Welome to my shrine for what I believe is one of if not the best audio dramas ever produced dear god it's amazing please listen to it I'm begging you. The Silt Verses written by Jon Ware and Muna Hussen look it up listen to it and go insane because it is just that good
At the beginning it's about Carpenter(my favorite character!!!!) and Faulkner, 2 worshippers of an illegal river god travelling down the sacred white gull river in the search of miracles we're also introduced to the 2 other main characters Hayward a cop who investigates worshippers of illegal gods and Paige a disallusioned office worker. The story of the silt verses is so much more than our 4 main characters tho the main worldbuilding element is that gods are real and require human sacrafice to provide miracles and corporations are formed around these gods so it becomes this really poignant metaphor for capitalism and like how disposable people are under it. And it just has such solid writing like relistening to any episode you''l find paralells and foreshadowing to events that come later and it's all just forms this heartwrenching tragedy that again I think is one of the best audio dramas of all time. There is lots of body horror tho so if your not chill with that tread carefully. It's cast is also full of queer characters (but like what horror audio drama isn't these days lol). But yeah listen to the silt verses NOW you can find it anywhere you would listen to podcasts.
Behold my Writing (spoilers beyond this point so listen before reading)
Why The Silt Verses is the Aromantic media of all time
The Silt Verses is one of the most aromantic pieces of media ever in my opinion (somewhat ironic since it was made by a married couple but whatevs) and there are quite a few reasons for this.
The most obvious of these reasons is that there's a canonically aromantic main character (Carpenter my favorite) and importantly she's involved in the main plot and gets to do cool stuff. Often I feel like aromantic characters get shoved to the side in the plots they appear (and even more often in fandom spaces) especially in pieces of media or fandoms where shipping or romantic plotlines are a focus. It feels like the writers don't quite know what to do with them. However The Silt Verses doesn't have these problems number one because Jon Ware is an amazing writer and number two The Silt Verses has practically no focus on romance. It simply doesn't have romantic plotlines (aside from chapter 36 of course) which is def another point in the most aromantic media of all time catagory.
The other reasons are a bit more subtle. First of all is the reacurring theme of romantic elements being retroactively added to storylines in order to generate appeal. This happens at least three times first being when Roemont discusses his plan to kill Faulkner he mentions that Faulkners supposed final words would include saying that sister Thurrocks was his true love (which is just not the case plus he killed her lol) and when questioned says "they'll love it; it'll be a useful distraction". This happens again when the story of the promised bride is rewritten due to the impending legalization of the parish of tide and flesh the story changing from the bride being unwilling to marry despite being forced to and therefore lets the trawlerman turn her into a crab monster then kills her husband instead she happily marries for her husband and only asks the trawlerman to turn her a crab monster is after linger straits soldiers kill her husband. The final example is Paige inventing the story of "The Widow of Wounds" to appear more palatable and trustworthy to people even tho Paige herself hates lying like that.
The final reason I'll talk about is the focus on non-romantic relationships this is most prominent in the pairs of our 4 main charcters Carpenter and Faulkner have a very obvious sibling dynamic (I want to call it found family but that's too cozy of a term for what they got going on tbh) and importantly this relationship is given a lot of weight, depth, and complexity. Same can be said with Hayward and Paiges relationship which to me is the embodiment of not platonic not romantic but a secret third thing (the prophet and the paladin) they both trust each other deeply and both want to see the other walk on further than than themselves. It also just feels like love didn't save anyone it made the world kinder but it didn't save them but I don't got like a source for that tbh.
To cap it off a piece of media "feeling aromantic" is broader than representation or just not featuring romance it's about the themes and boy does The Silt Verses have those themes in spades.
More rambles to come soon
