Tag: queer

Fiction: The Lies Lovers Tell

Banner for Nine Laws: Allosexual Aromantic Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

For a hundred years, I am bound to a witch’s servitude. I’m not free to be in love. Will you accept this?

Thorn Bloodvine passes hir days trapped in a tower. Well, ze does if “trapped” encompasses “climbing out the window and down the beanstalk whenever the whim takes hir”. Magical wards and a wall of brambles surround hir prison, but neither prevents hir from tending hir garden … or the local youths from raiding hir strawberries. A fearsome witch does dwell within said tower, but hir magic is best suited to creating oversized vegetables. Quirks aside, Thorn laid hir truth at hir lover’s feet before they took to bed: ze cannot become Fortitude’s partner.

But when Fortitude speaks one simple word, Thorn’s carefully-ordered world falls apart. For it isn’t just a fairy story that prevents hir from becoming a woman’s happily-ever-after.

But no matter hir honest explanations, Thorn’s lovers come to expect something hir barren heart can’t feel and hir straightforward mind can’t mimic.

Continue reading “Fiction: The Lies Lovers Tell” →

Pride Patch Tutorial: Aromantic Alphabet, Part Five

Six digitally-created versions of cross stitch pride patches, arranged in two rows of three, against a background of a textured partially-translucent aromantic pride flag. Text between the two rows reads Aro Pride Patches in black type. Patches include a rectangular patch in aroflux zigzag stripes, an idemromantic heart, an aro flag text patch reading "aro", a square in quoiromantic stripes, an arrow design in allo-aro colours and a second arrow in nebularomantic colours.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

Are you an aromantic or otherwise queer person wanting more text patch designs for seven-stripe pride flags? Do you crave patches depicting longer words like “aromantic asexual”? I now have a complete alphabet to accompany my many seven-stripe block text patterns. Plus patterns for the words “aromantic”, “asexual”, “aplatonic” … and even more a-spectrum terms!

Five cross stitch text patches sitting on a blue microfibre blanket. From top to bottom: "pride" in nebularomantic colours on an aqua background; "arovague" in arovague colours on a black background; "aro" in aromantic-spectrum colours on a green background; "aaa" in allosexual-aromantic agender colours on a light gold background; and "alloaro" in allo-aro spectrum colours on a purple-pink background. All letters are capitals in a blockish style of text with rounded corners. Each letter is outlined in backstitch. Every patch is finished with a buttonhole stitch edging in colours similar to (lighter or darker than) their background colour.

You’ll need familiarity with cross stitch (full crosses and fractional stitches) and backstitch to make unedged patches, along with buttonhole stitch to make the edged patches shown above. The first instalment of this patch tutorial series demonstrates cross and blanket/buttonhole stitch, while the second covers backstitch. While these patterns use fractional stitches to round off most letters, they can be omitted for a more pixellated look.

Folks after patterns suitable for five and ten-stripe pride flags should check out my other Aro Alphabet posts!

Continue reading “Pride Patch Tutorial: Aromantic Alphabet, Part Five” →

Pride Patch Tutorial: Aromantic Alphabet, Part Four

Six digitally-created versions of cross stitch pride patches, arranged in two rows of three, against a background of a textured partially-translucent aromantic pride flag. Text between the two rows reads Aro Pride Patches in black type. Patches include a rectangular patch in aroflux zigzag stripes, an idemromantic heart, an aro flag text patch reading "aro", a square in quoiromantic stripes, an arrow design in allo-aro colours and a second arrow in nebularomantic colours.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

Are you an aromantic or otherwise queer person wanting more text patch designs for three, four, six and twelve-stripe pride flags? Do you crave patches depicting longer words like “aromantic asexual”? I now have a complete alphabet, with wide letters great for larger objects, to accompany my many four-stripe block text patterns. Plus patterns for the words “aromantic”, “asexual”, “alterous” and “nope” … and even “wtf” for my fellow quoi folks!

Seven cross stitch text patches sitting on a blue microfibre blanket. From top to bottom: "quoi" in quoiromantic colours on a blue background; "apl" in aplatonic colours on a purple background; "aroace" in oriented aro-ace colours on a pink background; "aro" in aromantic colours on a black background; "queer" in rainbow/LGBTQIA+ colours on a black background; "wtf" in quoiromantic colours on a teal background; and "aego" in aegoromantic colours on a matching flag-stripe background. All letters are capitals in a blockish style of text with rounded corners. Each letter is outlined in backstitch. Every patch is finished with a buttonhole stitch edging in colours similar to (lighter or darker than) their background colour, save the "aro patch, which is edged in chartreuse.

You’ll need familiarity with cross stitch (full crosses and fractional stitches) and backstitch to make unedged patches, along with buttonhole stitch to make the edged patches shown above. The first instalment of this patch tutorial series demonstrates cross and blanket/buttonhole stitch, while the second covers backstitch. While these patterns use fractional stitches to round off most letters, they can be omitted for a more pixellated look.

Folks after patterns suitable for five and ten-stripe pride flags should check out my other Aro Alphabet posts!

Continue reading “Pride Patch Tutorial: Aromantic Alphabet, Part Four” →

Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part Three

Banner for Nine Laws: Allosexual Aromantic Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

Ponder Sheafed can’t stop asking questions. Ze isn’t the girl others presume hir to be. Ze won’t become a wife or let a wedding’s absence stopper hir lust. Ze isn’t good, so maintaining hir kinsfolk’s high regard demands a complicated dance of stealth, secrecy and untruth. Ponder does, however, own some ability in deception … so when tragedy befalls hir family, how does ze explain that–despite all appearance to the contrary–ze can’t trade hir life’s service for a unicorn’s magic?

Only virtuous maidens may enter the forest to seek a creature as pure as a unicorn. Returning home empty-handed avoids provoking Father’s rage by confessing unacceptable truths, so what options has ze other than embarking upon a farcical quest for hir family’s salvation … and dreading the failure to come? No unicorn can ever grace an unrepentant liar!

Ponder isn’t good. But neither, ze discovers, is the unicorn.

You may learn, given time, that ‘good’ is but sunlight and seafoam … and all else is sapience.

Continue reading “Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part Three” →

Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part Two

Banner for Nine Laws: Allosexual Aromantic Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

Ponder Sheafed can’t stop asking questions. Ze isn’t the girl others presume hir to be. Ze won’t become a wife or let a wedding’s absence stopper hir lust. Ze isn’t good, so maintaining hir kinsfolk’s high regard demands a complicated dance of stealth, secrecy and untruth. Ponder does, however, own some ability in deception … so when tragedy befalls hir family, how does ze explain that–despite all appearance to the contrary–ze can’t trade hir life’s service for a unicorn’s magic?

Only virtuous maidens may enter the forest to seek a creature as pure as a unicorn. Returning home empty-handed avoids provoking Father’s rage by confessing unacceptable truths, so what options has ze other than embarking upon a farcical quest for hir family’s salvation … and dreading the failure to come? No unicorn can ever grace an unrepentant liar!

Ponder isn’t good. But neither, ze discovers, is the unicorn.

Why must ze learn hir lesson only after ze has been ordained to uselessness?

Continue reading “Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part Two” →

Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part One

Banner for Nine Laws: Allosexual Aromantic Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

Ponder Sheafed can’t stop asking questions. Ze isn’t the girl others presume hir to be. Ze won’t become a wife or let a wedding’s absence stopper hir lust. Ze isn’t good, so maintaining hir kinsfolk’s high regard demands a complicated dance of stealth, secrecy and untruth. Ponder does, however, own some ability in deception … so when tragedy befalls hir family, how does ze explain that–despite all appearance to the contrary–ze can’t trade hir life’s service for a unicorn’s magic?

Only virtuous maidens may enter the forest to seek a creature as pure as a unicorn. Returning home empty-handed avoids provoking Father’s rage by confessing unacceptable truths, so what options has ze other than embarking upon a farcical quest for hir family’s salvation … and dreading the failure to come? No unicorn can ever grace an unrepentant liar!

Ponder isn’t good. But neither, ze discovers, is the unicorn.

Ponder knows that consequences must someday claim hir. Ze just didn’t expect Mama to have to pay the price.

Continue reading “Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part One” →

Hallo, Aro: Pillar – K. A. Cook

Banner for Hallo, Aro Allosexual Aro Flash Fiction. Image features dark black handwritten type on a mottled green background. Diagonal rows of arrows with bands, heads and fletching in the colours of the green/light green/white/yellow/gold allo-aro pride flag cross the image above and below the text.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

Hallo, Aro is a series of flash fiction stories about allosexual aromantic characters navigating friendship, sexual attraction, aromanticism and the weight of amatonormative expectation.

Contains: A allo-aro woman who doesn’t choose marriage and children … and a society that expects she use her time in service to those who did.

When fog creeps and moon fades, the desperate seek out gods few dare name.

Continue reading “Hallo, Aro: Pillar – K. A. Cook” →

Pride Month Patch Patterns: Aro Queer Text

Six digitally-created versions of cross stitch pride patches, arranged in two rows of three, against a background of a textured partially-translucent aromantic pride flag. Text between the two rows reads Aro Pride Patches in black type. Patches include a rectangular patch in aroflux zigzag stripes, an idemromantic heart, an aro flag text patch reading "aro", a square in quoiromantic stripes, an arrow design in allo-aro colours and a second arrow in nebularomantic colours.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

If you follow me here or elsewhere, you probably know that I posted a collection including pixel-style “queer” text patterns for three, four and six-stripe pride flags. If you’re really invested in my creative output, you may remember that last year’s Pride Month patch patterns included lower and upper-case pixel-style “queer” patterns for five-stripe flags. On Patreon and Tumblr, meanwhile, I’ve been posting pixel-style “queer” header images in aromantic spectrum pride colours–headers based upon my original patterns.

Given that I also made a-spectrum variants of last year’s “pride” text patterns, I don’t know why I didn’t think to create a-spectrum “queer” text patterns before the end of June. I can and will, however, hurriedly finish Pride Month with patterns celebrating apothi, aego, caed, caligo, demi, jump, spike and vague folks!

Three cross stitch text pieces sitting on a blue microfibre blanket. All pieces show the word "queer" in a pixel-style capitalised lower-case lettering. The topmost piece, a finished patch, shows the word sewn in the colours of the demiromantic flag on a yellow background, outlined with yellow cord and sewn onto a dark green felt. The felt is trimmed with a lighter green blanket stitch. The left-hand piece, also a finished patch, has every letter stitched in a different five-stripe pride flag: aro for q, abro for u, butch for e, trans for e and allo-aro for r. Each leter is set against a different pastel background: green, pink, purple, blue and orange. The patch is trimmed in blanket stitch worked in a cotton-candy-coloured pink/cyan/cream/mint floss. The right hand piece shows the word stitched in the colours of the aromantic flag, outlined in dark green. The cream coloured felt has been trimmed but is otherwise left unfinished.

Some patterns will require fractional stitches to sew as shown. Folks who need help with materials, stitching, finishing or attaching patches should check out my pride text tutorial and my tutorial master page.

Continue reading “Pride Month Patch Patterns: Aro Queer Text” →