#also the amatonormativity in this fandom is some of the worst I have ever seen

[bi-chimneyy]

while I do think misogyny is a massive problem in the 911 fandom as a whole, I think relatively few of the people who hate buck and eddie's past love interests don't also hate tommy, sure the hate is slightly different (and realistically slightly less vitriolic) because he's a guy and "we finally got bi buck" but the amount of homophobia and biphobia being aimed at buck and tommy's characters is ridiculous... treating tommy like he's predatory (come on now buck is 32), claiming that buck's bisexual arc is "pointless" if he's with tommy, wanting buck to cheat (cheating storylines are whatever but lets be real none of you were okay with him cheating with a woman but now that it might validate your ship, you're suddenly fine with it), saying anyone who even remotely likes bucktommy is 'fetishising mlm relationships' and 'just wants to see two guys kiss', not to mention the purity culture surrounding the idea that a friends to lovers relationship is morally better than a relationship that starts with dating.

[sleepsentry]

for the ask game, number 8: unpopular fandom opinion(s) regarding gravity falls. also, love your work. ^_^

Thank you! ^^

Of course these are based on my assumptions about what's popular and these are takes I haven't seen around in the wild.

This kinda just devolves into a headcanon list towards the end. haha ^^'

OK so hmmmm oh boy there's a lot:

Gravity Falls is NOT the best thing ever it just had a bunch of really talented people working on it who made it super fun. But it's far from a golden standard and I don't think it should be held up as a standard, that idea is reductive and creatively stifling.

I don't like comparing Amphibia, Owl House, Duck Tales (2017), Inside Job and many others to Gravity Falls. The similarities are superficial and those shows shouldn't be living in Gravity Fall's shadow. They deserve to stand tall and cast their own.

On that note Alex Hirsch is just some guy and I don't like his stuff on its own that much. He's not that funny or interesting to me, but he is just some guy. Hope he doesn't turn out to be a shitty dude. *shrug*

Stanley is overrated (I love him but jeez guys. He's not that endearing.)

Rick and Morty x Gravity Falls is a terrible crossover, tonally, technically and thematically. (I also am just very unimpressed by rick and morty in general)

Stanchez is bad. Rick can eat my shorts. Stan "deserves better". Obviously the fan creations are good. But they don't change my mind about the base idea.

The stans both did nothing wrong ever and I love them deeply without comparing them. (joke I know they fuck up, but they fuck up together.)

Fiddauthor is mid and boring. It comes off as amatonormative and people overall are very exclusionary over it wich is just being a dick and using a ship preference to justify it. (I dont mean to be mean but yeah, you guys are doing fine you can take some salt.)

Ford and Fidd are more like siblings than a couple.

Ford and Fidd both dismissed eachother and the miscommunication was on both of them. (Similair to stan and ford it's no one character's fault)

Ford and Fidd's relationship has more emotional weight viewed through the platonic lense of fidds being older than ford by two or three years and "adopting" him as a "little brother" in college, and how that followed them into their 30s even when the age gap had long become irrelevant. Rather than just "gay sad nerds have marital issues" as fun as that sounds.

Fiddleford is a crazy, scary, adorable, kind, stupid, genuis. This man contains multitudes, I try my best not to flanderize him into one over the other. He can be all those fun things.

Fiddlestan is inherently more funny and compelling than fiddauthor. (To me, to me.)

Fillbrick wasn't the devil incarnate he was just a shit dad, wich fair enough is very bad. Haha (idk there isn't enough of him for me to truly hate and I'd rather not assume the worst, I deal with abusive parents enough in my day to day I don't need to add one to my fav silly show haha)

Billford isn't "toxic" it's too bizarre for that, and much is left to be inferred about both characters and their dynamic. (Again, assuming the worst instead of something more fitting and fun) It's obviously bad for ford but I thought everyone hated him when he isn't nice to stan or being shipped with fidds so it should be cool. (Sarcasm)

Dipper and mabel fuck up equally and mabel is generally more empathetic and aware of the world around her than dipper who hyperfocuses. (Been there pal.)

Mabel is more similar to Ford and Dipper is more similar to Stan

Dipper is a good boy but a bit on the boring side for me. He's fine. I like him well enough.

Mabel is more relatable to me, but I relate to dip's anxiety disorder so bad.

Dipper would NOT grow up to look like Ford. He'd look like shermy or stan.

Mabel would grow up to be bigger and broader than dipper. She'd also be the one to get glasses and look more like ford. She's already halfway there with the hair and jumpers (sweaters)

Jokes about ford failing to impress girls are cringe, heteronormative and bad. And ford doesn't like anyone. (Bill is his own can of eldritch worms)

Dipper doesn't like girls in the way he thought he should and that's why his crush on wendy played out the way it did, it was never really about her, it was about his relationship to her. How she helped him find someone to admire, and was kinda his first real friend who he felt was cool and understood him, heteronormativity made him think he liked her romantically. He so obviously didn't that it hurts my soul.

Mabcifica is underrated as hell and more interesting than dipcifica. That being said.

I do ship dipcifica but in a queer way. You guys don't get it. They're queer.

The cis/heteronormative takes where pacifica and dipper have children together and dipper looks older but Pacifica is just her kid face on a sexy lady bod make me uncomfortable.

And that's why Dipper, Mabel and Pacifica could grow up into a polyamorous "Vee" relationship. [When one person is dating two people who aren't dating eachother, in this case obviously cause they're twins. It forms a "V" from Pacifica to the Pines twins ^^]

What was this ask originally about?

[zorilleerrant]

BANG BANG BANG

3 8 & 9!

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

I don't screenshot these for my own mental health but. I've genuinely seen someone - more than one person, actually! - claim that Jason Todd never killed anyone. And I don't know if it was just a joke that didn't land or if they're talking about Robin!Jason or something else, but I think there's a growing contingent of people who genuinely believe that every claim Jason killed anyone is a smear campaign. Which is like. That's the point of his character actually??? Like the whole point of Red Hood is exploring the morality of killing and what it does to a person regardless of morality. He wouldn't be an interesting character without the murders!!! The Cass misunderstanding (that she's an assassin) I get more because that's an easy mistake to make.

That Armand never really loved Louis, he was just convenient, which like. No he's not did you even watch the show? That's the most inconvenient motherfucker anyone could ever date. But also... none of the dramatic tension plays out unless he's in love! (Some of it I don't think played out anyway.) There's no reason for him to do anything he does unless he's head over heels and going crazy with it. And there's no poignancy to the breakup if neither of them care I mean. What about it then. (Also how can Daniel heal Armand's heart if it isn't broken, come on now.)

I've also been getting mad at people a lot for saying that Faith is a lesbian or has 'obvious lesbian coding' when like... she's one of the straightest characters on TV. Literally, no, people, you are just a lesbian and into her! That's the opposite! You're the opposite person from Faith in that equation!

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

That any of the Batfamily smoke. Rich people just don't smoke anymore, haven't for quite a while, and certainly wouldn't be okay with their kids smoking. Which means they only do it as rebellion - except that Bruce had no parents to rebel against, and everyone else did superhero stuff for their rebellions. Even the ones who grew up in environments with a lot of smokers were too young to be smoking regularly when they were out on their own. Alfred might smoke, depending on his backstory, but not in front of the kids. Steph you could convince me was rebelling against her very health conscious mom, but you'd need to motivate an antagonistic relationship. Babs I feel would just think it's gross.

That Niko is aromantic. She literally decided two starfish were in love, just because they were next to each other and had contrasting color palettes. That's, if anything, an example of amatonormativity, not a thought that aromantics have all the time. I mean I think she just saw the starfish and had her own romantic thoughts, because she likes romance and thinks about it all the time, and if you want her to be arospec then make her aego!!!

That Xander is any more sexist or awkward than any of the other characters. Sure, a lot of his lines didn't age well... but neither did any of theirs, and no one decides they're evil for it. Well, except for the handful who have really violent things to say about Willow. I wish I could find more Buffy fans who watched it on the air tbh. He literally doesn't do anything except for normal teenage stuff like all the other teenagers also do.

9. worst part of canon

Alright, everyone's going to come at me for this one but like. I don't think Dick and Bruce should have an antagonistic relationship. Or even a tense one. Or even like 'well, Bruce is controlling and Dick is learning to be an adult, so they clash'. No? They really mostly shouldn't ever have problems. They're THE Batman and Robin; they know exactly what each other is thinking. They think in the same way and agree on 99% of stuff and don't ever misunderstand each other because they grew up together. They learned how to be heroes together. I don't need false conflict added to make the story world all dark and edgy and I don't see why it was. Dick is a kid who has normal growing up problems and Bruce is a supportive dad who sometimes gives the wrong advice because he didn't have the exact same problems, that's it.

The worst part of Invincible canon is that they specifically made the main character half asian and then didn't do anything thematic with it. Guys! His human half is asian, always seen as other, seen as a visitor or tourist even in his own home. His alien half, which is a visitor and tourist (and nefarious dictatorial influence), looks white, and thus is categorically instead of contingently accepted. Both halves would make him feel othered and outside of society, but one half people would reject outright for not looking othered, and the other half people would reject because they don't like to listen to asians having opinions on things. His dad was never racist to his mom because he didn't know how, and that helped her fall in love with him, but then the dude turns right around and has opinions about all humans that really sound a lot like the same orientalist arguments! And they just didn't SAY anything about it!!!!

The worst part of Buffy is Season 7.

lol probably everyone should specify a fandom

[arodabi]

okay, i’m finally getting around to writing this, and uhh ill say its for aro week too. this is written as an aro person directed at alloromantic people. when i refer to writing, i’m kind of using it as a general term for creative works. Here’s me throwing my hat in on the question:

Can you ship aromantic characters?

and my answer is,,,,, actually a question. Why do you want to ship aromantic characters? 

I want alloros to realize that for a lot of aros, we do not get to see ourselves represented often. I can actually count on like one hand how many popular canon aro characters there are, and on the whole, none of their identities are respected. people constantly try to weasel their way out of actually writing aro characters, or they just ignore or deny their identity outright. fandom spaces (hell creative spaces in general) are at best not welcoming to aros, and at worst actively hostile towards us. So when the first question brought up when a character gets canonically confirmed as aro is “okay cool but can i ship them???” or “that’s nice but how can i still write about my fave ship that involves them??” i want to fucking scream. its a slap to the face and it shows that people really do not give a shit about aros. you say stuff like that and all i hear is “my fictional ship is so much more important than representing your marginalized minority identity” so instead of me just sitting here and saying “yes you can totally ship aro characters, as long as you’re respectful!!!” i’m saying “can you stop and think why you want to shove an aro character into a romantic relationship at the first chance you get?? maybe you have some arophobia you haven’t worked on?? maybe since we live in an amatonormative world, you’re letting that influence your views??” because that question being the first thing out of your mouth when you see a character you like confirmed as aro? that’s already disrespectful towards aros in my book.

So back to my question, Why do you want to ship aromantic characters? is it because you can’t write characters without them being in romantic relationships? or because you think a character without a romantic relationship is boring? Because if so, that’s a bad reason and it sounds like amatonormativity is rotting your brain. 

Is it because you just really like a ship with the aro character? Because you can write two characters with a strong relationship without writing them as a couple. A strong friendship can hold just as much power as a romantic relationship.

Is it because fuck aros, i will write what I wanna write and I don't wanna write this character with their canon identity? because then you’re just an arophobic asshole that needs to work on your shitty opinions. aro representation is just as important as any other lgbtqia+ representation.

Now if you’re reading this and thinking “well i heard aros can be in queerplatonic relationships!” I want you to think for a second. Are you writing a qpr or are you writing a romantic relationship with the serial numbers filed off? Have you talked to aro people or read stuff actually written by us? because, yes, some qprs can look a lot like a romantic relationship from the outside, but that’s just it, you’re looking at it from the outside. qprs are more than just “romantic relationship with extra steps”, and i think it’s really telling how many times i see alloromantic people saying they’re depicting an aro character in a qpr, not a romantic relationship, but then they never ever make any effort to distinguish the qpr from any other romantic relationship they write or draw. It just feels like qprs are getting used by alloros as a gatcha any time an aro person objects to how they depict (or don’t depict) aromanticism. if you want to write a character in a qpr then go for it! but you need to actually do research, talk to aros, get multiple opinions and not just take the first opinion that agrees with you and run with it.

“But what about headcanoning a character as arospec?” now i will say before i go into this, i am aro, not arospec, so if an arospec person wants to come in and correct me at any part here im happy to listen. but my problem when alloros bring up arospec identities is a very similar problem to how qprs are often depicted. I remember when Peridot Stevenuniverse got confirmed aro (she did, do not argue this with me) people were jumping over themselves to assure everyone that “a character getting confirmed as aro just means they are any arospec identity” which,, uhh,, not true? i mean if an arospec person wants to see a canon aro character as, say, aroflux, i’ve got no problem, aro and arospec people can do what they want really. but, i do have a problem with all the alloro fans who were spreading this. because, do you really see the character as demiromantic? or are you using that identity to deflect criticism from erasing aro identities? are you actually trying to write a good depiction of a demiro person? or are you just writing normal ship stuff and slapping a “uwu ive never felt romantic attraction until i met you! and now i will act exactly like any alloromantic person!” at the beginning? being in fandom spaces, i do see the occasional fic actually depicting an aspec identity (i say aspec her because aro is so rare that most of these examples i’ve seen have been acespec identities rather than arospec) but like 99% of the time, that’s written by someone who actually shares the identity. before you use our terms and identities to cover your ass when you erase us, consider not fucking doing that. consider listening to all aros and getting our thoughts and input. 

And last here is “but what about romance positive aros?” now i think most of what i’ve said previously can be applied here. the only thing i wanna add is, i think its very interesting that almost every time i see non aros depict aros, they always write them as very into romance, very open to be in romantic relationships, and very quiet about their aro identity. despite the character in canon not showing any of these traits. romance positive aros are good and important, but not every aro is romance positive. there’s quite a few of us that are romance repulsed, and alloros only depicting aros as super romance positive no matter what is suspicious to say the least. if an aro character is shown to be open to participating in romantic activities in canon then of course write them that way. but if an aro character is shown to be uninterested in, or even actively against romantic activities then respect that too.

so, to wrap up my thoughts in this ramble: please ask yourself why you want to ship aro characters so bad, because if the only reason is that amatonormativity has brainwashed you into not being able to write, or draw, or do anything with a character without them being in a romantic relationship, then you uhhh need to work on that, that’s honestly a writing/creative flaw imo. if you like the relationship dynamic between an aro character and another character, consider making them friends. friendship is not less powerful than romantic relationships. nobody is ever too old for the power of friendship trope. If you’re erasing an aro character’s identity because fuck aros, then fuck off somewhere far away from me and work on your bullshit. qprs, arospec identities, and romance positive aros are all very real, very important parts of the aro community, but please talk to other aros about them and actually make an effort to understand how these things work, dont just assume. And also don’t use these things as a way to erase aro identities and cover your ass if get called out. its disrespectful towards all aros.

The most important thing to do before writing or creating work with aro characters is to talk to aros, and not just the aros that agree with you. look up what a qpr actually is, learn how aros experience their arospec identities, talk to aros with multiple outlooks on romance. and if you can’t bring yourself to reach out, at least read through our own writings, whether that’s fiction, or informational posts, fuck, look through our memes if u wanna. Just please actually make an effort.

So, Can you ship aro characters? its complicated. look at trends in your fandom, question why you want to, and do research. Be an aro ally, listen to us. That’s really the most important thing.

[saltyaro]

So uuuh I just saw a post that was all like “while movie Snape got portrayed badly and as such doesn’t seem as awful as in the books, books Snape is just the worst and I don’t get why there are still people to defend him if they read the books” and then proceeded to list some shit he’s done that wasn’t shown in the movies. 

I’m not trying to enter the discourse topic, it’s actually amatonormativity I wanna talk about. But, if you need to know, I hate him. Next.

The post also compared the fandom’s treatment of Snape to the treatment the Dursley’s get, and how no one really condones them while a lot of people defend Snape. Which I find weird because, at least Harry found some kind of peace with Dudley, who was a child and, while responsible for his behaviour, had actual character development after being saved by Harry. Also, of course Petunia’s awful but she did feel guilt, and was conflicted by her behaviour even though it didn’t translate into actions most of the time. Snape though? I...don’t even see even one redeeming thought in him? 

He was just obsessed by Lily and, if that wasn’t creepy enough by itself, he did a lot of things because of his obsession that ruined a lot of people. He hurt Lily because he was supposed to be her friend and, in the end, he was the most awful person ever to her son. He never did anything with good intentions. Everything that could be seen as a “good action” was actually forced out of him using his obsession towards Lily, and sorry but that’s not a good person here.

But the thing is...his obsession is a romantic one, so people *want* to find his obsessive behaviour obsessive. If it’s for the sake of romantic feelings then it’s okay, and it doesn’t make his behaviour creepy but sweet actually, somehow! What the fuck @ alloros?? 

That’s, I think, the difference there is between the fandom’s treatment of Snape and the Dursley’s. Of course, we can’t ignore male privilege, by that I mean, if you had a female character acting this way I’m not sure people would be so kind. But there’s this idea that a man’s unrequited romantic feelings towards a woman are sad and tragic (a woman’s are pathetic), and this is the woman’s fault for rejecting him. So, patriarchy+amatonormativity work together to make a fucking disgusting and dangerous creep seem likeable. 

His creepyness is evident from all the little things (the photo of Lily smiling with her family that he ripped to make it look like she was smiling at him, for an example), and yet all those little things are seen as sweet, when it’s really just. Scary. Why is it so hard to understand that romantic feelings don’t make people flawless? I mean, in this particular example, the author does have to take part of the blame, but honestly, it could have been a great way of showing how, not only isn’t romance inherently good, but how it can actually be the reason for terrible behaviour. That’s the kind of wasted potentiel we have here, and it’s wasted potential because amatonormativity is way too strong. 

[aroworlds]

Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Alex

Today I have the delight of introducing Alex, better known to aro-spec Tumblr as @arotaro and @mutant-jojos!

Alex is a bisexual, half-Puerto Rican multi-disciplinary aromantic artist and creative with severe ADHD. You’ll find her prolific fanworks on AO3 as EmeraldTrash666, writing primarily for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fandom. Her bold, colourful art for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hetalia, Pokemon and Vocaloid fandoms is also available on Redbubble under the name StellaHagane.

She writes, she creates digital art and she dabbles in music, sewing and fashion design, single-handedly proving that there’s no such thing as too much creative awesome for any one aromantic!

With us Alex talks about finding the word aro, the power of fandom and creative fanworks, her love of aro Jotaro, the challenges of creating with ADHD, the struggles of being an aro gen writer in fandom and the importance of expressing our aro headcanons. Everything she says is absolutely on point, so please let’s give her all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

I guess in some ways my “story” starts out pretty typical. Got older, kept waiting for my First Crush™, never got it, started worrying and trying to force myself to develop crushes. I actually was in a relationship with another girl on a forum I was part of as a teenager, but eventually I realized that I didn’t really like her romantically, and the relationship started to become really unpleasant for me. I eventually felt so miserable that I didn’t even want to talk at her at all, even though we were close friends, but I didn’t want to break up with her - partly because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, partly because we were everyone’s “OTP” and I didn’t want my friends to hate me for ruining that. But eventually I did break up with her, and I’m happy to say she took it with grace and we’re still close friends today! (She’s ace and a great writer/artist herself, too!)

I was part of a very nice LGBTQ+ group as a teenager, but I could never figure out my identity. I felt really ashamed and alone. Whenever I brought up how messed up I felt because I’d never had a crush on anyone, everyone was like, “Oh, sounds like you must be asexual!”, but I knew I wasn’t, and that was the worst part. Even though I knew aromanticism was a thing, nobody ever talked about it. It was only ever in the context of aroaces, so I didn’t know I was aro. I thought I must have had some sort of mental illness or something, but certainly not a legitimate orientation, nothing to be proud of like everyone else.

During that time, I found myself connecting on a deep emotional level to characters like Alphonse Elric, Fujiwara no Sai, the X-Men in general (although I’ve been an X-Men fan since I was literally a baby), basically anyone who was somehow “different” from the rest of humanity, even though I never understood why, since I was a fairly privileged kid who had never experienced much bullying or anything. Weirdly enough, it was Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure that helped me realize I was aro and come to terms with it; I saw an interview with Hirohiko Araki, the author of JJBA, where he was asked what type of girls Jotaro Kujo likes, and replied that he didn’t think Jotaro liked girls. The obvious interpretation would be that Jotaro’s gay, but somehow, one way or another, I decided to go with the idea that Jotaro’s aromantic. Jotaro also happened to be a character I really related to for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, so around the time I was 18 I put two and two together and was like ... oh shit…

Please click keep reading to continue Alex’s story!

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

I’ve always been weird in the way I’m very creative, but tend to kinda bounce around from hobby to hobby. Other people draw, or write, or sing, while I draw for a month, and then write for a month and sew for a week and play video games for a week, and then I draw some more, and then I try out something completely new, and then I write again. I think it must be an ADHD thing, idk. In any case, I’ve just always been really passionate about making stuff, whatever that stuff happens to be.

I’ve also always been very much fandom-oriented. Ever since I was a toddler, I used to dictate fanfiction to my mom (back then it usually involved Winnie the Pooh, the Powerpuff Girls, Godzilla, and my dog). I mostly draw fanart. I find that I’m not really capable of writing original stories, but I’m great at getting fanfics in character, and I love writing them. I love taking stories I already love and reinterpreting them, seeing what it would be like if the characters were put into different situations, etc.

Because of my ADHD, I really struggle with actually finishing things. I try really really hard, I really do, and I’ve been trying to push myself even harder these past few years. I’ve made progress, but it’s still extremely difficult, so I’m very sorry for all the projects I’ve abandoned over the years. Sorry I still haven’t finished the fic that was supposed to be done in early March. I’m trying, really. I promise I’m working on the next chapter of BLaD, too.

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

Of course, pretty much everything I write is gen. Even if I include romantic relationships in my fics, I never write about romance, just stories which also happen to include some characters who might be dating someone. And obviously I always write Jotaro as aro! That’s really important to me. No matter which AU I’m writing, he’s always aro. (And autistic, but that’s off topic.)

I’m also not really into shipping because of my romance repulsion, but I ship Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli. The thing is … I’ve always viewed it as a unique relationship, sort of difficult to define as being strictly romantic or platonic or sexual, just kind of their own thing that defies words. That’s how I’ve always written it. I had the sudden realization recently that this strange view on the only ship I really actually like (at the moment, anyway) is probably due to my being aro, lmao.

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

People don’t read gen fics, and people aren’t interested in aro stories. That’s just the way it is. I do have some dedicated readers, whom I love deeply, but in general… I could post something with a deep plot, something funny and dramatic and witty and touching, something I poured my heart and soul into for months, and it’ll get very few hits/comments/kudos, while someone else could post the same generic 2,000-word romance fic everyone’s seen a dozen times over, with no editing or anything, and get twice the amount of traffic my fics do in half the time. It’s really crushing.

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

I dunno… The aro community feels so small. Online, I have a small circle of aro mutuals who all kind of vent collectively, and I’m part of Arocalypse and a few aro/aspec Discord servers, but I still feel like there isn’t really much of a larger community to be part of in the same way that there is for other orientations. Offline, I’ve never met another aro, or even anyone who actually knows what aromanticism is prior to me explaining it to them.

I also don’t feel like there’s a very unified “aspec community”. As an allo aro, I feel very rejected by the ace community - not to say that I feel like I should be part of the ace community, since I’m not ace, but I feel like they throw aros under the bus a lot. I mean, we’ve all seen the “asexuals can feel love, just like anybody else! … oh, except for aroaces, I guess. But the rest of us are normal, so you should accept us!” rhetoric. Both within and outside the aspec communities, aros are rarely treated with the same priority as aces, even though we’re arguably in a much more difficult position than your average allo ace.

That being said, I’m glad there is an aro community at all. I don’t know where I’d be now if I were still questioning. Probably not in a very good place.

How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?

As I mentioned, there’s a general lack of interest in gen fics or sympathy for romance-repulsed people in general. It’s really difficult being romance repulsed in fandom spaces, because nobody cares about anything other than ships. There are very few gen fics, and even less that are a decent length, not abandoned, or cater to my specific interests, so I have to write my own. I don’t often have anything good to read; most of the big fics, the ones with cool plots and long word counts and ongoing updates, are ship fics. If I’m lucky, maybe two gen fics will be posted in one week, and maybe one of them will be longer than a few thousand words. Maybe one might even have my favorite characters. But usually genfics are few and far between, and kind of random in terms of what you’ll get. Sometimes I get so bored that I read ship fics anyway, and then I always wind up feeling really awful afterwards.

I’ve written, over the course of the past two years alone, over 20 gen fics. But whenever I vent that sometimes I’d like to actually get to read something, I always get someone telling me, “Well if you want gen fics, write some yourself! You have to make the change! You can’t demand people write stuff for you!” And of course, at the same time it’s totally acceptable to request ship fics from your favorite author, and if you complain that there aren’t enough fics for your rarepair, it’s seen as relatable and totally valid.

Fandom is just … really, really amatonormative, tbh. I hate it. I’m trying to make a difference (I did organize Gen Jojo Week along with my friend Rachel last year, and hopefully will again this year), but there’s only so much I can do.

How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?

Aside from reblogging my art and promoting my fics? Talk about stuff. Talk about aro stuff in fandom. Seriously! I know it seems obvious that aro people would like aro headcanons and gen fics and all that, but we need to talk about them more. Nobody outside the community gives enough of a shit about us to have aro headcanons, so let’s get them popular. Talk about your favorite aro headcanons. Talk about your favorite gen fics. Talk about how such-and-such character is totally aro; talk about how excited you are to see aro characters in fics. My dream is for aro headcanons to become just as common and popular as any other type of headcanon.

Can you share with us something about your current project?

This is old news to most of the people who already know me, but my current big project that I’ve been working on for several years now is Between Life and Death, a drama/horror/supernatural JJBA fic.

(WARNING: PHANTOM BLOOD AND STARDUST CRUSADERS SPOILERS BELOW.)

The plot of the fic is that Dio wins at the end of Stardust Crusaders, and after realizing that he has no hobbies other than harassing the Joestars, he decides to bring Jonathan back by sticking his head (which… we’ll just assume Dio preserved for plot purposes) onto Jotaro’s body. Obviously, Jonathan is NOT happy with this arrangement, but it also turns out that Jotaro’s still alive, just not in control of his body. He can still use his stand, so he essentially uses Star Platinum as a sort of proxy for interacting with the environment around him, even though he only comes out when Jonathan’s alone since he doesn’t want Dio to know he’s alive.

Basically, it’s the story of a depressed vampire and a traumatized ghost. It’s a very introspective fic; most of the story consists of conflicts between Dio and Jonathan, and Jonathan and Jotaro struggling to come to terms with their new existences - Jonathan being unable to reconcile vampirism with his personal morals, and Jotaro having one hell of an identity crisis while also mourning the deaths of his friends and family. The plot is picking up, though, and there is an end goal in mind, as well as an eventual sequel!

As for where the story-in-progress is at right now … well, the next “stage” of the plot is hamon training for Kakyoin and Avdol, which will be fun. This chapter also includes several dream sequences, including an extended appearance by Mary Joestar (Jonathan’s mom), and a very serious and dark scene which I almost ruined by having dream!Will Zeppeli refer to Jonathan as his padawan. Yeah.

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

As mentioned, I’m working on chapter 9 of Between Life and Death! And working on and off on some stuff for the mutants AU. Most recently, on a whim I rewrote the lyrics to Handbeat Clocktower by MOTHY to be about Jonathan Joestar. Somehow this went far enough that I’m making an actual UTAU rendition of this “parody”, and hopefully it’ll be done sometime in the next few weeks. I’m really having fun with it and I hope people like it!