reading books (especially adult fantasy, i think, though it extends to other genres as well) when you're aromantic is such a fucking minefield of inescapable doom because like. okay. imagine that you really hate cake--or, rather, that you just don't want to eat or bake cake. you respect other people who enjoy cake, you get why they like the process of making it, you just don't want to do it yourself.
and yet, you know exactly how to bake a cake and what every variation of cake could possibly taste like because in every single book you find interesting there is a cake recipe that takes up half the book. you pick up book summaries that seem promising and they instantly veer off into discussing the rich texture of a good sponge cake, or the creamy frosting of this author's favorite red velvet cake. you don't hate cake, you really don't, and maybe there are even a couple scenes of characters eating cake or discussing their latest baking ventures that you actually enjoy, but in the grand scheme of things, it just feels pointless because you literally cannot go five fucking pages without someone losing all their personality to repeat the same recipe for angel food cake you have been hearing about since you were ten years old and already sick of it. because, apparently, even when authors write characters who don't like cake, the book is STILL SOMEHOW derailing itself to discuss the novel idea of not liking cake every ten seconds INSTEAD OF BEING AN INTERESTING STORY.
and now writers are trying to create entire worlds where dragons are drawn to you based on what kind of cake recipes you've baked and what fucking color frosting your spiritual cupcakes are and you think at this point they MUST have lost the plot, surely this cannot be an applicable fantasy even for cake enjoyers, but you're WRONG because people are constantly asking you if you've read the new cake recipe featuring dragons because they know you like dragons and mean well so you can't just tell them that you'd rather die than read another fucking box mix cake recipe in your life. so you grit your teeth and go yeah i just don't think it's really my thing.
at this point, you've read enough cake recipes that you're pretty sure you could write your own damn extended frosting scene. but you still, after all these years, do not want to bake a fucking cake. and no amount of 50 page, in-depth baking grease scenes or descriptive frosting decoration will ever close the gap between you being constantly reminded that you fundamentally cannot relate to anyone describing the taste of cake. readers want to see the same box mix cake reheated another time because they're waiting to see if the author will add a dash of vanilla, or perhaps cinnamon this time, trying to guess what will change the flavor of the cake in the end so that they can imagine eating it themselves, and all of it is functionally useless to you because, again, You Do Not Want To Eat A Cake Ever Even In Your Imagination. and sometimes the author will insist that Baking Is What Makes Us Human and that it's The Most Important Thing In The Universe and you'll have to sit off to the side like well i don't think that's true, personally, because i do not like cake, but i guess i can understand how someone would maybe reach that conclusion. maybe they were talking about pastries or muffins. but even then you're still annoyed about the implication that People Who Do Not Like Baking Are Not People when you, in fact, know people like that.
now imagine this is ON TOP of everyone else constantly talking about their new cakes and their favorite cake restaurants and what they've been baking recently in your REAL LIFE and you will have created a maddening facsimile of the real aromantic torment nexus. if i see another fucking summary end with the words "dangerous attraction" or "will she find the strength to not kiss that sexy man" i don't know what i'll do. bake a cake probably
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
izzy806
germansingergirl
