#and also because i want people to know just because aroaces aren't “inherently getting the worse treatment” doesnt mean we NEVER got shit on

[feli-052]

Love struggles

[jeff-from-marketing]

For fuck sake, I'm this close to just blocking the asexual tag on Tumblr. Not because those people aren't valid, they're so fucking valid and deserve to be loved and respected! I love you all and you deserve to be represented in society

But apparently some people don't know how to not conflate aromanticism with asexuality. Say it with me people:

ROMANCE AND SEX ARE NOT ONE IN THE SAME

They're different things! Yes, for many they can be tied together, but that doesn't make them inherently interchangeable! You can love someone with all your heart and never want to fuck them, and conversely you can want to fuck someone you find hot without ever even knowing them.

The amount of fucking times I've seen a post only aimed at asexual people tagged with all the aromantic tags is absurd. I'm not ace, I do not identify with being on that spectrum. But I am fucking aromantic! Stop putting me in the same group when they're not the same thing! It's disingenuous to people who are only asexual and not aroace, and it's dangerously fucking close to just erasing aromantics.

I don't like trying to police how people use the site, even if it wasn't a pointless endeavour it would just be rude, and I don't want to be that person. But I'm also just tired of seeing every other post tagged with aromantic actually just being about asexuality. I don't want those posts to stop, I just want them to be tagged properly so that asexual people get proper representation without drowning out aromantics. Obviously if it's an aroace post then yeah tag both, that makes sense, I'm not going to fight that. But otherwise, please, I just want to be able to see stuff about aromanticism without it being drowned out by asexuality.

I want to be seen.

(side note: the reverse of all this is obviously true. Do not fucking tag a post that's just about aromanticism with asexual. We all deserve our own representation without drowning each other. We should be working to lift each other up, not use each other as stepping stones)

[wsdalt]

TRIPLE AAA FELPS IS SO REAL I've had that headcanon sitting in the back of my mind for so long... I figured it was the "being aspec will make every character you write be at least a little bit aspec too" talking because I never really had anything to base it on other than Vibes but I'm glad you agree. (also "gender: felps" is great I love it. yes. very true)

listen I’m not going to lie it’s definitely probably a bit of that for all of us pfft (well… for you and me at least)

I just like it! felps is a character who’s dear to my heart, so headcanoning him with being arospec is the next logical step—especially since there isn’t really anything to suggest he’s not (again: emphasis on the spectrum in the headcanon. his crush on pac is romantic in my eyes, but tinged with the aromantic experience i am headcanoning him with)

you're the second person who's cited him having aspec vibes, and i so i wanted to get into it a little \o/ and really like…point towards what is probably causing those pfft (disclaimer throughout this entire thing that i am aroace and i am drawing on my own experiences when i say this stuff. and that this is less pointing out coding, and more looking into an arospec reading of the character)

under the cut we go, because this is long oops:

firstly: we really have to acknowledge fanon. as in… i would say i'm a fairly big player in terms of felps interpretations when it comes to things in english + things on ao3…? at least now, and especially for felps ship content. i feel like this is a fair thing to say about myself, right? i'm currently 40% of the felpac ao3 tag and all that

and i write felps as arospec because… well it's a headcanon i like. especially if you're a mutual/follower of mine who reads my fics, you're maybe picking up on that

and i don't want to speak for factorial (the other person i think maybe writes the most for him, especially romantic content), but i would say he writes--especially in xcom2 au--a lot of nonromantic stuff? not aromantic necessarily, but romance isn't really a focus (except for the few moments where it is of course). the main point is these people care about each other, it doesn't really matter how

basically--yes. a lot of felps ship content on ao3 can be passed off as ambiguous relationships (especially considering i write a lot of them kissing, but not actually together romantically/not as a "getting together" mechanism), which adds to an aromantic vibe--kissing doesn't inherently equal romance and all that. if this is the main way you interact with felps ship content, this is probably colouring your interpretation of him a little, i think is fair to say

to canon:

i have to say his overall passivity as a character probably plays a big part. especially in regards to romance and attraction, he's a lot more reserved than the other characters on the island. a lot of characters who are into romance/are attracted to others are very verbal about that, while the characters who aren't are also verbal about that. (or they do both like bad)

philza and missa are maybe the others who are a lot quieter? and their relationship comes across as very aromantic to me (not that people can't interpret them as romantically involved, just… you know. and even then--they're loud about being married/partners from what i've seen). the final category i would say is people who romance or attraction just doesn't come up for them at all, but they're not loud about not being into it. it just… yes, doesn't come up

the difference between that last category and felps, is that while felps is kind of quiet about his crush on pac, it does very obviously comes up. but it’s so much subtler compared to a lot of the other relationships (except for that one scene where he let his jealousy run wild for a bit when he finds out pac is flirting with other people after their kiss). in a story where people are so loud about being romantically involved/attracted to others, a quiet unrequited crush kind of slips through the cracks. it's not that the feelings are any less intense or important, but they feel different. and aspec attraction is different to allo attraction i would say (in my experiences, at least)

to me, being aroace has always felt kind of passive compared to my allo friends' sexualities. even if they've had long crushes on friends like this, they've also like… gone out dating. i think the fact we only see felps with this crush on pac and not really going after anyone else + the implication he's had it for a long time both kind of speak towards a specific flavour of aspec pining

+ the most active thing he does regarding the crush is seek pac out so they can go to the kissing booth together, and even then he's constantly minimising it as just something they're doing for fun. he starts off the conversation by saying he wants to see how it works, and then they constantly refer to it as "just testing"--which is something felps started

while this is like… a way to hide his crush if pac doesn't feel the same, it also gives off the vibe of engaging in your attraction to someone else, but without that necessarily leading to a romantic relationship. kissing doesn't have to be romantic. you don't have to start dating just because you kissed someone. and this is an aromantic point of view i suppose (casual hook ups obviously exist, but doing this with your friends instead of strangers is sort of looked at differently by society--you get it)

(this sort of falls apart a little when you realise he was hoping pac would interpret it as a romantic gesture and talk about the kiss with him, but i would also argue this specific flavour of 3D chess is aromantic--no i will not elaborate)

(also there's the fact he doesn't want to be the one to define their relationship/ask pac out even though he's perfectly comfortable asking pac to kiss him--i think you could argue he's trying to look towards pac to set the terms of their relationship. push the boundaries a little, and see how pac reacts. "pac's allo, right? he knows what to do about this, surely…")

(i'm reaching a little, but that's why i've said this is a reading, not an analysis/not pointing out coding)

as a secondary thing to combine with the passivity: I would also say the way the the saint thing fucks with his emotions a bit + his tendency to distance himself a little from things in general is a safe bet as to where the vibes come from. again, it's not that he feels things less intensely it's just that there's a disconnect between him and the rest of the world in some way--either intentionally, or through the saint stuff

and i don't know about you guys, but as someone who did not have any kind of aspec friends for a good few years while identifying as aroace (+ even before i knew i was too), i did feel a disconnect between me and everyone else--both with cishet people, and with queer people. so i, at least, am picking up on that, filtering it through my own experiences, and spitting out an arospec reading pfft

my final note: obviously this is incredibly subjective and biased, and is really just me trying to dig into whatever vibes people may be picking up on. as i've already said--i'm projecting with my arospec headcanon, and this whole post is less me pointing out coding and more me doing an arospec reading on the character

I'd really love to hear if anyone else has a way to put the vibes into words. i feel like there's things i've missed out on, but i feel like the big thing is just… the way he doesn't necessarily act on his attraction the way most other characters do, + with everyone also being queer so you can't say him being queer is the cause of the difference, the difference can instead come across as aromantic

and to talk about the asexual side of things briefly, i will point towards the way he reacts to most innuendos. which i will not list out here. if you know you know, i suppose

(people in the house are watching a movie really loudly right now, so it was a little hard to focus oops. I hope this all makes sense…)

[that-ghosts-art]

“Come on buddy, don’t ya wanna make a lil deal with lil ol’ me?”

I’ve been on a bit of an equivalence high recently as anyone following me may have guessed haha ^-^

For anyone who’s interested I’ve written some of my thoughts on demon!Mabel below the cut :3

First things first let's talk about her style and general appearance, cause I feel like I’ve deviated a fair bit from the previously established fancy suit she’d been portrayed as having like Dipper.

My logic for the change (outside of wanting to try drawing something that isn’t a suit haha) is that I feel she would have more varietyin the outfits she wears compared to Dipper. Looking at the show Dipper was out there wearing the exact same outfit for an entire summer while Mabel (admittedly wearing the same type of clothes) had significantly more variety, wearing a different sweater every episode, some episodes even having more than one, and I feel this would continue to reflect here.

Dipper has his suit and doesn't venture much further then that if he can help it (obviously not to say he doesn't but you know what I mean). Mabel mean while would have a new outfit every day, multiple per day sometimes!

Most of the time I think she would default to a more punk, diy aesthetic because of the inherent creativity of it (which for a typically detail averse artist such as myself was certainly a decision haha), not to mention I can imagine Mabel being like “I’m a literal demon Dipper I gotta go for the outfits with the spikes and chains!”

At the same time she would definitely enjoy trying out a whole host of different styles (to a point though. Some just aren't comfortable, not any more at least, a part of her stolen away with the Transcendence).

I'd need to do some research into clothing styles to say specifically what else she would enjoy, but I can say it's a lot of black with small splashes and highlights of colour. She's also, regardless of style wear lots and lots of jewellery and piercings cause I think she’d like them :3

Switching things up a bit I wanna quickly go over her pins (ie, her queer identities). My hc for demon!Mabel is the same for normal Mabel, being bisexual with a masc preference, and a demigirl (she/her/they/them exploring and trying out various neo pronouns as she encounters them, rotating through them depending on her mood).

Slightly serious tangent, but I know the previously established lore for EAU was that she would be aroace, but in all honesty that never quite sat right with me. Like the only reason she, or subsequently Dipper in the main TAU canon, are aspec is because of the demon-ness, and while I love demons and the demonic as much as the next aroace person, and I adore representation of my identity, the implications aren’t my favourite in the world. Obviously no disrespect to the people behind that decision, (in fact I applaud them on exploring how a character like Mabel might react to people assuming she wants that in this lil fic here :3). Only the maddest of respect to the people who make characters the identities they want them to be :) I just wanted to address it for anyone who like me has read every bit of eau content they can get their grubby lil hands on and noticed that particular difference :p

Besides, this way we get to explore the logistical and moral implications of a character being allosexual while also being an incredibly powerful and immortal being, especially when you get into questions of how she ages herself compared regular humans :3c (I think I'll leave that for another post though haha)

On a different note, another design idea I had was that it'd be really cool if she had a dynamic and moving tattoo that would constantly change and show new (typically pig and star related) designs :) this definitely wasn't inspired by my own inability to come up with and stick to a particular singer design, definitely not.

I also thought it would be neat to differentiate the demonic aspects of her and Alcor's design by giving her feathered wings, rather than the typical bat wings. I mostly just thought it could be nice to try drawing something different, and while Dipper and Mabel are very close and have a fair amount in common they are still very different characters, so it would make sense for their demonic features to differ, even is only slightly. On that note I also gave her a pink outline to her pupils as inspired by this art cause I thought it was neat :3

Anyway I accidentally posted this before I was finished so Imma just take that as a sign to stop and put my other thoughts in a different post haha 😅

[brainylittledumpsterfire]

I have some thoughts I want to vent about my identity, and I'm not inherently asking for advice or speculation, I just want to cycle through some stuff.

I've been having very frequent romantic fantasies within the last few months despite being aroace. Like usually when I'm trying to fall asleep, or I'm listening to a romantic song or I'm frankly really bored and I don't know why.

Most of my fantasies before now weren't romantic at all and now they are and it's just- weird. And confusing. They're fantasies exclusively. About. Me. And they're very thorough/Intimate

A part of me thinks it's just my brain's way of coping with my crippling self loaving and my desperation for love and validation in general, because I've had that issue for awhile. Like Thinking about being hit on or cat called or even down right harassed, its honestly pretty fucked up and I'm working on it, I swear.

The only thing stumping me there is that those issues aren't new? Like at all. Why am I only thinking about that stuff now?

It also doesn't help that I've always been insecure about being Aro. Ik I'm valid, ik I'm in my own head, it's just with how glossy and wonderful people make other queer identities sound it's hard to not feel less than. I'll often fill in my identity as bi instead of Aro in my head because it just makes me feel less icky.

Idk. I know it's all probably natural. I know I'm in my own head. It's just all- difficult. Like when I think about that stuff actually happening I get yk, a knot in my chest, I don't enjoy it then, it's just. It feels very real and genuine when I'm thinking about it.

I'm tired.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Not the same anon but I love your answer to the louis question ! and you are SO right, many people who hc him as such 1. don't ship him with anyone 2. don't really care about him as a character outside "haha he hates sherlock" jokes so it really feels disingenuous. aroace headcanon in general from allo people often give me the ick, they're treated like the woke cousin of the "pair the spares" trope

I definitely know at least a small handful of people who headcanon Louis as aro or ace or aroace because they themselves are. And that's fine! They seem to have a very different relationship to that aspect of themselves than I or most of the community I have built around myself over the last decade, but that doesn't make them wrong.

So I don't think the only reason one would make this headcanon is because they're dismissive of Louis as a character. There are other reasons.

But there are definitely some people who seem to be using it to add something to their version of his character. He's one of my favorites and I really think he (and most of the major cast, honestly!) really has a rich, complicated characterization in canon. But a lot of it isn't applicable to certain transformative uses of his personality, or people are bad at reading and don't pick up on it, or they just aren't interested in it, so they sort of mentally replace the canon personality with stuff that interests them: a queer label or funny jokes, etc.

I think his having a distinctive sexuality (which he doesn't in canon) makes him feel more like a person when they cut off, say, his stoicism, his ever-present Operations Manager excellence, his fastidiousness, his ten-star ability to compartmentalize and behave rationally despite his storm of emotions, or whatever else. To some people, sexuality is a really important part of someone's character. So they want him to have one, and give him one.

Sometimes allo headcanons or ace or aro people make me uncomfortable and unhappy because you can just feel the unsmothered aphobia in it. But sometimes a-spec people also have them, and it's like, please, you need to unpack some things. Or the creator needed to unpack some things, depending on how rooted in canon it is. Every marginalization gets this.

(For what it's worth, I don't see Mrgh bits of this aspect in the canon. I have see a lot of aphobia in fanworks for this series)

I think Louis might be a product of stereotypes, and maybe some carelessness. But I think him being headcanoned that way bothers me less because it doesn't feel inherently biased, more a little...presumptuous, maybe. It's a stronger assumption about him than I'd prefer to make.

[gay-otlc]

Thoughts on aroace Wylie and demiromantic Linh + QPR Wylinh because the age gap is too weird to be romantic

I don't really know if age gaps are okay in QPRs since I don't understand QPRs all that well. Their age gap is okay for a platonic relationship and not for a romantic relationship, and I don't know how queerplatonic relationships fit into that. Also they're, like, semi-canonically adopted siblings, so that's... probably not great for a QPR either.

I think a big problem with how QPRs get treated in fandom is that a lot of people see them as "romantic relationships lite". So if they're "not allowed" to romantically ship two characters due to their canon orientations or ages, a QPR is just their second choice or their "compromise." Like, if they can't ship two characters, they just go with the closest thing to shipping they can think of.

Obviously I don't know for sure if that's what you're doing, and I doubt you have malicious intent, but yeah. I'm not an expert on QPRs, but I think a Wylinh QPR is kinda iffy. They can be close and care about each other without making their relationship romantic or queerplatonic, because those relationships aren't inherently closer or more loving than other relationships.

You can interpret them however you want and I'm not the boss of you or anything, but you asked for my thoughts on QPR Wylinh and those are my thoughts.

[phantomspren]

I was just going to put this in tags but I'll put it here.

This is why I'm uncomfortable when people make sweeping generalizations about conservatives/Republicans.

On a fundamental level, I do disagree with the political beliefs that lead people to holding those labels.

But at the same time, there's such a huge difference between someone who is Republican because they think that we should have lower taxes, and someone who is Republican because they think rich white men are the only people worthy of rights.

When we make those blanket statements of "every Republican is racist" or whatever, we're making it less likely that those people are going to do stuff like this. Often it leads to people doubling down on their beliefs, even if they are inherently harmful.

You also have people like my mom. She is a registered Republican, born and raised in Idaho, super super Mormon.

She's a registered Republican because she thinks that society should be built to promote the family and help families thrive.

But she also supports universal healthcare.

I tell her all the things I think are cool about Harris and Walz and she's always like "wow, yeah, that is really cool!"

She's a high school teacher and because of that now supports gun control.

She doesn't give a shit that I'm aroace. (Haven't talked about gender stuff but I'd feel pretty comfortable bringing it up at this point to be honest.)

The thing is that the public/left awareness of the Republican party has shifted, following the people who are in power. Because those in power are getting more extreme.

There are people who have always held really extreme right-wing beliefs.

There are people like many who are voting for Trump who used to be less extreme, but have followed those in positions in power in gradually making their views more extreme.

There are those like my mom and dad who have some not great but far more reasonable beliefs who feel like the Republican party no longer represent them.

It's important to talk about those problematic beliefs that people like my parents hold, but at the end of the day they are genuinely good people. They've got internalized racism and homophobia and misogyny just like everyone else, but they're still good people.

Honestly even most hardcore Trump supporters are good people. (My grandparents voted for him! They're some of the kindest people I know!)

But if we just throw everyone under the label of "Republican" and then assume that includes things like homophobe, white supremacist, etc, you're going to end up with a lot of people who don't want to get behind what you're behind.

It's so much better, in my experience, to build a report, built trust, try to genuinely understand where the other person is coming from. I've talked to my Trump voting grandparents about trans people and they listened to me. I may not have changed their minds, but they have at least seen that other side from someone they respect.

That's going to go a whole lot more good in the long run than just calling them Republican and never talking to them again.

Of course there's more nuance than this, and if someone has like genuine beliefs that. Really really not great. Dump their ass. It's not worth it. There's a difference between someone who's a white supremacist because that's what they deeply believe, and someone who's just parroting what they saw elsewhere. The later deserve time and understanding, because they have the potential to turn into the former but aren't there yet.

And of course there are people like my mom. If she took a political compass quiz it would tell her she's liberal, hands down. Still a registered Republican.

Anyways, these are thoughts I've had for a bit and maybe I'll write something later that's a bit more planned out. Hope that makes sense.

And there's just a ton of nuance here that I can't get into because I've almost hit my time limit on Tumblr and I need to go take an exam. Plus it's dumb to expect me to elaborate on every possible way this could be misinterpreted. Just assume I kinda know what I'm talking about please, unless I accidentally said something blatantly incorrect. O7

Please vote tomorrow.

Be compassionate.

Imagine those around you complexly.

Think about my mom. :p

Have a cat picture for the road.

i'm a huge fan of Republicans, conservatives or however you want to be politically labeled choosing country over party. please let me see more stories. it's a brave thing to do this. even if you voted for him in both 2016 & 2020 but you changed your mind now, WELCOME. it's a massive deal to get out of any cult successfully & MAGA is no different. being filled with anger & hatred, & fear is intoxicating & honestly easier than choosing to do the right thing. i'm glad you saw the light.

check your registration status often & don't stop talking about Project 2025. they can pretend they're distancing themselves from it as much as they want but it's absolutely their policy. we can do this though if we just show up & VOTE. we got this 💙

[justasmallbloginabigklainefandom]

One thing I'm also very curious about with Kotone is how the game is going to address the casual sexism in Persona 3. As in, a lot of dudes in Persona 3 Reload were pervy and gross, from that one classmate who immediately wanted to know Aigis's measurements when she transferred, to the guys acting like creeps on the beach, to Junpei making a lot of comments about girls with Yukari calling him out.

As in, now that the protagonist is a woman, what happens there?

And here is the thing I believe that would make people like Andrea Dworkin hate me: men lusting after women isn't a bad thing. Sexuality isn't a bad thing! Men expressing their lust isn't a bad thing either! It becomes a problem when they express it towards someone and it's unwanted, or when they start bothering women, or when they feel entitled to women. This is why I deeply despise the beach scene, since it's a group of dudes who feel entitled to women who just exist, and get pissed off when these women exclaim that they aren't there solely for the guys' amusement. When Junpei and Akihiko get fed up "because they just wanna talk", my fucking skin crawled, cause I have been a woman on a beach who got unwanted attention like that. I am here to swim and read, not for guys to debate whether or not I am fuckable enough. (The beach scenes in Persona 4 and 5 are also terrible since Yosuke and Ryuji also need to learn that women's bodies in swimsuits aren't there for them.). At that moment, they actually bothered girls, but most of the time, they keep their objectifying thoughts between the guys.

So honestly, the guys in Persona 3 Reload talking about girls and their bodies and what not isn't an inherently bad thing either. They say similar things to my male cousins when they talk about girls. Talking about what attracts you with your friends is a normal thing to do (... or so my aroace ass has been told).

But of course, it becomes an issue when men see women as nothing more than an object of lust. And that is why these moments in Persona 3 Reload (and other Persona games) (and occasionally my cousins' musings) made me uncomfortable and grossed out. Because honestly, as a woman, it is kinda icky and gross to be reminded of the fact that men really do be like that at moments. That they really boast about how many chicks they've had and what not. That they really depend whether a woman has value whether she got big tits and a good ass, so that she's hot enough. They care about their looks and not about anything else.

(This is why I really like Junpei and Chidori's storyline, since it shows that Junpei also sees potential girlfriends as people, not bodies. He cares deeply about Chidori's wellbeing and hobbies and wants to know her better.)

Again, I'm not saying that all of the moments in Persona 3 are like this, see the aforementioned statement that there's nothing inherently wrong with sexuality, including men feeling sexual attraction towards women and expressing that. All I am saying is that if that's all they do, then yeah, women get uncomfortable, and I think that's why even harmless moments of dudes talking about it, made me feel creeped out. Even when it's just guys talking about what they like, it sounds so much like guys debating whether a woman is fuckable enough for them is all that matters and all that's valuable to them. But again, it's dudes sharing with dudes. Junpei, Akihiko and Makoto are friends! Friends discuss crushes and what not.

But now Makoto is gone, and Kotone is here, and if the guys will continue to talk to her about women as objects, it will turn sour pretty fast. Will that pervy classmate also ask her about Fuuka, Mitsuru and Yukari in swimsuits? How will the beach scene go? Will Kotone, who can apparently canonically date women, join them by being creeps? It's just gonna be even more uncomfortable if the guys completely unprompted bombard Kotone with their objectifying thoughts of her classmates. I hope that if the pervy classmate asks about Aigis's measurements, Kotone can slap him.

Or: will these guys unpromptedly talk about her like this TO her? Are they going to ask her about her tits? Is the pervy student going to ask for her measurements? Will Junpei make unnecessary comments about her body at the beach?

Of course, girls talk too, including about what they think about guys, so maybe the roles will be completely reversed with girls unpromtedly talking to Kotone about a guy's hot bod or what not. Will I see that? Will I be grossed out by how these girls treat the boys at times? We know Akihiko has a horde of girls swooning after him and he doesn't particulary care for it.

Basically, every time I see people talk about the changes between Makoto's game and Kotone's game, it's always Social Links and music and colours and what not, but this is the thing that I started thinking about while playing Reload, when I knew I was going to buy Portable for Kotone. I haven't seen anyone talk about how this gender change also possibly changes how the protagonist moves around in a gendered society. Maybe there's no change there, which I never believed and now after an hour of gameplay I have already seen changes (like Junpei being surprised the girl is appointed leader, or Yukari talking about "us girls" in situations), or maybe players who rave about FeMC never cared enough to mention it.

[the-ocean-is-trans]

my review of dear wendy by ann zhao is under the cut. going to be upfront and say that i DNF the book, i got about 2/3rds of the way and had to stop.

i'm going to start with what i liked about the story. i enjoyed the depiction of jo's family, especially her two moms and jo's close relationship with them. i liked that the fact that jo would go to her moms for comfort, and the fact that she went to school close to where they live was never treated as a bad or immature thing for her to do. this feels pretty important for a lot of anxious young college students actually; it's okay to want your family close as you navigate being an adult. i also found the scene where her 12 year old brother comes out as straight very endearing, and a fun flip of expectations but one that felt quite real for the context of her queer family.

i've also seen some criticism of the book saying that it was childish and immature to write characters as romance and sex repulsed, which i actually think is completely fine. some aroace people are romance and sex repulsed. if this doesn't represent you that's fine, but it might represent someone else's experiences. what i found childish and immature was literally everything else about the narrative.

the central conflict of the story (if it can be called that, because it was so trite) was about the two characters having...differing opinions on how to give relationship advice on their respective advice column instagram accounts ("dear wendy "and "sincerely wanda", for sophie and jo respectively)? but we are never shown why sophie has the conviction that wanda's advice is bad, or why it's bad to jokingly respond to people's relationship queries, and from jo's pespective, we don't get why she is motivated to sometimes give real advice, sometimes answer with a joke, and overall why she engages in the online discourse with wendy. i could not tell you what these two main characters motivations are, and i think sometimes in the narrative they even forget why they are fighting. the online insults also came off like they were written by someone who has never once witnessed any type of interpersonal conflict and was just giving an approximation of what human behavior is like.

we are told (not shown) that offline sophie and jo are this bonded pair of best friends, but all we get from their relationship dynamic is one of them saying some bland queer truism (TERFs are bad, it's hard to find other aroace people) and the other agreeing. seriously, most of the book is either internal monologue or external dialogue that comes off as the author preaching her own opinions. there is no character development.

in addition to lacking any character development, the characters are shown acting in truly bizarre and wildly selfish ways, but we are told that this behavior is...idk meaningful? deep? there's no self awareness. for instance, we are told that sophie has "mommy issues" (the actual phrase that sophie uses in front of her college professor, which that was also a whole thing) but we aren't ever shown any conflict with her family, and the couple conversations we get with her and her parents are a little stilted but overall pretty loving? like i'm also aroace and chinese and i do think zhao captured the conversational tone of an immigrant parent quite well, but i was not left convinced that there was much estrangement there. sophie even complains that her parents are only paying her tuition so that she will cross-register in some MIT classes???? seriously, complaining about your family paying your tuition???? in this economy???? this isn't shown with any amount of criticality. i think it would have been compelling to have sophie share this opinion, and have someone else challenge her on it, you know, in a way that causes some growth and reflection, maybe even portray some nuance in that yes it can suck to have your parents force certain expectations onto you AND there is inherent privilege in their support. in a book striving so hard to share it's political opinions, the missing race/class politics felt very noticeable.

then there's jo, who tries to keep her one roommate and close friend from professing her romantic feelings to her other roommate and close friend. we know jo is doing this because we have been told time and time again that she is afraid of all her friends ending up in romantic relationships and leaving her behind. which is actually kind of an interesting fear/motivation to have, and pretty relatable as an aroace person! unfortunately it's not developed well. the roommate/friend accuses jo of being "selfish" when she finds out which yeah, actually that behavior is pretty selfish, but rather than having jo reflect on her behavior or experience any kind of growth at all, we are just shown her crying and breaking down and not going...anywhere after that. not even so far as to realize that the thing that is keeping her friends at arms length is her intense fear of losing them, which i thought would be the logical conclusion of that arc?

overall, the narrative came off as being appropriate for middle grade, but the fact that these were supposed to be college students really threw me. i actually think if the novel was adapted to be a middle grade novel it could have been a bit more successful, because the central conflict feels much more fitting for way younger characters. it would have been amazing to read about these aroace characters' experiences of loneliness, estrangement, and building platonic love (ostensibly what the novel is about/being marketed as) but instead we got a bunch of shallow platitudes, preachy comments about queer discourse, and jokes that fell so flat I would not have known they were jokes but for the characters being described as "bursting into laughter".

look, there's a lot of pressure on young queer authors of color to shoulder the burden of representing their very underrepresented communities, which i don't think is at all fair. i'm not trying to judge this book on it's "quality of ace rep". it's a book about aroace people, and just like there are bad books about straight people, we should also be allowed to have a bad book about aroace people and not have it's quality be used as a cudgel to beat down a marginalized author. i do sincerely hope that ann zhao continues to write, and further develops as an author, because the premise of the book was promising, and i think with some more maturity, could have been handled quite well.

[marxism-bidenism-mafaldism]

Not you encouraging rape culture and homophobia telling people that fucking their partner cause they want it even when you don't want to and you don't have to be attracted to your partner to fuck them. This is why we don't let fucking aro/ace into the lgbt community, y'all make us look like idiots.

I'm guessing this is referring to this post?

There's a difference between wanting to have sex and feeling sexual attraction.

"sexual attraction" is a catch-all term for Libido, Sexuality, and Attraction.

Libido is sex drive, Sexuality is how you express yourself through sex, and Attraction is who you find attractive.

Ace people are people who don't have "sexual attraction" in one way or another, and it exists in a spectrum of how much and in which ways.

Some ace people could have low Libido and Sexuality, but still find certain people attractive

Some people could be high Libido, but low Attraction and Sexuality.

Ace people are diverse and it doesn't make you any less Ace if you enjoy things like Masturbation.

It's completely possible for someone to be Ace, but still be partnered and have high Libido (think of Queer-Platonic relationships)

I think you misunderstood the message of the post:

Ace people are often ridiculed and not taken seriously. They are constantly pressured, and asked to prove that they are a Real Ace. Many a-spec people feel pressured to be on the extreme no-sex part of the spectrum and aren't allowed to show any level of non-ace-ness. Being like this is really stressful and makes you go crazy because you don't fit anywhere.

The post is about how the term "AroAce" isn't something you need to earn. AroAce is a way to communicate how you feel about yourself, and you are allowed to be complicated and imperfect and fluid and confusing. I think that sentiment isn't popular enough in queer spaces, but specially in a-spec ones.

Ok now the way you worded this is disgusting

Sex, human relationships, and human wants are complicated. You can want to do sexual activities even if you don't feel sexual attraction (libido, sexuality, attraction).

It is NOT "rape" to have consensual sex. Ace people aren't children, they can make their own decisions, they can know what they want. Please stop devaluing serious terms on BS rhetoric.

I am not saying you should force someone to have sex with you. I am saying that, AS AN ACE PERSON, the ACE PERSON is allowed to be complicated, and are allowed to have sex (with consent.. obviously...??) without being questioned on if they are Actually Ace.

Also, making broad assumptions of a group of people who are loosely connected, is literally the definition of bigotry...? Just because I personally think this, doesn't mean AroAce people are all like me?

And actually hold your horses. LGBTQ isn't an exclusive club only Real Queers get to enter. LGBTQ is a way to identify people who struggle with cis-hetero-normativity. AroAce people are queer because they don't fit into a hetero-normative view (most aren't monogamous, or want sex, most are polyamorous in some way, and they inherently aren't Hetero)

Also where the fuck did Homophobia come into this???????

[yardsards]

being trans makes you lgbt. But being aspec doesn’t. If you were cis, straight, and not dating someone who’s trans or otherwise lgbt, you wouldn’t be part of lgbt. It’s more of a descriptor like calling yourself a girl or a boy, not that you would. Being ace and trans or ace and bi or ace and gay would keep you in lgbt. But being just ace or aro isn’t quite as qualifying as a lot of aspec think it is. Unfortunately We’ve seen a lot of aspec people say things against trans and gay from perspective that cannot truly give them say. Unfortunately we’ve seen aspec admit to believing in “drop the t” while screaming acecourse and wanting to stop feeling oppression. A lot of the problems with acecourse are that aspec still receive worlds more respect and validity from outside communities because from those outside perspectives at least they aren’t gay or trans degenerates and perverts. We believe this is the true reason acecourse garnered a cringe history, because it was playing with the fact that straight people were identifying themselves as ace to put themselves within the community because it was in fact trendy and all of a sudden they could reap the benefits of attention coming with being seen as valid by a large part of the tumblr community, while also spreading hate and opression and preaching drop the t or claiming transmed arguments against a community that actually deserves support. Read or don’t it’s all good, but have a nice day regardless

i'm probably wasting my time replying to this but i'm gonna go over some of your points in case you're actually willing to learn. i may come across as angry at times, but i am just so tired of this kind of thing and i struggle to express myself with complete calmness and patience in regard to this kind of thing:

"being trans makes you lgbt. But being aspec doesn’t."

you don't get to tell me which parts of my identity are queer and which ones aren't. i have the lived experience of being trans. i have the lived experience of being aroace. using that knowledge and those experiences, i can wholeheartedly tell you that they are equally queer identities. i identified as aroace before i identified as trans, and i was just as queer in that period as i was after i realized i was also trans.

"If you were cis, straight, and not dating someone who’s trans or otherwise lgbt, you wouldn’t be part of lgbt."

okay this is gonna veer off topic from the ace thing but I just gotta say: WHAT??? you think dating a trans person makes you part of the lgbt community??? if a completely straight man dated a trans woman, that would not inherently make him lgbt: to say otherwise is to imply that his girlfriend is not a real woman and that is, y'know, pretty transphobic. jesus christ.

"But being just ace or aro isn’t quite as qualifying as a lot of aspec think it is."

who are you to come up to me and say you know our experiences better than we do??? who made you the expert on what it's like to live as an aspec person???

it's very ironic that you are talking about what you think our experiences are without actually having the perspective of what it's like to be us, immediately before claiming that we do that to the rest of the queer community.

"Unfortunately We’ve seen a lot of aspec people say things against trans and gay from perspective that cannot truly give them say."

this is not unique to aspecs; unless you are somehow every single lgbtq+ identity all at once, there are gonna be some experiences you don't understand and can't speak on. like, cis gays say shit about trans people despite not knowing what it's like to be trans all the fucking time. and some of them are, in fact, extremely fucking transphobic! you would (hopefully!!!) not say that all lesbians should be kicked out of the queer community just because some individual lesbians are terfs; after all, why should an entire orientation be kicked out the community just because a few assholes happen to also use that label?

"Unfortunately we’ve seen aspec admit to believing in “drop the t” while screaming acecourse and wanting to stop feeling oppression."

again, a few shitty individuals does not mean an entire orientation is bad. and honestly i saw A LOT less transphobia from the ace and aro community than i did from cis gay men and lesbians. and many of those shitty "ace people" were very obvious troll blogs but yinz were too blinded by your search for reasons to hate us that you missed it. this is not to say there weren't ANY shitty ace people, because every label with more than a few dozen people using it is gonna have some horrible people, but this problem was not uniquely bad in the aspec community.

"preaching drop the t or claiming transmed arguments against a community that actually deserves support."

(lumping this one in with the previous two) again, in my anecdotal experience, the aspec community actually tended to be more accepting about that kind of shit than a lot of the general lgbt community was. a lot of cis gay people were transphobic and a lot of binary trans people were transmeds/hated nonbinaries (and again! this does not mean that gay ppl and binary trans people are bad! a few assholes does not make an identity bad!). asexuals, aromantics, nonbinaries, (and sometimes bi/pan/etc. people) were often all lumped together as cringy trendy tumblr identities and spat on by the rest of the community. i, in my anecdotal experience, saw very few ace inclusionists (let alone actual asexuals) be shitty about nonbinary people. almost all of the transmedicalists i have come across have also been exclusionsists.

"A lot of the problems with acecourse are that aspec still receive worlds more respect and validity from outside communities because from those outside perspectives at least they aren’t gay or trans degenerates and perverts."

show me where the fuck that respect and validity is. cuz i sure as hell haven't received it. i've been told i was going to hell for "ignoring gods plan" because i didn't plan to get straight married and produce children (and this was before i realized i was trans!). i tend to hide my sexuality from bigots just like i hide my gender, but sometimes i bare myself to the wrong people and i get backlash for BOTH of those things, treated like i'm broken or a freak or degenerate. and you might say "but doesn't the bible encourage celibacy?" but the thing is, most bigots don't actually care about what their holy text says and really just use it as an excuse to persecute minorities that they already find repulsive.

"because it was playing with the fact that straight people were identifying themselves as ace to put themselves within the community because it was in fact trendy and all of a sudden they could reap the benefits of attention coming with being seen as valid by a large part of the tumblr community, while also spreading hate and opression"

straight people can also just straightup lie. like, a cishet girl could log on here and pretend to be a bisexual trans woman and no one could prove that wrong. it's the internet. lying like that to spread hate would actually be A LOT easier than claiming to be an identity that was already facing scrutiny. like, asexuality is not the only orientation a cishet person could call themself online.

not to mention how similar a lot of your sentence sounds to the shit people have said about nonbinaries. i lived through the "nonbinaries are just cis girls lying for attention" era on here. this is a recycled argument.

-----

read this and take it to heart. then read some of the notes of that post and listen to the aspecs there talk about the bigotry they have faced, both offline and online, from lgbt+ people and from cishets. don't act like you know our experiences better than we do.

[rjalker]

Blank blogs get blocked and reported! And if you support "real person fanfiction" you can also fuck off.

If your blog's icon is a gif that will give me a headache I will probably block you immediately.

Hello, call me Rjalker. I am nonbinary, autistic, an aroace lesbian, and my pronouns are it/its. Do not shorten my URL to RJ unless you're trying to misgenders me on purpose like a bigot.

Unless you are trying to @ me, when it will have to be a lowercase to work properly, if you are just typing my username, please capitalize the first letter, since my synesthesia makes it a different color if it's capitalized or not and I like the color it is when it's capitalized better :) (I have color grapheme synesthesia, where letters and words have inherent colors to my brain)

Patreon

Threadless (not very impressive yet)

Cashapp, Venmo, and Paypall are "Rjalker" with the same icon as here on tumblr.

If I make an image description for your post, please copy and paste it into your original post, rather than simply reblogging my addition.

This way, the entire post is accessible, rather than people having to go searching for the image description! You don't need to credit me at all, and if I described anything incorrectly or didn't give enough information, please feel free to edit the information into the ID! :)

This is my pinned post, but you can reblog it if you really want, as long as you aren’t on the DNI below the read-more.

Along those lines, do not tag any of my original posts with anything sexual or purposefully gross, especially because now I have to see your tags in my activity.

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Hello, call me Rjalker. I am nonbinary, autistic, aroace, and my pronouns are it/its. 

EX: "Its name is Rjalker, it is autistic and aroace, and its favorite color is blue."

Do not shorten my username to “RJ” and do not refer to me as “Mx.” Both of these are misgendering, and you are knowingly being transmisic if you still decide to do that after reading this post. My username is not long. There is no excuse for shortening it when you know that doing so will misgender me.

If you want to refer to me as a variations of "Mr/ms/mx" for a meme or whatever, use xr. Here's the post explaining this honorific set.

If you want to use a variation of sir/ma'am, use xiir.

If you want to use a variation of lady/guy/gentleman/whatever, either call me an othran, thing, werewolf, or an unfathomable horror beyond your comprehension. Your pick.

@walks-the-ages is my twin.

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Spam likes and reblogs are 100% fine assuming you aren't on my DNI.

If you are on my DNI and you interact with my posts, not only are you being blocked, you are being reported.

If you want me to follow you, you need to tag NSFW posts so that I can filter them. This includes not only explicit mentions of sex, but genitals as well unless it's in an educational way.

If you reblog my posts to help other people block evade, you are getting blocked and reported.

======================================

DNI:

Anti-MOGAI, anti-Queer, anti-Xenogenders, anti-Neopronouns, amisics, panmisics, exclusionists including mspec-lesbian/gay exclusionists, people who are “”neutral”” on “”ace discourse””, TERFs, transmeds, transmisics, anti-BLM, anti-endogenic systems, Trump supporters, MAPS/pro-shippers/anti-antis, zoophiles, people who let anyone reblog from them, and people who don’t care who they reblog from, bigots in general.

Dream SMP fans, Harry Potter fans, Animorphs stans, people I have blocked, do not interact. You will be blocked.

If you block evade, you’re also going to be reported. If I block one of your friends and you come here to harass me about it, you will also be blocked and reported.

Other info is below the cut so this isn’t super long.

If you are on this DNI that also means don’t even interact with this post in any way. Don’t even like it.

============================

other random stuff:

-

In no particular order at all:

I have dyslexia, and I’m terrible at typing on my phone even though I’ve had it for several years, so I use speech to text a lot of the time when I’m not on my laptop, so please ignore the typos that it creates.

I am white, and I support Black Lives Matter. I am pro MOGAI, and my blog is safe for all trans and queer people, including people with xenogenders and people who use neopronouns, and people with "confusing" or "contradictory" labels. Queer people's identities do not exist for the comfort of bigots.

TERFs, other transmisics, and exclusionists will be blocked and reported on sight.

if I ever say or do anything harmful, please let me know, and no, me calling out racism, ableism, misogyny, or any other kind of bigotry from a character or person you stan is not harmful, so don't even try. Read that last sentence again and make sure you understand it, since stans keep cherry picking which parts of this they read.

If you're younger than 18 you're not allowed to try to argue with me about why you think [insert media] isn’t bigoted when I criticize it, because I'm not getting paid to explain basic critical thinking skills and the impact fiction has on reality to you.

If you need anything specific tagged, let me know. No, me criticizing a character you like doesn’t count. Just block me if you are that upset by it.

If you think it's okay to ship abusive, pedophillic, or incestuous ships, or you think it's okay to draw or write sexual art of minors? Get off my blog and don’t come back, because if I see you you are getting blocked and reported. Drawing or writing NSFW of minors is literally against Tumblr’s terms of service.

I block people very liberally so, especially if you are a woodworker, or are in the Flight Rising fandom, if I have you blocked, it’s probably nothing personal. Sometimes I’m trying to find pictures of living trees, and all that’s showing up is either the tables people are turning them into, or dragons with the colors named after the species. And tumblr doesn’t give us any other way to filter out your posts, so RIP to you I guess.

Just because I have you blocked doesn’t automatically mean I think you’ve done anything wrong, tumblr is just useless and doesn’t give us any other easy way to hide posts while searching. Me blocking you is not me saying you're a bad person or that I hate you or that you've done anything wrong. This is social media. Please just calm down if you're going to flip out about being blocked by me.

[unflitered-thoughts-and-rants]

My rant on why asexuals (and specifically Heteroromantic aces since they are most often excluded) are valid in the LGBTQIA+ community because I see this and it annoys me (by an aroace). Expect more rants of this nature.

I would like to disagree with the asexual, heteroromantic people are not LGBTQIA+. Oppression comes in all different kinds, and sex is something that is pretty well shoved down people's throats all the time in society. I can verify that coming out as ace or expressing that you don't experience sexual attraction (if you haven't used the term ace yet) is a big deal. You get the "you just haven't met the right person yet", "someday you'll want sex", "that's not possible", "you're lying", "what are you a plant?", and the one that personally bothers me the most "I can change that".

Asexual people also face oppression in health care settings with doctors who don't understand being ace who think that a person has a hormone imbalance (there is a medical condition that is separate from being ace that doctors tend to assume ace people have because they cannot comprehend that someone just doesn't want sex [and not all ace people won't want or won't have sex, but some are just not interested or repulsed by this act]). Look up this information for more reference. This post is long enough already.

There is also the issue of Corrective R*pe which is something that many LGBTQ+ identities face but that is also faced by Ace people. (Refer to comment: "I can change that") I don't really want to get into that but it happens and you can find information online if you need it for reference. (as a sex-repulsed asexual, I can tell you that the idea of me having sex in any capacity gives me a sick feeling in my stomach and an intense desire to vacate that conversation and any related thoughts.

People are also broken up with solely because they are ace and when they come out to their partner the partner is unable to accept this.

How many ace characters do you see represented in media? Maybe you can name a handful who aren't villains, robots, or aliens. Consider further, how many canonically aro characters can you name? (let me tell you, the number of aroace characters that are canonically both of those identities is very low.

So yes... Aces experience oppression differently, but let us not say that they do not face ostracization, the feeling of being broken and wrong and different, or that they are not oppressed at all. Thank you, have a nice day. I apologize for this rant. This is just stuff I think people should be aware of because it is real stuff that actually happens, and being told that we aren't queer enough to be a part of the LGBTQ+ community (which I do believe partly stems from the hypersexualization of the queer community by non-LGBTQ people. And by that, I mean the way that anything LGBTQIA+ related is seen as "inherently inappropriate" in society)

Additional notes:

An incomplete list of amatonormative things in society:

- the games "fuck, marry, kill" and "kiss, marry, kill"

- the belief that you need a partner to be happy.

- platonic relationships seen as less valuable than romantic ones, read: "*just* friends"

Also just as a sidebar in case any non-aces don't know, but asexual people (myself included) sometimes experience body dysphoria about parts of their body that might be viewed in a sexual way. For me, my breasts were something that I spent a vast majority of my childhood covering up. I wore baggy clothes so that people wouldn't notice them, googling ways to make them go away, and wishing they weren't there, I rejected any clothes that might make me look "hot" because that description made me hella uncomfortable.

Add on if you’re ace or if you’re aro a lot of this also applies there since aros too face exclusion…

[bearsinpotatosacks]

I guess for me it's not so much what I'm seeing, it's more what I don't see/see platonically.

Prior to s3, I only interacted with the fandom when I got near the end of s2 so didn't go into it knowing people ship them, hell, I didn't go into it wanting to ship anything. So the only scenes that I could honestly say felt like they were building to them were Carmy’s panic attack where he calms at the thought of Sydney and the conversation under the table.

Post s3, it's only when Carmy invites her to Ever's funeral dinner that I saw it again, so for me there's about ten minutes of stuff that actually seems like ship evidence.

I think me being aroace has to partially do with it. I ship people, I like shipping and write ship stuff but I can be convinced that most stuff is platonic because platonic and familial relationships are kind of all I have, so they're more important to me.

This is to say, I like when shows have bonds that aren't inherently romantic/sexual. Sometimes I really get annoyed when two characters have a bond and I know they'll put them together but I just don't want them to be (see me not liking Loki x Sylvia when Loki came out and also lokius).

So I appreciate how the Bear hasn't gone there. They're leaving it open to be romantic or platonic or mentor/mentee or familial, and I appreciate having the room and for them to give platonic bonds the respect that some media doesn't.

Addendum: being a multishipper also has the added benefit of being okay with most forms of bonds. I ship sydrichie but if I want a no ship fic I like their bond as platonic. I'm open to Richie x Jess but will also be happy if they’re just friends (i'm still coming around to this, I'm more open to them being friends but she seems the most likely option if they want to pair Richie with someone). Hell, I love how they portrayed Richie & Mikey's bond as being genuine and strong and platonic, basically family, while also loving the childhood friends to lovers vibes it gives. We contain multitudes

I have to ask, while I do ship Sydney & Carmy together romantically, I wouldn’t be mad if they didn’t end up together. I’m just here for a well-written story that makes sense for the characters. Prior to me shipping Sydney & Carmy, I believed that they would become good friends & business partners in the end, but I was still open to a possible romance, if it made sense.

That being said, I haven’t really seen any in-depth analysis of Sydney & Carmy’s relationship from those who consider them strictly platonic (i.e. brother & sister dynamic, mentor/mentee dynamic, etc.). I have to be honest, I only ever see people say that they see them as brother & sister, or mentor/mentee whenever people say that they ship them, or that they can see them dating or becoming romantic in the end, like as a way to shoot down those views.

So, for those who do view them as only platonic, what has the show shown you that leads you to believe what you do about their relationship?

[beetlemancy]

i hope i'm not stinking up your ask box, but i'm also in the boat with you. while i get why people might want something... more? from the two, i personally am content with how it ended up.

caleb spent years with essek, and they were together, and never does caleb try to "fill a void" or "replace" the love he has for essek. he teaches until he's grey and old and never does he look for love because he already has someone he loves. as someone that's aroace, i love that. i love thinking about the fact that they're there for each other, wordlessly, and trustingly. but also never does anyone say they aren't in love. you can be in love with a friend, and i mean that you can want more with a friend, of course you can. caleb loves essek and essek loves caleb, and that's just true. i don't need them to say that they hold hands or kiss to know they love and care for each other. being friends rather than lovers because you know that life has a time limit for your partner can be okay. this is a fantasy setting!

so yeah, sorry that's probably quite long but i just. this ending was good. it's not earth-shattering, or loud declarations, and that's okay. if people want those, fics are free for the taking. this is someone else's game, and it's theirs to play.

For the record, I don't believe Liam was saying they weren't lovers just because he used the term 'friend.' Liam has a way of using terminology with different intonations that implies, as you say, more. I agree though, that the concept of being someone's "person" is often way more profound and romantic than most ships could ever hope to be.

I get frustrated because people become so entrenched in their ship war factions and headcanons that they don't see the beautiful story actually in front of them. But what makes me ANGRY is the lack of respect for relationships that are like this in real life and the inherent gatekeeping (i know its a buzzword but its contextually relevant) of the queer community by demanding queer characters have certain types of relationships or else they aren't queer anymore.

It happened in C1, its happening again now, and it'll happen in C3 and the most we can do is unfollow, block, and continue to rage about it until maybe these people will realize how fucked up it is.