#Thank goodness the aro and ace communities have been so lovely

[flowercrown-bard]

To all the aros and aces and aroaces, you're wonderful and valid and you don't have to prove to anyone that you're "queer enough"

[gay-dorito-dust]

could you do asexual reader x Jason Todd headcanons?

I know this hdc won’t resonate for most in the ace community, cuz it’s a spectrum, but I hopes it at least resonates with some, even if it’s one person. That’s more enough for me. (Also sorry for the shit writing as usual)

Jason doesn’t mind that you’re asexual. You were still you at the end of the day, so he doesn’t understand why some people tend to make a big deal out of it.

It’s not like you being asexual was hurting anyone but he guessed that some people just harbour vast amounts of hate for things they don’t/refuse to understand bc they’ve been conditioned into thinking that it’s a bad thing.

Others are just cunts that Jason gladly beats the piss out of in your honour. (Acephobes plz die disrespectfully thanks)

He will not tolerate any sort of disrespect towards you and needless to say having a six foot something man who’s built like an absolute tank is enough to silence those types of people rather quickly.

He’s more then willing to do this for anyone that you knew who was ace, aro, or was in the LGBTQIA community in general, that he becomes a someone that a lot of them could come to when in need of help, or was just in need of a safe space.

He’s unbothered by it because as long as he’s helping someone in need, he’s more than willing to offer his shoulder for them to cry on.

(I just like the idea of Jason being a protector of LGBTQIA youths.)

After all he once took joy in beating the absolute piss out of a biphobe for Tim. Sure he may not have a great relationship with his siblings, but he’s not one to ignore when they’re being treated like shit for being who they were.

He respects your boundaries and will always ask whether or not it was okay for him to kiss you, to which you’d always have to tell him that it was more then okay for him to kiss you.

He understands that asexuality was a spectrum and would ask which part of the spectrum you were apart of, and acts in accordance to make sure that you’re more than comfortable in your relationship.

He’s always finding ways to constantly learn about asexuality and more. He’s even got a whole bookshelf dedicated to LGBTQIA history because he wants to better himself and do right by you and other people who look up to him to protect them. He takes that shit seriously.

He just loves you very much and wants you to feel as though you could tell him anything that’s bothering you and he’ll gladly bring you its head if you’d like just to prove it.

If you are okay with kisses and the like, be prepared to be swarmed by it at every possible opportunity with this teddy bear, for he will smother your face in kisses as he holds you against him, smiling upon hearing you laugh and poor attempts in pushing him away. It’s a highlight of his day because when you’re happy, he’s happy.

You don’t like sex? That’s okay! He’ll make you have Junk food dates with him where you stuff your faces either pizza with stuffed crust (you can eat it in reverse) and garlic bread and watch shitty movies as you cuddle on the couch.

You: you don’t think I’m broken?

Jason; no. Why, who’s told you that you were broken because it’s a bunch of bullshit. You’re the most important person in my life and I’d do just about anything for you, no matter how big or small it may seem because at the end of the day I want to see you happy. So listen to me sweetheart and listen good, you are not broken. You are perfection incarnate in my eyes, you are everything I could’ve hoped to have by my side for you’ve never judged me, so I don’t see why I should judge you for being your truest self. Thats a bit hypocritical don’t you think?

Jason: So don’t ever think you’re broken when you’re far from it, you are whole and you are more than enough. I don’t care if we have sex on occasion or not at all, your happiness is all I care about. I want you to be happy for the rest of our lives together because now I’ve got you I’m not letting you go. Ever. I couldn’t care less about anything else but when it concerns you, I’d move mountains to make things better for you. I love you chipmunk, please don’t ever feel like you’re broken when you’re so much more than that, and I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it.

[a-bit-of-a-queer-one]

I loved Wild Blue Yonder, I thought it was a great episode. But if I see one more person proclaiming that the Doctor saying Isaac Newton was "hot" made the character "finally queer", I'm gonna set fire to sth.

For one thing, since they changed into a woman, the Doctor has, depending on one's definition, been canonically genderfluid/trans/nonbinary/genderqueer. That was made even more explicit last week in Star Beast. So saying that the Doctor as played by a man and using he/him pronouns calling a man "hot" somehow made the character queer is stupid in and of itself.

And secondly, the Doctor has long been regarded as aro and ace-coded by people of those communities and guess what? Aro and ace people really do exist and we are queer. And it would be lovely if other queer people could stop excluding us by saying that characters who provide what little, mostly accidental and incidental representation we get "become queer" by expressing same-sex attraction. It happened with Good Omens and it seems to be happening again with Doctor Who and I am so fucking tired of it

Edit (6th Dec 2023): Several people have pointed out in the notes that there have been quite a few instances of the Doctor ambiguously or indeed unambiguously expressing 'same-sex' attraction and exploring their gender identity/identities in the past, both in the show and in extended media. I just wanted to be absolutely clear on the fact that I was in way trying to diminish the importance of those moments by emphasing the aspect of asexuality and aromanticism in my post. That is not to say that I think anyone was implying that I was doing that, in fact everyone's been lovely (which is why I also wanted to thank everyone for their input, I learnt a lot, especially about the novels!!)

Of course, as an asexual, aromantic and agender/nonbinary person, that is the lens through which I watch the show and relate to the character of the Doctor. This does not make my reading of them any more or less valid than anyone else's. In fact, I absolutely love the fact that the Doctor is a character who speaks to people of so many different queer identities and I am so happy that RTD is exploring their queerness more explicitly, building on what he and so many other writers and also the actors have already established. I just hope that the fandom will respect the aro and ace aspects of the Doctor's queerness the same way they do their gender identities and other sexual and romantic orientations. Part of the reason I was initially quite worried about this was because of my experiences in the Good Omens fandom, particularly post series 2, as indicated in my original post. The other is that I doubt the show will explore the aro and ace aspects of the character as much as they may other queer identities - unfortunately aspecs have a history of being left behind in this regard...

But we will see, maybe I'll be proved wrong! For the time being, I just hope the queer community can celebrate all the different facets of the Doctor's undeniable queerness, including the aspec ones. And as the reactions to this post have been overwhelmingly supportive (I don't think I've seen a single outright negative response), I think this hope is far from unfounded.

(Sorry, this edit turned out to be longer than the original post...)

[prototypesteve]

hi! I just came across your acc and read some of your posts and you seem a really inspiring individual. im a 18yo demisexual person who's really close to their queerness (both in the sexuality and gender aspects) as its a fundamental part of my individuality. and i dunno, both my being acespec and genderqueer are a tricky... thing to get into when i want to get into relationships. im trying to be happy by myself. and this was very random and all, but as you're an adult aroace (i see very very few of them) its inspiring to me knowing I can still have a good, normal life? while living in full authenticity. idk. sorry if this is random. you dont have to reply. your account was nice to come across. have a wonderful day

Thank you for this. This is why I’m here. Honestly this is most of why I came out. Seriously.

Being Different and “New”.

The world is catching up with you, so you’ll have to be patient sometimes. Language often outpaces feelings. People know how to address genderqueer (they know all the words) but they’re still learning how to process genderqueer (they’re deconstructing all the old gender “archetypes” and stereotypes they were taught by parents and teachers who didn’t address or process genderqueer in their day). They will figure it out, because they can see it’s real. But it’s frustrating, in the meantime.

Even our own community of LGBTQIA+ (in Canada we use 2SLGBTQIA+, leading with 2S for two-spirit) is catching up with us in a lot of ways. The queer community has largely thought of queer as for/about genderqueer, and so when they see aros and aces and demisexuals and demiromantics, they have to either accept or reject that there’s a whole other layer of queer called relationship queer who intersect and overlap with genderqueer inside the bigger (and for some “newly bigger”) queer category/world/thing.

Being alone.

Alone is a complicated word for us. Aspec people experience a few kinds of alone-ness. There’s completion, which allos sometimes don’t get. We’re complete inasmuch as aspec people don’t have as many spaces in their lives where they need an “other half,” even though many of us spend a lot of our lives being told we have that space and we need to fill it. I wrote about that, here.

Then there’s the way we can can feel isolated from the bigger queer world because of the ways some people refuse to accept asexuality and aromanticism as queer, because they see it as a cishet thing, somehow.

We can feel isolated from traditional communities built around faith, politics, ethnicity, national identity, or even generational identity (GenX was wiiiiildly amatonormative), all because our defining differences are falsely interpreted as “new”. People misread our orientation as a phase, or a “made up internet thing” even though we’ve always been here. For ages, the world didn’t want to talk about all the asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and demiromantic people they could see everywhere—unlabelled, but plain as day—and now that we want to talk about ourselves, they’re going to say “you’re making that up”.

Then there’s the alone-ness of trying to explain how we do love, but differently. That one’s hard. I think that’s the one I’m going through the most, this year.

“See Also”:

Anyway, here’s a poorly-sorted and always growing “library” of links to my most popular social media posts, and stuff I’ve learned as an older ace. The recurring theme is that it really is going to be okay.

I’m still me, but now I know why. (How I explain my “thing” to straight friends who knew me from before I came out.)

Phase (You don’t outgrow it. I’m proof.)

Complete (Our complex relationship with “Alone”)

1994 (The counsellor story)

When I realized (Slow origin story)

Lifeline (Something bad happened to me when I was young, and believe it or not, Spider-Man rescued me.)

Recipe for Disaster (When life happens BEFORE you figure out your orientations)

Sexual Induction rather than a sexual awakening. (Things won’t always follow the romance novel playbook.)

Complicated. (Being queer AND Christian.)

Din Djarin Aroace Rep (We love. We just mostly do all the other kinds of love)

Treasure (a note to my trans friends)

Happy Ace Week (yes we’re here)

Masked (About not being out to everyone)

Negotiating (About gaining “acceptance” from the bigger queer community.

[waywardsou2]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH QUEERS

Shout out to all of my He/Hims

To my She/Hers

To my They/Thems

To my It/It's and my Ze/Zirs

To my AFABs to my AMABs

To my intersex siblings

To my trans brother, to my trans sisters and my siblings in between.

To my mentally ill queers, to my disabled queers, to my system queers, to my alter human queers.

To all of my kids in the closet, to the kids that have been kicked out, to the kids that never felt good enough, to the kids who wished they could be anyone else, to the kids who are bullied and to the kids who aren't here with us.

To all of my adults who are in the closet, who were kicked out as kids, to the adults that still don't feel good enough, to the adults who wished they could be anyone else, to the adults that are kicked out of jobs and bullied and to the adults who made it so far, but couldn't keep going.

To those who's lives and loves were taken from them and those who were oppressed for their identity.

To my bisexuals, to my pansexuals, to my aces and aros, to my confused as fuck queers and to everyone everywhere.

I love you and you are loved. You will always be loved, there will always be someone out there for you.

Never stop fighting, never stop living, never stop being you. But never stop being compassionate, never stop loving and never stop looking out for others inside and outside the community.

And thanks to the allies, for sticking up for your friends and loved ones.

Happy Pride, cheers to another year!

[bloggingboutburgers]

Hi, I know it's been a while but it's allo (autistic? unsure what tag to use) anon here again. I just wanted to say congratulations on the project! I showed it to my girlfriend and she was really happy, when it comes out we will definitely read it together. I am proud to see you doing new and exciting things, and I wish you nothing but the best in your future endeavors! You're doing amazing already and I look forward to seeing you continue on whatever path you want to take with your creative work :)

Sorry I didn't message again sooner, things in real life have been... a lot. I still try to check this blog when I can. Your art is still adorable, and I also wanted to say thank you for your comics about fandom and the stuff that people say to aro/ace people. As someone who is very invested in media analysis(TM) and fandoms, I have noticed some behaviour that is really weird and uncomfortable, and it's good to see other people speaking out about it.

Also, not to decenter your experience, but the comic about labels really hit home for me. When I first got diagnosed it explained so much about my struggles and why I felt the way I did. It was groundbreaking to understand that I wasn't just a broken person or full of character flaws, but that things like sensory issues were just part of being who I am. I don't know if you meant it this way, but I really love the yellow colour of the thought bubbles and the little flowers. I know some people say it's pathologizing or too restrictive to cling to labels so much, but it really is a relief to be given something that helps you understand yourself and feel so much less alone. I am glad you were able to find your identity and community. It's so cool that now you get to make those posts, and probably reach others!

I just wanted to pop in again and say I love your stuff, and it's so cool to see other people loving and engaging with it too. I hope you have a wonderful day/night, passe une bonne journée/nuit <3

P. S. I hope that's how you say it, I'm using google translate.

Heyyyy!!^^ Thank you so much for reaching out again and for all the encouragement and support! I hope you and your girlfriend are doing OK^^ And please don't apologize for not reaching out for a while, I'm happy whenever you do at all but it's very fair to have a lot going on otherwise! If anything I hope things are a bit easier now, so to speak.

Also don't worry about decentering my experience by sharing yours when you relate! I'm a big believer in intersectional discussion, I think people from marginalised groups could benefit a great deal from standing together to defend common interests, and if we can relate to each other's experiences in some way even just a little, although we know and acknowledge they're all different, I'm sure we can go a long way. So I sincerely appreciate you sharing, honestly!! (I'm also really grateful you liked the way I graphically conveyed it, that is a challenge in and of itself^^)

Again, thank you so much for all the positive feedback and support, and thanks for taking the time to add some French in as well, very kind of you^^

Hope you have a great day ahead!

[oatflatwhite]

Absolutely feel free to not answer but I was wondering how you grew more comfortable being aro/ace? I’m 22 and ace (maybe aro too idk) and I recently ended an on again off again relationship and I am questioning if I ever felt anything towards him in the first place. Im kinda scared bc I love romance but idk if I’ll ever experience it? I wish I was as secure as you seem to be. Thank u in advance 🙂

hey anon :) thank you for reaching out! it's a really hard feeling to come to grips with so i hope i can help in at least a small way.

id'ing as aroace has been quite the journey for me. i've known i was ace for the longest time, but there was a period of several years where i denied even that (thanks 2016 tumblr discourse). eventually i realised that certain feelings would just never happen to me and that was ok - because i could still have romance, right? well!

i think it was around 2021 i kind of thought hold on. i've lived 23 years on this goddamn earth and don't think i've ever had a real romantic feeling/urge for someone who wasn't a fictional character/someone i didn't "force" myself to like because everyone in high school has crushes, right? so i thought about it and just went oh. oh! and it almost felt as though a weight came off my shoulders. like, yes, i was fucking bummed to realise i would probably never fall in storybook love. but there was this sense of a burden i could unshoulder because suddenly i wasn't beholden to the need to find that love, you know? i could just. be me. and even though it might make me sad sometimes, it's enough.

since then i've been up and down about it, absolutely. i even had a brief period last year where i convinced myself i actually did like this guy in real life! through a comedy of errors i realised that romance in my head was fine but any kind of real life interaction in that vein made me sick to my stomach fr lol. (for real! he had to drive me home in my own goddamn car bc i felt so ill.) i still get upset about it sometimes too. i mean, all i write is romance. i read and watch a lot of romance too. romance is every fucking where and it is so ingrained to be a part of everyone's lives that to try and distance yourself from it in order to feel more comfortable not feeling it is. virtually impossible.

where i am right now, 26 years old, 10 years into my ace journey and about 3 into my aro one, is here: i like my life. i love my friends. i can't force myself into a feeling that i will never have. and maybe at times i will be lonely and sad about it, but building a community has helped so much. whether that's with other aro/ace people, or just your friends or family or anyone else you trust with this. because romantic love =/= personal fulfilment, happiness, success. we've just been told it does. it just takes work to make yourself believe otherwise.

and it's ok to be sad about it. but even if you feel lonely, you're not alone.

also, because i'm nothing if not a girl who loves a bibliography, i would recommend checking out these sources:

loveless by alice oseman

ace: what asexuality reveals about desire, society and the meaning of sex by angela chen

this essay by k.a. cook

and pinging a couple blogs with some good aro resources, though i'm sure there's more out there! @aroworlds @arowitharrows

[avenpt]

Hi asking a question here because google is not enough I wanted real people’s opinions.

My partner and I have been together for almost 3 years; they are asexual, I’m not but I don’t care for having a relationship with sex anyway, that’s not important to me and I respect the boundaries we’ve established together (ex: we’ve never had sex; we don’t kiss all the time and I wait for them to make the first move if they want to show that kind of affection; we sleep in different beds and both enjoy the space). We have a romantic relationship, but I feel a disconnect sometimes and most recent events have led me to question wether or not they might be aromantic as well.

I understand aromanticism is on a spectrum, I’m wondering how and if I should ask them about it and from my experience I know there are right and wrong ways to ask questions related to LGBTQIA+ topics.

I just don’t know how to ask them if they would prefer us to keep being a couple or if they don’t feel the same way I do about our relationship and if I need to change something I do if it makes them unhappy or uncomfortable. Whatever their response is I would respect it and their boundaries, even if it means that we simply stay friends (we have been friends since 2010 I value their friendship very much).

Basically, how do I go about asking them without being unintentionally rude/offensive and without sounding like I’m saying “you don’t seem to love me like I love you”? I just want them to be happy in life and in our relationship, whatever the relationship ends up as. I also don’t want to accidentally pressure them into showing affection they might not want to get into because they think that’s what I meant. I just want to know where were at.

PS for more context: From what I understand when we started dating they didn’t know they were asexual, we talked about it so that’s why I know but we never talked about aromanticism. I’m trans non-binary and pansexual, they are also trans and initially said they were also pan or bi, but I haven’t asked more info of it and it hasn’t come up naturally. I’m also not sure they would outright say something about aromanticism because we both have this issue where we are scared of talking about deep feelings and emotions unless someone asks us direct questions. Otherwise we have good communication it just takes some time to find the right questions to ask.

Any advice?

Hello, anon. Thank you for reaching out! First off, you sound like an awesome partner, wanting to be understanding and respectful of your partner. I mean, that is how people *should* be, but they aren't always like that. So this is great you're taking the time to find out what is best.

Your partner could be aro-spec, and I understand you wanting to know how to go about this so you know that you're not making them uncomfy or anything. Aro-spec people can be in romantic relationships--I just wanted to put that out there first. It is just like aces being in sexual relationships. So your partner might be fine with how things are, even if they are aro.

If you would like to talk to them, perhaps you could bring it up in this way..."I know that you're ace, but have you also ever related to the term 'aromantic'? I just want to make sure I'm not making you uncomfortable by being in a romantic relationship. I want to learn and be the best partner I can be." Or something along those lines. That way, you allow them to say if they can relate, and also you're not putting anything on them (like making anything out to be their fault).

Best wishes to you!! Just do what you can. I hope it works out. :)

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Thumbprint Challenge

Thanks @oh-no-another-idea for the tag!

Rules: look back on your work, both past and present, finished and unfinished. What are five to ten narrative elements or tropes that continuously pop up in your work? Give a list of these things!

Back at my old work? Okay...not sure how much of these count but here are the commonalities:

Found family/importance of friendship. The focus on best friends from when I was a kid is very prominent in childhood writing and friendship is still a key part. Interpersonal relationships are a very important theme across everything.

Female main characters. Not sure if this counts, but almost all of my childhood works were about girls. My first male main OC was a character named Julian/Mikey (changed his name) in an old draft of TSP. Hell, my first male POV was my Warriors cats fanfic (they were OCs though) and the first time I wrote a male voice in first person was a character named Jesse in eighth grade.

Queer undertones. Looking back at my old work, a lot of my main characters were sapphic or ace/aro spec. Anahi and Marlis from what later evolved into SOTL were very gay for each other. Even Mossflower and Lemonfrost from my Warriors fanfic. The aforementioned Jesse was asexual-coded. Christy and Trish in TEOS. It was just always there as I hadn't figured myself out yet.

Dialogue-driven storytelling. Maybe not in early early writing, but like age 8 onward included a lot of dialogue. I've always been more character focused than environment focused, so I'd say this adds up.

Intelligent main characters. Most of my protagonists were emphasized to be very, very smart. It's interesting that I'm not a STEM person, but I am a former "gifted kid" so that may have something to do with it, but I usually emphasized this with a STEM field they were interested in. Christy from TEOS, math nerd. Hollyn from Perspectives, science geek. Twinkle in my bear cubs series as a kid, astronomer. Even in the Warriors fanfic the first POV is Mossflower the medicine cat. The only pre-high school time I can find where I emphasized intelligence that wasn't in a STEM field is Anahi, who was very literature based.

Multiple main characters. I liked a group of people, even if it was one POV. TSP D1 followed Alexia and Aurora, then they ran into four other people. 3+ was my usual. I guess it comes from the interpersonal relationships themes, like #1 talked about.

Fantasy elements. Man, I almost never write in realistic fiction. I mean, my earliest works were, but then I'd occasionally have an anthropomorphic animal pop up and now it's fantasy. Now, the only realistic fiction WIP I have on the shelf is Perspectives. Arguably IWAJAD because I guess someone can have a vivid dream where a character arc is forced upon them but idk.

Dramedies. I loved to incorporate humor among things I thought were high stakes. I like to be angsty but that doesn't stop me from being very silly. I mean, look at TSP D1. They are threatened to be killed and I still have humor in there. Good? No, but I still tried.

Communication I realize is a prominent theme. Oftentimes, things are not resolved due to not communicating, or I show communication allowing a character to experience comfort, or how not listening to someone leads to trouble, or how hiding a part of yourself isolated you, or acting like someone you're not pulls the wrong people in... So much, man.

I hope this is an okay list. I'll tag @gracehosborn @illarian-rambling @mk-writes-stuff @little-peril-stories @buffythevampirelover @dyrewrites @elsie-writes @sleepywriter00 @theelfauthor @theeccentricraven @thepeculiarbird @finxi-writes @writingsfromspace @winterandwords @revenantlore + anyone else

[capn-atlas]

UM JUST A DISCLAIMER BEFORE THIS INITIAL INTRO POST-we are currently very hyper fixated on the show Only Murders In The Building and are almost finished season three so no spoilers but this show is consuming my life right now so it will probably also consume this blog thank you

PLEASE TALK TO US ABOUT OMITB

our meet the artist/artists, I suppose. idk, its kinda us as a whole

Heyyyyyy!! Welcome to our blog. You can call us Rat or Atlas collectively. I am the host, Rat, and our system is called the Atlas system or Atlas' system. We have three definitive alters other than me, the host, and his name is Lennon (he uses he/they it prns) (he's not fronting rn so I'm just going to leave a space below for him to write his intro). We also have 2 littles called Eva and Riko who usually if not always front together.

Lennon's intro:

Eva and Rikos Intro:

We are bodily and collectively minors, so no funny business. 

We go by any/all pronouns collectively, but please don't use she/her too often, or when Lennon is fronting.

We are collectively agender, genderqueer, asexual and aromantic, and we have a few alters that are boyflux and/or non-binary, and I think we might have one girl but she's little and has yet to front

here is the post about our plurality

we are collectively therians, fictionkin, objectkin, and otherkin. 

Our ‘types:

A deer/wolf hybrid called Kinny (he/they) who has a wolf body, tail, ears and front or back paws (not sure which ones, I think they change) and deer antlers, head shape, and front/back hooves and can shapeshift into a humanoid creature with antlers and a wolf tail and elf-ish ears. He also has the ability to fly and the ability to change his size at will. 

A cat whose name I do not know, but it is either Stella, Mariella, Maribel/Maribelle or Nora (she/her). She is a silky black cat and can shapeshift into a witch with no animalistic qualities and she has the ability to change her age at will. 

dollkin

puppetkin

ratkin

QUESTIONING:

foxkin/a fox theriotype

I am also an artist and will occasionally be posting artwork on here. Mostly, though, this blog will be for our experiences as a closeted therian & agender system. Also random therian and gay stuff. And poems. Occasionally. And random stuff we think of. 

We'll probably be posting pretty often, and we'll let y’all know if that changes. 

JSYK:

We do swear occasionally but otherwise we're completely safe for minors which is good because I am a minor

We don’t respond to hate unless it’s especially funny

And our moots are awesome, love you guys❤️❤️🦌🐺🐈‍⬛

DNI: 

General assholes

any explicitly NSFW blogs- a few 18+ things are okay but DNI if your blog is completely NSFW 

ANY QUEERPHOBES(e.g. homophobes, transphobes, biphobes, aphobes-that’s aro and/or ace phobes) WILL BE BLOCKED

ANY ANTI-THERIANS/ANTI-ALTERHUMANS WILL BE BLOCKED

Zo0ph!les are not tolerated or accepted. Please go see a doctor. 

P3doph!les are not tolerated or accepted. Please go see a doctor. 

However, recovering/recovered zo0s are completely welcome. 

FURRIES≠THERIANS

THERIANS≠ZO0S

FURRIES≠ZO0s

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. 

We are very likely autistic but have not been diagnosed because we do not have a therapist even though we NEED ONE.

we, as a system, do not support the use of lesbian within m-spec communities but there’s no hate here, and you are still welcome have done our research on lesboys and the use of lesbian in m-spec communities, and apologize for our ignorance. We did not do any research at the time of writing this post and henceforth just did not understand the concept. We hope you feel welcome here.

we have a couple very strong opinions that we will not be debating anyone about. Opinions are just that. You can have your own and we can have ours. Just don’t try to convince us that that you are right. we will not do that, we will just let you know that this is what we believe. Here’s an example:

Omnisexuals do not equal pansexuals with preferences. Having no preference and not caring the gender of the person you are attracted to are two different things. Pansexuals can have preferences. For example, if you’re pansexual and you have a preference for women, and you see someone who you’re attracted to, and you talk to them and they say “oh yeah, I’m not actually a woman, I’m non binary”, you wouldn’t care, you’d still be attracted to them. Whereas if you were omnisexual and they told you they weren’t actually a woman, you might not be attracted to them anymore. This comes from a person who used to identify as panromantic with a preference for women. I have since realized I was aromantic, but I still have these opinions. DNI if you are going to try and debate me about this. 

userboxes by @kthecritter

here is a link to the post we made about opening requests for therian line art: https://www.tumblr.com/feethetalkingdeer/757851513949405184/attention-please?source=share

I think that’s it!!!

If you made it here, take this: 🏳️‍🌈 pride flag for you ❤️❤️

Oky byee! We hope to see you again soon!

oh and here’s my pronouns.cc if you’d like it:

(I've removed this link temporarily cause its under construction) (I'm making changes to the names and stuff that's on there)

[allthefujoshiunite]

Hi, Nora....My friend and I made a list of ace and aro characters from BL, and then we get to Love For Sale. We think Sieon is aro, based on he never regret his previous relationships until he is with Namwoo. And how he felt so indifferent about them. But what do you think? Also, do you have any BL characters that you think are ace or aro?

Great question! And thank you for giving me a chance to talk about Sieon. I'm always happy to do so. If you want the tl;dr answer, I don't consider him to be one. However, as is always the case on Wild Wild Web when you express a thought or preference, people take it as me condemning all the other thoughts/preferences. So here's a PSA: if you consider him Aro, good for you! You can interpret him however you like.

Also, lots and LOTS of spoilers for the uninitiated.

As for how I read his character. I think Sieon is hard to understand for a lot of people because they expect him to be either this or that and try to put him into categories he doesn't fully belong in. It's one of the reasons why I'm so enamored with Love for Sale as a whole, and Sieon in particular. Dal Hyeonji, even though this is their first commercial BL work, does an absolutely fantastic job in this character study.

Back to the point. When the story was still being released, I entertained a similar idea myself about him that, maybe he's demiromantic. Not a romance-aversed aromantic, but still a part of the spectrum. Then I kind of abandoned that as well.

We are a melting pot of our environments, cultural codes, family, and our characteristics. That's why most of the time, it's hard to make out whether you've become something due to some external force or you were that something before anything else. A very lame example would be, do I find red lipstick sexy because I find it arousing, or is it because it was marketed in such a way that I am conditioned to think it's sexy? Similarly, it's not always easy to tell apart whether your feelings are genuine, you feel like you have to feel certain ways towards certain people, or something impacted you in such a way that you don't feel a certain way anymore. I know I'm being vague but hopefully, it'll make more sense now.

Sieon, having to shoulder her mother's emotional well-being and their reversed parent-child roles, has found himself in a position where he seeks gratification through the things he can provide to his partners so he can feel 'needed'. The comfort he can provide for his partner becomes his purpose to be in that relationship. I was throwing him bombastic side-eyes very early into the story where he never expressed any type of preference and was very evasive whenever Namwoo tried to probe. Naturally, it was quite frustrating for Namwoo. As for me, it was as if Sieon was trying to erase himself from the relationship and be there for Namwoo as a combination of 'bank account + lips to kiss + a hand to hold' and blend into the ether as a person.

That's also why his relationships ended the way they did. He knew his mom wasn't happy, and even if he tried to alleviate her pain, it ultimately didn't work, thus, the one last good deed he could do for his mom was to let her go. To not be greedy. To not be selfish and say "I need you, don't go." This is the root of his letting go of his exes 'too easily', rather than him not 'loving' his partners.

Here's where things get tricky. Ideally, a romantic relationship requires you to be vulnerable, communicative, diplomatic, etc. Ideally. But none of us are exempt from carrying our baggage with us into the next relationship, no matter how big or small. In that sense, should we say that just because Sieon hasn't been perfectly vulnerable or has been avoiding conflict, he was never in a real relationship before? I don't think we can. 

One of the moments my heart ached for him was during his conversation with his close friend. He reiterates it later on when they're having the talk with Namwoo, but he desperately tries to convey that, no matter what his partners felt, whether they were satisfied on their own account or not, he was always genuine. Has always been. It may not fit the mold of grandiose, shouting-from-the-mountaintops, I'd-swallow-a-sword-for-you kind of love we are constantly sold in the romance genre, but that doesn't mean he isn't capable of love either. On the contrary, I think he does look for romantic companionship, but he just doesn't know how not to intellectualize his feelings.

So, in my opinion, "he didn't love anyone else before Namwoo" is not exactly the correct way to read him. Up until Namwoo decided that he was going to hold onto Sieon and 'show him a selfish love' in Sieon's mom's words, their relationship was following the pretty much same direction as the others. At first, Namwoo is content with what Sieon provides, but then he develops feelings for him and expects Sieon to return them in a way he can't. The same old story that is bound to end with a break-up.

Emphasis on 'in a way he couldn't'. The way I read it, his way of loving is different from what others deem as 'romantic love', so he's convinced that he can't reciprocate others' feelings. If that's love, and his feelings don't look like that, then he must not be in love after all. And when Namwoo shows Sieon that it's okay to be needy and selfish at times, and it's okay to be vulnerable and honest, we see that was the wake-up call he needed all along. 

The verdict? If you consider his past partners through the "he wasn't able to genuinely love them" lens and interpret his "not being able to reciprocate romantic feelings" literally, you can think of him as an aromantic who's not really averse to dating. But as I've tried to elaborate, rather than not feeling romantic love, he does feel love and seek companionship but doesn't know how to handle conflict and can't break free from the behavioral patterns ingrained in him in childhood. 

About aro/ase characters in BL. There's only one work that comes to mind which, interestingly, makes asexuality/demisexuality one of the core themes it explores and that's This is Love by Ziki Masaya. I have reviewed it before (click me) and I highly recommend it! I can maybe mention Sangwoo from Semantic Error, but then again, I think he's just autistic and his approach to romantic love for another guy is different from his normie boyfriend Jongchan because of that. I can't really think of any other works with Aro/ace characters as there's always romance/sex involved. Or maybe I just haven't paid enough attention! Let me know about the list you two came up with ~

PSA: I added the intro because the original link needs you to login to Lezhin as it's a Mature title, but you know the drill. Read on the official platfrorms!

[choicesmc]

8 for Fiona (+14 for you)

hihi o/ thank you for dropping by!! questions from [this] ask game

14. Do you have ocs on the aro or ace spectrum?

Yes! Rams is asexual and Rin is aromantic!!

8. Have they had struggles with their identity, be it due to internal or external reasons?

you have opened up the floodgates. I'll post the rest under the read more because it is long.

Both actually!

Starting with the internal side, when Fiona was 12 he learned about queer people through a church sponsored 'sex-ed' class over the summer in Nigeria. Nigeria is highly hostile to queer people. Needless to say, it was not a very accepting lesson.

It demonized queer people, made them monsters of the community, warned all of them to be careful because if these young children --barely starting their exploration of themselves-- weren't, then they'd get you. And if you were one of Them, then you weren't part of Us.

Being queer was to be a danger.

So what happens when Fiona, already struggling with wanting things outside the 'manly' sphere realizes he also wants other men? What happens to a child that has been taught that anything besides aggressive attraction to women is poisonous.

What happens is that child, Fiona, begins to self-isolate. He doubles down on being straight, doubles down on being a 'man', doubles down on being religious, doubles down on stifling himself for the sake of his community because if he didn't then he would damn them all.

And in the end, he's dying. He can't let anyone know why he's dying. They'd only kill him faster.

Even now years after coming out (it went horribly, worse than a disaster, and, uh, if Fiona could erase it from his life he probably would.) Fiona still struggles. There's the insistent doubt that he's wrong that none of what he is is normal. That he's killing the people around him because he is refusing to kill himself.

On the external side of things, we'll need a little context. So, in Igboland, no one really 'dies'. Igbo naming conventions have an order. The first son of a family is named after their paternal grandfather, the first daughter after their paternal grandmother, the second son after their maternal father and so on. This stems from a traditional belief that children carry the soul of their grandparents. A child is a continuation of a never broken chain of ancestors. So no family member is ever truly gone, they're simply in the next generation —just look.

But that also means his parents have a vested interest to make sure he marries a woman and has children. At least one girl and boy. Why? If he doesn’t then Fiona’s parents would truly die. There would be generation to see them in.

Fiona is an only child (he had a sister but she was stillborn). If they can’t make Fiona have a child then that unbroken chain of family will shatter with him. His parent cannot let that. They cannot raise a man who would murder everyone they love.

Fiona has a poison and they must give him an antidote even if it slaughters they only child they have. (<- note the use of ‘has’ —as if Fiona’s bisexuality and non-conformity is something he can throw away if they just press hard enough)

Right now, Fiona’s parents are trying to socially isolate him. They haven’t spoken to him in any meaningful capacity since his 2nd year at law school.

In summary, Fiona is facing social isolation from his family + internal struggles!

good times 😬

[xenonsdoodles]

Dimimi!

DIMIMI!

(first of all I have to note that this was sent approximately one second after I reblogged the post. incredible. thanks so much)

    First impression:

I was obliquely aware of throuses long before I actually played it, so on my first actual playthrough it was something like “oh right it’s this guy. people are weird about this guy. surely I won’t be weird about this guy.”

    Impression now:

I cannot overstate how weird I am about this guy.

    Favorite moment:

So the thing is that if I try to pick anything that’s a major part of the plot I am just going to end up picking like. half the scenes in the entire route. Instead of doing that I’m going to say I liked the support where he tricked Ashe into telling him which sweets to buy him. That was cute.

Honorable mention: in my VW run when he killed my (comically over-leveled) Byleth in one hit and I had to go back in time and do some Actual Strategical Thinking to keep him from doing it again. I was yelling in real life.

    Idea for a story:

I have simultaneously a lot and not enough :)

One of them is a potentially multi-chapter mess in which he and Felix gradually repair their friendship using Byleth as a go-between, which might end up being good. Or I might never get it to a point where I like it enough to post. idk. explodes in a silly way

    Unpopular opinion:

I love curating my fandom experience so that I barely ever see bad takes about him and I don’t have to engage if I do :)

Uhhhh unpopular opinion: I love him so much (it’s unpopular because my irl friends keep bullying me for it) (I use the word “bullying” lightheartedly here ofc, we all love mimi in this house)

    Favorite relationship:

I mean do I really need to. do I really need to say what it is. I think we are all well aware of my favorite relationship for Dimitri, by this point,

…ok honestly though I am actually pretty picky about what variety of dimileth I actually like. The deeply weird version of their dynamic that exists in my head Compels Me and I am doing my absolute best to communicate through my art and fic what the hell that actually means. So far I don’t know if I’ve been successful but I sure am going to keep trying.

ALSO. I am not exclusively a dimileth enjoyer, and I LOVE so many of his relationships that aren’t necessarily romantic. Dimitri’s arc is about, among other things, learning to recognize that people love him and that it’s okay to lean on them if he needs to, and god do his friends really love him so fucking much. I got his paired ending with Dedue in my og run, and they are. So important to me. I can see them as platonic or romantic and it doesn’t matter because either way they love each other and they save each other’s lives all over again every single day and I am Definitely Not Crying About It.

    Favorite headcanon:

I have a lot of small and mostly unspoken headcanons in mind when I write and draw him, but it’s hard to articulate any one of them on its own. I’m gonna serve my own All Of You Are Weird Aspecs character agenda and say I think he’s grey-aro, grey-ace, bi, and Not Normal About It and no I’m not projecting in any way who said that

obligatory Him

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

hello, its me! the anon who asked for your opinion abt shipping Alastor with other characters :)

firstly, thank you for answering! i totally agree that, if you build on a character's canon aro/ace orientation, then shipping them would be okay. ive just heard other people say doing that was aroace erasure, and i didnt feel like i had much say, because (as previously stated) im aceflux and nebularomantic.

my sexuality fluctuates, and i cant really tell the difference between romantic and platonic attraction, which is why i didnt feel qualified to put out my opinion on such matters

i also feel like i should apologize, bc i kinda feel like my ask may have snowballed into some sort discourse? idk, just from what i saw when looking at the blog every now and then, it looked like some shit was going down, revolving around Alastor 😭

now, onto why im here: why should someone do if a person they looked up to, who outwardly supported the aroace community, turns out to be a horrible person? (im sure that some people reading this can already guess who im talking about)

i feel so icky about the situation, bc ive supported and loved this person for years. all of the songs theyve ever written have been so aro-coded (as said by aromantics), and a vast majority of their fanbase is aromantic/on the aro/ace spectrum, myself included. they even spoke about their love for the aromantic community openly, and now, with them being exposed as a horrible person, i dont really know how to feel. is there any advice you could give me and others who are in the same boat? /nf

—sincerely, 🦢🦌

No it’s all good! The discourse was started by me ducking up and some people taking it slightly to far.

Unfortunately I do know who you’re talking about. I was in that fandom back in 20-22 ish, and I couldn’t be happier that I left. Honestly. I don’t know ANYthing about the situation other then someone being revealed to be a piece of shit for some reason and I would like to keep it that way:

I don’t need to know the details about what this person did.

Small side note before I begin:

I think the problem is a lot of people have put people like that on a pedestal while not knowing anything about them. 

The big difference between e- celebrities and true (actors, singers, rich assholes ect) celebrities is the accountability of the public. True celebrities have been held accountable much sooner and to much more effect then e-celebrities due to the fact that the media cares what they do. The paparazzi ect

People talking about not listening to said persons music anymore: reminder that it’s not only them who produces and plays that music. Don’t listen to their solo shit, burn CDs rip it off YouTube, piracy is on the rise.

The rest of the people involved with the band are NOT at fault here and their career and income should not have to suffer for an asshole.

“Cancel” the person not the team.

You can still relate to something without relating to the asshole

You can still relate to something without being the asshole

Be respectful

Listen to victims

And a word for my aspecs ->

The amount of straight people who are just as bad doesn’t matter here, no matter what happens next, all people will see is “he supported aroace spec people” and will try and use it.

Ignore that block them and report harassment

Stay safe anon

[bloggingboutburgers]

Hey! Fellow french ace here :) thank you so much for your posts and comics, each time I get a notification for a new post from you I'm excited to check it out! I've "discovered" asexuality recently - it felt so good to be able to find what I was! And finding a community is so comforting. Thank you especially for sharing about your partnership - I'm also wondering if I am somewhere on the aro spectrum - hearing about QPRs makes my heart full of joy and hope that someday I could actually be in a relationship, free of the stupid expectations that we get from society regarding sex or the fact that this other person must become my whole world. I just never got it! I still dream of having a partner in life, but I want a person to face and be in the world with, not someone to become my world. Anyway, reading you helped understand this, thank you and please keep them coming 🥰🙏

Heya! Thank YOU for the kind words, I'm super-happy if it's been helpful!! Finding a sense of validation and community isn't easy when you're on the ace/(possibly) aro spectrums because they're part of those identities that aren't normalised much yet... So I'm seriously so glad TwT

Actually you also managed to put words on things I'd never been able to define properly with words myself before, tbh!! When it comes to explaining why I love my QPR for what it is and how it's different from romance, I'm sometimes at a loss for words in how exactly it is, even though I'm certain it is... And "a person to face and be in the world with, not someone to become my world" nails the feeling to a T. That's gonna make it a bit more helpful to explain to other people as well, so thank you so much for that, for putting words on it in such a good way TwT

[briar-moth-lover]

GAYS OF TUMBLR.

I have a question: I am a bi-romantic asexual. I have been that way for years. I may not have known what to call myself, but I feel like I've always known this. HOWEVER, I have recently been wondering if I lean into the aromantic community at all. I was talking to someone about crushes and stuff, and I was talking about how outgoing my crush was, and how they would drag me out of the house, so I felt like I connected with them more emotionally (this is around the time I had started to form a crush), and how I would get a gay panic anytime they would touch me (physical touch is one of my love languages). The person I was talking to literally only said how attractive their crush was, and how that's how they would have gay panics and stuff like that. The whole time, I was staring there so confused because for some reason it never processed in my little gay ace brain that you could be attracted to someone physically. Of course I think people are pretty, or cute, but never once have I ever even thought to describe someone was hot or sexy (it just makes me feel so weird, and it just doesn't make sense to me). This is where I start wondering whether I could possibly be leaning into the aro territory. I can't tell if it's just my asexuality needing that emotional instead of physical connection to crush on someone, or if it is aromantic.

I want to be in a relationship, I know I want to be with a boy or girl, I want that, but at the same time, relationships honestly just seem like another level of friendship? Like, I need a good friendship before I can even comprehend having a crush on someone. I want a friends I can cuddle and kiss and be romantic and all that stuff.

I just want opinions please. I've been trying to figure this out for so long.

Thank you for listening to my rant, have a cookie 🍪 (I also have Little Moths in my moth sanctuary if you want one)