Y'all would it be reasonable to make a loveless character who’s also a lesbian? Like she’s very much alloromantic, but she feels really uncomfortable using the word love (and no she won’t ever be comfortable using the word again). While at the same time she’s very gay for her wife and cherishes her deeply.
I’m neither loveless or lesbian, I’m just aromantic (probably lovequeer I dunno). So I wanna know other people’s thoughts on this /gen
Here is a comprehensive list of everything I have written. Click the relevant fandom to see an alphabetical list of every fic I’ve written for it with links, word counts and brief synopses included.
Thank you to everyone who reads my works, whether you’ve been here since I was writing on Wattpad aged 14 or have just stumbled across me. All your support is appreciated <3
Any relevant content warnings are included in the tags/notes of each work. Please check tags and full synopses for more details. Inspirations/prompts are credited in the relevant fic.
Boozy Hot Chocolate (3.2k words) [general relationships, Rooney/Pip] - Georgia and the rest of the Loveless gang attend the Durham Christmas Market and have a lovely time. Written as part of SOFTober 2020.
Trending (2.6k words) [general relationships, Rooney/Pip] - Rooney decidesto become a TikTok star and avideo goes unexpectedly viral.Written as part of SOFTober 2020.
Ugly Living Room Cushions (1.7k words) [general relationships, Rooney/Pip] - Georgia and her friends have a movie night in their student house.Written as part of SOFTober 2020.
Hi! I’m author and illustrator Alice Oseman, and I got to design the cover for the US edition of my latest YA novel, Loveless. I’m here to tell you all about that design process, from the first sketches to the finished cover!
THE FIRST SKETCH
I had a pretty clear vision of what I wanted the cover to look like right at the start. Lovelessis set at university, and its protagonist, Georgia, is thrust into a world of packed college bars, sweaty clubs, lecture halls, and busy dorms. Students are everywhere, but the main characters of Lovelessare all little alone in their feelings. So my idea for the cover of Lovelesswas to feature the five main characters of the story amidst a tightly packed crowd of students at a college bar, to try to capture that feeling of being alone in a crowd.
LINE ART
Scholastic liked my idea (YAY!) but their suggestion was to bring Georgia to the foreground a little more, so she’s clearly the protagonist of the story. I did this in the next stage of my cover design process – the line art stage. I transformed my sketch into a much tidier line art illustration, and I was super happy with how it was looking!
COLOUR EXPERIMENTS
Next up was colour. I’ve always considered colour to be one of my weaker skills as an artist, so I wanted to try out lots of rough ideas before settling on a colour scheme for the cover. I knew I wanted purple to be a big feature – it’s the colour of the UK cover, which I fought very hard for, because it’s the main colour of the asexual flag.
I started with some rough studies:
And then I went ahead and coloured the illustration. I still wasn’t happy with my colour choices, so I edited the colours a lot and created a new spread of colour ideas. There were a lot of them, so here are just a few:
THE FINISHED COVER
Eventually, and with Scholastic’s help, I settled on the colours I liked. I added in some final tweaks and details, and then the illustration was complete! I handed it over to Scholastic to create the typography for the text and to add on all the final bits and bobs. And then… we had a cover!
Valentine’s Day is almost here, and so are so many upcoming books that celebrate love of all kinds! Check out these books that you should pre-order and save the date for
From the marvelous author of Heartstopper comes an exceptional YA novel about discovering that it’s okay if you don’t have sexual or romantic feelings for anyone … since there are plenty of other ways to find love and connection. Pre-order and start reading!
For the first time, Gemma has everything she’s ever wanted: friends, big family dinners, and Griff—a boy who she can be herself around. But how can she embrace her new dream life when everything is built on a lie? Pre-order and start reading!
It’s a hot summer, and life’s going all right for Jackson and his family on the Mish. Just like every year, Jackson’s Aunty and annoying little cousins visit from the city – but this time a mysterious boy with a troubled past comes with them. As their friendship evolves, Jackson must confront the changing shapes of his relationships with his friends, family and community. And he must face his darkest secret – a secret he thought he’d locked away for good. Pre-order and start reading!
In this Pride & Prejudice retelling, Leela is ALWAYS #1 in speech and debate competitions. But when she meets Firoze Darcy, more than just her winning streak is at stake…her heart is, too. Pre-order and start reading!
An exceptional novel about discovering that it’s okay if you don’t have sexual or romantic feelings for anyone…since there are plenty of other ways to find love and connection. Read an excerpt!
Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. A sweet and charming coming-of-age story that explores friendship, love, and coming out. This graphic novel series features stunning, two-color artwork. Read an excerpt!
I really didn’t think Loveless would make me emotional. But my eyes welled up at this line. So ridiculously relatable.
“And the worst part of it was—even though I’d longed for these things, I knew that they’d never make me happy anyway. The idea was beautiful. But the reality made me sick. How could I feel so sad about giving up these things that I did not actually want?”
Reasons why someone might identify as “loveless” aromantic
Note: I don’t ID as loveless, this is just a collection of what I’ve seen loveless aros say. Add on if you’d like.
The concept of love has been so intertwined with romantic love to the point where they find two two hard to separate
They don’t believe that love makes us human
They’ve faced abuse by people who used “love” as an excuse for their actions
Every time they say that they’re left out of conversations about love, they’re faced with “love doesn’t have to be romantic” to disregard their oppression or the exclusion they’ve faced (e.g. aromantics are usually left out of “love is love” to represent the entire queer community, and every time we bring this up, we’re always faced with “love isn’t always romantic!!” to erase us, when the phrase “love is love” literally is only about romantic love outside of these conversations)
They don’t believe loving someone automatically means anything, and it’s just too vague for them (e.g. does “I love you” mean that they want the best for you, they just like having you around, or they appreciate you as a person but wouldn’t do anything for you?)
They’re neurodivergent and have always been scolded or punished for not “loving” in a specific way
They’re reclaiming their agency to define love for themselves
They feel that “We can still love!!” isn’t helpful because aromanticism isn’t a lack of anything that needs to be made up for, and they want to be respected simply for not loving
They don’t like being attached to this capitalized concept of love
They have a disorder/disability that limits their ability to feel or understand certain emotions, which may encompass certain forms of love, or the way that they “love” is just so different that no one really appreciates it
Their reasons are personal or not on this list, but still valid
Remember that lovelessness is entirely valid. To not relate to the concept of love, or to simply not love, is okay, and you aren’t missing anything. The reasons why someone might ID as loveless aren’t really our business, so if they say they don’t love, respect that.
Hello! I have made a survey to gather data on the loveless aro community, which you can takeHERE. There isn’t a set date for when the survey will be closed, as that depends on how much data I can gather. Results will be posted on this blog.
Both loveless aros and aromantics who do not identify as loveless can participate. Loveless aros will mainly be asked their reasons for using the loveless label, and a few personal opinions regarding the community. Non-loveless aromantics will mainly be asked about their opinions regarding the label of loveless aro. Both groups will be given demographic questions. In the case of loveless aros, the demographic questions aim to find trends within the loveless community, while the same demographic questions for non-loveless aros may serve as a control sample.
Also, as I’ve been asked this before, all people on the aromantic spectrum are welcome to participate, regardless of the specific labels they use.
