And it pissed me off so badly that I spent the ENTIRE WORK DAY today compiling evidence from every project my team has ever done for her, pulling past emails she’d sent us, putting together an entire case proving that she had been the problem all along. That she got projects mixed up, that she’d made requests that were nonsensical, literally everything you could possibly imagine. Screenshots of emails, reports we’d submitted, EVERYTHING.

This woman in particular has been terrorizing my team for years, her name is almost a slur in my office, I had simply had ENOUGH of her.

I put all of this evidence together and sent it to all of my bosses at 4:30pm. Then I took a long break to eat a sweet treat and drink some tea.

After my break, my bosses all called in an emergency meeting with me and they said they read my report and fucking loved it. And I sat on a teams call with my boss’ boss as she wrote my nemesis the scathing email I had always fantasized about sending, using the evidence I’d compiled, and hit send.

Submissions are: OPEN

FAQ:

What is this tournament?

This is a bracket for books with no or very low romantic content, that aren't just for kids. Why? Because it can be really hard to find books that fit that brief, even for the mod (a trained librarian!) This tournament will highlight some gen reads, and at the end, all submissions will be added to a Google spreadsheet, which will be posted on this blog and left up for community reference and romance-free book recommendations.

Define "gen"?

In fanfiction, a gen fic is a story that focuses on something other than sex or romance. For the purposes of this tournament, any book with no or minimal focus on romance (i.e. background pairings but no romantic plots or subplots) is fair game! Canonically aro and/or ace characters are a bonus but not necessary.

What should I submit?

Any book or book series (audiobooks, ebooks, comics and graphic novels included), fiction poetry and biography, any and all genres, as long as it is romance-free or otherwise fits under the label of "gen"! You may submit as many titles as you'd like, but please for the sake of the mod's inbox limit yourself to submitting each individual title only once.

Can I submit propaganda for my favorite gen read?

YES! Propaganda is encouraged! This is first and foremost an excuse to crowdsource book recommendations for gen readers! I'm not going to completely ban anti-propaganda (defined as criticizing a competitor to promote your own favorite book), but please keep it in the spirit of friendly rivalry or I will be forced to revise that policy.

Additional aromantic and gen book-finding resources under the cut:

https://www.tumblr.com/gen-reads-tournament/821522256902668288/gen-reads-tournament-submissions-now-open?source=share

Okay thanks for considering and have a lovely day!

Of course! I used to be a romance-repulsed teen girl who tracked any sign of romance in summaries on back covers to avoid it because it was so prevalent in YA works, especially those with girls as a target audience so I may have a few ideas!

I'd be forever grateful for the aro community for welcoming me back then, it's one of the most loving communities I've ever be in. I've taken my distances with it now but I'm still probably somewhere on the spectrum (probably quoiromantic or greyromantic but this is getting very specific) so the least I can do is sharing. I'm sure plenty of my followers will be interested! After all, romance is still very prevalent in popular media -and even more so in fandom culture-, often to the detriment of other relationships (QPRs of course but also friendships, family ties etc.) and character development – I believe even allos get tired of it occasionally.

I wish you luck with your project, that I'm going to follow with much interest! Thank you for running this tournament, reading this actually made my day.

Submissions' page here !

Part 1

Daedalus and Icarus (1615-1625), Anthony van Dyck

The Fall of Icarus (1635-1637), Jacob Peter Gowy

Daedalus and Icarus (1645-1646), attributed to Charles Le Brun

Daedalus and Icarus (1670s), Domenico Piola

Daedalus and Icarus (18th century), Laurent Pêcheux

Daedalus and Icarus (1776), Pyotr Ivanovich Sokolov

Icarus and Daedalus (1799), Charles Paul Landon

The Sun or The Fall of Icarus (1819), Merry-Joseph Blondel

Icarus and Daedalus (1869), Frederic Leighton

Part 2

Hector's last visit to his family before his duel with Achilles: Astyanax, on Andromache's knees, stretches to touch his father's helmet (370–360 BC), Apulian red-figure column-crater.

The Farewell between Hector and Andromache (17th century), Luca Ferrari

Hector's Farewell to Andromache (c. 1768-1818), Heinrich Friedrich Füger

Hector and Andromache (1773), Antonio Zucchi

Hector taking leave of Andromache: the Fright of Astyanax (1776), Benjamin West

Andromache Intercepting Hector At The Scaean Gate (1811), Fernando Castelli

Hector and Andromache (1871), Giovanni Maria Benzoni

Jun Kumaori (Junkuma)

"chasing its tail too much"

You have been turned into this type of mermaid!!

Plant diversity is important, and human diversity is too! 🌱 I’m glad we’re all different, and I hope all those differences are accepted and celebrated.