. He wasn’t sure how he felt. Maren squeezed his hand. “Does that feel right to you?” she asked with the gentlest of tones.

All Ryder could do was nod, tears falling too hard to speak. “Then that’s okay. I want you to know I love you more than anyone or anything and nothing is going to change that.” It was faintly reminiscent of the last time he had come out to her- only this time it wasn’t followed by Maren coming out herself.

Ryder wrapped his arms around his sister, clinging on to dear life. He was safe. He was okay. “What am I gonna tell, Kris?” he asked quietly.

“The truth,” she replied simply. “The longer you hold this in, the worse it’s going to be for both of you.”

Ryder sighed. He knew it was true, but there was still a problem in timing and linguistics. He finished his shot glass before speaking again. “I need more whiskey and Mario Kart if I’m gonna have to keep thinking about this.”

“Mario Kart: Don’t Drink and Drive?” Maren teased. “Oh absolutely. I’m gonna kick your ass, you lightweight!”

Ryder smiled. He was still nervous as all hell, but he had his sister by his side. He could do this.

He couldn’t do this. He absolutely could not do this.

Ryder was going to put a hole in the floor if he kept pacing, but he couldn’t help it. He was about to tell his boyfriend something he knew would hurt him and how could he do that to someone as nice and kind as Kristoff? Kristoff deserved so much better than a man who couldn’t love him the way he loved Ryder.

Kristoff wasn’t even here yet, and he could feel the tears building in his eyes. Nokk nudged his head against Ryder’s hand, clearly sensing his owner’s unease.

“I’m okay, buddy. Sorry,” he said with his voice shaking. He gave the golden retriever a comforting pet. “I’m just really nervous is all.”

“Why, Ryder?” he said in his Nokk voice, the same way Kristoff often spoke for Sven. The voice that made Kristoff smile so bright.

“Because I’m about to tell him something he doesn’t want to hear and I’m scared he’ll hate me forever.”

“What don’t I want to hear?”

Shit.

Ryder had been so distracted by his thoughts he didn’t hear the front door open. He sheepishly ran a hand through his hair, desperate for some attempt at composure. “Hi, Kris,” he eventually said.

Kristoff looked at him with sad concerned eyes. “I’m not going to hate you. Whatever it is, I couldn’t hate you, Ry,” he consoled. “I love you.”

There was that stupid word again. His breathing sped up and tears fell from his eyes. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. Kristoff loved him, and he couldn’t and he couldn’t break his heart like everyone else had. Oh God, why-

“Ryder, it’s okay. It’s okay,” he said tenderly, wrapping his arms around the other man. “Whatever it is, we can take care of it. I promise. Please, just tell me.”

“I’m- I’m aromantic.”

It was out in the open. There was no going back now. Ryder braced himself, scared to look at the man before him.

“Oh.”

That was all he said. God why couldn’t have pretended and been happy for Kristoff? Why did he have to hurt him yet again?

“I- I need to go.”

“Kristoff, wait! Please!” But it was too late. Kristoff was already out the door.

Ryder fell to his knees and sobbed. Nokk laid beside his owner, trying to comfort but it was to no avail. There was no escaping this pain. He made his bed and now he had to lie in it.

This was all his fault.

#frozen #frozen fanfic #rydoff #nattura siblings #frohana #my fic #ooooooooh boy #this one hurt #And will take a bit to resolve

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wahoo-stomp · 5 years

Text

I’ve never really been a big listener to One Direction.

Okay. That’s a lie. I literally don’t listen to One Direction. Got nothing against them – just never really had any interest, and my music tastes are…limited. So I was more than a little surprised when my Spotify playlist led to a 1D song in the Year of Our Lord 2019. I know Spotify can sometimes select a song that it thinks you’ll like based on what you listen to – but the artist I’d been listening to wasn’t even in the same genre. So imagine my surprise when I’m greeted with—

You're insecure Don't know what for You're turning heads when you walk through the door.

Okay first of all, what?

This is roughly when I reached for my phone to change the song, but then my brain did that thing where it went “eh what the heck” and I let it play a little longer. It didn’t take long for me to see that this is one of many songs with a theme of the singer talking to someone and telling them they’re more attractive than they realize. It’s not the most original concept, but there was nothing particularly offensive to me about this iteration of it, so I let the song continue further. I admit I like pop styled tunes, probably because of a whole bunch of stuff a music theorist could better explain than I can, so it was fun to listen to – and then suddenly something jumped out at me.

I hardly believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to recommend listening to the song to see what I’m talking about if you don’t know it, and NO, this isn’t a plug for a defunct boy band.

Okay, you’ve listened to the point where they go “If only you saw what I can see—” you can pause it there.

So far the artists have stuck to what I would call pleasant but superficial comments. Hair flicking is…not really anything that stands out to me, since frankly I care more about eyes and anyways we’re talking from the perspective of a guy who might be asexual and aromantic (can I say that? I’m still trying to figure it out, so I’m not sure I’m right anyway and hopefully I didn’t irk anyone just now). Lighting up the world, yada yada yada. Heard it all before, will hear it again. But then, when the line mentioned above played, my attention was instantly grabbed.

Now before I explain why that is the case, I’m gonna let ya’ll in on a little secret. I’m super, super duper, super duper duper insecure. I know, right? You never would have guessed*. Nah, but all joking aside, one of the things I struggle with most is a feeling of…worth. Now I do have people in my life who tell me they love me – I have friends who (I think) think pretty highly of me, and I have a job and am overall doing okay for a millennial trying to survive as a liberal arts major in this economic nightmare we call “capitalism.” But even all that granted, I struggle everyday with the idea that I’m really worthy of love or interest or anything along that line. This is largely because I am acutely aware of my faults, including the ones I (gasp) try to hide from others. Fact is, I have a scrolling list of ways in which I bungle things, sometimes daily, and it’s not all that easy to see myself as valuable when I have said list.

*You literally guessed after three seconds.

I can hear you saying “no one is perfect, Josh.” Yeah, I know. Heck, the characters in my other blogs are learning that as we speak (even though I think Rocky is pretty darn close). Still doesn’t keep me from berating myself. Sometimes, if we’re totally honest, the internal and external pressures I face are nearly enough to make me give up on myself as a lost cause.

“Okay, um, this is depressing. Does it get better?”

Well, I have one more thing to add. I’m a Christian.

*cue sirens*

Christians are a scary bunch to some folks, and, uh, I don’t always blame them. Some people claiming to represent Jesus suck immensely at it and there is an extensive list of people who do so that I wish I could just tell to shut up. But, with your permission, we’ll skip over the common stereotypes associated with radical Christianity and, for now, summarize my faith perspective as the following statement – I see God as my friend, and I believe the converse is true.

Good. We’ve got that out of the way.

Here’s the problem. If my faith is to be believed, God knows me inside and out – meaning God knows what an idiot I can be. That’s disconcerting. That’s unnerving. That’s freakin’ terrifying – not because I expect God to drop a bolt of lightning on my face (again, not that kind of “Christian”), but for the same reason I don’t tell all of YOU how messy I can be – I don’t want you to hate me or give up on me and decide I’m not worth it.

Okay. That’s a lot of laundry, but I promise I’m getting to a point.

When I say I see God as a friend, I recognize how that might sound. Many faith traditions not only disagree with that statement, but disagree on the nature of God, period. I’m not here to argue with those folks. Disagreement and respect are compatible. If you don’t mind hearing me out, though, perhaps my perspective on God in relation to a 1D song will provide you with either (a) some encouragement or (b) the final confirmation you need that I am in fact a lunatic. We shall see.

If only you saw what I can see You'll understand why I want you so desperately Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe You don't know You don't know you're beautiful!

Okay, that rolls off the tongue well. What does it have to do with what I mentioned above? Well, if I may be allowed to withdraw a sample (emphasis on sample, I strongly encourage reading the full context of this thing) from the pre-Christian writings of Scripture, more specifically the book of Psalms, chapter 139, verses 17 and 18:

“How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.”

“Okay, great. Where’s the connection?”

Well, although this particular piece doesn’t mention it, there are a variety of instances in scriptural writ where God’s thoughts towards people, be they individuals or nations, are referenced as positive. (Yes, there are negative examples too, often stated as part of a judgment passage, but I am not skilled in the subject of God’s judgment and will not attempt to go into depth on it right now). The chapter at large acknowledges God’s presence throughout the writers life, even predating birth. For the record, the writer of this particular Psalm, was, uh, messed up. David did some stuff right but whoa nelly he really did some screwball stuff (to put it incredibly lightly) – so we’re not looking at someone who’s perfect when he talks about God’s thoughts.

If we take this piece of writing, therefore, and slightly change the perspective of the speaker…we might end up with a (rather less cliché sounding) 1D song. Now before someone burns me at the proverbial stake, let me clarify what I mean. (NO, I’m not equating holy writ with pop music, promise.)

Let us assume, that these positive examples of God’s thoughts, can be applied to ourselves – or to you and me, to bring it home. If this is the case, when we regard ourselves as unworthy of love, or not valuable, or ugly (a struggle for me personally) or whatever else, is it entirely unreasonable that God’s reaction might be something along the lines of the chorus above?

I think that if we refer back even earlier to that venerable writ in the Torah known as Genesis, we can encounter God’s initial thought on the creation of humankind. Essentially, “It was very good (1:31).”

(For the record, it goes downhill from there as far as the whole “being good” thing goes, but for that moment, at least, God was pretty excited with the state of humankind.)

So let us now take the (limited) textual context and apply it to the, song, taking some creative license (and removing any romantic preconceptions).

Dear one I’d light up the world for nobody else To see a smile on your face makes me smile as well No matter what you may think it’s not hard to tell I still know, oh oh You are just so beautiful If only you saw what I can see You’ll understand why I care for you constantly Right now I’m looking at you and I can’t believe You don’t know – you are just so beautiful.

Okay, now here’s something I feel obligated to clarify. I’m not a fan of fluffy faith. I’m also not a fan of reducing suffering and emotional struggle to a single sentence. Band-aid solutions and glib encouragement irk me. So I am not pretending for a moment that I know what anyone reading this is going through. Really, I’m just writing something for myself and hoping that something in it provides encouragement for others.

Essentially, I believe God’s perception of our value is not tied to ours, and I’m encouraged by the idea that someone smarter than me knows just what I’m capable of, and loves me despite all my dirty laundry.

That doesn’t mean I recommend using 1D as a source of spiritual encouragement.

I do recommend considering the possibility that your favorite love song or the things that encourage you could very well be used by God to try to communicate God’s thoughts to you. Furthermore, I do recommend acknowledging your value is not caught up in only your perspective, and that there are so many ways in which you are valued…beautiful, that you may not even see.

After all, perfection isn’t attainable – but if you don’t dismiss something because it’s imperfect, why would God?

Everyone else in the room can see it, Maybe it’s time you did too.

#josh's journals #long post #faith?#1d #if that set of tags isn't strange i dunno what is lol #but i've had a week™#and this stuff just...came to me

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aroworlds · 6 years

Text

Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Nate

Our next aro-spec creator is Nate, better known on Tumblr as @astriiformes!

Nate is an asexual, aromantic, neurodivergent and mentally ill trans guy/person continuing the tradition of aro-spec creators demonstrating an impressive diversity of talent. He writes, cosplays, creates filk music and produces visual art--and that’s when he’s not playing D&D and attending conventions!

You can find him on Twitter as planar_ranger and on 8tracks as azhdarchidaen. He’s also found on AO3 as azhdarchidaen, with a prolific selection of works for the Gravity Falls, Doctor Who, Critical Role and Pacific Rim fandoms! If you have a dollar or two you’re wanting to invest in worthy aro-spec talent, please take a look at Nate’s Ko-Fi!

With us Nate talks about expressing emotions through creativity, the intersection of aromanticism and perfectionism, the importance of storytelling as self-expression and his passion for D&D as a way of giving voice to his aromantic experience. His love for fandom, creativity and storytelling shines through every word, so please let’s give him all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

While I didn’t know the word “aromantic” until I was 15 or 16, and took a while to embrace it even then, when I look back on my childhood I can definitely see some of the earliest signs. Perhaps the most prominent was my mild disappointment at age 12 or 13 in discovering the Star Wars EU novels only to learn that Luke Skywalker, one of my most pervasively favorite characters since I first watched the movies and likely my earliest aro headcanon, ended up getting married! I ended up writing what was technically my first fanfiction after that discovery, an alternate take on the post-Return of the Jedi universe in which he didn’t.

But I didn’t really start to realize I was aro, or even know it was an identity at all, until two things happened. First, I joined an LGBTQA+ group on a writer’s forum I used to frequent and started to not only learn the vocabulary but also that identifying as something other than straight or cis was even allowed. Second, I entered what was essentially the closest thing to a romantic relationship I’ve ever experienced. By some measures it probably was one, but there really wasn’t much romance involved – because I wasn’t pushing it (for reasons that are now obvious to me), and the guy I was sort-of-dating was pretty respectful of my boundaries and was probably waiting for me to make some of those moves before trying himself. The relationship eventually broke off several months after he moved to Europe. He messaged me to say he felt bad about the fact that our long-distance “relationship” was probably holding me back from finding someone I could be happier with, and he would be more comfortable breaking it off. The fact that I felt no real sadness over that was a fairly big bit of evidence for my aromanticism, second only to the fact that I had actually become more comfortable with our situation when he moved across the Atlantic Ocean.

Clues like those eventually lead me to adopt the label and really begin to understand myself, I think around age 16 or 17. I went through a slow process of accepting all my queer identities one-by-one and kind of see them all as pretty interconnected. The aro one was in the middle.

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

I really like making things. For all the frustration I experience trying to write something I’m happy with, or panicked near all-nighters trying to finish props before a convention, I really am at my happiest when I have projects to engage in. I take a lot of pride in my identity as a content creator as a result, though it also means I can set discouragingly high standards for myself. That being said, there’s nothing that makes me happier that someone enjoying something I put time and effort into and being able to go “I made this.”

Writing was definitely my earliest outlet (I did draw things when I was younger, but I didn’t show my art to anyone until this time last year). I was posting fics (under a different username, fortunately; I don’t want my early teenage writing unearthed ten years later) on ff.net by early high school, a narrative I’m sure I share with plenty of other creators. I’ve done more interesting things with my writing since migrating over to AO3 though, and I continue to feel like my writing is growing (even if, sometimes, I worry it’s going too slowly).

Getting into cosplay was something I picked up only a year or so later, though again, comparing my current work to those first few attempts feels almost silly. My first cosplay was a patched-together Eighth Doctor mostly made out of thrift store finds that looked only debatably like the real deal. Since then, I’ve gotten better at sewing my own things and have realized one of my true strengths lies in elaborate props. My two most recent cosplays were Stanford Pines from Gravity Falls, with a fully-illustrated and screen-accurate copy of the third journal, complete with blacklight effects, and Taako, from The Adventure Zone, with an Umbra Staff that I had re-covered in fabric and had fully-functional LED “stars” built into it, stars I could make twinkle via a secret remote. I’m attempting two characters that are even more ambitious for conventions this year, but we’ll have to see how that actually goes…

My filk contributions aren’t massive, but the community aspect (and that it connected me to someone who is now one of my closest friends, who made me go from enjoying the genre to contributing to it) and some of the things I’ve done as a result of it make me feel it has a place as part of my creative identity. You haven’t lived until you’ve performed decades-old songs about space travel with your friends, in cosplay, in a crowded convention center! (Okay, a debatable statement. But a truly wild experience.) It’s also been a good outlet for me in some ways, because music is a powerful way to get across emotions. I play viola and piano, and have for years, so I knew that to some degree before I started writing my own lyrics to things. But personalizing songs by making them be about things you have really strong feelings for is another level entirely.

And then, art. Like I said, I never really shared it with anyone (or drew much at all) until about a year ago. Part of that was due to wanting to try my hand at digital art but not really having an understanding of what programs to use or how to get started with it, and part of it was the inertia of feeling like “if I’m not good at something immediately, I shouldn’t try at all!” The thing that really got the ball rolling for me is the long D&D campaign I’m currently in. When I was excited about other stories, chances were someone else had drawn art of it that I could enjoy and reblog. That’s not really the case with one you’re telling with only 5-6 other people. I had a sort of epiphany moment a couple months into the campaign, as the story really started picking up, that if I wanted to see the kind of art I appreciate for this new story I was falling in love with, I would probably have to do it myself. I’m still not incredibly happy with my work, since I’m surrounded by friends who are incredible artists and my style is fairly simplistic and oddly stylized, but I have gotten to a point where I draw fairly regularly, and generally put up what I create on our shared campaign blog. The same D&D game has wrenched over 15k words of original writing from me, which is pretty astonishing. Most of that isn’t anywhere to be found on Tumblr just yet, though – it’s largely still-top secret character backstory.

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

The most obvious way is that I write fics about characters being aromantic and dealing with their aromanticism. All headcanons, unfortunately (I’m yet to find a canon aro in anything I love that I didn’t help create myself), but there are several stories on my AO3 about characters from Pacific Rim, Star Wars or Gravity Falls realizing they’re aromantic. And the fics that don’t deal with that are still all gen – I’m too romance-repulsed to write anything else, and I feel the world needs a lot more genfic anyways.

One other way, though I feel a bit silly calling it “art”, is that I am intentionally playing an aromantic character of my own creation in my current D&D campaign. I’ve been playing for several years now, and did have another character back in high school who I also imagined as aromantic. (Partially because of an awkward flirting mishap – an enemy tried to get my character off her guard with romance and it all backfired because she didn’t know how to respond. All my own fault – I don’t even know how to roleplay that!) But none of the campaigns I’ve played in until this one were particularly intent on exploring characters and their feelings all that deeply, or really making them a part of the story.

With my current character, it’s become incredibly validating to view him as aromantic and asexual, like myself. It’s that same impulse that got me started doing more art – if the fiction I like isn’t going to provide me with aromantic characters, I’ll have to make one myself! And it’s slowly leading to some very interesting explorations of aro identity and the normalising of it in our world. We’ve established that identifying that way isn’t particularly unusual for elves and talked about what that means for worldbuilding. Do they hold platonic relationships in the same regard as romantic ones? Is there a special kind of relationship that signifies that? What if we put friendship under the banner of the goddess of romantic love too? Though at the same time, I’m exploring some of the same feelings I experience with him – he’s a particularly lonely person, who worries about people actually wanting to stay with him, both of which are prominent features of my own aromantic experience.

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

Like many of us, I do worry that my genfics will be less enjoyed or circulated as a result of choosing not to include ships. And whenever I post a fic about a character actually being aro, I definitely get that little stab of “Someone is going to have a problem with this” fear.

I also feel that my experience with aromanticism has shaped a lot of my perfectionistic tendencies. Because I worry so much about trying to remain important in my allo friends’ lives, and because I think of so much of my identity as associated with creativity, I tend to get really wrapped up in my work needing to seem amazing somehow, to make people think I’m worth their time. It’s a silly thing to get preoccupied over, but it has had an impact on me. In some ways wanting my work to be really good is not a bad thing – it encourages me to do my very best whenever I can – but the motivation is really all wrong.

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

I’m honestly pretty disconnected from them. I might be less-inclined to be if this website wasn’t suddenly experiencing such backlash against a-spec identities, but as is I’m almost afraid to engage with anything that might make me a target. Which is really unfortunate. That being said, whenever I do make any aro content and I see it circulated to other aromantic people, I get a lot of joy from it. The comments on my multiple aromantic-focused fics are some of my favorite ones I’ve ever received. If I can channel my experiences into something that elicits that kind of a reaction from our community, I consider my work well done.

How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?

When I’m able to talk to other aromantic people about headcanons (or even some of my very understanding allo friends who absorb them from me, too), pretty well! Unfortunately, that’s a pretty tiny fraction of my fandom experience. Even some of my interests where you’d think I wouldn’t run into problems have been difficult at times. I once had someone dressed as a character often (non-canonically) shipped with the one I was cosplaying, and they assumed that I would be interested in hearing that they shipped our character. Instead, they just made me very uncomfortable, particularly with the way they chose to do so.

In general, the expectation that as a member of fandom, producing fandom works, I will be interested in creating and consuming romantic content is hard to deal with. I’ve had people ask me to put ships in my fics, the aforementioned convention incident, and been heckled over having aromantic headcanons at all. That being said, aromantic headcanons were how I met at least a few of my good friends. Finding each other may be hard, but since we all feel so isolated I think that finding other aro creators inhabiting the same or similar spaces can lead to pretty quick bonding, or at least an appreciation of each others’ works. I do like that.

I’ve also, as I have mentioned a couple times now, realized the worth of telling my own stories, particularly if I have other people to share them with who will respond positively. Right now, most of my D&D group is not aro, but they are a group that respects my and my character’s identities, and being able to tell an aro narrative that means a lot to me and get a positive response is a breath of fresh air. I count them as fellow content creators and they’ve really encouraged the story I want to tell. I hope that someday the inspiration I’ve gained from that will lead me to publishing my own original fiction (with aro characters, of course), but it’s been due to this small start that I’ve decided that’s something I could realistically pursue.

How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?

Comments on my fics are one of the biggest things that keep me writing, so they’ll always be a boon to me. Even old ones. It makes me happy to see people still reading and enjoying them. Same goes for reblogs of any of my stuff – art, writing, filk, cosplay photos, anything else I might post. The biggest thing that keeps me wanting to create and share more creative works is knowing that other people are enjoying them, so if you do enjoy them, any way you can let me know that is wonderful.

I do hope that in some point in the future I’ll have original fiction available and a science writing blog (I consider non-fiction to be creative expression, as long as you’re putting your spark into it!), but neither exists quite yet. If you follow me on either of my main platforms though, those might pop up someday. Seeing either be circulated when the time comes would be massive. I also intend to, perhaps in the much nearer future, start publishing D&D content (likely homebrew 5e subclasses, but who knows) on the DMsGuild, starting with a pay-what-you-want model for downloading my content. If that goes up and I make something you’re interested in, and you want to pay something for it at all, I would be massively grateful.

Can you share with us something about your current project?

I’ve been working on a Critical Role Modern AU story since January or so that places heavy emphasis on the platonic relationships in the show (Percy and Keyleth’s is particularly dear to me, so they’re likely to get a fair bit of the spotlight) that’s my most current fandom fic.

I’m also tackling two ambitious cosplays at the moment, though the timeframe is making me wonder if I’ll actually pull either off. Especially given what I need to get done. One involves sewing pseudo-historical menswear, and I’m going to have to learn how to make armor for the other one. If I can figure it all out though, I’m really excited about them both!

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

Hopefully the next chapter of the CR fic, if I get hit with the inspiration (and motivation) to work on it soon. I also have another aromantic Luke Skywalker fic I really want to get down on paper at some point, though thus far it’s proven a little elusive.

My two big cosplay projects are Percy de Rolo (from Critical Role), which I intend to take to a local convention, and Erwyn, my own D&D character. I hope to do a photoshoot with the rest of the players as their own characters sometime late this summer.

As for art, I fully intend to keep drawing major or touching moments from my ongoing campaign, likely with much more frequency than any of the things above. It may not be as engaging for people to interact with as my fandom-focused projects are, but I still really do love sharing it.

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