#and he can still be aspec while being bi but get out of here if you ignore his heavily implied sexuality!!

[agrebel18]

ok I’ve gotten A LOT of comments in which people are confused whenever I’ve said that Hunter is probably bisexual, so here it is!!! (for the people who didn’t know) 

First of all, the most OBVIOUS example is THIS scene from “Thanks To Them” where he holds up a sweater he made, in which there’s a rainbow with the colors of the bisexual flag. 

[ID: a screenshot of Hunter from The Owl House. He has short hair and is wearing his casual outfit from season 3. He is smiling while holding up his homemade sweater that is dark blue with several patches sewn on it. The more noticeable ones are a Dino Land patch, the mountains, wolfs, and a rainbow that is pink, purple and blue. END ID]  

BUT if he wanted to show support for Luz coming out, then he would’ve used the rainbow patch/pride pin like Camila does. PLUS, in Willow’s scrapbook, she put the bisexual and lesbian pride pins next to a picture of Luz and Amity on a date, therefore the kids know about how pride pins look like and what they mean, and WE KNOW this is Hunter’s sweater because there’s a sewn patch of wolves, which are important to him, therefore the bi rainbow is there because he knows its meaning and it most likely matches him!!

And this isn’t THE ONLY TIME we see him with the colors of the bisexual flag!! Look at THIS from “Any Sport in a Storm.” 

[ID: a screenshot of Hunter from The Owl House. He is wearing his Golden Guard outfit minus the cape, and Flapjack is on his shoulder. He is slightly blushing. Behind him, there is the Boiling Sea and the sky, which is colored pink, purple and blue. END ID] 

This show is known for using LGBTQ pride flags as inspiration for their backgrounds, so the fact that this has happened TWICE around him is most likely intentional, so good for him!!! 

ANOTHER piece of evidence I like to use for him being bisexual BESIDES THE OBVIOUS PRIDE FLAGS is that someone asked Hunter’s voice actor who he would take to Grom, and he mentioned female characters like Skara and Emira BUT ALSO male characters like Edric. (I don’t have the screenshot of the tweet sadly.) Of course, voice actors don’t always dictate what’s canon or not, but I feel like this is a nice hint, regardless of whether he was joking or not. 

I have ALSO heard that Dana did art of Hunter on National Bisexual day, but I don’t have it with me :/ 

Anyways, the boy is bi!!! Deal with it!! 

[garaks-huge-naturals]

the frustrating aromantic representation of chuck tingle's "bury your gays"

i feel like i should preface this by saying that i'm a huge chuck tingle fan and, representation aside, i greatly enjoyed his book. so this is not like, a hate take down. this will contain spoilers for bury your gays, you are warned.

the parts i have issues with will be more towards the end and are marked.

a quick synopsis: misha is a queer horror writer who is told to either kill off his gay characters after getting them together, or let them live and be straight (for the algorithm, ratings, etc). while he is reeling from this he begins being stalked by the monsters/villains of his past works. plot happens and these monsters are really nanobot contractions from his studio's fx company. misha survives these attempts on his life (and his boyfriend's and best friend's), eventually giving a heartfelt award speech about the need for a shift towards queer joy. when he comes back to work the entire studio is like decked out in pride flags and the now stereotypically gay management tells him that queer is IN! even better, it's profitable (according to the algorithm). but these nanobots are still out there. so they go to the fx studio to insert a virus that takes them down, the best friend, tara, being an unprecedented aroace that the algorithm has no information on due to a lack of content, is able to circumvent the nanobots and take them down!! happy ending!! yippee!!

i'll be going in order of the book, touching on the times where tara's identity is relevant

tara's aspecness is established almost immediately when she says "you know i don't swing that way...i don't swing any way, baby." classic aspec joke, i have no issue with this.

its first explicit mention is on page 42, "tara is aromantic and asexual, which has always made me appreciate her take on relationship advice." ok this part is so real. we are so good at that.

ok now we get into the main stuff. Tara says, "do you realize how hard it is to tell your parents you're asexual?" this part is true, and in comparison to misha coming out as gay. and i really appreciate it highlights the strange societal position aspecs are in!! it's hard to affirm an identity defined by a lack. and even harder for baby wanting parents to accept an identity that is largely incompatible with the nuclear family model. as this is in reference to like sex -> having a child, mentioning just the asexuality makes sense. but it is still weird to not mention how hard explaining aromanticism would be considering aces can more easily have straight passing relationships. let's begin a tally: ace mentions: 2, aro mentions: 1.

(!) time skip we are now towards the end. misha is giving his heartfelt speech, "i call on all of you to usher in a new era of stories where the gay, or bi, or lesbian, or asexual, or pansexual, or trans character lives happily ever after. buy those stories. make those stories profitable." we are now entering the territory here i begin to get a little angry. fandoms and drama in shows are so closely tied with romance. they are profitable. they are like, the lifeblood of ao3, etc. people also have this notion that you need a partner to be happy, and that this is a universal goal. so characters and story arcs that stray away from this tend to be, y'know, less profitable. and since this is extremely relevant to aromanticism as an identity and important to debunk, the lack of a mention of aromanticism is frankly stunning. our stories are not wanted, we have no characters to live happily ever after. because we are not profitable. we don't get that joy. so where are we? this is a nitpick but i find it strange that misha would forget to mention like, entirely half of his friend's identity. ace mentions: 3, aro mentions: 1

(!!!) this is the most egregious part to me. when i read this part i was genuinely so stunned that i started crying. ok so i've established that aros have very little representation. it is a fact that there is less aro representation than ace representation. especially in regards to non-ace aros. "there's a hero clad in pink, purple, and blue, the bi one...this continues on and on until every aspect of the community has been covered...tara steps up next to me, her eyes locked on the poster. "there' no asexual hero...they've got everyone up there besides an ace character...every fucking time." ok. so. a lack of representation for aspecs is like a Thing That We All Know. as also established, aros are not algorithm friendly, so i just see no plausible way that there is aro representation but not ace representation. and there's just this like, poetic irony to this. that aros are so forgotten, so uncared for, that the author of the fucking book forgot to even mention them. because there are three ways this shakes out here. either there is an aro in the line up and dr. tingle deprived us of the validation we need to justify our anger for a lack of representation (which effects us all but aros more). or he just straight up forgot to include us. or he's grossly conflating the two identities. there's no good option. anyway. ace mentions: 5, aro mentions: 1

here we have yet another mention of tara being ace, yet not aro, "my name's tara. i'm the asexual in the corner everyone's been ignoring." would be funny if aromanticism hadn't been grossly ignored once again. ace mentions: 6, aro mentions: 1

(!!!) time for tara to save the day (girlboss). "just pull up all the information you have on asexual and aromantic heroes...oh wait, that's gonna be pretty fucking difficult because there are almost no human asexual heroes represented in popular media, are there." like actually like the fuck. what the fuck. there are so little aro heroes that the author forgot about the one he had!! there are so little aro heroes that the author fucking forgot to mention how few there are. incredible. ace mentions: 10, aro mentions: 2 (ace mentions not quoted here but part of the rant)

so. thats the end of the book. it seems to me that dr. tingle might be a little confused. he's been a great supporter in the past of the aspec community. but there is a pattern of aro erasure in this book that frankly, pisses me off! but wait, there is more!

dr. tingle. babygirl. bestie. what the fuck is this? op explicitly said aroace character. and what do you do? you reblog with only an ace flag. do you not remember your character's own identity? or do you not acknowledge aros outside or aces? let's look at some more quotes from this post.

wow thanks for the solidarity dr. tingle (like, actually)!

what is this? whoopty fucking doo! aros totally dropped after their initial mention? again! but there is simply no precedent for this!!

i'd like to end this with a quote by dr. tingle.

glad you remembered the aces. maybe next time, remember the marginalized people you leave behind.

[theaquinn-misc]

A-spec Lesbian

I decided to make my own list of things that have helped me realized I'm gay. Disclaimer: I'm not the arbiter of what makes someone an aspec lesbian, however if you experience some or most of these it's something to consider. Disclaimer 2: I've also not had a lot of experience dating so I can't include much of that here. This post will be divided in 3 sections: Men, Women and NBs and media

Men:

only crushing on "unavailable" men: married, in a relationship, much older, gay, fictional, celebrities

"crushing" on men and enjoying fantasizing about them, but not trying to flirt or even get close to them in any way

"crushing on a man" for a set period of time and then and thinking he's the hottest thing since sliced bread, but later (especially after a physical separation) finding him meh or cringey

fantasies about men having more to do with being happy and fulfilled in life and being seen as someone to be jealous of, not so much about the specific person

having a crush/attraction to a man only for him to return it and you realize that you feel uncomfortable

meeting a guy who is conventionally attractive and meets all your standards and telling yourself you are attracted to him but still feeling a weird pressure in your stomach/chest because "something is missing"

liking a guy, until he changes something minor about his appearance (shaves, does his hair differently) and then finding him basic/meh and losing all attraction to him

never understanding what women see in the men they date or like in media, at least looks-wise

finding even extremely conventionally attractive men to be kinda meh and thinking women attracted to men must be exaggerating how hot they find them

being uncomfortable when you find out a man has a crush on you and wanting him to stay away, but with women/nbs it's just a bit awkward and overall no big deal

having to force sexual and romantic fantasies for men and getting bored of them after a while

finding the most aesthetically attractive man in a group and deciding you are attracted to him (bonus points: being relieved when you find out he's taken/ and/or you could never date him for some reason)

being anxious or sad or bored when you imagine your life with a man

only wanting to date men if it's polyamorous (note: this is not to invalidate poly people, but if you can only imagine dating one gender ONLY if it's poly and having no issues to be monogamous with another gender... that might be something to look into)

getting sad/anxious/bored at the idea that your first boyfriend could be your forever partner. thinking "of course i want to experience life before I settle down"

wanting to dress sexy and reveal your body, but wanting to hide it when a man pays attention to you

Men expressing their attraction to men is more relatable than women expressing their attraction for men Women/ NBs:

finding only a few men aesthetically attractive but nearly every woman/queer/nb person (esp more femme ones) being gorgeous to you

wanting to impress and/or be liked by "special" women

going on dating apps and switching to "women only" even though you are (supposedly) bi/pan (note: some people may do this for safety reasons but if you can't even IMAGINE finding a guy off an app, even if you take all possible precautions, well...)

finding the fantasy of sharing your life with a woman/nb person far more rewarding and satisfying than the fantasy of doing those same things with a man

having some inkling of attraction to trans women pre-coming out, but suddenly thinking they are the most gorgeous people ever post knowing they are women(especially if they go on HRT),

really "admiring" masc/butch women and women who break gender roles (women in suits, women with defined muscles etc.)

thinking that everyone thinks women are more aesthetically attractive than men (hint: ask a gay man about this)

having deep feelings about a female actor, singer, teacher growing up etc. that feel special and unique

feeling guilty in locker rooms, not wanting to look at women too long

getting really excited at the idea of having a gf, or being a girl/nb person's gf/ partner but not feeling the same way about dating boys/men

wishing to be a lesbian because you think lesbians are cool and/or to avoid dating men

feeling uncomfortable feelings about the label lesbian, especially when applied to you (but not gay/queer/sapphic/wlw/nblw etc.)

not getting crushes on women IRL often because you're still aspec

getting crushes on fictional women, influencers, celebrities etc. Media:

never relating to m/f pairings even if they have bi/pan characters or the m/f relationships you see in media or around you.

shipping m/f, but thinking "that's cool for them, but I don't want that" (note: this might also have to with gender, if you're nb)

imagining yourself as the "man" in m/f ships never the woman

not relating to f/f ships with two thin conventionally feminine and usually white women (esp if you are fat, gnc, WoC, and/or are attracted to butch/masc women)

seeing posts about the attractiveness of men but relating them to m/m ships, not yourself

wanting every bi/pan character to be in a "gay" or at least, in a visibly queer relationship

only relating to m/f ships if they are more obviously queer. Like say, masc woman with a twink boyfriend (side note, I've never seen that, so if you have recs please send them my way)

only being able to get off on gay/lesbian porn, finding straight porn to be unsatisfying or boring or uncomfortable (note: porn is not a great way to determine sexualaity as most actresses are fetishized and fake prgasms, and most lesbian porn is not made for sapphics. but still) Things you are allowed to do as a lesbian/don't make you less gay:

Have m/f ships you feel strongly about

read/write m/f smut

relate to/write bi/pan characters

joke about liking celebrity men & fictional men

not be attracted to the women the lesbian community has decided are the hottest thing since sliced bread (Kristen Stewart is not everyone's type)

not be comfortable with certain sex acts or sex as a whole

[pan-magi]

My Magi LGBTQIA+ Headcanons

Ok, I've been working on this list since January. I still probably forgot some. I haven't worked out all my SnB ones yet and about half the Rens. It takes me an inordinate amount of time to sort them out. The only ones I'm really set on are the aspec ones because I'm biased (that's me, I'm AA and proud).

All that to say I may update this list or do a second part. Most likely won't be for a while since I'd want to to add a good chunk before I commit more to the wild.

Also, if you disagree, that's cool. My list though~ I love hearing other people's hcs but I am not up to arguing over mine. I know you guys are chill but to ensure we are on the same page :)

(It's a reasonably long list so all of it is under the read more)

Leila and Sahsa: You can't tell me the manga didn't start off with a lesbian love story with a little shit child playing mediator.

Judar: He very gay.

Aladdin: Genderfluid. I just like the idea of him having everyone constantly guessing as a child of chaos. They're also vying to take that title from Judar. I also can't place who the kid will be interested in but none of his friends are around the same age.

Titus: Trans gay guy.

Yunan: Doesn't really have much attachment to gender. He wouldn't really describe it as a lack of gender yet won't turn down using agender. Gender neutrois also works. Uses any pronouns.

Scheherazade: Cupiosexual. She yearns for being able to have sexual attraction but it just never has occurred for her. After a few decades she had accepted it about herself. The most common form of attraction she feels is alterous attraction (often explained as the space between romantic and platonic attraction).

Hakuryuu: He has messy chemistry with everyone. Bi disaster through and through.

Morgiana: Ace and questioning. She hasn't figured it all out yet but her friends are there to support her. (hi, yes, this is me projecting weeee)

Alibaba: Bisexual and clueless. So if you ask, he won't be able to answer but he also picked up on Sinbad's natural ability to flirt with anybody without trying too hard.

Hakuei: Lesbian

Koumei: Bisexual. I mentioned with the art I made on my own blog that I designed Koumei around the bi colors without realizing it. Nothing in my mind has changed to refute that so that's what I'm still going with. I do think it fits him.

Sphintus: Gay. I can see him being biromantic as well, but mostly into guys.

Sinbad: Pansexual and greyromantic. I won't go into it again more here. He's the best most clueless and suave person ever.

Jafar: Homoromantic demisexual. He likes guys but also without any strong connection to go off of he doesn't really register how people can be attractive.

Drakon: Omnisexual. There's attraction to guys, women, and enbies, all slightly different to each other. Preference for women.

Mystras: Also very gay.

Pisti: Aegoromantic. She gets invested in other people's (mainly her friends') love lives, and loves love stories, but whenever she tries getting into a relationship it never sits right for her. She won't mind an intimate relationship though knows it won't be romantic (after a bit of denial). After my brain came up with this I started projecting like hell and I don't give a fuck XD.

Mu: Mspec of some variety. I don't think he will be bothered by either bi or pan. Queer will work just as well. He will be down for anyone, you know? Going off queer history circles I've seen conversations and jokes that no one in Ancient Rome is monosexual. Mu feels like the person it will apply to the most. I'm going with it.

I joked to myself that the majority on Alma Toran are mspec or aspec. With longer lifespans for humans, a good handful are aspec because of the lack of incentive to have kids or families quickly. I would have posted about it last year during my Alma Toran posting in October and during ace week, but alas. I'm now posting it here lol.

Anyway, my Alma Toran hcs:

Solomon: Demisexual. Hasn't spent time thinking about it because he didn't expect to marry so young. It doesn't bother him though, not that he could explain his sexuality well.

Setta: Aroace. All ice mages are aroace because I said so. (except Judar, dude can have as many guys as he wants)

Isnan: Gay

Falan: Bi. Growing up she didn't have the chance to explore her sexuality. She won't deny it if asked though is perfectly happy in her relationship.

Ugo: Bi and aceflux.

Paimon: Also bi. She flirts too much with Ugo not to be (though I do know some lesbians and non-interested in men peeps who flirt with guys for shits and giggles without much feeling. Poison Ivy being the main lesbian I think of for this).

Arba: Non-sam aro. I tried to figure out her sexuality and I know it's not ace, but it's still too wrapped up in being aromantic. Non-sam is the closest I could figure.

Tess: Demiboy. The idea just burrowed into my head and hasn't left so I'm going with it. He is fine with he/they pronouns, yet the only people allowed to get away with calling him little boy are his parents.

That's all I got. For the moment, at least. If I try to figure everyone out I won't get around to finishing this till pride next year. If ever >>. As I said, I may update the list or post a second part.

Remember to stay chill peeps! & Happy Pride!

[booksandwords]

For Better or Worse by R. Cooper

Read time: 2 Days Rating: 5/5 Stars

The Quote: “I’m somewhere between bisexual and very, very picky.” — Javier Ramierez (aka the best extreme over simplification of a bi-demi I've ever read.)

I look up the ace tag occasionally just to see what people are reading. Fairly recently I found For Better or Worse and book written with aspec thems write by R.Cooper. R.Cooper writes and interesting style what I have read of their has been short but well paced and working within their limits, knowing the limits of the genre and the format. I have enjoyed hem. As such when I saw this I know it had to read it. I did make what may or may not have been a mistake when I decided to read it though, I decided to read For Better or Worse without reading Scott and Cole's story Hottie Scotty & Mr Porter first. While you can theoretically read them separately, there is enough groundwork included in this one to make it understandable but I think it would make just a little more sense with the background from the previous story. Scotty (as he is always refed to in this) makes an appearance in this book, in a critical point, he is important to a choice made by Javier. and Tiny (the station Chief). Scotty being a more mainline sexuality paved the way for the acceptance of the others. Or that is a least what it feels like. Let's be honest gay is easier to accept for most people than ace., even for most readers, if you aren't ace it can be difficult I think to get your head around.

Okay, now we're past that. R.Cooper writes their demisexual in a non-traditional way. He has accepted his ace-ness, he knows that. This is not coming of age, not in the least we are past that, Javi is past that. By the time the book starts Javier he is aware of and mostly comfortable with is demi identity, using it interchangably with other terms like grey and queer. This is a book that misses most of the label searching and identification. That's not the game here. The game here is friends to lovers with a queer twist. This is about knowing how to get what you want and balancing the risk vs reward, finding the courage to getgo and get it. But Javier still has moments of why am I like this, what if I wasn't. It's a brutally realistic feel. There is a moment when he chooses to weaponize his sexuality, at least the bi aspect of it. One to test the town's 'accepting' attitude by raising the pride over the fire station and the other is the trigger for the endgame, Javier kisses the (supposedly straight) fire chief Tiny.

The perspective character is Javier 'Javi' Ramirez our lovely demi. the first line kinda sets it up for him "Javier was in love. The realization echoed through his mind like church bells. Javier was in love with a passion he had never expected to feel and it took his breath away.". He is in love, in love with his neighbour and best friend, Jimmy. And this is that moment of realisaion.

This is single perspective narration so there are some surprises for the reader. We don't ever find out how old Javi is (which I appreciate as a writing choice). Javi as the narrator is less likely to think about his own age. The closest thing we get to his age is in comparison to Jimmy, Jimmy is several years younger than him. Some things that Javi didn't know that serve to build his character. We simply walk into Javier's life with little to no story. All the backstory we get is given as needed. Interestingly Cooper has chosen to limit settings to the firehouse, their houses and once or twice Javi just thinking during his walk home. Those limited settings provide an intimacy and a realness to it, especially for a homebody like Javier. On the writing style. I really didn't like the lack of marker on the section breaks. It was just annoying, especially with decent time jumps between sections

Jimmy is a good Italian Catholic boy, still speaks Italian and falls back into it occasionally. Jimmy is a lot to process he's got those qualities that are clearly admirable but a darkness and a past. Jimmy has an ex-wife, married at nineteen (divorced at twenty-one) to his best friend a good Catholic girl who found herself pregnant out of wedlock. We never met her, never learn her name and I'm okay with that, under what I refer to as the Liliana principle* I adore her anyway. Jimmy does not like labels, does not use labels and is an angry man. He has no tolerance for homophobia. I do quite like him. It is hard not to like anyone who shows that love to their dog, her name is Bacio. Everything he does that may frustrate a reader is seen through the flawed perception of Javier. A reader will likely perceive (as Peyo does) Jimmy's affection for Javi.

Javier understands his uncle's Spanglish but doesn't speak it. That Spanglish is actually kinda funny Peyo likes to speak Spanish to confuse Jimmy, to make him think he doesn't speak English. He's only doing it for Javi's good he is more than aware of Javi and Jimmy's feelings for each other and is just trying to push them together as only he can. I like the use of Spanish and Italian, it really works. For Jimmy it is a sign of exasperation (and other emotions), for Peyo it's just his first language and he likes messing with people. Okay, he likes messing with Jimmy (and Javi stays out of it).

Have a selection quotes.

“I’ll cook you dinner. Let me feed you. We’ll take the dog for a walk in the sunset. Pfft. Un par de dumbasses. Every night when he’s in your kitchen, you don’t want him to leave. He doesn’t want to leave. El perro no quiere que se vaya. Every night you are over there, I wake up to find you aquí, en un sueño, staring. Tu es gay.” — (Uncle Peyo) I really like Uncle Peyo. He's a meddler, him and Tiny. Translation: A couple of dumbasses.Every night when he’s in your kitchen, you don’t want him to leave. He doesn’t want to leave.The dog doesn't want him to go. Every night you are over there, I wake up to find you here, in a dream, staring. You are gay.

“I hope they say I’m secretly dating you.” Javier surprised himself again with a joke. Tiny shook his head. “No one would believe that,” he insisted. “I’m hopeless in the kitchen.” Which was true since Tiny’s turn to cook almost always involved cans of salsa or chili poured into mac and cheese. Javier was about to comment when Tiny grinned. He startled the shit out of Javier by adding, “And you, Ramirez, don’t want anyone in your kitchen unless they know what they’re doing in there.” — (Javier and Tiny) Okay so all I could think when I read this was Tiny you perceptive f**ker. But also fair point.

The sky was somewhere between gray and blue, and the flag was bright. Vivid. Flaming, he thought, with too much energy, before forcing himself to calm. Loud, he decided. Present, which was better but not enough. Then, beautiful. — (Javier) This is Javi as he sees the Pride flag flying outside the firehouse for the first time. 🏳‍🌈 I just this it is a beautiful line. I know I've had a moment like this seeing it fly in unusual places.

“I’m Marilyn Monroe now?” Javier wondered first. “You’d think I’d be Salma Hayek at least.” — (Javier) Don't knock Marilyn like that. She's an icon. An adopted queer icon (but only because she never claimed the term). I would like to direct you to a tumblr thread started by the-bright-path which discusses Ms Monroe.

“God, what a relief it might be not to have those feelings lighting you up from the inside all the time. But maybe it’s torture too, in a different way. If I didn’t feel this, what else would I have?” — (Jimmy) This is such a brilliant piece of perceptive writing. It is brilliant to see an acknowledgement that the lack of sexual attraction brings with it a whole lot of other issues.

“Do aces have a flag?” he wondered, teasing or serious, it was impossible to tell. “Is it gray? Tell me it’s not gray.” “It has some gray,” Javier admitted, although he found the ace colors striking. — (Jimmy and Javier) I really like the Ace flag and others in its family among others demi and aro too.

*Liliana principle is named after Liliana from the Chronicles of Nick series, Caleb's deceased human wife. She was a highly influential character in the life of her husband until they parted ways. But we never meet her. Her influence is so great that without her the series essentially wouldn't exist. As such she is near-universally beloved by fans. There is a whole range of primarily female characters who fit this mould that I've stumbled across since.

God this review is so messy.

[lokigodofaces]

did you say biromantic loki? now im curious if there are any headcanons you've got about that 😅

Sure! Not as much as ace headcanons, but let's see what we've got.

Figuring out this stuff was hard. He's varioriented, and that can be hard to figure out (trust me...I'm still trying to). I hc him as greybiromantic asexual. So it's confusing because he likes mutliple genders but he is sex averse but also it's rare for him to have feelings for anyone and just ack it's a struggle.

I hc Asgard just generally being terrible in regards to LGBTQ+ stuff. So they oversexualize gay men so Loki doesn't think he could possibly be attracted to men because Loki doesn't want sex.

Loki visited Earth in the '70's or something like that and heard about bisexuality then and that was what started the whole questioning thing because before anytime he questioned it he quickly suppressed it because of internalized homophobia. But lots of people seem to be okay about it on Earth, and maybe the humans are right about this. But it takes decades for Loki to start referring to himself as bi.

He goes through a stretch of time referring to himself as something different every time once he learns more about labels. Bisexual. Pansexual. Biromantic greysexual. Aromantic bisexual. Abrosexual. Omnisexual. Heterosexual. Biromantic heterosexual. Demiromantic bisexual. Aromantic asexual. Bi oriented aromantic asexual. Demibisexual. Greybiromantic demisexual. Greydemipansexual. Bi-aroaceflux. Like it changes once a week, maybe twice. Like he is pretty certain he's queer (other than days when he has doubts) but he has no idea how. Finally, he settles on greybiromantic asexual, but, man, does it take him a while.

I'm obligated to say that he sits oddly, and have canon to back me up.

He struggled with the difference between aesthetic and sexual attraction for a while, and used to be like, dang, all these people are so sexy. Really he just has a lot of aesthetic attraction to go around.

Like, he wants romance, but also doesn't? He wants it, but isn't interested. I don't know how to explain it, I'm just projecting myself here.

When he does LGBTQ+ on Earth, he kind of feels left out a lot of the time in the bi community because he isn't bisexual. Like, obviously bisexuals should celebrate their bisexuality, but it's hard to relate sometimes. He feels more comfortable in the ace community because he feels like he fits in more there. Same with the aromantic community.

Sometimes he makes jokes about liking everyone because of his biromanticism but not liking everyone because of his greyromanticism and asexuality.

A lot of the Avengers are bi (in my headcanons) so they do stuff together. Like, it's Loki, Steve, Bucky, Wanda, and Peter, plus several others are mspec. And a lot of them are aspec. They all just get along and support each other. Similar deal in my mental AU where Loki is in AoS. Headcanon wise, there's Daisy, Fitz, Simmons, Hunter, and Trip that are bi.

So the same time this happened, Thor was also confused because with his misconception of what asexuality is, how could Loki also be bi because Asgard sexualizes gay men so much. Just, in general with all of Loki's queerness, Thor has to relearn much because Asgard is so wrong. But he is willing to do it because he loves his brother and wants to support him! He really is a good ally, he has the right spirit, he's just way confused on basically everything.

Loki starts to sneak purple things into his life because of the ace and bi flags.

Okay, so I like Coulson to be the one that practically adopts Loki and helps him with a lot of things, including this. He tells him about all these things and how he doesn't know what to think and on Asgard this is looked down upon. Loki breaks down in tears when Coulson tells him it's okay, there's nothing wrong with what he's feeling, queerness is okay, and that Coulson will be right there to support him.

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

Sorry, I'm going to rant, but I need to get it out.

Is Sylvie x Loki biphobic? No, not in the slightest. Bi people are not bi only if they have date two different genders or are currently in a gay relationship. However, I still have an issue with this whole ship.

My problem with this whole relationship is the fact they're literally the same person from different timelines (if you ship them, please, ask yourself if you would still ship them if it was two Tom Hiddleston Loki), and also the message implied by this episode 4 of the series. Loki is shown to have this fear of being alone forever and, how does the show decides to prove him wrong? By giving him a love-interest! I hate it, it's invalidating for aspec people and it's unnecessary. This show doesn't need a romance, Loki doesn't need a romance and, by giving him one, the writers are showing me they don't understand Loki.

Loki is afraid of being alone, so he creates chaos to get the attention of others, often his brother. Attention Thor decided to stop giving him in Ragnarok (The elevator scene), which push Loki to change. Loki feels out of place and undeserving of love because of his lineage, because he was adopted, because of the way Odin, his father, treated him and favored Thor. Loki wants to be part of this family, he loves his family, and he's broken when he learned the truth. Loki deserves his brother. He deserves a family.

But no, Loki here is told he will finish alone unless he falls in love. And not with anybody, but with himself (this sounds like he's accepting he could be a good person and who he is, which would be a good thing, and not that he is literally falling in love with another version of himself) to show that nobody can love him (only romantic love matters /s) but himself and he will forever be alone in a way.

Also, Loki is genderfluid but only on paper. He's never with another appearance (when he has the power to) or referenced as another gender than male. And even Sylvie, which I stupidly hoped was AMAB like him but changed her name and appearance for more "feminine" ones, is, it seems to, be a cis woman. It's not transphobic, because genderfluid people are still queer even when they identify as their assigned gender.

Wait, I see a pattern here... The characters are queer, trans and gay on papers, but their actions and their relationship are cis and hetero...

This is not representation, but a joke of it, meant to appease the queerphobic audience while getting some bonus points from the "woke" audience. The crew of Loki is doing the bare minimum, and are a bunch of assh*les while doing it (celebrating on twitter that you made Loki officially bi when it's just one phrase, for example...)

We deserve better.

I also want to point out that I don't give a shit about the rhetoric "Loki f*cked a horse" because the MCU is a work of fiction inspired by Nordic mythology. Loki is not the deity anymore (in this context), he's a character. His story is not the one told centuries ago, but the one on our screens. He's genderfluid and bi like any genderfluid and bi people out there, not like a god who get f*ck by horses. Thank you.

This post is not an invitation to start a discussion, just a rant.

[autistic-beshelar]

Hello, fellow aspec critter here!

I saw your post about Ashton being alloaro (100% agree btw) and in the tags you said you hc Molly as nebularomantic and I was just wondering, what does that mean? (I've also considered aro-spec Molly but I'm not committed to a specific hc yet)

Also, I get what you mean about sg in the "Enough-tp" post. I might just be biased 'cause it's not my fav ship but still. Also I know it's not canon but I low-key hc Caleb as ace-spec so that adds to it when it comes to sex-related stuff, be it sg or not. Like you said, it's not a bad thing, I just don't see it that way personally. I don't want to play into the "asexuality is caused by trauma" thing though.

Anyways sorry for rambling lol

hi aspec critter!! thank you for the ask and do not apologise for rambling it is NOTHING compared to this answer lmao

on molly:

nebularomantic is an orientation on the aromantic spectrum! likely it comes from the term 'nebulous', meaning cloud like, or ill-defined. it's when you have trouble differentiating between platonic and romantic feelings, due (in part or entirely) to being neurodivergent. so, it's solely a label for neurodivergent people! i headcanon molly as having a tbi, adhd, and npd, and i hc that he's a little bit in love with all his friends, but has trouble telling if it's in a platonic or romantic way, or somewhere inbetween or outside of that.

molly i think feels a lot, but has a lot of trouble working out what it is exactly he's feeling. he's the same with gender - pinpointing what it is is impossible, he just knows he's feeling a lot of it. he's more focused on just doing whatever makes him happy - if he wants to wear a dress one day he will, if he wants to sleep with someone and they want to sleep with him, he will, if he wants to give yasha 500 forehead kisses a day he will

on caleb:

as for caleb, yes i headcanon him as aspec as well, although i actually do think it's due to trauma for him! he gave me such strong asexual vibes in the beginning of the campaign, and i think he's slowly becoming more comfortable with it. especially with essek being demi, and caleb being somewhere on the bi ace spectrum (i feel like it probably goes up and down, depending on how he's doing mentally, i think he probably uses bisexual and asexual interchangeably), i think they're a great match for each other as they'll both be very understanding

(cw for sexual assault/trauma mention)

i can totally understand feeling uncomfortable with headcanoning him as ace-due-to-trauma, esp since there's such a harmful stereotype that people are only asexual because they're broken, or because we're mentally ill or have some kind of deficit. but sexuality is fluid, and mental illness and trauma can change so much about a person, so while the stereotype is bullshit, sometimes that really can be a person's experience. i think it would make a lot of sense if caleb was aspec bc of his sexual and relationship trauma from being a volstrucker and with astrid and wulf. i've talked to aces who are ace due to trauma like that, who just lose sexual attraction because of what happened to them. they might not have been 'born' that way, but their experience is still an asexual one, yknow?

especially when there's such great aro and ace rep in cr who AREN'T that way because of trauma - like caduceus, who is so kind and loving and very content with being aroace, like essek who, while traumatised, his being demisexual seems to have nothing to with that. there are so many different aspec experiences and it's nice to see that diversity portrayed.

honestly i have a long list of queer and neurodivergent headcanons for everyone (i have thoughts on cr1 as well, but i'm still early campaign for that)

also HELL YEAH aroallo ashton fanclub

[elyvorg]

So… I was talking about aspec V3 headcanons? Well then, let me lay down the facts.

Maki Harukawa is on the aromantic spectrum. Yes, even though she explicitly develops a crush on Kaito, and no, I’m not trying to dispute that part.

This is basically canon. Let me tell you why.

Maki is aro

For this, we need to consider the conversation Maki has with Shuichi in the first training session in chapter 4, while Kaito has temporarily disappeared to the bathroom. On one level, this conversation exists to be the only actual meaningful indication* that Maki has romantic feelings for Kaito until she goes and confesses them. Someone like Maki wouldn’t care about asking Shuichi if he “liked��� Kaede (in that annoying loaded meaning of the word “like” that specifically refers to romantic attraction) unless she was trying to come to terms with the idea that she also “likes” someone else in the same way, and the only plausible candidate for that is Kaito.

But even more striking about this conversation, far more so than the general implication that Maki would only bother asking this if she happened to be crushing on a certain spiky-haired space dork, is the way Maki approaches and thinks about this whole topic in general. Take a look:

Maki:  “Well… I assumed you didn’t, because that would be weird. […] Liking someone you just met… especially in a situation like this…”

Shuichi:  “… Then tell me… under what circumstances is liking someone *not* weird?”

Maki:  “…Huh? I… don’t know. I don’t… really understand what that is.”

I, as an aromantic person myself, fully agree with Maki that it just seems weird to start romantically liking someone you’ve only just met, especially in a life-or-death situation where surely there’s way more important things to be focusing on. But apparently, most people do not find this thought weird at all – love at first sight is supposedly a real thing that can happen, and something something dangerous situations can bring out more hormones and passion???? sounds fake but okay – and so opinions like mine and Maki’s here are very much outliers.

And not only that, not only does the thought of crushing on near-strangers bewilder Maki to the point of disbelief, but she also can’t even come up with an answer to when crushing on someone would ever not be strange and bizarre. Like the whole concept is just alien to her. She can barely even wrap her head around how “liking” someone in that way even works. The very reason she’s even asking Shuichi about this is because she doesn’t understand why she’s feeling this way about Kaito.

This is how an aromantic person would view this kind of thing. It doesn’t sound even slightly like something an alloromantic person would say in this situation. That’s not up for interpretation – that’s just the truth about these views that Maki is expressing. Again: I’m aromantic. I would know.

Even from a character who then does turn out to nonetheless have a crush on someone, these statements are pretty much as canonically confirmed arospec as you can get short of them straight up using the word "aromantic" or a variant.** And, well, obviously Maki isn't about to go calling herself that. From the way she’s questioning this, she clearly doesn’t realise that her perspective is the outlier, so she’s probably never even heard of the term. Besides, she most definitely has way bigger hurdles to be getting over first in terms of her self-acceptance before she's ever going to particularly care about figuring out labels for her orientation of all things.

Aros with trauma are still aros

Now, granted, I severely doubt that Maki being arospec is what the writers intended to convey. Haha, deliberate aro representation in mainstream Japanese media, especially something more complex than vanilla aro, that's a funny joke. What the writers probably meant by writing this conversation I just discussed is to suggest that Maki is viewing things this way a result of her trauma.

But hey, guess what? Even if it is because of her trauma - and I'm not denying that it probably is - that doesn't make Maki any less aro. Some people are arospec because of trauma, and that's equally as valid a reason to be arospec as without. Maybe Maki would have grown up alloromantic if she hadn't been scouted as an assassin, but that's irrelevant, because that's not the Maki who exists now.

In writing this conversation, the writers were presumably attempting to communicate that Maki is so messed up by having been manipulated and abused and moulded into a soulless killing machine that she can no longer comprehend the idea of how or why anybody (especially not herself) would fall in love with someone when they'd only just met, or even really in any circumstances at all. …And in doing that, the writers unintentionally wrote a character who, as a result of her trauma, is aro(-spec). This is an objective fact about the canon story that does not change just because the writers probably weren’t aware enough about aromanticism to actually realise this.

Aros who feel romantic attraction are still aros

So, of course, Maki does in fact come to romantically love Kaito despite this. That fact becomes very important to her, and me lengthily explaining here that she’s actually arospec is not remotely trying to diminish that. But it’s also very important to me that people realise that Maki’s romantic love for Kaito comes from an aromantic perspective. She eventually chooses to embrace those feelings not remotely because it just feels to her like the natural way things should go, but despite every single conscious part of her insisting that this is weird and illogical and doesn’t make any goddamn sense to even be happening at all. She is not going to suddenly fall into all the boring romantic cliches and stereotypical alloromantic approaches to love just because she does in fact happen to be experiencing romantic attraction. There’s nothing alloromantic about Maki’s crush on Kaito.***

As for the specific flavour of arospec that allowed Maki to fall in love with Kaito anyway? This part is somewhat more up for interpretation because there’s no real explicit indication of this in particular, but I personally like to go with the idea that Maki is demiromantic. It feels appropriate for Maki’s character and trauma to imagine that she can only begin to potentially feel romantic things towards a person when she has an emotional connection with them – when she trusts them and knows that they trust her. It doesn’t necessarily have to take very long – she’d only been friends with Kaito for a handful of days before that telling conversation with Shuichi – and she may not even have to have consciously admitted to herself that she trusts them, but she needs to have that bond. She’s normally so guarded and has such strong automatic barriers up during her interpersonal interactions that seeing most people in a romantic light literally isn’t even an option in her brain.

Maki’s confession of her feelings for Kaito does read as rather strongly demiromantic, I think. She makes a point that this is about who Kaito is and what he’s done for her, before even getting to the part where she admits to having fallen for him. And she says she “fell for” him, not that she was always in love with him or anything to that effect. This happened somewhere along the way during their friendship, because of their friendship, and because of Kaito being his incredible trusting supportive self towards her when she needed it most.

Maki Harukawa is demiromantic, and she’s wonderful.

�� ---

[some grumpy Amatonormativity and Aro Erasure 101 footnotes, can you tell I am bitter about this kind of thing]

(* When I say “actual meaningful indication” of romantic feelings, I mean something that isn't just the narrative infuriatingly pointing at things that are actually perfectly platonic in nature and going “ooh look how romantic~!”. Newsflash: worrying about somebody and wanting to rescue them when they're sick and injured and have been kidnapped by someone you think is an evil sadistic mastermind is not somehow proof of romantic feelings. That is a thing that friends do. And on the same note, teaching somebody how to build a crossbow is not some kind of deep metaphor for romance; it is literally just a lesson in how to build a goddamn crossbow. Maki would have done both of these things in exactly the same way if her crush on Kaito didn’t exist.)

(** It's exactly like how characters can be considered canonically confirmed same-gender-attracted when all they've done is show attraction to the same gender****, without them actually needing to explicitly refer to themselves with the word “gay”, or “lesbian”, or “bi” or whatever else. Anyone who tried to insist that was necessary in order for it to “count” would instantly be written off as homophobic. So if that’s the case, then a character explicitly saying something such as “I don’t understand what it means to like someone that way” equally constitutes them being confirmed aro, and trying to argue that it doesn’t “count” without outright hearing the word itself is, guess what…?)

(*** This also inherently means that there’s nothing straight about Maki’s crush on Kaito either, since societally-expected “straight” attraction is allo as well as hetero. I gather that some people in this fandom like to devalue and erase Maki’s crush (and potentially also Maki herself) because they feel that it’s an Obligatory Forced Straight Romance and don’t like that, or something along those lines. Well, good news! It’s literally not that, actually, because Maki isn’t straight.)

(**** …This only applies so long as it actually is very clearly romantic or sexual attraction and not just people deciding platonic affection is totally romantic thanks to the disease that is amatonormativity. Because, you know. That happens. Literally all the time. (Even from V3’s narrative itself; see footnote 1.))

[vampish-glamour]

I never watched G*od Om*ns, so it was fandom again with the "they're gay"???

At least Star Trek did this right, you know, not lying to please someone. Spock and Kirk was never a thing and also was never meant to be a thing. But the creator himself said, if you wanna see them like that, it's fine. Do what you want. But in canon it's not that way.

But really, somehow fandom seems to make it easy for creators to just bait, but never commit and they're happy, wtf.

And IF they get actual lgbt rep, they're upset because it's not the character they WANTED to be lgbt....

Actually, the fandom is largely against them being gay because they claim it’s “nonbinary and asexual representation”.

Which bothers me just because they’re basically applauding homophobic tropes simply because they benefit from homophobic tropes.

I want to make it clear that my problem isn’t “why aren’t you making the characters canonically gay?!!?!!? This is homophobic!!!11!1!1”. I’m fine with the relationship remaining a close friendship canonically. And canonically speaking, I think I might prefer that tbh.

My problem is with how the original homophobia in the book sort of goes ignored, and how the writer teases and hints and in this case I would actually say baits… and then receives praise from the fandom for doing what everyone else does when it comes to gay pairings.

Basic overview of the situation from my POV:

Book establishes a character as a gay stereotype

Immediately goes “but he isn’t gay because angels are sexless unless they make an effort” (IMO the sexless thing could’ve been established in many other ways. Did it really have to be done in a “don’t worry he’s not gay” way?)

Book proceeds to make the gay stereotype thing a running joke, with the character being called various homophobic slurs (but see, it’s funny because it’s misplaced homophobia. He doesn’t actually deserve the homophobia he experiences like an actual gay person would /s)

Show comes out, includes romantic music, lots of subtext, and the writer confirming that it’s a “love story”, as well as the actors confirming they acted “in love”. Except… it’s done vaguely enough that anyone can come away with their own interpretation. Which is nothing new. There’s literally nothing revolutionary about leaving a same sex relationship “up for interpretation”.

All the “representation” actually comes from what the writer says on Twitter. He goes on about how they’re sexless and therefore cannot possibly be gay but are also inherently “queer”… but doesn’t actually add this into canon. So casual viewers are not experiencing any sort of “representation”.

IMO this is a homophobic media trope. Give two men or two women scenes that would be explicitly romantic if it were a man and a woman, tease the audience with “maybeee~”, but still make sure that ultimately, homophobes won’t be offended and can come away from the material thinking “what good friends!”. Say “it’s up for interpretation”, which is something I hardly see with M/F pairings. Especially with the virtue signalling on social media.

Keep in mind, something isn’t “representation” if everyone comes away with different ideas of what was represented. If one person can think “they’re gay and married” and another can think “they’re aspec and in a QPR”, that’s not representation. Representation only happens when something is undeniable. For example, a character who is undeniably bisexual because they are shown to be interested in both men and women (biphobic pannies coming to their own conclusions don’t count here lol, since bi = pan and pan = bi, so even if they claim the character is pansexual, they’re still getting the same outcome)

Now here’s where my issue comes in.

Instead of calling this out, the fandom runs with it and benefits from it. A vague relationship on screen allows them to claim representation for themselves, usually for made up labels like aspec, SAM type asexuality, queerplatonic, etc.

They praise the writer for being “inclusive”, and for “representing” them… when really this “inclusivity” is a result of homophobic tropes, and there’s actually no representation at all. Keep in mind, all the clues for what could be going on come from social media. A casual viewer is either going to see two gay men, or two good friends. They have no way of knowing about the woke “queer” bullshit unless they’re heavily involved in fandom.

The writer has a habit of teasing things and being intentionally misleading. Here’s an example

Not telling what’s going to happen and not giving spoilers, is very different from intentionally baiting. “Wait and see” sounds like a “yes”… because it would be incredibly shitty to lead people on when the answer is a solid “no”.

However, considering he’s only half of the writers, and establishing a relationship other than what he and the other writer discussed would be disrespectful… the answer is very likely “no”.

So just say “no”. It’s okay to say “no, they’re not getting together”. But he knows that people are more likely to watch if they’re waiting for the two to get together the whole time…so he has to keep it vague and mysterious and he has to keep baiting.

Of course the answer could very well be “yes” and that’s what he’s hinting at. But I highly doubt it, mostly because of the “only one author around” issue. So until I’m proven wrong, I will maintain that this is him being intentionally misleading, as he admitted to.

So that’s where I have the issue—I wouldn’t have an issue if he just straight up said “no, they’re not going to hook up, they’re good friends”. What is an issue, is perpetuating classic homophobic media tropes, of giving just enough but not too much…and then saying “it’s up for interpretation”. Which roughly translates to “here’s some crumbs for the gays”. What’s especially an issue, is then disguising this under woke kweer language and lapping up all the praise you can get for being such an “Ally” to “queers”.

And of course, I have an issue with how the fandom receives this. Because instead of calling the bullshit out for what it is, they actually call gay people talking about homophobia “aphobic discourse”, and say things like “gay men have enough representation!!”, and try to argue that actually, the homophobic trope of vague same sex relationships that are left up to interpretation, is actually super inclusive and amazing and progressive because it represents asexuals, aromantics, nonbinary people, queerplatonic relationships, etc.

Or they put down gay people for wanting more explicit representation, because “uhh… some people are aro!!! Some people are ace!!”. Despite missing that non romantic or non sexual relationships between men can be found in pretty much every single piece of media ever, and is 100% socially acceptable. Explicit gay relationships however, are still looked down upon.

And then they act like the religious homophobes, by taking “explicit gay representation” to mean “explicit hardcore sex scene”. Like I’ve seen nobody demand a sex scene when they’re talking about gay representation in G O. I’m certainly not. Yet the kweers always manage to interpret gay people wanting proper representation as “you want sex!!! You want porn!!!”. To me, it really seems no different from religious homophobes seeing an advertisement with two men and immediately talking about how it promotes “deviant gay sex”.

What worries me is that these types of fandoms—who applaud creators for giving gay people crumbs—set a precedent for other creators. They make it known that gay representation actually isn’t needed for media to be praised. They give creators a safe way to get out of representing gay couples—while keeping both the queers and homophobes happy at the same time. Now they can hop on social media and say “no, they’re not gay, but it’s up for interpretation!” And the queers will think this is top tier representation, and praise the creators for it.

As always, this turned into a long spiel lmao. But that’s an explanation of my thoughts and why I’m frustrated. Again—I’m not mad that a romantic relationship isn’t canon. That in itself isn’t homophobic. But the way that the writer and fandom are handling it, is.

I’m not familiar with Star Trek (I do want to watch it, mostly to understand the Star Trek vs Star Wars stuff lmao.), but it sounds like that’s a good way to handle it. If you don’t want to make a relationship canon—that’s fine. But be honest about it, don’t drag fans along with teasing and baiting.

[bluejayblueskies]

philautia

n. a love based on deep connection to one’s well-being and built upon a love for one’s self; a centered wholeness

Words: 2.3k

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationship: Sasha James & Tim Stoker & Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims, Past Tim Stoker/Sasha James, Minor Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood

Characters: Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood, Jonathan Sims, Sasha James

Additional Tags: AU - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff and Humor, Statement Fic (but not in the way you expect!), Aromantic and Asexual Characters, Implied/Referenced Homophobia (very minor), Implied/Referenced Arophobia (also very minor)

Summary:

SASHA

So, according to Tim, I’m supposed to be recording a statement on, quote, my “most swashbucklingest experience as an esteemed member of the LGBT community.” He left this recorder on my desk and stole my scone. Timothy Stoker, I will not forget that.

---

Statements of members of the archival staff at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding certain facets of their aspec identities. Statements compiled by Timothy Stoker on 10th June, 2016. For personal use only.

Ao3 link in reblogs

Or read below:

[CLICK]

 MARTIN

 —really don’t think this is necessary—

 TIM

 Aaaaand we’re recording!

 MARTIN

 (exasperated) Tim.

 TIM

 Oh, come on Martin, it’s more fun this way!

 [MARTIN MAKES A NOISE OF DISAGREEMENT]

 TIM

 You cannot look me in the eye and tell me that this doesn’t appeal to your, and I quote, “retro aesthetic.”

 MARTIN

 (reluctantly) It… might.

 TIM

 See! So it’s perfect!

 …

 [HE SIGHS]

 Obviously you don’t have to if you don’t want to, Martin. I just thought it might be nice—to have something to look back on when we’re all old and sick of each other, you know? Here, I can go first.

 MARTIN

 Tim, you don’t have to—

 TIM

 (overlapping, adopting the ‘Archivist’ voice) Statement of Timothy Stoker, regarding the first time he went to Pride with his brother, Danny. June 10th, 2016.

 (cheekily) Statement begins.

 TIM (STATEMENT)

 (in his normal voice) I realized I was into blokes too when I was 15, you know. Think it took me a while because of the whole ace thing, though that took me until I was in uni to really figure out. I was still fine with sex, you know, always enjoyed it when it came up, just… never really wanted it with anyone in particular. So I suppose I’d assumed for a while that the things I was feeling toward other guys weren’t romantic because I never had the sexual parts to go along with them. (with wry humor) Almost ruined a few relationships that way, actually.

 But I’m getting a bit off-topic. Can’t be one of those rambling statement givers Jon hates. God, I can see his face now, that thing he does with his nose—Martin, you know the one, the- the way it looks like he’s just smelled something really, really rank.

 MARTIN

 I thought you said you weren’t going to ramble.

 TIM

 Cheeky, cheeky. Okay, where was I. Right.

 TIM (STATEMENT)

 Mom and Dad weren’t real big on the whole bi thing, so the first time I got the chance to go to Pride was in uni. The first time I got the chance to go with Danny was after he turned 18 and got his first modeling gig. At least, I think he was already modeling back then. Point is, we were both out of the house, and Danny had been dying to go to Pride with me ever since I sent him pictures of me and Sasha eating an entire box of rainbow-colored donuts that first year. I’d figured out I was ace by then, but it had been pretty recent, so when we got there, I found one of the vendors selling those big flags you drape over your shoulders and got an ace one. Felt a bit weird having the ace flag instead of the bi one like the other years, but I had worn that pink, blue, and purple button-down Sasha got me for Christmas once, so overall, it felt all right.

 And Danny—god, he loved it. Pretty sure he ate his weight in fried food that day.

 [HE LAUGHS]

 Almost got the aro flag he’d borrowed from Sasha dirty, actually, when he—

 (quickly changes course) Ah, nothing! Sasha, if you’re listening to this, absolutely nothing happened to your flag, and I definitely did not have it laundered before I returned it to you.

 TIM

 Aaaaand that’s it! Statement ends, I guess.

 See—easy! (a bit more seriously) But really—you don’t have to record one if you don’t want to, Martin.

 MARTIN

 …

 No, I- I want to.

 TIM

 Are you sure? I don’t want you to do that thing where you just do something because you think someone else wants you to.

 MARTIN

 I do not—!

 …

 Okay, okay, fine. Point taken. But yeah, I- I’m sure.

 [RUSTLING AS THE TAPE RECORDER IS PASSED FROM TIM TO MARTIN]

 MARTIN

 (with an audible smile) Statement of, er, Martin Blackwood. Regarding… a crush. No, no, wait—god, that sounds so juvenile. Regarding himself, and a person who- er, someone whom he—

 [HE SIGHS]

 Fine. Regarding a crush. Statement given June 10th, 2016.

 Statement begins.

 MARTIN (STATEMENT)

 I’m always a little embarrassed to tell people that I’ve never dated anyone before? Okay, a- a lot embarrassed, actually. I try not to bring it up, but people will say things like, oh, you know how it is to shop for a partner or meeting her parents is definitely nerve-wracking—which is wrong on, er, two accounts, actually—and then I feel more awkward not telling them that I don’t know, actually, because I’ve never been in a relationship longer than a week or so. Then, they’ll get all sympathetic, like it’s some- some tragedy that I’m not involved with someone, and that’s worse, because then they’ll offer to set me up with people, or say that they don’t understand why I’m single because I’m a catch or whatever, and I have to give them some excuse about not interested at the moment.

 It’s not that, not really. Dates with strangers, they- they just never work out for me.

 I think I fall somewhere on the aromantic spectrum? I didn’t think about it much until Sasha mentioned it once over drinks—I think you were there, Tim, although you were (laughs) very drunk by that point. I told her I hadn’t had a crush on anyone since sixth form, and she threw around a bunch of terms. I- I honestly don’t really remember, it was kind of overwhelming and (laughs) I was also pretty drunk as well. But yeah, it… it sounds about right.

 (hesitantly, as if bracing himself for impact) So… this person. Who I, er. Recently, that is, who I…

 [HE CLEARS HIS THROAT]

 It’s really strange, that’s all. And a- a lot. I—heh—I don’t really know what to do about it.

 MARTIN

…

 Uh, statement ends? I guess? I, uh, don’t really have anything else to say. (jokingly) It’s not like there’s any, er, follow-up or whatever. (to Tim) Was- was that okay?

 TIM

 (audibly smiling) Yup! Most excellent, Marto. (more seriously) You felt okay, right?

 MARTIN

 (huh) Yeah. Yeah, I- I did. A bit nice, actually. (quickly) As- as long as this stays in the archives, though. It… it is staying in the archives, right?

 TIM

 Oh, definitely. Right next to the section on love potions, I think.

 MARTIN

 Tim!

 TIM

 (laughs) Yes, Martin, it’s staying in the archives. Pinkie promise. Just you, me, Sasha, and Jon. (in the tone of a man who knows a great secret and wants nothing more than to share it) Speaking of Jon—

 MARTIN

 (quickly) Uh, recording ends!

 TIM

 (undeterred) —is he the—?

 [CLICK]

.

 [CLICK]

 SASHA

 Right. So, according to Tim, I’m supposed to be recording a statement on, quote, my “most swashbucklingest experience as an esteemed member of the LGBT community.” He left this recorder on my desk and stole my scone. Timothy Stoker, I will not forget that. It was white chocolate raspberry, and I’m stealing the money it cost out of your wallet.

 …

 Anyway.

[SHE CLEARS HER THROAT]

 Statement of Sasha James, given 10th June 2016. Subject of statement is… hmm. Let’s say… (laughs) A brief relationship with one Timothy Stoker.

 Statement begins.

 SASHA (STATEMENT)

 Tim, I know you’re listening to this, and I just want to preface this by saying that yes, it was Italian that we had for dinner that night, not Greek. You’re thinking of a different friendship-turned-hookup-turned-awkward-aftermath-turned-friendship.

 [SHE LAUGHS QUIETLY]

 Anyway, I guess the best place to begin with this whole thing is by saying that I’ve known I was aro since I was 16 and that I’ve never been very good at talking about it. I’ve ended plenty of tried and failed relationships with the it’s-not-you-it’s-me talk because I didn’t know how to explain that I just… wasn’t interested in romance.

 I wanted to explain it to you beforehand, Tim, I really, really did. We’ve had this conversation, I know I know—I won’t rehash it over tape.

 [SHE SIGHS]

 But the important thing is that I like you so, so much, and—god, this is stupid—I guess maybe I thought that it wouldn’t matter with you? That you could like me romantically and I could like you platonically and it would be fine. Like I said, stupid, but you asked me out to that Italian place—yes, Italian, for god’s sake, I had the chicken parm and you had some sort of lasagna abomination—and I just… couldn’t say no. And it was nice, really. I had a lot of fun.

 And then we slept together. And… that was really nice. But then, the next morning, the… the guilt set in. Because I felt the same as I always had about you—which is to say that I loved you, just not in the same way you loved me—and I became convinced that I’d gone and ruined the whole thing.

 Ignoring you for a week was probably not the correct response. (quieter) Yeah, definitely not my finest moment. But I’d gotten it in my head that the moment I told you that I didn’t feel that way about you and that I would never feel that way about you—or about anyone—you’d hate me. And you don’t have to say that you’d never hate me—I know you wouldn’t. I think I knew it then, too. But fear is a powerful thing.

 …

 Anyway, you know how it all turned out. You finally dragged me out to coffee and I finally told you why I’d been avoiding you and it was really, really awkward for about a month after that and then it just… wasn’t anymore. (audibly smiling) And you’re still my best friend, Tim. Even if you did steal my scone.

 [THE SOUND OF PAPERS RUSTLING AND A CHAIR ROLLING BACKWARD]

 Recording ends.

 [CLICK]

 .

 [CLICK]

 ARCHIVIST

 Statement of Kyle Henning, regarding a strange mushroom he found growing in his garden. Original statement given April 15th, 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

 Statement begi—

 [DOOR OPENS]

 TIM

 Hey boss! Got a moment?

 ARCHIVIST

 (irritated) Tim, please at least knock when the door to my office is closed. I was just about to record a statement.

 TIM

 (unbothered) So if you were about to, that means you’re not recording one right now, which means you do have a moment.

 ARCHIVIST

 (flatly) Shut the door on your way out, Tim.

 TIM

 (brightly) Right you are, boss! Juuuust going to leave this here on your desk. Bring it back whenever you’re done!

 [PAPERS RUSTLE AS SOMETHING IS PLACED ON THE DESK]

 ARCHIVIST

 (dryly) I’m fairly certain that I’m the one who assigns you tasks to complete, Tim.

 TIM

 That you do! I guess I better get back to them then. Have fun!

 ARCHIVIST

 (firmly) Tim—

 [DOOR CLOSES]

 [HE SIGHS]

 ARCHIVIST

 Right. Well, given that this recording is essentially useless now and I hadn’t even gotten to the statement, I may as well start over. (mutters under his breath) Bloody waste of tape and my time—

 [CLICK]

 .

 [CLICK]

 [PAPERS RUSTLE. FOR A MOMENT, THERE IS ONLY THE SOUND OF BREATHING. THEN, JON SIGHS.]

 ARCHIVIST

 Before I begin, I would like to make it very clear that this is not an appropriate use of working hours or the tape recorders, which should be used for statements that won’t record digitally as per Elias’s request.

 …

 That being said, I am… not entirely opposed to this project. So, I suppose…

 [HE CLEARS HIS THROAT]

 Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London, regarding… regarding a black ring worn on the middle finger of his right hand. Statement recorded by subject, June 10th, 2016.

 Statement begins.

 ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

 I’ve often been told that I am not a very open person. I don’t necessarily intend to be closed-off, but I’ve also never found the need to disclose every aspect of my personal life to everyone I come into contact with. And yes, Tim—because I trust that you and you alone will be listening to this tape—that is a perfectly respectable way to live one’s life. Not everyone needs to know what I ate for breakfast that morning or who my favorite primary school teacher was.

 …

 I… will admit, though, that in certain circumstances, I… could probably stand to be more transparent regarding aspects of my personal life. Perhaps that’s why Georgie bought me the ring.

 It wasn’t a special occasion. She just brought it back from the shop one day, a few weeks after a… particularly illuminating conversation about certain sexual identities, and dropped it atop my copy of Wuthering Heights. Honestly, I had no idea what it was at first. I- (heh) I tried to make a joke about unorthodox proposals, but I- I don’t really think it landed. Georgie just looked at me and said that she’d seen it on one of the online forums, that it was called an ace ring, and that she thought I might like it. I think I was more surprised about the fact that the ring fit perfectly than at the fact that she’d bought me the ring in the first place.

 So I wore it. And it felt… nice. Understand, I don’t keep quiet about my romantic and sexual identities out of shame or embarrassment or indecision; I simply don’t feel the need to announce them at any given moment. So I’ve always been fond of small things—pins and stickers and such—that I can incorporate into my life, insignificant enough that they aren’t readily apparent to anyone but me, as they’re for me more than for anyone else. My ring is one such thing.

 [THERE IS A MOMENT OF SILENCE. MORE WORDS SIT IN THE AIR, WAITING. EVENTUALLY, HOWEVER, HE SIGHS, AND THE WORDS REMAIN UNSAID.]

 ARCHIVIST

 Statement ends.

 …

 Right.

 (with something that might be a smile) As for your other request, I do have a prior engagement with Georgie and Melanie this weekend. Though if you’re willing to accommodate two more, I’m sure they wouldn’t be opposed to coming along. Georgie’s always telling me that Pride is more fun when you’re with a group, after all.

 End recording.

 [CLICK]

[leonsi]

just to get this off my mind:

LGBTQ hcs that dont have any actual backing in the show, im just queer and think theyre Neat:

Leo (they/he)

• Not Cis

• what breed of not cis? who knows. not him.

• WAY too much internalized transphobia to actually let themself figure it out

• gay gay gay. captain ryan was their Awakening

• also some form of aspec/arospec. Leonardo ninjaturtle does NOT fuck he dOES NOT -

Mikey (he/she/they/neos)

• DEFINITELY not cis either LMAOO

• genderfluid, but mostly calls himself bigender

• gender hoarder

• also pansexual

• it is a running joke that she couldn't choose and just. Took All of the sexualities/genders

• has taken on the role of being the Queer Expert for his friends/family

> leo came to her near-tears once asking how she knew she was nb and tried to play it off as "just curiosity"

> mikey saw through him ofc and now they bond over being Not Cis and work through their own biases together

Raph (he/him [she/her?])

• settles on genderqueer for a while

• hasn't told anyone else yet, bc he still doesn't really know himself

• doesn't know if it's just gnc or a Gender Thing, doesnt really care (he cares so much)

• eventually mona introduces him to her culture's gender roles (i.e. None) and finds him a salamandrian term that fits

> he still uses genderqueer on earth tho for simplicity

• bi bi bi

• shouted bi rights to casey the second he came to that conclusion as a panic response

> casey agreed w him and raph ALMOST cried

• gray ace

Donnie (he/him)

• HETERO

• ITS SO BAD

• HELP

• ALSO CIS

• WE CANT WIN

• huge ally tho and keeps himself up-to-date on queer history + theory

> he and raph actually bond over the complicated history of gender roles, etc etc

• has had a few. Feelings for casey here and there, but still counts himself heterosexual

Casey (he/him)

• trans guy

• not really open about it to everyone, but he has told them. he jus doesnt like talking about it bc It Is What It Is

• bi with a Large preference for girls

> definitely talks about that omg

April (she/they)

• her gender? Alien.

• jk it's demi girl

• very slight feelings of Non Girl, but enough to make her uncomfortable with being called cis

• also pan, but with MAJOR comphet

• ma'am please stop leading casey + donnie on bc u cant figure urself out

> eventually they all work through it but. Yikes

Karai (she/he)

• she is a THREAT

• doesn't really care about gender (actually)

• HUGE lesbian holy Shit

• Mean Lesbian (affectionate) character trope come to life

• also arospec, but leaning more towards allo than aro

> her and leo make fun of alloromantics together

> and then leo bullies her for being allosexual

Shini (she/they/neos)

• genderdoe

• kind of, she's not really used to this whole "gender" thing

• but from what she can tell she definitely leans towards female/feminine

• also huge lesbian

> men are stinky and she bullies leo for liking them

• allo and is Not safe from leo and karai

[your-turn-to-role]

Please talk to me about aro Fjord. 😭 I am in need of any and all ace/aro M9 content. I'd love to talk about aro-spec/ace!Caleb and ace! Caduceus

oh for sure, yeah!

i mean i'm someone who kinda hcs anyone who hasn't shown signs of being into people yet as aspec, usually aroace if i can

so for the longest time i just headcanoned all the m9 guys as aspec somewhere (and also essek, he's had comments about not really being interested in romance, so he's ours now. he's even ace colours!)

caleb i've been a little less sure on since liam confirmed on talks he was into both jester and essek, i still love aspec caleb headcanons (he's a relatable boy for a lot of reasons lets add another!), but since he's at least bi in some respect, i'm not clinging to that one, just so it won't ruin the story for me if he does end up with one of them. but if you wanna talk aro bi or bi ace or demi-bi caleb i am 100% on your team here!

(also while some people don't want to go near the broken narrative and that's valid, i think there's a lot you could do with aspec caleb hcs vis-a-vis him only having one relationship as a teenager bc he thinks that's just what you do when you find a girl you like/wanna hang out with, and then he skipped most of the time he would have had to figure that out, so coming to terms with it now would probably be a difficult thing, because it's hard to reconcile "am i just like this naturally" and "did i become this because of everything that happened to me", and caleb has a hard time finding a distinction between those two anyway? so there's a lot he still has to figure out)

fjord is another i've been hugely attached to since travis said on talks he doesn't like romance in his dnd characters? and while i'm a little worried he's gonna go back on that after his playlist came out, it's still the most solid evidence i've ever gotten for a character being aro (one day, someone's gonna write a canon aro character. one day), so his being aro is very very important to me

i'm down with ace fjord too if people have that hc, but that one's less of a big deal for me, though i will say all the attempts avantika made to hit on him and him just entirely stonewalling (at least until he needed to manipulate her and i'm pretty sure he was faking it for that one), was, big mood

(also like... fjord's story is hugely about changing himself to fit in with others' expectations, and not really knowing how to be himself because he's never met anyone like him, and that's a big aspec mood. we still have no media representation and no information about aromanticism or asexuality easily out there, we have to go digging for it, so a lot of us grow up just getting into relationships because we think that's what we're supposed to do, and it takes a while to realise that's not what we wanted. fjord could relate a lot to that i think)

caduceus is just. no social norms here. nothing to fight back against. don't need sex/romance, i'm good with having friends, it's all good :)

there hasn't really been any indication (other than people reading into things to support fjorclay) that caduceus is actually into anyone, and while i'm always a little nervous bc taliesin is much more comfortable playing a character who's into everyone than a character who's into no one, i will continue to hc cad as aroace for as long as physically possible!

(essek is just. while you were having relationships i studied dunamancy)

(who needs romance when you have treason)

[fagsystem]

It's been a couple years but like Noah just made his video reflecting on his mistakes and apologizing for it and he's right, it's a healthy excerise to do. I don't know whether or not I directly invalidated or hurt anyone, I have memory problems and I can't remember. Regardless, I held these believes and that is more than enough to apologize for.

TW: transphobia, biphobia, aphobia, racism, cultural appropriation. I don't know what being a jerk to otherkin folk is called, but that too.

Here's some things I'm sorry for having believed in the past:

I'm sorry I believed microlabels are stupid. They're not and I use a few myself. It's just a way of turning your experience into something tangible and finding others like you, to feel less alone.

Similiar to the last one, I'm sorry I used to dislike the mogai community. I used to blame transphobia on them and that's not okay. It's never been the fault of trans people.

I'm sorry I used to make fun of neopronouns. I believed that's why I was experiencing transphobia, I blamed it on trans people just living their lives. Not only did I ignore the history of neopronouns, but I acted as though I had authority on other's experinces. I don't. It doesn't matter how arbitrary the pronouns. If it makes someone comfortable and they want to use them, then it's not up to me to ask why or find some scientific reason, it's up to me to respect them and validate their real experiences.

I'm sorry I used to call bi people transphobic. Terms change over time and most people define it as attraction to multiple genders. I had absolutely no right to deminish this identity that's been around to decades based off of the prefix bi meaning 2. Respecting people's identities are far more important than some arbitrary grammar rules. I didn't listen to people with the label saying that's how they defined it, I listened to people who didn't know what they were talking about.

I'm sorry I used to invalidate a large part of the asexual community. I believed that it was a black and white topic. Despite not even identifying as aspec at the time, I felt like I had some sort of authority to talk on a topic that has absolutely nothing to do with me. I considered anyone who has any sort of sexual attraction or even a sex drive to be allosexual and just "trying to be oppressed". Your identities are all valid and I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I used to invalidate a large part of the aromantic community. Not only did I consider asexuals and aromantics the same and judge people for being allosexual and aromantic, but I also believed that it was a black and white topic. Instead of listening to your experiences and learning, I just decided you all were "cishet white teenage girls who wanna be oppressed so badly". That was absolutely horrible of me and I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I made fun of otherkin folk. I'll admit, even now I'm probably not as educated or understanding of the topic as I should be. But I'm neurodivergent myself and I understand how someone would identify more with a special interest or an animal than they do as human. I should have recognised that what I was doing was exactly what others do to me. There is absolutely no excuse for the actions I had. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I used to believe that it was okay to do things from closed practices. Before finding out Wicca was founded by a white supremisist and that most of the popular practices within the community are stolen, I used to be one. I thought that some closed practices were okay to do because "oh everyone does that". That's not how it works. Wicca itself was created by stealing the beliefs of Native Americans. This happened during a time where Native practices were being criminalised. While their cultures were being destroyed and erased, while they were being persecuted for it, Wiccans could practice their religion openly and freely with no concequences. I did not educate myself or research into any of it and what practices they might have come from. While I don't believe that during the short time I was practicing that I did anything from a closed practice, excusing it was not okay by any stretch of the word. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I used to believe in a lot of ableist spiritualisations of things, specifically neurodivergent people. Things like starseed and indigo children. The origin of that was that they were terms created to dehumanize disabled children and treat them as less than human.

All of those were from the ages of 12-13, I'm 15 now.

For all of these, this next one especially, I have had the instinct to defend past me and justify his actions. Things like saying how young he was, how he was 12-13, how his only exposure to things were through certain circles, but that doesn't make it okay. There is absolutely no sort of excuse or justification. I don't want anyone to reblog this and accept my apologies if you're not from the community for the apology you're accepting.

I'm sorry I ever supported iDubbbz view on the n-word. I knew enough about it to know that it was a word white people shouldn't say, but I didn't know why. He said that him saying it, reclaiming a slur that does not belong to him, is taking the power away from it. He blamed people who called him out for it for giving a slur power. I knew that there must be something I was missing so I never said it, but I had access to the internet. I could have googled it. There is no sort of excuse for it, it only being something I believed for a short stretch of time and my age didn't change that that's what I thought. I'm sorry.

I understand if this makes some people want to unfollow me or if it makes people dislike me. I understand if people don't forgive me. What I did was not just made okay after I realised I was a part of those communities. I have no right to form an opinion, positive or negative, in terms of forgiving myself for what I thought about communities I was not a part of.

I have always prided myself on how understanding I am of others, how I haven't done "problematic" things, but really I just didn't have a platform to do them on. These are all things I could just leave behind me unsaid.

But I think this is important.

It's important to recognise when you fuck up so you can do better.

Ignoring that I've done some really shitty things doesn't mean they didn't happen.

This is important to do and I'd recommend you do it too. Whether it's publically or privately. Recognise that you did bad things. It doesn't make who you are now bad.

Having said that, the concept that it doesn't make now me bad and that I did shitty things that no one owes me forgiveness for co-exist.

I didn't share this to get apologies and reassurances that "it's okay". It's not okay. It wasn't okay at the time and what I did is still not okay. It might be in the past, but I still held those beliefs and may have hurt people because of them.

If you're a part of a group I'm saying sorry to you can forgive me. But we all need to learn that not only do we not need to forgive people for the things they've done in the past, but that forgiving someone doesn't make what they did okay.

If you're a part of any of the communities and have something to say, you can reblog or comment or message me or send in an ask. But you don't have to say anything if you don't want to. It's not your responsibility.

If I have said anything that sounds like justifying or excusing my actions, please tell me so I can fix it. I don't have time right now to go back and proof read, but I tried to apologize. Apologies can include context as to what you're apologizing for, but not justification of what happened.

I hope you all have a nice day.

[nyctolovian]

Welcome to the Queer Beer Frontier

This is an incredibly self-indulgent word vomit of my sexuality/gender headcanons for TMA S1 Archival Gang. 

Summary: The S1 Archival Gang are all not cishet. That's the whole fic. 

Link to AO3

"Am I right, Jon?"

With eyes glazed over with intoxication, he looked up from his glass. "Huh?"

"Keira Knightley," Tim said, raising an eyebrow. "You're the only person I can turn to for this. The other two are useless in this regard."

"I don't… I don't get…" Jon frowned and glanced towards the other two at the table. Neither was of any help though, because Sasha merely stared at him silently with amusement twinkling in her eyes while Martin busied himself with… something under the table. "What are you talking about?"

"Aww... Doesn't he look adorable when he's confused?" Sasha said, turning to Martin, who sputtered and glared indignantly back at her.

Before Jon could even begin to decipher what just transpired, Tim threw his head back and groaned so loudly a giggly group of girls at the other table peered at him curiously. In a futile attempt to avoid any association to this scene, Jon scrunched his body to hide behind his (conveniently) bigger friends.

His escape attempt proved futile, however, when Tim threw an arm around Jon and tugged him closer. "We didn't invite you to drink with us just so you can sit there looking pretty, boss," he said.

"Wh—" Jon grunted affrontedly, brows furrowing. He rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand and tried to blink through his drowsy alcohol-induced haze. "I really don't—"

"I said, Keira Knightley is the very definition of hot," Tim drawled. "Don't you agree?"

Confusion crossed over Jon's features. "I suppose so."

"You suppose so?" Tim scoffed. "Alright, alright. Maybe she isn't your type. How about Tessa Thompson?"

Jon let out a non-committal noise as he pressed the rim of his glass against his lips. When no liquid hit his tongue, he blinked and looked into the cup.

Empty.

"Lucy Liu?"

Jon lifted his glass and looked around dazedly. "Does anyone—"

"What about Lucy Liu?"

"I really don't— My glass is empty?"

"Oh, sorry. Got distracted," Martin said, rubbing the back of his neck and slowly sliding out of his chair. "It's my round."

"I, well, yes, that'd be—"

Tim barged in with another question. "Okay, then, what about Anna Kendrick?"

"Not really."

"Not really?!" Tim yelled. "Alright, what about—"

"For god's sake, Tim, stop asking me these questions!" Jon groaned. "I'm too bloody ace for this."

Martin blinked at him, eyes owlishly wide with curiosity. "What do you mean?" he asked in a half-squat above his chair.

Jon's initially liquor-tinged face blanched. Suddenly it was show-and-tell in Year 2 all over again, eyes fixated upon him, as he struggled not to cry from stage fright. Except the topic today was far less innocuous than 'My Favourite Animal'. He ran a hand over his face.

Jon wished he could time-travel two hours back to throttle himself for accepting Sasha's invitation to drink. He should have gone home and taken a good long nap.

Unfortunately for him, he was stuck in this crap-hill of a situation. Jon gulped, looking everywhere but at his friends, as he tried to push Tim away. The silence was suffocating and he was pressured to fill it. "Fuck. I didn't mean to…"

Sasha leaned across the table. "Wait, you said you're ace? As in asexual?"

"I… uh, yes?" Jon shrunk into himself. "So what?" he hissed defensively.

Hands shooting up defensively, Sasha shook her head. "Oh, it's not like that! I'm also—"

Tim interrupted her with a whoop so loud that Jon had to yank himself out of his chokehold lest his eardrums burst. Martin had to leap off his chair and cover a hand over Tim's mouth to stop the hollering. Even then, he still did a whole lot of muffled yelling. "We're in public, Tim!" Martin chastised.

Tim tried to pull Martin's hand off, but to no avail.

"I'll take it off if you promise to stop yelling."

He rolled his eyes and nodded. As soon as Martin let go of Tim, however, he flashed the smuggest smirk and said, "So archiving is a gays-only event."

Martin let out a groan and Jon frowned in confusion. "What?"

"We honestly thought all this while you were homophobic," Tim said. "But turns out you're one of us."

Sasha raised her hand. "Disclaimer: I didn't think you were homophobic. Just uptight."

"But I..." Jon muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Wait, so you're all gay?"

"Alright, fellas," Sasha said, clapping her hands. "From the top! I'm aromantic heterosexual."

Tim dramatically placed a hand upon his chest. "And I'm the neighbourhood Bi-con!"

Nervously, Martin said, "Uh, no labels. But not straight."

Invitingly, Sasha gestured towards Jon.

He blinked. "Oh. Uh. Panromantic asexual. Um, and also nonbinary."

"Niiice," Tim said, patting his back hard. "I can't believe we took this long to figure this all out."

"I don't like assuming," Jon admitted.

"But I thought we were being incredibly obvious. Well, me and Martin were at least. We just thought you never mentioned because you were ignoring all of it on purpose."

Jon hummed. He had caught Tim flirting with a couple dudes who came to the archives before. Somehow, however, he had never registered those incidents properly and the idea that Tim wasn't straight had sailed past him entirely. He felt a bit stupid, thinking back right now.

He tried to recall an instance for Martin but drew absolutely nothing, however. "Was Martin very obvious?"

"Oh!" Sasha wheezed, grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Martin here is–" she slapped his back "— painfully obvious."

"Huh," Jon muttered. "I really never noticed."

"You really should," Tim said. "Oh, right. Isn't it your turn to buy us a round, Martin? Do you want to get some right now? While we talk to Jon."

The flush that overtook Martin's face made his freckles darken as he resolutely sat in his seat, beside himself with distraught.

"Alright, alright. Enough teasing," Sasha said to Tim. "Martin, I promise I will keep him in his place so just get us the round already."

After Martin's eyes darted from Sasha to Tim to Jon, then back to Sasha, he shot up from his seat with a huff. "I trust you, okay?" Then, he made a beeline for the bartender.

"Am I missing something?" Jon asked. "I feel like I am."

Sasha shook her head. "We're just all feeling pretty excited is all. It's not every day the notorious Jonathan Sims would come out to people."

"Notorious?" Jon wrinkled his nose. "From what I'm gathering, I'm not very welcome in this archival team. First, I'm homophobic and now notorious."

"Hey," Tim said, "you can't blame me for thinking you might be a homophobe. You don't exactly give off queer vibes."

"Aspec people like us don't really get much opportunity to be overtly queer," Sasha muttered, leaning back. "We're a low-lying bunch."

"Hey! But I could tell that you weren't straight. But Jon flew right under my gay-dar. And I'm usually really good at detecting comrades."

"Time to send that radar for repairs then," Jon replied with a smirk.

"You're not much better!"

"I never claimed to be good at detecting comrades."

Just then, Martin came back, and Jon was pleased to finally get more alcohol. With how much he'd been blabbing already, it felt like that kind of night.

After a while, Jon's head started spinning in what felt like cartwheels and somersaults. Drowsily, he placed his head on the regrettably grimy table. He watched the other three's back-and-forth for a while before suddenly stepping in. "Why no labels?" he asked Martin. "Just curious."

"Hm?" He straightened up. "Oh. Just… not too fond of being put into labels. None of the terms ever sit quite right with me for some reason."

"Fair enough," Jon muttered, voice thick with exhaustion. "I took ages before finding what felt right for me."

"How did you realise you were ace then?" Tim asked.

"Don't know. Just sort of always knew but didn't have a word for it. So when the word asexuality came along…" He waved his hand as though to say, "And the rest was history."

"Is it not liking sex?" Sasha asked. "I personally never really got what's so good about romance. I think it's just messy stuff if you ask me."

"Sex is… It's fine?" Jon winced. "I don't hold any strong opinions on the matter although I do sometimes find it quite fascinating."

"Jesus Christ. It's sex, Jon. Not some academic discussion," Tim scoffed.

He pouted.

"Then, how did you figure it out?" Martin asked.

"Oh. I, uh… It just felt like there was something everyone else seemed to have no trouble getting that I couldn't. Turns out that thing was sexual attraction." He shrugged. His eyelids were growing rather heavy. "I quite like being ace, you know that? I've never told that to anyone else," he slurred the admission.

"Are you tired, Jon?" Martin asked.

"Mhm."

"Do you want to take a nap?"

He nodded, rubbing his face against the wooden table. Sasha ran her fingers through his hair and he hummed, eyelids sliding shut.

Jon remembered how frustrated he used to be when he was younger. Curious and stubborn since he could remember, there was no way he would let this thing he couldn't understand simply slide under the rug. He remembered thinking he might be pansexual, but that didn't sit right in his chest. It took years of hunting down a proper answer and a couple more to acknowledge it.

Sometimes, Jon would mourn over the fact that he would never understand what on earth this "sexual attraction" thing was. Most of the time, however, he found himself quite comfortable in his own skin, finally able to categorise his experience. Now, asexuality was a label he embraced.

And it felt good knowing there were people close by who accepted him.

[posi-pan]

so i watched the thing about harry over the weekend (i thought it was rly cute btw!) and while the way they defined pansexuality def could’ve been better (iirc they went with the “it’s more inclusive” definition), Harry did say something along the lines of “it just felt more ME” and i honestly really liked that. while it wasn’t the best or most accurate portrayal/explanation of what being pan is, it still felt like a step towards the right direction. hopefully one day we’ll have it 100% :)

so glad i have an excuse to rant about this on here now lmao. the movie charmed the fuck out of me and harry is a chaotic pansexual disaster who we stan!!!

for those whose haven’t seen it, harry says:

“i’m pan. it means i don’t have preference in terms of gender. i used to call myself bi, but someone schooled me that pan is way more inclusive and also honestly just more….me.”

he then goes on to worry about being a pan stereotype:

"i felt like i was playing into the whole pan stereotype. that we, you know….get around. i’m just looking for mr., mrs., person right.”

the way he says “and also honestly just more…me” is really great because labels are personal and it’s not all about technical definitions and which one is “better”, it’s more often than not just feeling connected to the label. plus, the way he says it makes me think he cared more about clicking with pan in a way he didn’t with bi, than its supposed inclusivity.

and pan characters talking about pan stereotypes? sign me up! his whole “mr, mrs, person” thing was super cute and actually covered the “all” aspect of pan and the fact that not everyone is a mr or mrs.

is the more inclusive line inaccurate, tired, and biphobic? yeah. but harry is a pansexual male character in a new-adult m/m romcom (written/directed by and starring queer folks) who uses the word onscreen within the first like ten minutes and discusses pan stereotypes, and was written as pan to reflect this generation’s way of thinking about sexuality, which the writer/director found different from his own generation. that’s all super important.

and that importance isn’t negated by one line. should it have not made the cut? of course. but it did and it’s been called out and that’s literally all there is to do about it. there are people acting like the movie or rep or pansexuality is complete trash because of that line, and honestly? that’s super shitty and panphobic.

people praise the fuck out of other movies/shows that have imperfect queer rep, but yet again, we’re showed that if pan rep missteps even in the slightest way, it’s written off completely. everyone immediately jumped on this line for being biphobic, but everyone has been praising sex education despite the shitty cookware line when a character comes out as pan.

people continue to show that biphobia is horrible and deserves to be called out and can ruin queer rep entirely, but panphobia doesn’t even make it on their radar. even with big mouth, very few people mentioned how that scene was panphobic, too. not just biphobic and transphobic.

people need to stop holding pan rep to a higher standard than other queer rep. if pan rep can be written off as trash or have the shitty elements of it outweigh the good/importance of it, then the same has to be true for all queer rep, otherwise your panphobia is showing.

like, let pan folks enjoy and appreciate and be happy about pan rep, even if it isn’t flawless. we don’t have a lot of rep like this, and expecting us to hate it because it isn’t perfect, or care more about the fact that it isn’t perfect than the importance it has to us, isn’t fair or realistic. we can address the issues of queer rep while still appreciating it.

and honestly? pan folks are always the first to criticize and call out their own rep. pan and aspec folks are the only ones i see being so critical of their own rep, in a way other queer folks aren’t. i said it.