A Growing Resemblance to a Daffodil

Because it is confusing. It would almost feel easier if there was no love there at all. But sometimes there was love. In the way they tried to protect you. In the sacrifices they made. In the ways they worried about you, cared for you, wanted a good life for you.

And at the same time, there were still things missing.

Maybe comfort did not come in the way you needed it to. Maybe your feelings were not always understood, or noticed, or handled gently. Maybe you learned to keep certain parts of yourself quiet because it felt easier than trying to explain them.

That kind of hurt is difficult because it does not always come from cruelty. Sometimes it comes from people who loved you deeply, but did not know how to emotionally connect in the ways you needed. People carrying their own wounds, limitations, fears, or ways of surviving.

And you are allowed to acknowledge both truths at once.

You are allowed to recognize their love and still grieve what you needed but did not receive. Those things do not cancel each other out.

Forgiveness, for a lot of people, is not pretending nothing hurt you. It is slowly accepting that someone can love you and still fall short of understanding you completely.

That does not make your pain dramatic. It does not make them monsters either. Sometimes it just means everyone was trying with the emotional tools they had, and some of those tools were not enough.

And I think many people quietly carry guilt for still feeling hurt by parents they know tried their best. But being loved imperfectly can still leave wounds. It makes sense that it affected you.

At the same time, you do not have to stay trapped only in anger forever either. Sometimes healing looks like understanding that your parents were human before they were parents. People shaped by their own experiences, their own upbringing, their own emotional gaps.

That understanding does not erase your feelings. It just softens the sharp edges around them a little.

You deserved emotional safety. You deserved gentleness. You deserved to feel understood, comforted, and emotionally close to the people raising you.

And if they could not fully give that to you, it is okay to mourn it.

But I hope you also know this: the love you needed is still something you can experience in your life. Through other people. Through chosen family. Through the way you learn to treat yourself now.

The story does not end at what you did or did not receive growing up.

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Word for today: wisdom of repugnance

When I was a much younger Fey, a friend explained the concept of aromanticism to me.

"But," said I, "How can someone be aromantic? What is it they aren't experiencing? There's no One Thing that romantic love is."

Some readers will now be laughing and shaking their heads at young Fey, who just didn't know he was aromantic yet. Those readers would be wrong.

The term I use to describe myself is quoiromantic: I fundamentally reject the categories of romantic and platonic love. Being quoiromantic says nothing about what sorts of emotions I experience. It's about how I view those emotions and my relationships with other people. Kasumi Nakamura's article "The Quoiromantic Manifesto" is fantastic, and AsexualAgenda did an Ace Journal Club piece on it that gives a slightly more accessible summary.

What makes me want to screech is people defining quoiromantic as "unable to distinguish between platonic and romantic love" or "unsure of the difference" or "doesn't understand romantic love." These definitions cast being quoiromantic as something like being red-green colorblind: "romantic" and "platonic" are two categories which exist and can be distinguished by most people, but I for some reason lack this ability. Charmingly, it also manages to paint being quoiromantic as a kind of immaturity, since being able to identify and categorize one's own emotions is, y'know, a sign of being a grown-up. It also opens up this whole world of people thinking I need their help, or thinking they get to tell me what I'm feeling, the way one might tell a colorblind friend whether the shirt they're wearing is red or not. Delightful.

I understand where the confusion comes in. As the Asexual Agenda post points out, the glossary definitions of Queer Identities tend to treat them all as "intrinsic identities with clear distinctions between them." In Anglo-U.S. circles Queer Identities are focused on inner experiences: what do you feel? for whom? how do you view yourself? We have a major aversion to claiming things as part of ourselves which can't be claimed as intrinsic. (Things that aren't intrinsic are Lifestyle Choices, and Lifestyle Choices can be Immoral, and Immorality can be Outlawed.)

Quoiromantic isn't an identity in that way. Like I said, it's not a description of my inner world. I use the term for myself because it covers a set of ideas I believe are true, and those ideas inform the way I structure my interpersonal relationships.

And the fundamental idea is that romantic love vs platonic love is a false distinction. The categories are incoherent. ("Incoherent" is different than "nonexistent.") You can't fix the problem by adding a "secret third thing."

It's not that there's any particular emotion which doesn't exist. It's that when you look into the distinction between romantic and platonic love, there isn't one. There's love or whatever you want to call it, and it comes in infinite shades and textures and weights, but those two categories are nonsense. Once you start trying to find the actual distinction between them, it's easy to see.

As far as I can tell, all of the following could be considered parts of romantic love:

enjoying Person's company more than anyone else's;

feeling you life would be incomplete without Person in it;

the desire to share a household with Person (meaning shared finances etc, not just roommates);

wanting Person to like you more than they like anyone else and prioritize your needs and well-being over everyone else's (or at least putting you very very very high on their priorities list);

being pathetically attached to Person and feeling you are worthless without their approval;

obsessing over Person (worrying about them, wanting to know all about them, finding them fascinating, etc);

wanting to care for/serve Person and ensure all their needs are met;

wanting to be allies/comrades with Person for life;

being absolute besties who get each other in ways no one else does;

fighting constantly but always making up again;

It's a pick and choose list. They aren't all necessary and there's no magical "romantic if checks this many boxes" number. Probably no one is going to feel all these things for their Person at once. (I left out sexual attraction and oxytocin-induced-infatuation on purpose, and I'll circle back to them.)

Still, feels like a pretty good list, yeah? These are, if nothing else, the sort of things I see people go "there's no platonic explanation for that" about.

Here's the fun part:

Everything on this list is something folks feel about their close kin. These are all things normal people feel about their parents, children, and siblings. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume we agree that none of this would indicate romantic love in those situations. (Which is why I specified close kin, rather than friends.)

I'll go further and say there's almost nothing (again, I'm getting to the sex part) you could add as a necessary element of romantic love which would set it apart from an emotional state a normal person could experience toward a sibling, parent, or child. Because the thing we call "romantic love" isn't a specific, unique thing by itself.

Which is fine. What's the point of setting apart something we call "romantic love" in the first place? How does doing that help us? What benefit do you get out of being able to categorize all your emotions this way? Would it change how you approach finding friends, choosing roommates, deciding who you want to fuck, or raise kids with, or share finances with, if you didn't have the amorphous concept of "romantic" hanging over you? Would you love more easily if you didn't feel the need to grasp at one, imagined category so tightly it shredded you every time someone went away?

I can't see anything to lose by tossing the category, as long as I get to keep the feelings and see how they're actually so much richer and more varied and colorful than I could've imagined. The way they show up in so many more places in my life's tapestry, and the way I get to be so much freer to be honest about giving and accepting love.

That's why I'm quoiromantic.

And why I'm going to bite the next person who says I just can't tell the difference between emotions. _____

Post-script:

OKAY FINE let's talk about sexual attraction and infatuation, the two things people always bring up when I say romantic love doesn't exist.

Sexual Attraction: Outside the queer tumblr scenes, this is the delineating factor for romantic love generally. It's some combination of things on the list up there + sexual attraction. Honestly? If that's really the entirety of your definition, I'm fine with that. It makes romantic love into something quite trivial when you think about it though. "I wanna fuck you," is quite the mundane sentiment all told. But if you're willing to separate it from everything else, I'll accept your definition. Oh, but one more thing. Could you tell me. Does all sexual attraction to someone indicate romantic love? If not, you're right back in the same problem as before you brought this one up. If sexual attraction does always indicate romantic love, then you're just made romantic love and sexual attraction the same thing. Which. I guess you can do. But I'd suggest having a good sit-down-and-think before you make any life choices based on who you wanna fuck today.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Tortall - Tamora Pierce Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Domitan of Masbolle/Keladry of Mindelan, Domitan of Masbolle & Keladry of Mindelan Characters: Keladry of Mindelan, Domitan of Masbolle Additional Tags: 5+1 Things, Unconventional Relationship, Friends to friends, Touch-starved Kel, post Lady Knight, Intimacy, Animal Death, Canon Compliant, Relationship Negotiation, Porn with Feelings, Penis In Vagina Sex Summary:

Dom tipped his face towards the sky and said, “I love weddings.”

“You’re drunker than I thought,” Kel said.

“I do,” he insisted. “Not for myself, of course, but as a concept, they’re lovely.”

“As a concept.”

Dom used their linked arms to tug her a little closer. “Absolutely. Two people making each other happy, surrounded by all the folks who love them, and there’s a party where I can dance with pretty girls? Wonderful.”

–

Summary: After a Pantoran discovery offers to turn the tide of the war, Riyo is thrust into the limelight trying to keep her footing around having new political power—and enemies. A failed assassination attempt sees her paired with a squad of the Coruscant Guard, who bring with them protection, family, and a glimpse into the underbelly of the Republic that she begins to realize she isn’t supposed to see. Alone, neither Riyo nor the commanders of the Guard are able to make sense of the plot that seems to be tightening around them, but maybe together they can unravel the mystery before it’s too late.

Hear ye! Hear ye! The foxiyo fic I have been working on for forever is finally here! The Prologue is below! Link to Chapter 1 is after that!

Prologue, Part 1: Unfriendly Fire

The forest looms large around them and Fox signals to spread out through the low underbrush. They are close, he can feel it. It’s only a matter of time until their trap closes around their prey. 

Until then, the mission is a song singing in his blood, his pulse an eager drum. The hunt is before him and his squad is behind him; purpose and belonging ingrained so deeply inside him it may as well have been etched onto his bones. They’ll find their quarry together.

—

Riyo browsed through the scarves lining the rack but none of them called to her and she began to second-guess her decision to come alone. Perhaps a second opinion would have been helpful. But the prospect of a whole afternoon out by herself had been too good to pass up. 

The last month had been so overwhelming that this errand had presented itself as an opportunity to feel comfortable in her own skin. She just wanted a moment without feeling like she was hiding—not in her apartment, behind her politicking face, or from her suddenly endless obligations. Making necessary updates to her wardrobe at the Coruscant Uptown Market had been a three-birds-one-stone for all of them.

She took a deep breath and looked back at a selection of scarves she knew she normally would have leapt at. At least in theory it should have helped her feel more like herself.

—

The forest darkens. 

They slow their pace as the scrape of their armor through the thickening underbrush disrupts the hush that has settled around them. Any sound now could be the difference between hearing their target or giving themselves away.

The trees close around them.

—

“You have fine taste,” the vendor smiled at her. “These were just imported all the way from Mirialan. Would you like to try one on? I was assured that the gold leaf on that jade one is pure Ortherian.”

“I’ll keep looking, but thank you,” Riyo smiled politely. She’d known a handful of Pantorans who could successfully wear green. She was not one of them. And her lack of interest in the scarves was posing an identity crisis she wanted to muddle over by herself. 

“Perhaps the violet?” the vendor pushed. His voice was warm but his smile no longer reached his eyes. 

—

The silence around them becomes absolute and the hair on the back of his neck prickles. He stops. Listens. Not even the birds have come this far.

Fox turns around and fear clenches his gut. His squad is gone. 

He is alone.

The trees around him tower indifferently and he squints through them until they disappear, endless, in the near black. No one else is here. 

His rifle is in his hands and he grips it tightly. If he can just finish the mission, he’ll find them. 

Finish the mission. 

—

Tired of the shopkeeper, Riyo turned to leave. There were plenty of other stalls and boutiques to wander through that would allow her the solitude that she sought today. 

She stepped out of the exit, squinting in the suddenly bright sunlight streaming at her between the towering buildings in front of her. Padme had told her that, once upon a time, the Uptown Market really had been at the true height of Coruscant but the levels continued being built ever skyward around it from the moment it had been completed.

She closed her eyes and tried to let the beam of sunlight soak into her. 

—

There! A cloak whirls in the distance and Fox sprints forward in pursuit. The forest rushes past him and he closes the distance in an instant. 

He leaps, tackles the cloaked figure, draws his fist as the hood falls away. 

Chancellor Palpatine’s unblinking visage stares back at him. 

Fox draws back, alarmed, but Palpatine doesn’t appear surprised or confused. Just stares, scrutinizes, as Fox helps him stand. 

That means the enemy is still out here. 

He gathers his rifle and takes a defensive stance in front of the Chancellor. He peers once more into the immutable forest and swallows around the dread rising up his throat. 

Something is about to happen. 

—

The awning post next to Riyo exploded, showering her with splinters.

Through the scream that tore from her throat she could hear the echos of a sharp crack reverberating through the towering buildings around her. 

She flinched so intensely that she fell and began scrambling away, shaking, when a scorch mark blasted across the ground just in front of her, so close she could feel the heat of it on her face. The echoing crack followed again and a chorus of screams from other patrons in the market began joining her own.

—

Fox is knocked forward off his feet and the pain buried between his shoulder blades is so intense he knows he’s been shot. 

He scrapes himself along the ground to turn back. He has to protect the Chancellor.

Except when he drags himself up with his forearm, it is Palpatine who is holding the blaster directed at him. 

Palpatine who shot him.

But…but that doesn’t make sense. 

He’s a good soldier. 

He follows orders.

Shadows begin to materialize from the murky depths of the forest. His squad! Except…

They surround him, closing in, blasters drawn. 

—

The roof of the stall she had been browsing creaked under the strain of the shattered post and Riyo rolled towards it as it collapsed forward, blocking her from the exposure of the market street. Another shot fired through the roof but it went well clear of her as she dragged herself further inward, away from her unseen assailant.

Her panicked breaths choked on the dust and debris clouding around the stall as she curled herself up behind the register counter, tightly grasped her knees close to her chest with trembling hands, and squeezed her eyes shut, alone. 

—

The last thing Fox sees is Palpatine staring malevolently back at him as his vision fades.

Fox’s eyes shot open and he lurched out of bed, blaster gripped in his trembling hands.

But he was alone in his bunk. It was just a dream.

Read Chapter 1

"The sex tells the story, so it never felt gratuitous to me. The sex is character development. The sex is what is moving this relationship forward, and watching it change over time."

Ok, it's finally done. Home is a place, home is a person.

This story is my first major piece after several years of art block, and I'm so glad I could finally get back to drawing.