I'm super sleepy, but I had to turn my PC back on for this-- this year edition of AceSpaceLDN's Ace and Aro Zine is out!
And it's full to the brim with poetry, prose and visual artworks, with this year a focus on marginalised or underrepresented communities.
After writing a poem I was quite content with for last year's zine, I thought I'd sit this one out, but I was eventually inspired to write a new poem about my experience believing that I, and being believed to, have CPTSD.
My poem, Line of questioning, is 58th in line!
The zine is available for free on Ko-fi, with the option to pay a price of your choice if you wish to support the organisers.
Non-accessible version:
AceSpaceLDN's third global zine with contributions from the asexual and aromantic community. There are over 60 submissions including 2D art,
Acessible version (black text on white background, image descriptions, screenreader friendly):
This version has been redesigned for web accessibility to support easy navigation and comprehension.
AceSpaceLDN's third global zine with c
Please check it out ☆⌒(*＾-゜)v I hope you've had, or are having a great International Ace Day!
PS: last year's zine is still available (physical versions were sold at today's zine launch in London and that listing has yet to be updated, but the digital versions are still definitely available on Ko-fi!) and my poem from last year can be found here on my writing blog @jkpfr. Like I did last year, I'll be keeping my brand new poem zine-exclusive for at least a couple months!
Akudama Drive Comicalize is now available freely on Kagane.
Long ago, war broke out between the regions of Kanto and Kansai, splitting the country in two. Kansai became a vassal state of Kanto and dev
-> Official English translation
-> 2-page spreads, read from right to left
Thank you to @diseaseriddencube for re-uploading all the chapters, which we had all collected together and I had initially uploaded to Bato, to Kagane.
As you may have now realised, piracy sites come and go. We have no way of knowing how long Kagane will last. I encourage you to read this manga as soon as you're able to! We have our own local+drive copies of the chapters for safety, but using a manga-hosting site is the most practical method for everyone involved.
How to support the original creators:
-> It is unknown how much the original creators profit from Renta! sales. Feel free to purchase or rent chapters from Renta! if you wish to help the manga in this way.
-> Buy official Blu-ray/DVD sets from first party sellers if still available. (Page on the Japanese official site) (English sub/dub is/was owned by Kocha Sound and Funimation.)
-> Support the creators' current and future projects as and when they come out:
- TooKyo Games are currently advertising video-games "The Hundred Line" and "Shuten Order"
- Follow Rokurou Ogaki on Twitter to learn about his other manga projects, including "Crazy Food Truck" and "THE UNLIMITED"
While the scenario writers have expressed support towards potential piracy for availability, Renta! has most certainly not. Please do not bring this upload to the original creators and owners' attentions.
I have been informed that Bato and its mirrors are down. (Seems definitive.) Unfortunately, I am unable to do anything about it right now as my PC is kaput. Moreover, I am not familiar with any other platform that allows official scans (+ double page spreads).
It's still Google Drive on demand for now and we'll see what the future holds. While it happened much faster than I expected, like I mentioned in my previous post, manga hosting platform have a tendency to go down eventually. If we find a new place to host Akudama Drive Comicalize, and you want to read it, please do so as soon as you can. Longterm availability simply cannot be guaranteed.
Akudama Drive Comicalize: questions about availability
As some of you may know and as announced in this post, @diseaseriddencube and I have made the Akudama Drive manga available on Bato. I apologise for not making my own "moderating" availability clearer from the get-go, and would like to clarify some things.
1. URL change
It seems Bato's URL has changed. Akudama Drive Comicalize is now available at this URL.
Long ago, war broke out between the regions of Kanto and Kansai, splitting the country in two. Kansai became a vassal state of Kanto and dev
I am not a regular user of Bato and therefore will not be keeping track of every possible address change. Please try to keep track of it for yourself as a reader - I will not be taking the manga down, so if it ever goes down, it'll be at the hand of the Bato website's owners!
2. Images not loading on Bato
Multiple readers have complained about some images not loading on Bato. This is not my doing. I have seen other users of Bato complain about similar issues.
I actually checked, and unless there's some insider information I don't have - it's a displaying issue. On my end, the images are fine. Example:
The cover image of Chapter 61 not loading on the viewer's end
2. Chapter 61's cover image on the editor's side.
This is true of all the images that don't load: on my end, they're fine. I've tried re-saving Chapter 61 to see if it refreshed cache or anything, but I'm not seeing any change. This is an issue with Bato, and I can't do anything about it.
For further evidence: right clicking images that don't display opens an Error 503 page which explains that the server is supposedly under maintenance.
As Bato is our best option to distribute the manga, our only option is to wait and hope that this issue gets fixed.
3. Google Drive PNG download: Chapters 29 & 38 fixed
I have no idea how Chapters 29 and 38 got somewhat swapped in the Google Drive, but diseaseriddencube brought the matter to my attention and I was thankfully able to fix it easily!
4. Google Drive PNG download?!
So the context is that in this post, I mentioned that diseaseriddencube and I can be contacted via DM to distribute a Google Drive with all the chapters.
To be completely honest, I expected this offer to extend to roughly the month it was posted. The Bato upload was fine at the time, the announcement was seen by a bunch of people, and I thought the demand for a worse reading experience would be low and limited to the type of superfans who would view my post near immediately.
This is important because the account I'm posting this on is separate from my main, personal account (for vague anonymity purposes). I have multiple blogs on it, so I log in sometimes... but really not that often. In July-August, I logged in regularly on purpose so that I would see any DM I received, but to be fully transparent, it escaped my mind eventually. (I have a lot going on in my life atm and I'm only about to be even less available.) tl;dr: I'll see your DM if you send me one...! But it might take three weeks. Or months. Or days. I have no idea.
(I am NOT ignoring you on purpose, I DO care about Akudama Drive!)
Evidence has it that @diseaseriddencube may check their DMs more often. As of right now, writing this, I don't feel comfortable distributing the Google Drive fully publicly, with the simple reason that: I initially decided not to, and I'd need to dive back into the reasons why before rushing to a decision.
I ask that you please understand that we could not have foreseen the current issues with Bato. Piracy websites come and go, so as readers, we do have to jump on the opportunity when they're available, knowing that they could disappear. If the displaying issues get fixed soon, I can only advise that you read Akudama Drive Comicalize ASAP! You can ask us for the Google Drive, but please be patient regardless who you DM, as (I'm for a fact busy, and) we didn't necessarily plan to make time to continue distributing this manga in this manner.
5. But what if Google explodes tomorrow and we're both busy and you need to read the full manga RIGHT NEOW
We would like to keep making this manga available for free, but as of currently, it's not lost media or anything. You can always buy the full manga, or a specific chapter you need, through R e n t a !. I don't like it but at least it's there.
I hope this all makes sense, and above all, that Bato fixes itself.
To be aromantic on main I really very much thoroughly truly think people should be allowed to be single in peace if they wish to. But I also think people should feel like they can partner up with anyone, even if they're not into each other romantically or sexually. I think your most stereotypical man and woman should be able to say "yeah we're life companions!" because they trust and feel comfortable with each other and can benefit from not being alone, even if they don't have these Special Romantic Feelings for one another or they're not attracted to one another. I think the two straightest dudes in the world should be able to choose to be companions in life, the same way, without their romantic or sexual orientation being in question. Just a promise to have each other's back, to make yourself available to the other, and probably sharing some of the practical stuff like a home or finances.
Were we really free, this should be a plausible, socially acceptable option to go about your life. Because what's the harm? And don't even your most normal people mourn the stability of their friendships when the supposedly all-encompassing romance gets in the way? And fuck, even if you don't mind giving him a handy if he feels lonely and it isn't much to you, I really don't care and it shouldn't define you. It doesn't have to mean anything. It can if you want it to. You can label yourself, change your labels, or opt out of labels, and it shouldn't be a big deal. It doesn't have any bearing on other people's lives.
i think queerplatonic relationship kinda got the same treatment as nonbinary where people assume its a special third relationship status directly between the romance and friendship binary. which it CAN be but its also an umbrella for "literally anything that isnt quite friends and isnt quite romance" you can be official queerplatonic partners or you can just be something unspoken and undefinable. you can be fuckin homestuck moirails for all i care. its all queerplatonic babey. thats the point.
It may seem completely random, but I feel like trying to find the best way to help someone figure out if they're trans is in the same realm of difficulty as trying to find the best way to help someone figure out if their periods are more painful than they should be.
People will write posts with the certainty that they've found it, they've found the perfect way to word it, or the exact symptoms to look for that will make it clear to anyone whether this is them or not. But every-time, they fall short. It always turns out to be more complicated than that. There's always a reader who doesn't really get what you mean by it, or who thinks of a different perspective you didn't even think about (because that's their specific experience, not your own).
There are general signs to look out for but always a lot of people who are left unsure, hesitating, or not noticing.
Thinking about why these two situations feel similar, I'd say this: in both cases, how you understand signs and/or symptoms may stem from a mix of culture (what does gender mean to you, how does presentation differ, what does your body mean to you), endurance to pain (when it's always felt like this, you get used to it), lack of knowledge (it's not supposed to hurt in this way?; this is what this hormone does and when? etc.) and probably more.
Ultimately, you will never be able to switch bodies with someone else to experience how different it can be, or to hear their reaction to your own body. This is extremely relevant to both experiences.
This can also be largely relatable to matters of disability and consequential pain, but I feel like there is more vocabulary available to figure those out, and less of a communal attempt to be the person who finally makes it make sense for everyone else. How many posts have you read that say "by the way, this means you're trans" or "by the way, this is how you can tell your period hurts more than normal" (that turn out to not make enough sense to many questioning readers?)
Speaking of the specifics of aesthetic attraction, for a lighthearted addition - when it comes to fiction, when a character I hate happens to be my type or one I identify as good looking, it intensifies my negative feelings in a very specific way.
Like let's say, for example, Annasui from JJBA: Stone Ocean. I truly dislike this character. Everything about him has made me angry and uncomfortable since I first read the manga. But when the anime came out and they made him extra hot... it brought about a specific type of despair.
Not only that, but I'm more likely to want to shake them violently (than characters I hate that don't meet my nebulous Aesthetic Requirements). Cartoon violence and so on.
This doesn't apply to real life. Once I'm put off by someone, I feel the regular amount of distaste regardless of their appearance. I'm sure it's in part because the idea of beauty in fiction carries a lot of different meanings, and in part because fiction is a safe space for my brain to have fun with it.
I recently saw someone complain about some people who apparently insist that aesthetic attraction is purely visual. I don't know exactly who or what they were referring to, but it got me thinking.
I would have never said aesthetic attraction has to be purely visual, but to be honest, I rarely if ever thought about it in any other context. And I do experience it visually. But seeing it brought up... of course it can include more than that. My mind immediately went to voices: as someone who'll die on the hill than An Xiao from the hit program Synthesizer V is the dreamiest of men, from his voice alone, my aesthetic attraction evidently extends to voices.
In my case, I can tell it behaves the exact same way as the "visual" aesthetic attraction I usually rely on.
Voices are attractive. But as I'm aroace, it ends there. It behaves consistently with the aesthetic attraction I clearly know, down to the gender I'm attracted to: the masculine voices I like make me smile and feel like I'm hearing someone dreamy; the feminine voices I like make me think "I want to sound like her!" or "this sounds similar to me, right?" or "I wish I could do that!"... and if someone sounds close to in-between, there is a part of me who wants to steal that for myself. If you've read anything I've ever said about my aesthetic attraction before, this is exactly how I've usually described it.
In my personal case, singing voices hit a spot I don't think speaking voices do - or if they do, not as often. I love music, so it makes sense to the kind of person I am.
i definitely see where they're coming from. aesthetic attraction is a type of physical attraction so it's weird how the physical aspects rarely get talked about. it has similarities to sexual attraction so ppl often conflate the two. it's why learning the difference between the them (and libido) is how many ppl realize they're ace
i'd say it's more fitting to describe aesthetic attraction as being drawn to a person's character. whether that be a individual characteristics like those mentioned or a person's overall persona. i see it referred to it as mere neutral acknowledgement of someone's attractiveness but that's not what it is all. it involves actual physical feelings: admiration, warmth, euphoria, generally finding the person's presence soothing
given that many ppl say they experience most or all attractions together i can somewhat get how it may be hard to conceptualize these feelings separate from romantic and sexual attraction. but as an aroace who feels neither and is averse in both regards i can confidently say i feel aesthetic attraction and not the other two. i've don't have lustful desires or crush related reactions like sweatiness, racing pulse, etc alongside side it. it's a wholly distinct feeling to me
That's interesting to think about! It seems like you have a rather similar experience to mine.
I'm not sure if "character" defines it very well from my point of view. It can be fitting in the sense, for example, that my feelings of aesthetic attraction do die down if I learn anything about the person's personality or actions that I dislike. But the specific word edges a little too close to "personality" to me, when this form of attraction feels strongly tied to the person's "exterior" in my experience.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. The word can be taken as being on the edge of two different meanings, so it's tricky. Still, it's very interesting to consider.
I hate that people seem to think a character has to look at the camera and announce they’re aroace in order for it to be canon. I’m sick of having to say characters are “implied to be aroace” because no!! Most of the time I have to say it, it’s explicitly canon! There’d be so much more accepted aroace rep if people actually had media literacy
I recently saw someone complain about some people who apparently insist that aesthetic attraction is purely visual. I don't know exactly who or what they were referring to, but it got me thinking.
I would have never said aesthetic attraction has to be purely visual, but to be honest, I rarely if ever thought about it in any other context. And I do experience it visually. But seeing it brought up... of course it can include more than that. My mind immediately went to voices: as someone who'll die on the hill than An Xiao from the hit program Synthesizer V is the dreamiest of men, from his voice alone, my aesthetic attraction evidently extends to voices.
In my case, I can tell it behaves the exact same way as the "visual" aesthetic attraction I usually rely on.
Voices are attractive. But as I'm aroace, it ends there. It behaves consistently with the aesthetic attraction I clearly know, down to the gender I'm attracted to: the masculine voices I like make me smile and feel like I'm hearing someone dreamy; the feminine voices I like make me think "I want to sound like her!" or "this sounds similar to me, right?" or "I wish I could do that!"... and if someone sounds close to in-between, there is a part of me who wants to steal that for myself. If you've read anything I've ever said about my aesthetic attraction before, this is exactly how I've usually described it.
In my personal case, singing voices hit a spot I don't think speaking voices do - or if they do, not as often. I love music, so it makes sense to the kind of person I am.
