NONSEXUAL romance
Romantic relationships, under most circumstances, have a sexual component to them. That's just another level of connection many desire with the one they love. Not so the case with you. You're with someone, and both of you very much acknowledge it's some sort of relationship, but you're not with-with them - not sexually. Whether you're just unexperienced and not ready to move to that level yet, believers in romantic friendship (or that situation is more convenient, given your time and place of residency), unable to consummate anything due to physiological differences or other issues, celibate, or simply content with the intimacy that you do have, it's a mutual decision...isn't it? But is this the way you two see yourselves continuing, without wanting more? And what about other people? If they know you're together, do they see your arrangement as "strange" or "less?"
Even if they do, though, it may not matter; you have each other.
- Comment. You know the drill by now, folks!
- Reply to everyone and everybody.
PROMPTS
- Hair care. Brushing, braiding, washing, cutting -- all of these involve a lot of careful touching in ways that many people enjoy. Hair braiding is a bonding experience in some cultures. In fact, grooming is a bonding technique for social primates in general. People without close ties to others often treat themselves to regular salon visits as a socially acceptable way to meet the need for touch and interaction.
- Shaving. This involves an unusually high level of trust, especially if the person is using a straight-edge razor or something else with an exposed blade rather than just a buzzer. Although it can apply to women, shaving is one of the few forms of physical intimacy that is most closely associated with men due to their facial hair. Initiaton into shaving is a major milestone for becoming a man, not just for boys during puberty but also for transsexuals during transition.
- Bathing. This varies by culture; in America most people bathe alone but some other cultures practice communal bathing. A bath is usually more intimate than a shower, although a public bath can be non-intimate and small shower stall can be intimate. It's also different when two people wash each other (an exchange of intimacy and affection) than when one person washes someone else (more of a caretaking or protective gesture).
- Feeding. A classic romantic motif involves lovers feeding each other, but it works as a way of providing and caring for someone in any context. Like bathing, it can also clue whether both parties are participating equally or one is taking care of the other (temporarily or regularly). This one has an existential flavor since survival depends on food supply.
- Seeing someone without their adaptive equipment on. This includes glasses, dentalware, prosthetic limbs, a wheelchair, etc. Adaptive equipment is part of one's presentation to the everyday world, and taking it off can be as intimate as removing clothing, for many people in many contexts.
- Holding Hands: There can be many reasons for this gesture. Physical closeness, offering comfort, or staying together in a crowd, all may have you reaching for someone.
- Undressing someone. This can be kind of a one-way experience if the recipient isn't awake, and is often awkward for both people if they are awake. Sometimes it happens because hands are out of commission, but a more common example is someone passing out drunk. Overheating is another good reason. Different circumstances can imply different levels of intimacy.
- Sharing secrets. This especially applies to talking about personal issues that aren't widely known. An exchange of secrets is a common ritual between "best friends" among girls and women, but appears elsewhere as well. Some things are only discussed among people with a common reference; veterans may be more comfortable discussing war memories with each other than civilians.
- Ordering for someone in a restaurant. Acquiring food, without asking the other person what to get, shows a knowledge of their needs and desires. Providing food is also a gesture of support and sustenance.
- Providing moral support at a major event. Helping someone get through a funeral, a trial, or other intense but not crisis situation is usually performed by a very dear friend. This is a situation where lovers or family members may be too close to the matter to be much use.
- Crying on someone. When you cry, you tend to let your guard down. Most of the people close to you will see you cry at some point, so that can be a milestone in a relationship. Actually crying on someone, letting them hold you, is even more intimate.
- Serving in a primary role for someone during a wedding. This includes the best man or maid of honor at a wedding, or stand-in for absent parents, etc. as well as the traditional family roles. One aspect of intimacy is sharing each other's lives, including ceremonies and transitions.
- Comforting someone after a bad breakup. Moments of great vulnerability can bring people closer. While this role sometimes falls to family, breakup repair more often goes to a woman's female friends or a man's male friends.
- Listening to someone's heartbeat or breathing. Close body contact, enough to carry soft personal sounds, tends to be comforting as well as connecting, as it touches on positive childhood memories for most people. It is shared between parent and child, sometimes between siblings, and later between lovers. Tight nonsexual partners may also do this.
- Putting someone to bed. Interestingly, this activity can happen among people who are just getting to know each other -- most often if someone passes out drunk, but exhaustion can have a similar effect. It's a gesture of caring to put someone to bed rather than leave them where they drop. A milder version involves draping a blanket or coat over a person asleep on a couch or the like.
- Sleeping in the same bed. This is an act of shared vulnerability and intimacy. Lovers customarily do this; so do some siblings or friends, especially as children. People may also be driven to share a bed, sleeping bag, etc. for warmth or lack of other accommodations in challenging circumstances.
- Watching someone sleep. There is more vulnerability on the part of the sleeper, and more intimacy from the watcher, when only one person is asleep. Parents often watch their children sleep. Lovers sometimes do this with each other, which can be cute or creepy. It's also a guard position, useful for showing that one character seeks to protect another.
- Waking someone up from a nightmare. A subtler form of rescue than more physical actions, this is still a gesture of protection and caring. It often leads to comfort afterwards. A typical courtesy between parent and child, or lovers, this can also be an early threshold for characters thrust together unexpectedly if one of them has sturdy daytime walls and a lot of issues. It is common, but often unspoken, among war buddies or veterans, many of whom have nightmares.
- Sharing clothes, jewelry, other personal items. This is common between siblings or close female friends. Sometimes roommates do it too. Wearing someone else's shirt or bathrobe is typical in romantic relationships, so can suggest a similar level of intimacy even in the absence of sex.
- Cleaning someone else's living space. This shows care and knowledge on the part of the cleaner, and trust on the part of the recipient. You have to know what NOT to throw away or move. It's typical of family members and roommates. Coworkers may clean each other's desk, office space, etc.
- Living together. This is a big step, even if it's just for a little while. Housemates are in each other's pockets; it's hard to keep secrets. Family members and lovers often live together, but housemates who are family-of-choice form a category of their own. If you don't want a romantic partner, a permanent housemate is a good choice for someone to share your life with.
- Childbirth. Attending the blessed event entails providing a lot of moral support for hours under high stress. It can create a bond with the baby as well as with the mother. When planned, this opportunity is only offered to the closest family members or friends, barring professionals. But it can happen by surprise in very awkward circumstances, a popular motif in fiction.
- Saving someone's life. Quick action in a life-threatening situation demonstrates how much one person values another. This can create a strong sense of connection, and sometimes obligation. It often, though not always, entails personal risk for the rescuer. This is fairly typical for military buddies or police partners, etc.
- Risking your life for someone. Placing someone else ahead of your own life shows their importance to you unequivocally. This often, though not always, involves trying to save or protect another person. While it can create a sense of gratitude, it frequently causes anger as well -- someone who loves you will generally object to you endangering yourself, even to protect them. Military and police buddies protect each other regularly.
- Making emergency decisions for someone. This reveals both how well you know the person, and how much you care about them -- whether you know what they would want, and act on it even if it differs from your personal preference. Unlike some of the other options, in this one the initial action is often outweighed by the aftermath. Both characters have to deal with the results of the decisions, good or bad.
- Deathwatch. Dying can be as intimate as giving birth. Staying with someone while they pass is an act of love; so is providing moral support to someone sitting deathwatch for a family member or other person. Many soldiers and police have done this for someone.
|
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lilpoundcake) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2017-06-01 09:35 am
david 8 | prometheus + alien: covenant
katana. suicide squad. ota
hanji zoe (shingeki no kyojin) ota
Pharah | Overwatch
Delilah Kaye | original
Toast the Knowing | Mad Max: Fury Road
21/hope this is alright
[To that end she relies on the wisdom and the ingenuity of the Wives and the remaining Vuvalini. It's a community of voices over one tyrranical dictator, sharing space and responsibilities for the people.]
[Things have always been crowded on the Citadel, but as an Imperator under Joe's rule she had commanded a certain amount of space due to her station and through intimidation. Shedding old ways, adopting new habits, was the challenge now. Most days she could overcome it, but sometimes she would break off to the top of the plateau and sit in the hot wind, looking out over the wastelands.]
[Hearing the crunch of gravel and the soft shuffling of leaves behind her, she turns where she sits to see Toast approaching the rocky edge with her.]
Hey.
[She brushes off some of the gravel and dust from the rock next to her, an invitation to sit and join her, and then dusts her hands off.] Taking a break from the noise, too?
very much!
But it's also, occasionally, exhausting.
There are days when Toast doesn't want to be the Knowing, where she wants to take time to listen to the Vuvalini's stories, to sniff the Dag's newly-growing flowers, even to do something as indulgent as properly mourn Angharad (she hasn't given herself a chance). She does bits of these things, here and there, but she also has to seek the occasional peace, just to simply be. (The ability to be alone, properly, is a novelty, though she loves her Sisters truly.)
She's not really surprised to find Furiosa up here, and she gives half a smile as she comes to sit.] Something like that. It gets a little overwhelming.
:D
[Furiosa readily agrees, giving her a little smile that says it's okay to need the space sometimes. Then, she falls quiet. She has never been a woman of very many words, and the point in sitting up here for both of them was to get away from the cacophony, so she doesn't press conversation. It's a different experience to just sit and exist next to someone without an underlying hierarchy, or a need to exert dominance. It's a chance to retrain herself, to let go of those learned tensions and enjoy the peace they now have.]
[Always in the back of her mind, though, she wonders how long it will last. They still have Bullet Farm and Gastown to deal with, there were still the Buzzards and the bandits and raiders scattered about the Wastelands surrounding them, to say nothing of the heat and sandstorms. She may be more relaxed than ever, but she's not entirely at ease - like there's a live current running through her veins just looking for a chance to spark.]
Overall, are things good?
[She breaks the silence to check in, glancing over at Toast.]
no subject
She takes a second to think before she answers, honestly because she doesn't want to waste it.]
They are. It's... it's not what any of us imagined, but... we're figuring it out.
[A beat.]
For you?
no subject
Which means, adjusting her own habits.]
It's different. Good, but different.
[She looks out over the Wastelands, her small smile fading somewhat.] I just wish Angharad could have been here to share it.
no subject
She's trying, too, though. It's important.
At first she's quiet, just nodding along, but -- it's hard to be quiet when Angharad comes up.] Yeah. I... I think she'd be proud.
Carina | Guardians of the Galaxy
Missandei | GOT/ASOIAF
Daenerys Targaryen | ASoIaF
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
[Westeros has fallen under her command; unsurprising since Winter has come and she is the only one who can inspire loyalty in Dragons. With their fire, the people of the Seven Kingdoms need not fear the beasts that once roamed beyond the Wall. Yet such thoughts are far from her mind as she lays, reclining in her bed beside a young woman - a Stark - with hair like flames.
She isn't the first Targaryen to love a Stark. Maybe she does take after her eldest brother in that, at least, though, if the tales are true, she is more of a conqueror than either of her brothers could ever be. But that ensures her safety in a way and it allows her the power to protect those she holds dear.
Sansa hasn't had an easy time - Daenerys has heard of the girl's troubles both from her and others - however she has risen above what others have done to her. Much like herself. That kinship makes it easy for affection to blossom and the young Queen delights in sharing her quarters with someone she can trust utterly.
They are practically two sides of the same coin.
With a small smile, Daenerys lifts a hand and strokes over Sansa's hair, keeping her touch light so as not to startle her awake.]
no subject
In her place was a young woman who had learned the many life lessons that had been thrown her way...often in cruel and senseless ways. Yet still, still, Sansa had held onto her kindness. You have a good heart, she had once been told. For while people had tried using her for their own gain, had abused her for both entertainment as well as for things she could not change or control, she would not become like them. She would learn, and grow, and endure. For she was a Stark of Winterfell, and 'Winter is coming.'
Now Winter was here, and Sansa had found refuge in the unlikeliest of places: with the new queen, Daenerys Stormborn. At first she had feared for her life; she was a Stark, and her lord father had helped the late King Robert in his rebellion. But the queen turned out to be merciful. Kind and understanding, even.
After overcoming her initial wariness, Sansa made herself useful. After all, she knew every house, both great and minor, their histories, and the important lords and ladies. She knew the proper Westerosi customs, and helped the new queen to adjust.
She is a true queen, Sansa once thought in wonder.
And though she was a Stark, Daenerys took an interest in Sansa. Despite their vastly different upbringings, on the inside, they were much alike. And so she found herself dedicated to Queen Daenerys, even choosing to stay in King's Landing instead of Winterfell, which was back under Stark control and being repaired. She even shared a bed with Daenerys, and discovered that she disliked sleeping alone.
Deep in sleep, she did not feel the light touch. While her dreams had started out pleasant, they were slowly turning dark. Every now and then she had nightmares, but this one was particularly gruesome. Somehow her mind combined her brother Robb's fate with that of her lord father. Helpless to do anything but watch and scream, in the waking world she began to twist beneath the sheets and whimper. In the dream she watched as Joffrey gave orders to Cersei, and the late queen regent began stitching the head of Sansa's dear deceased direwolf Lady onto her lord father's head. No, she begged in the dream...and may have said it out loud, too. ]
[ ooc; I apologize for the length! I just have lots of feelings about these too, lol. ]
no subject
Cersei - or any Lannister for that matter - has no place in their bed.]
Sansa... [She is careful with her touch, not wanting to startle the poor girl more. However she does shift closer, slipping an arm protectively around her waist.] They can't touch you here. I won't let them.
[If the girl's enemies somehow came back from the dead, Daenerys would just feed them to her Dragons again. Drogon needs plenty of fodder as he continues to grow. As do Viserion and Rhaegal incidentally. All of her children are reaching impressive sizes and a lion would be foolish to test them.]
I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner... [That is one of her main regrets where Sansa is concerned. She would have claimed King's Landing and ensured the Starks were reunited. While she cannot fully forgive Eddard Stark for the part he played in her father's murder, she understands his position better. If Aerys had been mad...
And it seemed like he had been...
Eddard was doing his duty the best he knew how. He must have been a good man, she thinks, to sire such a sweet daughter. Daenerys hopes the Stark spirits can rest.]
no subject
That was when her eyes adjusted to the darkness. No, this was not the room she had been forced to share with that man. It was the queen's chambers. And that meant the arm around her waist...
Sansa turned in Daenerys' arms, and buried her face in the crook of her neck. Sobs shook her small body, but she did not make a sound. Her time with the Lannisters had taught her how to cry silently. ]
I apologize. I -- I had a terrible dream...
[ Her voice was soft and strained, but could still be heard clearly. It took a few minutes, but Sansa's tears slowed, and her body began to relax. Being in Daenerys' arms, inhaling her scent...it was all a great comfort to her. One of her own arms reached out to hold the queen.
While out in public, Sansa was all perfect courtesies and polished manners. Daenerys was always 'your grace' or 'my queen'. But behind closed doors, she had found herself letting her guard down and opening her heart to the other young woman. Had learned to trust again, which was something she never thought would happen. ]
merlin | merlin
steve trevor 》 wonder woman
10ish?
it's something she's yearned for from the moment she saw that plane go up in flames, but something she was painfully aware would never, ever happen. he was gone and he would never return to her. it's a reality she's had to live with for the past century, and to be faced with this possibility — it's a cruelty that cannot be forgiven.
raising her sword (not the "god killer," but a different one she had acquired after the great war ended), she brandishes it at him threateningly. ] You will show me your true face or I will unmask you myself.
》spoilers.
He raises his hands, though he has serious doubts about how much a sword will actually do against him. Steve doesn't even know how tangible or real he is now. ]
This is my true face, Diana. The ---distances between worlds are thinner now, thanks to what these entities have been doing with the rifts.
so many spoilers, reader beware.
it hurts. a century later, with more wars between then and now than she likes to count, it still hurts. pain blossoms anew in her chest and she resists the urge to clutch it, to cry out in sadness and horror. it's not fair. after all this time, it's not fair to do this to her now. how could anyone be so cruel? ]
This deception [ this time when she raises her sword and shifts from the ball of one foot to the other, it's in preparation to charge ] will be your last, Invader.
no subject
In a way, he's hoping he can bring that back to her now. They are losing this battle, now, but they can turn the tide.
But he has to get through to her first, which is turning out to be the harder part of this. ]
If that's what you believe then.
[ That's what it's about, after all. What you believe. He won't stop her, but he isn't here to stand in her way either. ]
no subject
slowly, she lowers the blade until its tip is buried in the sand at their feet. ]
How— How can this be?
no subject
He watches. He waits. People say history always repeats itself. It's different already, though. He remembers. He'd begged her to go with him, pleaded with everything he had in him. He'd watched her heart break and turn cold, disbelieving for a time, before who he now knows was Ares revealed himself. She fought anew for a world he'd never see, and that was fine.
He doesn't shy or flinch away from the blade ready to come down on him. He waits. Over a century has passed. Waiting is old hand. He'd wait a millennia more for one second, one breath. The blade digging into the sand between them is louder than a thousand explosions; the rest of the world muted aside from Diana. ]
I wish I knew.
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret | Final Fantasy XV | ota
Jyn Erso | Rogue One | OTA
Rey | SW:TFA | OTA