Reading record 10.2

 Or maybe only 10.1?  I dunno.  But if it's 10.2 then a standard manga/webtoon/etc volume will get it to 10.5, and then an extra large manga volume could get it to 11.  Or something?  I dunno.

What I do know is that the comic anthology I read today was waaaaay too short to count for anywhere near as much as the webtoon volumes I read earlier this month.

Anyway.  Whatever number I assign to it, what I read today was Aces and Aros (which identifies itself as "Vol. 1" but whether or not they actually run a Kickstarter for a volume two is not a given), an anthology centered on the asexual and aromantic spectrums.  Both of which I am on.

But the problem with trying to do an anthology centered on asexuality and aromanticness (uh...is that even remotely how I should form that form of the word?) is that the stories all just sort of end up being either semi- (or entirely) autobiographical or they end up being little mini-lessons on just what asexual and/or aromantic means and/or why it's not a problem in need of a cure.  Which...y'know, I don't need a lesson, nor do I need to be told that it's okay to be ace and/or aro, because I'm past that point; I figured myself out when I turned forty, and I don't need to be reassured that I'm not broken.  So, despite that this is one of those rare cases where my own orientation gets representation, it's also...frustratingly lacking in actual stories.  (Even the autobiographical ones are so focused on the writer's process of understanding/embracing their position on the asexuality spectrum that there isn't really time for much else in the narrative.)

So...yeah.  It didn't really do much for me, unfortunately.  It'd be great for a teenager still coming to terms with their own asexuality, but...🤷🏻‍♀️

The tragedy about writing about asexuals and aromantics is that unless they specifically say in the course of the story that they're asexual or aromantic, then it's impossible to tell if they're ace, aro, or just not presented with a love interest in the course of the story.  😭  Which is especially a problem when you're writing about an asexual/aromantic living long before those terms were coined.  Like, in my Atalanta and Ariadne books, Atalanta is aroace, like me, but the terms don't exist yet because she lives in Bronze Age Greece, so trying to telegraph the actual nature of her orientation is not gonna be easy.  (In the rough drafts of the later novels I did attempt it, though who knows if it worked in the roughs I wrote back in 2014 (before I had figured out my own asexuality), but I'll just have to hope I can make it work whenever the new drafts get that far...)

Original language:  English