#but honestly i think i understand allo sexuality more than i do my own sexuality

[lockhartandlych]

i just realized that my aceness is driven by my aroness.

i dont perceive romantic relationships like a lot of allos do. i can perceive close and intimate relationships, i can even perceive lifelong close and intimate relationships. (though like most people, i find it a daunting concept.) but i cant perceive, specifically, exclusive romantic relationships. "till death do us part" is a phrase that does not compute in my brain.

this translates over to sex. if i have a close friend or queerplatonic partner (i don't think im capable of having a true romantic partner) who i'm able to be intimate with, i don't think that intimacy is required. it's nice, but ultimately not needed to fuel the relationship. this is because the relationship isn't romantic in the allonormative sense. a romantic relationship has sex almost as a prerequisite. in an allo society, a romantic relationship and a sexual relationship are one and the same. i've only been in like two romantic relationships and both started entertaining the idea of intimacy right out of the gate.

but because i don't experience romantic relationships, i don't need to really experience sexual relationships. does that make any sense?

[aro-bird]

I do have to say, as someone on the camp of "you could probably ship someone else who isn't non-partnering but honestly I don't care as long as you don't harass people over this", I think it's lost on some people that the reason why so many non-partnering aroaces may become defensive over these characters even if "it's just fandom" is the fact that a lot of aroaces who do fit these stereotypes and who may fall into this camp genuinely had horrible experiences about their social circles and yes, especially this fandom site, harassing them and saying they don't exist or that they're mentally ill and should "get fixed" among other things.

As common it is to see aspecs here on Tumblr, the queer social media site, you need to understand that there's still a lot of contempt for aroaces outside and inside this place. Hell, I received an ask calling aros and aces delusional just last Christmas Day 2023 that came with a wave of increased arophobia around that time. As much as that time period was definitely discourse against aroallo men, aphobes did not cherry pick on who they're sending hate to.

Besides this, a lot of non-partnering aroaces often receive this kind of dismissal in real life too and as much as some people may think it's not a big deal, it definitely fucks up your brain when people say you and your experiences not only don't matter but you are doomed to live a lonely and miserable life if you don't find someone. Even my otherwise very supportive relatives expressed this concern and it's absolutely out of care but it's fucking damaging to constantly hear that I will die alone if I don't find a partner (romantic, platonic, or otherwise).

This is besides dismissals like this or even non-acceptance had literally barred me from mental health care when I was a teenager because my specialist said I had a "distressed sexuality" and had specialists focused on that aspect rather than all my other issues.

The shipping of a non-partnering (typically romance repulsed or uninterested) character feels like another form of dismissal for someone like me, like my sexuality is not good enough or serious enough to be respected. The shipping of these characters sometimes reinforce the narrative that non-partnering aroace people can't find happiness on their own and do need someone (romantic, platonic, or otherwise) to be happy or they will become happier if they do find this someone. People are having fun with their ships but there are still many people who don't want to spend the time actually extending grace and understanding towards me and my experiences. I'm just another discourse topic and someone who's inconvenient to some of them.

This doesn't even account for how these fan communities aren't just filled with aspec people and do extend to allos who may take some of the discourse and actively apply it in real life to other real life aspec people. People who go and interact with real human beings and may hurt them or harass them. It isn't even accounting for the fact that even online things affect real people too.

Of course, I do understand that a lot more complex aspec identities often don't get the spotlight so they may express themselves through shipping fandom characters but non-partnering people should deserve more than these people isn't really the point of this post.

The point here is that there's a reason why a lot of non-partnering (typically repulsed or uninterested) aroace people get defensive about these things even in fan communities and it's very likely that it's because aphobia and especially against the stereotypical aroace™ still very much exist outside of our little community and they can be informed by media and the fans that consume it and this shit could genuinely have negative consequences. This of course extends to those who do have complex aspec identities as society does not treat those who don't live up to what is expected as "normal" in terms of romantic relationships and sexual attraction kindly.

Distancing yourself from these aroaces who do have frustrations with how media and fandom treat their sexuality because they're being "prudes" or are just affected by "purity culture" is unhelpful to say the least and honestly veers eerily close to shit I hear aphobes say about us.

Absolutely do stop people and block them if they're instigating and participating in harassment over shipping of all things, even these aroaces, but trying to say that every person who do have issues with shipping aroace characters are the same way with this is extremely lacking nuance and absolutely dismissive of other members of the community and why they may have the opinion they hold.

[markerofthemidnight]

🏳️‍🌈 as many as you want.

🏳‍🌈 do you have any headcanons (lgbt, race, neuro, etc) that are important to you?

Oh, shit! No specific fandom in mind or anything?! HOLY SHIT YOU BET I’M GONNA MAKE THE MOST OF THIS!

(warning: rant incoming (under cut))

Hatchetfield (specifically The Lords in Black)

I’ve already talked about my headcanons for their sexualities on a different ask, so let me just run through any specific mental stuff I think they may have…

Tinky definitely has ADHD or something similar, Pokey probably has some kind of antisocial disorder which is why he’s… Like That™️, and maybe autism too (noise sensitivity). I’ve also called Wiggly a narcissist a few times, and while I stand by the fact that that could be the case, I don’t want to make a statement like that about a disorder that I don’t know all too well.

They all go by he/it mainly. They’re fine with any pronouns, though.

Project: Eden’s Garden

I’m not going to give any disorder to Tozu because I think it’s much more fitting for him to just be… straight-up insane rather than having any undiagnosed mental thingy (though ADHD is a possibility, short attention span and all.) He’s definitely somewhere in the ace spectrum, if you ask me! I’d personally like to say panromantic and asexual. And obviously, his race is British.

Mara is also somewhere on the ace spectrum, though I haven’t decided where. I’m not sure what kind of mental illness she might have, though probably something trauma-related like PTSD knowing the kind of story the devs will probably give her.

Other than that, lemme run through the students really quick… Eva is also also somewhere on the ace spectrum, Eloise has an inferiority complex, Damon has DEFINITELY had some very non-straight thoughts that he’s in denial about… oh, and Kai goes by he/they, though wether that’s just for the clout or if they’re genuinely genderqueer is up for debate!

Chonny Jash (GOD it’s been a while since I mentioned that name huh?)

You will pry my headcanon that the Headspace is just the result of a really weird plural disorder from my cold, dead hands. Other than that, Heart and Mind are both autistic, just in different ways (Heart has sensory problems, Mind is antisocial with a tendency to take everything literally, and both have special interests). Soul definitely has something too, but I’m not sure what.

They’re all gay as shit, but to different extents (Soul is straight up homosexual, Heart is pan with a preference for men, and Mind is grey-homoromantic aseuxal).

Finally, they all grew up in Australia but moved to the states at some point in their life (hence their accents. Their old one comes back sometimes depending on their emotions.)

Dreams of an Insomniac

Alex is gay. So gay. I don’t know why they just give off those vibes.

Dr Lankmann is aro/ace, and doesn’t understand people who feel any kind of attraction at all. As in, some of his closest followers have had to talk him out of dissecting the brains of allo people multiple times.

We already know that all Veldigun are aro/ace, and mainly go by he/it pronouns, but if I were to add to that: The Flock goes by they/it, and Simon goes by he/they and is only referred to as “it” by those who don’t trust him.

And, while you’ve given me the opportunity… eh, why the hell not? SNG&D HEADCANONS LETS GOOOOOO (spoilers ahead but honestly I don’t think you care)

SNG&D

(JJ and Ricky are from SpiffyNeedleGeeks’ now-cancelled Curse of Strahd campaign, and played by Lettersent (or Dion, he’s fine with either))

First off, they’re both aro/ace. Like, SO aro/ace. These are children we’re talking about, after all.

We already know they have OSDD canonically, but a very specific headcanon I’ve had for a long time is that they’re also autistic! Mainly because generally their vibes remind me of my own autistic ass, but also because LOOK AT THEM. LOOK AT JJ’S BLANK FUCKING AUTISM CREATURE STARE.

JJ’s autism manifests mainly in the way he acts. Again, the blank stare he canonically does 99% of the time, his tendency to stay futher away from the group (especially before he really learns to trust the rest of the party), the sort of silent nervousness he has around strangers contrasted by the rabid little bastard he becomes when he’s around people he dislikes (in a different way to Ricky taking control) all give me a lot of autistic vibes.

Ricky, however, is a bit harder to categorise. Mainly because most of these are just my headcanons, but… eh. I like to think that he’s, to an extent, a bit noise-sensitive (part of the reason why he doesn’t like social situations besides just being terrible at them), we already know he’s touch-averse canonically, and he’s got a big aversion to certain tastes and textures (though that’s less due to the autism and more due to the fact that he’d literally never eaten before in his life until like a week ago).

This also adds a much funnier layer to why he’s so overprotective of JJ. It’s not just because, y’know, he was born specifically to protect him, but also because it’s literally his special interest. Whenever someone asks him something about him, it probably takes all the strength he has to resist the urge to ramble for hours.

Aside from that, the brothers also both gained PTSD from everything they’ve been through. While I’m fairly sure it’s canon that Ricky has PTSD from their death, I like the idea that JJ has some too that he more or less got over in the years between their death and meeting the party. (The sight of a Displacer Beast still puts him on edge, though.)

…Sorry, I just- I had to get that off my chest.

I could talk about my headcanons for some of their other characters more, but I think I’ve been ranting on too much (besides, it’s mainly JJ and Ricky I have headcanons for anyways, as they are by far my favourites).

[cartoonrival]

do you think sakura could be arospec?

this is something ive been thinking about especially because i hc the rest of team 7 as aro/aspec for their own independent reasons so it just like. seems like shes left out if shes not. to be fully honest i think her sexuality is pretty much free reign in terms of headcanons because even though her crush on sasuke is supposedly at the center of her story theres a million angles you can take on it regarding how genuine that crush actually is. the same argument people use to hc her as a lesbian could be used to say shes aro or that she's literally just not in love with him but still caved the general pressure to pick someone to be in love with.

her crush on sasuke being some form of comphet definitely does carry water, considering how she presents her crush on him to ino and her friends like it's an accomplishment that will make them like her more, and obviously her crush is exaggerated to the point that it wouldn't be a stretch to say she's just acting how she's seen people on tv act when they're in love.

on the other hand, i think observing that sakura has slightly mildly obsessive tendencies from the start is kind of important to understanding how her time with team 7 turns her into the person she is at the end of the story; someone who will go through hell and high water for the people she loves, for the idea of a perfect team that she only got to see flashes of to begin with. she is, after all, the only person who naruto (an insane person) feels understood by in his love for sasuke. that's the reason he feels drawn to her, and he's admitted this multiple times. with this in mind, i also don't think its inaccurate to say that her crush on sasuke could easily be genuine. she's 12, after all, a first crush at that age does make you act stupid.

the point of all this is to set the scene that i truly think people can take whatever angle they want with her sexuality. im honestly not married to any particular headcanon. i think she tends to have an attitude that she understands romance better than naruto does (who is almost definitely accidentally aroacecoded and im tired of acting like thats just my personal headcanon and not well supported by the actual text), which usually makes me lean towards the idea that she has a better idea of these supposedly intrinsic feelings and therefore is allo. her initial struggle to understand naruto's obsession with sasuke (describing it to sai as brotherly) plays into this but im not sure how. it could potentially be ascribed to the idea that she doesn't think it looks like romance because she has a rigid idea of what romance looks like. this is just weird. i feel like she would've suggested to naruto that she thought he was gay if she thought he was gay, but she doesn't do this (saying this in terms of her as a character separated from the person who wrote her. i know why kishi didn't have her suggest that). but maybe naruto being gay just didn't even cross her mind because homophobia runs so deep. but she's a fujoshi so that doesn't seem right either

ok so i guess my answer is no i dont think she is. but i think its well possible for someone to headcanon her arospec and for it to be awesome

[aroaceconfessions]

So ahhhh

I'm aspec

I broke up with my allo partner of about 10 months

I hate how relieved I feel

I was lying about my feelings for him cause he couldn't except that what I felt wasn't what he could understand so I just said that I love him romantically and I think I've told him I find him sexually attractive

I don't love him like that, not in a way I actually recognize it as anyway and the whole sexually attracted thing was a lie

My friend, that honestly I adore more than I did him but i actually expressed with him, told me I was acting like a lovesick doll

And I was, I was a little Marionette doll for him and that hurt both of us

This entire experience was something I want to look back on fondly as it was the most free I felt from my cage but it was also one of most loneliest cause I noticed I felt lonely

We agreed we'd stay friends and I don't want to lose him or our mutual friends

I don't want to lose our mutual friend more than I don't want to lose him tho

I was friends with this mutual before we dated and because I was that he saw me as someone he wanted to date

I'm lost on how I'm supposed to live now we broke up cause I was basing my future on him being my partner

I'm terrified of being alone which is probably why I agreed to date him even tho it wasn't very alright with me

I was scared if I told him I didn't want to and was more forceful in saying no I'd be lonely

I can't imagine my life past a few more yrs time

And anything I do want to do with my life I can't until I'm way older and if I was to be with him that would have meant I'd be even longer before I could

He was taking the blame for the break up cause he needs someone perfect

I am no where near what he needs in a partner

We both knew this

I need someone who can keep me stable and he needs the same but we can be that for each other

I've tried and it isn't enough

I wasn't enough in any way

We're incompatible and I knew that the entire time but just didn't want to let go

And he couldn't either

We both have mental health issues

Every one around us was telling us to break up

It was a peaceful one on our own terms

He's my one and only shot at relationships like that

So many people had issues with how I wasn't telling him off for stuff that they thought was wrong like how I was 'letting' him talk to an ex of his or how he missed this other ex

Like yea that 2nd one hurt a bit and sent me spiralling the 1st time it was brought up

But I don't understand how people can go around policing other people's relationships like that

I was asked so many times how I was okay with letting him do shit with other people

Like what does that have to do with me???

He has friends and god I hate that mentality

It was stressing me out so fucking much that I was the only thing that made him happy - he'd say that to me

Like yea I understand why you're like that

But bloody hell why were other people so

Aghhh

Pushy with how they want us to act when you're 'together' with someone

I wouldn't put it past us to get back together

That really wouldn't be the best for either of us tho

[pandorasboxoftreasures]

There you go.

Looks like the "misreading what I write" police finally got me with their Hammer of Dawn and have finally unleashed my fury when I was trying so damn hard to be patient and considerate of their sometimes straight garbage behaviour.

Own server time, I reckon. Overdue. Should've left after the first warning with the ridiculousness of it but I genuinely thought maybe I would be able to be comfortable there after a while. It never happened. I was always uncomfortable after that. Always watching my words. Checking with mods to make sure I stuck to rules.

It still wasn't good enough for them, I guess. Their assumptions took priority over what I actually was saying no matter how carefully I tried to word things.

I reckon my keeping quiet about my gender identity contributed. But there's a frustrating dynamic with being nonbinary for me now as there was back when I was an egg online hiding behind anonymity and avoiding the question of "a/s/l", I don't want to answer the question. I don't want to be asked the question. I don't want to answer. My gender is me. It doesn't matter. Don't bring it up. I don't want to think about it.

I honestly don't even like calling myself nonbinary because there's still some sort of twisted gender expectation based on the binary applied to me when I say that that's more uncomfortable for me than just not saying anything. And yet I'm still forced in situations like this to have to say something because this whole situation is screwed up.

But, you know, the "not all cis" mod team didn't consider that. Seems even in a place like that, default is still cis white straight binary allo man and proud of it even after I already showed some of those didn't apply.

What kind of inclusive space is that where you have to announce everything about yourself (gender, ethnic background, sexuality, etc) in order to be judged with how much weight and respect your words are given? Should've known that place wasn't for me when folks unironically used the term "yt".

The same mod that gave me my first warning for being "racist" for saying not all cultures view comparing a person to an animal as a negative thing, said to me that because I'm European I don't understand drastic wealth inequality. Seriously.

Although there's quite a few things I'll be doing very differently on top of not assuming discrimination in absolutely everything. I dislike the hypersexualisation of the Avatar fandom in a lot of spaces. Not to say the server wouldn't have spaces for that, but it would be reduced in focus and how explicit compared to the others I've encountered.

I'm no prude, but it sets a really, really bad impression if that's the majority of what's available and seen in feeds. Diversity is important for a healthy anything. Fandoms are no exception. There's not enough spaces for the aces right now. And we're definitely, definitely there.

However, I do have plans for something particularly unique that I'm sure very few other Avatar fan servers could do as a trade off for this. Inspired by some other non-fandom servers I've frequented.

Will keep everybody interested here posted but unfortunately this has happened to me during a very busy week when I'm not able to do as much as I want to. As these sort of things tend to do.

[wolf-queer-discourse]

Adventures in Aphobia #4

I am sad to announce another addition to this series. I stumbled on an account with a whole catalog of aphobic posts, so the real hard part was choosing just one to respond to! Here it is:

I’m starting to think aphobic allos are incapable of holding their tongue. “Not to discourse, but—” Own your bigotry, coward. You are making an active choice to create this post that you know ace people will see and feel bad about themselves. Revel in it. Enjoy it for all I care, but don’t lie about it.

Like the last post I covered, this poster seems to think asexual labels are just “too complicated” and “too specific” to exist. Can aphobes stop burdening ace people with their lack of basic comprehension? My patience wears thin. If they wanted to understand asexuality, they could.

Yes, attraction can feel different for everyone. There’s a difference between experiencing attraction in slightly different ways and not experiencing it at all. I’m going to break this down as simply as I can.

Sexual attraction is looking at a person and seeing their body/parts of their body as sexual. This most often leads to the urge to have sex with someone. However, since humans are not crazy sex animals, many secondary motivations cause people to wish to make the choice to abstain from sex in certain contexts. Perhaps they are sexually attracted to a person (again, seeing their body as a desirable sexual thing), however, do not yet trust the person enough to be intimate. Maybe the person has chosen to be celibate for religious reasons, which supersede their instinctual sexual desire.

While these secondary motivations absolutely vary from person to person, they do not erase the fact that the people in these situations are allosexual and experience sexual attraction. Being ace has nothing to do with these secondary motivations. It means no gender or person is sexually appealing.

Asexuality has many harder-to-understand nuisances, of course, I want to be careful not to lambast people who genuinely misunderstand, but honestly, the definition of asexuality in itself is not a hard concept to grasp at all. Aphobes repeatedly use definitions of asexuality that have been called inaccurate dozens of times, just to make the argument that ace and allo people are actually all the same. There is nothing “pathologizing” about the simple acknowledgment that you do not see people sexually. It’s absurd how much aphobes try to pretend that most people seeing other people as sexually appealing isn’t a huge part of society. If you’re not ace, you are very easily blind to that reality because it’s so normalized through your own eyes.

“micromanaging the particulars of our sexual orientation (the term deriving from sex as a word for gender at the time it was created, not sex as the act)”

Ah, the feeling when an aphobe was right for half a second but immediately dropped that idea. Let me slow anyone down who missed it. Yes, the “sexual” in a person’s orientation refers to the gender of the attraction, not the sex act itself. This person has just recognized that someone’s sexuality is about sexual attraction, not literally the act of having sex. Surely this supports ace people, no? Did the poster not just argue that other people are “basically ace” due to not wanting sex in certain contexts? Would the attraction part not disapprove that this isn’t the same thing?

The poster says gay, lesbian, straight and bi are all the labels we need, and that no qualifiers are ever necessary because attraction is more than just the urge to have sex with people. Ah, yes. The Holy Four sexualities. No one has any labels outside of that… Also, this completely excludes aroace people. Most people who argue this are at least willing to acknowledge that some people aren’t attracted to anyone in any way at all. This poster probably forgot to consider this, to be honest, but it’s a pretty big oversight either way.

Yes, attraction as a whole is more than the urge to have sex with someone. But sexual attraction is only about, who’d have guessed it, attractions that are sexual. When we have labels such as heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, is it any wonder people who don’t experience the sexual part don’t identify with the label?? I have no clue why people against the split attraction model will die on the hill that heterosexual attractions don’t have to be sexual. Of course they do. It’s in the WORD. Why on earth would a heteroromantic ace person identify as a word that so evidently does not match their experience? Why are aphobes obsessed with forcing ace people to choose a word that blatantly suggests the existence of their sexual attraction? Not every hetero attraction is under the heteroSEXUAL umbrella. That’s why separate words, such as heteroromantic, are clearly useful and not hard to understand. The name is exactly what the word means.

“it’d be also super neat if we could stop pretending that it’s somehow more inclusive or easier for people with a fraught relationship to sex to split sexual orientation into Ace and Non-Ace”

Literally blatant aphobia. People with “fraught relationships to sex”? Why the fuck are you refusing to say the word asexual? Aphobes do this so much. They’ll be like “people with sexual disorders...people who are afraid of sex...people who are weirdos”. No. Asexual people. People who do not experience sexual attraction. Get that in your head. And yeah, it’s absolutely easier for ace people to split their orientation when they don’t match. No one is forcing everyone to split their attractions if they’re not split. If yours all fit neatly in one box, good for you. It’s still absolutely more inclusive to allow people to define their sexual orientation in two halves if that’s how they experience their attraction.

It is true that most people’s sexual and romantic orientations are deeply intertwined and not easily ripped apart. But there are exceptions. Clearly alloace people are those exceptions. They exist, and there’s legit no reason to keep crying about how they experience their attraction differently than you.

“As if it’s any help at all to shove e.g. lesbians who struggle with the sexual aspect of lesbian identification off into their own restricted zone away from Normal Lesbianism that requires a special prefix before lesbian.”

Lesbian means sexual and/or romantic attraction.  The and/or is very important. And again, the poster does not say “lesbians who don’t experience sexual attraction”. They instead resort to using insulting language such as “struggle with the sexual aspect of lesbian identification”. What the actual fuck. Ace lesbians are not “struggling” to do anything. They are perfectly healthy and valid the way they are. Funny how the poster accuses ace people of segregating people and pathologizing others when they instead insinuate ace people are struggling to experience something they ought to. Talk about pathologizing. Ace lesbians get to talk about being ace because they are ace, and it matters to a lot of them.

“That their way of feeling attraction is just as much a normal part of lesbianism as anyone else’s, no qualifiers needed.”

What is this projection? Identifying as ace means you’re...not normal?? Jesus, I hope no ace lesbians had to read you saying that they’re not normal lesbians and that they should stop using a useful label to describe themselves.

“The idea of a split romantic and sexual orientation is an unhealthy, pathologizing way of looking at sexual orientations that’s just gonna end up alienating people who feel lost in mainstream depictions of sexuality even more and I am done with pretending that I am okay with that kind of rhetoric being spread.”

Lmao. This person wrote an entire post filled with insulting stands-ins for asexual and repeatedly insinuated there was something wrong with them, but yes, ace people are the ones pathologizing themselves. Okay. And people who feel lost in mainstream depictions, hm. Sounds like you may be referring to a lot of ace people. You really think a word is such a terrible thing, don’t you? Aphobes who think they’re polite really do be like “of course it’s okay not to want sex! Not everyone feels sexual attraction!” Then the person is like, “Yeah, I’m ace,” and suddenly all hell breaks loose.

This person sounds like they’d be against all sexuality labels, since it’s all too CoMplICated, yet...they’re not. This is just something they’re slapping onto ace people, like they’re the ones a step too far.

And of course they end the post decrying themself as the true victim. They’re just so done letting ace people peacefully exist? “Omg, guys ace people existing makes my one brain cell overheat! They need to stop for meeee!”

I’m done pretending I’m okay with this person’s rhetoric being spread. Don’t like the split attraction model? Great. Then don’t use it. Feel like ace people’s experiences are just like yours? Awesome. Sounds like you might be ace! Just do us all a favor and don’t make your shallow mind ace people’s responsibility. 

[charmspoint]

how was it ^-^

Let's seee. It was good, perfectly enjoyable, it reads fast and i was never really bored with it. I'd give most chapters like a 7/10 and then chapters 71-82 like 8 or 9/10 and then back to like 7/10 and the ending was weird but also kinda sweet in its own way.

Now to preface anything else: This isn't my type of manga. I can easily see it being a 10/10 for someone who really likes fight scenes and death and gore and what not. I'm not really into that, I'm a character and story driven person which is why the manga as a whole scored as just goodish to me while chapters 71-82 which kinda make a lot of emotional and psychological aspects of the chapters before them come to culmination scored a lot better. You know I don't GET fights. Chainsaw man was very gory but I didn't even really register it. Like because of all the gore I feel I heard people say it has horror aspects but I never really felt scared or off put or anything. It was just kinda like 'oh a lot of people are in pieces rn, okay, that's a thing that's happening'. So yeah that's why the score is the way it is, it simply isn't a manga that focuses on things I like and that's perfectly alright. I couldn't buy into the hype like I did with jjk and I certently didn't feel 'oh this is the best thing ever' like I felt with witch hat atelier.

With all that out of the way let me talk long and hard about Denji and sexual aspects of the series in a surprisingly positive light:

I like Denji as a character. I think he's still a bit rough around the edges but he's not a character made for introspection so that's fine, you really kinda have to take what he says and how he acts and think about it because the author won't do it for you. That being said, I think Denji is probably the most compelling shonen protagonist I've read so far. Like when I read bnha or jjk I see Izuku and Yuji and I'm like 'this is a shonen protagonist'. They are a likable character but they won't be your favorite character. They are largely made for japanese high school boys to project themselves on and I'm not a japanese high school boy. That being said, Denji feels like a character of his own and not something meant to be projected on to. Honestly if anyone projected on to Denji I'd be worried about them. But that makes him probably the most compelling shonen protagonist I've ever read. You just wanna dig a shovel into his skull and go 'man kid ur fucked up'.

I know when you first read csm you were off put by Denji because it felt like a manga put a pervert character as a protag which is naturally off putting and I can 100% see that. Now be it because I was warned about it first or something else, I didn't actually find fanservice jarring at all. It kinda was integrated into the world in a way that made me think 'yeah of course it's like this'. This is a very grim and rough and drty world and things in it would be just like that. It is a story about base desires and sex is one of those. These are people who expect they will die any day now and Denji is a person who's just now getting to experience a somewhat decent standard of living. Here's a thing I noticed though: even as Denji thinks many sexual things (which, he's a teenager, that's normal) he's actually very respectful. I don't think I've ever seen him touch anyone without their permission, in fact i think things like that mostly happen to him. Like example how Power comes in just as Denji is in the middle of his 'i wanna touch some boobs' phase. You would almost expect that what happens next is we see him try to grope Power as she's sleeping or something. But no, he doesn't do a thing until she asks him to help her save her cat and he gets to touch her boobs for it. And it's like this with p much every other sexual encounter through the series. Both partners are consenting and getting something out of the whole thing. Sexual aspects are used as normal bartering chips in a world where your whole body is a bartering chip. It's normal and no one is forced into it. I've told you before that my biggest misgiving with fanservice is that it's often based on embarrassment and unwilling participation of the girls. Like fanservice isn't fanservice because you saw a boob it's fanservice because you saw a boob when you weren't supposed to, when the girl didn't want you, when she's angry or scared or embarrassed because you did. A lot of fanservice feels very much like taking something from the girl, debasing and humiliating her for the sake of watchers/readers satisfaction.

Despite all it's sexual jokes and themes and everything else Chainsaw man never once made me feel like that. It never once made me feel like the author expected me to gain sexual satisfaction out of debasement of female cast. Which is why even though boobs and naked women are literally all over the manga I didn't mind it at all. It stopped being fanservice and became just a natural part of characters lives as sexuality and sex is a natural part of real world.

Back to Denji.

So I mussed a bit about Denji and Maslow before but here it is in total

Denji is 16 years old and at the beginning of the series he's just starting to have his physiological and safety needs met. Like he doesn't live like a human being at the start of the series and Makima recruiting him is A BIG CHANGE for him. Like for a good while Denji is like 'Now I have three meals a day and a place to sleep at so I'm good with whatever'. He's given reliable sources to fulfil his needs and he's given a way to keep those sources stable. He has a job, it's not a good job but he has it. He has a place to live and a theoretical safety net. He's immortal so there's nothing to fear in the death and injury department which means the otherwise unsafe job is perfectly fine for him. Now what Denji gets stuck on through most of the series is Love and Belonging. Because you can't just give someone love like you can give them food (not that Makima doesn't try). People are more complicated. Compromises need to be made and human connections are hard to establish, especially if you are someone like Denji who has no idea how to interact with others aside from obeying orders. This is why his need for love and belonging first manifests as a sexual need (that and he's an allo teenager). Human connections are hard but sexual contact doesn't have to come tied with connections so it's easier (if unsatisfactory as Denji finds out with Power) to achieve. A lot of Denji's personal growth is tied to him finding out that this need can be fulfilled by other things alongside sex. This is why I love chapters 71-82 so much because they are really a culmination of Denji's emotional journey in that category. Along the way along with sexual love he finds romantic one. He wants to spend time with girls he likes, he wants them to like him beyond the sexual. Of course sexuality is always an aspect of it but after that scene with Power it's never the only thing. Human connection, understanding the other person, knowing them, loving them, making them happy. And it all culminates in the familial love he finds with Aki and Power, taking care of someone and being taken care of for no other reason than they are your family and you love them, you care for them, you want them to be well and happy. There's this scene with Power later on when they are taking a bath together and Denji is like 'huh we are both naked but it doesn't feel naughty at all'. He's stopped seeing Power sexually because he started to see her as his sister and it's just really nice, those few chapters we get to see them as a family are really nice.

By the end of the series Denji starts checking off the esteem box too, by people accepting him and loving him and him feeling like he wants to respond to that, but I feel like that aspect and possible self actualization will be more explored in part 2.

There you have it, my essay about why Denji is the most compelling Shonen protagonist I've ever read :)

Also I really liked the girls in this series, it really isn't afraid of letting it's female characters be weird and gross and in Makima's case just plain evil and I appreciate it for that. I just wish Quanxi got more time and things to do but she's a side character and it's not her fault she's cooler than the whole main cast (Power best girl tho).

I feel like I talked a lot already about what was my most important take away from the whole thing but yeah, in general: pretty entertaining read, would probably be a complete blast for someone who's invested in fights, a little thin on psychology and emotion for my tastes but when it delivers them it delivers them good.

Also I like how it basically ended on 'you should give people more hugs' it was cute

Additionally I think the authors idea to basically release manga in seasons like you would an anime is straight up genius I hope that more mangakas start picking this up because it allows them more rest in between big arcs.

Ok now that's it for real this time.

[kachulein]

4, 7, 8 and 9 for the ace asks! (also how are you dear, we haven't talked in so long sjdjd)

Aww thank you for asking Sophie!!🥺💗 I'm doing okay, I'm currently recovering from a few really difficult months (or more like the whole year 2021😅) but,,, I feel like I'm finally on the path of doing better, so I hope this isn't just a phase and that I'll continue to improve.🥺👉🏼👈🏼 How have you been?? And yes right, we haven't caught up in such a long time akdkskdk

4. 🖤 are you out as asexual irl?

Kinda 50/50. I'm not keeping it a secret but I also haven't made a big coming out thing. I talked to my mom and stepdad about it when we were talking about the lgbtq+ community and I've also mentioned and explained it to a few close friends when the topic came up. I'm more of a secretive person, so I'm not really the type to bring stuff like that up on my own but if it fits the conversation, I don't have trouble talking about it and coming out.

7. 🖤 what's your favorite asexual stereotype?

I think I really love the cake stereotype because c'mon, cake is so delicious and it's also a really cute and funny stereotype and not a harmful one. 🥺

8. 🤍 what's your least favorite asexual stereotype?

Oof... it's hard to name only one, so I have a few that really bother me. I dislike the stereotype that we "haven't found the right person/haven't had good sex yet", like I'm sorry but I think I can judge my sexual experiences better than someone else? And also the stereotype that "asexuality is the result of sexual abuse"... that's honestly, I don't even know what to say to that.😶 And also that we want to be "special snowflakes" and "infiltrate pride" as if the ace-spec community isn't discriminated against and that there isn't a huge lack of representation in the media, so that allos might be able to understand us better and also realise that we do, in fact, exist. Especially this "asexuality doesn't exist" stereotype is one I really struggle with because as a demisexual, I feel like if I was to explain my identity to someone, there's probably a lot of people who might think "but that's normal/everyone is like that" and that I just want a label to feel "special" or "different". When in fact, my experience is quite different and just like how I struggle to understand how often and how exactly allos experience sexual attraction, it's probably also difficult for them to imagine that I do not experience it unless certain conditions are fulfilled. Like, an allosexual might choose to wait to have sex with someone until they're in a committed relationship or they prefer to be emotionally vulnerable with someone first but they still feel attracted to that person during that process. In contrast to that, I need this connection in order for sexual attraction to even be possible - so then, having my experience invalidated and have people treat me differently because they think I'm "weird" or making excuses when I reject them is just frustrating. I really try my best to explain to others that I can't feel attracted to anyone unless I have a deep connection with them and even then the attraction isn't guaranteed because just like allos aren't attracted to everyone of their preferred gender(s) that they meet, I'm also not attracted to everyone I have a connection with, some people are just really close friends that I love in a platonic way. But today's dating culture is so fast-paced that hardly anyone has the patience to really get to know someone first and to try and understand that people like me just work differently. Sorry, this turned into such a rant aqbskwlfp,,,

9. 💜 cake or garlic bread?

Definitely cake because I don't like garlic😅

ace ask game!

[modew]

Being in a romantic relationship before you figure out you’re aromantic (part I)

When I read “not feeling the right things at the right time” it took me right back to my past relationship with my ex-boyfriend. That was before I understood that romantic and sexual attraction (like so many things) are on a spectrum. It’s embarrassing to look back at my own ignorance. But yeah, that was me. Admonishing myself for not feeling the right things at the right time. Why couldn’t I just say ‘I love you’ back to him? It came so easily off his lips.

I just couldn’t grasp the concept. Didn’t it take years to love a person? How could I love him having known him less than half a year? That was simply irrational to me. And I am aware that not everything comes down to me being aroace. I am sure allo people also hold different notions of what it means to love someone and how fast one develops those feelings. Either way, I felt completely overwhelmed when I learned that he loved me. Maybe he was just in love and I wasn’t experiencing the same thing? I am not sure. I am still not certain if being aro means I can’t fall in love. Somehow that seems a little conceited to me. I am probably lacking the self-confidence to claim that I literally can’t fall in love. It seems like the line of every cliché bachelor character in any romance where someone swears up and down love wasn’t for them (just to be cured of that very notion by “the right one” of course).

I remember I felt giddy in the beginning. We were so drunk on each other’s company. Thrilled by being able to talk for hours, having lots of sex, being disgustingly hands-on in public and all that love-bird shit. We were inseparable. Some would probably say that I was in love then. But after breaking up I was already questioning if I had ever really been in love with him.

At some point in our relationship I started saying 'I love you' back. I mean how long can you go with one person telling you they love you without returning the sentiment? Even if they insist that it’s alright. But I think what made me say it was a mixture of that, feeling like an appropriate amount of time had passed and just a general sense of that was how it was supposed to be. It made sense that I loved him. And how was I supposed to know what my feelings were exactly? After all, love is famously an elusive emotion that no one can really explain anyways, right? Don’t we all know that scene where a teenager asks an adult what love feels like and/or how they knew that they had met ‘the one’?

I knew it was completely normal not to truly know what love is and whether what I was feeling was love or not. So I just made an executive decision, so to speak, and simply started calling it love. Yes, I do want to facepalm as I recount this.

Now, that I know about the split model of attraction and that there is more out there than “boy meets girl, boy loves girl etc.”, it all seems a little ridiculous. Or maybe I am being too hard on myself. If I had understood that “I must love him” was not the only answer, I would have probably spared me and him a lot of pain. Because this was only the start of course. Just one of the problems that arouse because romance was simply beyond me. All the little gestures that came naturally to him that I would have never even thought of. My constant struggle to fulfill the role of what I perceived to be a “good girlfriend”.

But occasional requests to put more effort into the relationship escalated to a complete wreck of a relationship. I came to think of him as clingy, I didn’t understand why I was apparently constantly on his mind and why he wanted to spend most of his time with me. Eventually I stopped caring and refused to give our relationship more time than I gave my friendships. I admitted to myself that I would rather spend an evening with my friends than with my boyfriend.

-

This turned into a longer post than I had planned. Clearly I have a lot of hang-ups when it comes to my ex... So I will leave it at this abrupt end for now and probably continue in another post. I don’t really want to end the post on such a negative notion, but for now I just hope that someone can maybe relate to my experiences. I honestly have not seen much about other aro’s experiences with relationships. I can’t be the only one though who didn’t figure out their shit as a teenager and ended up in relationships that were doomed from the start, right?

[So..I wrote a part II now. Maybe I will even figure out how to link it or something :)]

[acespec-ed]

hi!! I was wondering if u could help me? I’m alloaro and I just discovered the term aromid… and it makes me question myself. I’m very unsure if I’m on the asexual spectrum or if I just experience sex repulsion sometimes? I’ve looked at so many acespec labels and cannot find one that actually fits me. literally I’ve seen them all. I haven’t really felt comfortable calling myself ace and I do enjoy saying I’m alloaro but I wonder if I’m actually on the ace spectrum as well… how do I differentiate between sex repulsion and asexuality? For one, I’m hypersexual and feel the need/pressure to be sexual or I’m not good enough… and I do want sex I think? I fantasize about it and I enjoy smut and some art .. but when I visually see nakedness or irl sex… it makes me feel very uncomfortable and I don’t enjoy that. I enjoy the thoughts and fiction and when people are only partially clothed…. but I just have this feeling of repulsion and fear of actually doing it irl (what if I hate it and it makes me uncomfortable?) and when I think about it I do imagine myself and this other person but it’s also hard to actually see us and not just faceless non existing people… and idk how much of me wanting sex is just pressure from hypersexuality or me genuinely having sexual attraction … idk if I really have much of a libido or want for sex?? would I be able to call myself alloaro AND aromid.. as in I’m alloaro but possibly SOMEWHERE on the ace spectrum?.. or maybe I’m just sex repulsed and fully not ace at all? I feel like my situation here makes me unable to call myself alloaro but I AM alloaro and I love being alloaro… I don’t wanna stop saying I am but it also feels like there’s more to it?

same anon from before! I read a post of yours about the umm “allos see ‘cake’ and immediately know they want to eat it” and it confuses me … idk what I experience? I see fictional characters and I can go “they look sexy I am attracted to them maybe if want to have sex with them?” I see people and ??? idk sometimes I get unwanted thoughts of having sex with friends when I don’t actually want to or find attractive…I can see people and think they’re sexy/attractive .. but idk if I’d think “yeah I’d have sex with them” I mean it depends bc I think someone can imagine having sex with someone and enjoy it and want it but would they actually wanna seriously have sex with that stranger without having any connection with them…? Sex is scary so I’d need to know and trust them maybe… be scared to show my body..but I don’t think I’d be comfortable calling myself demi? Idk I don’t get this .. do I look at someone and immediately think whether I’d want to have sex with them or not? I really don’t know … also.. so…. Libido is just wanting sex in general and sexual attraction is wanting specific people?… how do I differentiate all of this it’s so confusing! I guess MAYBE I do look at peopl and go “wow they’re pretty/sexy id want sex” BUT I DONT KNOW LIKE IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT… am I not allo WHATS going on here .. can you explain what it would be like to be sex repulsed AND allo instead of ace? and the difference between that and being ace and sex repulsed? thank u

~~

I’m so sorry I’m saying so much I just have no one to talk to :C … but um… someone told me “if you’re sex repulsed .. you’re still allo unless you feel like u don’t relate to being allo anymore” and I’m honestly so confused because…. do my weird feelings towards sex influence my sexuality? do I still feel connected to being allo? personally I feel like these feelings are ones allo people don’t typically have ..plus I’ve always felt bad for not being sexual enough or feeling the same sexual feelings as people/ (also why do I have sex repulsion I don’t think I rlly had much sexual trauma going on.. some little incidents but still??) and if I told allo people these feelings… they would not relate and would think I’m weird for it ..but an ace person might relate and would understand … I feel like it does influence how I see my sexuality/attraction and complicates things…however.. I feel like I can’t call myself acespec bc often I want sex (even with a specific person.. although they look different when I imagine them and also don’t exactly have a Look/face/body in my head..same with me) often and I’m hypersexual so I like over sexualizing myself …plus I like saying I’m alloaro and don’t want to let go of it… nor do I want to ID with a specific ace spec label.. I’d like to just say I’m ace (just like how I call myself aromantic even when I’m specifically gray romantic) why can’t I just be ace and not ace at the same time or in between I don’t know 😭…. what do allos experience how is their life like with sexual attraction and how is someone’s life like without sexual attraction … I don’t get it at alllllll

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I saw you sent three asks and decided to combine them all in this post to make answering this easier. Just reading these asks are making my head spin, so I can only imagine how confused you must feel. And it's fine that you're sending so many asks- I know what it's like to have no one to talk to about things.

I'll start this off by saying you can call yourself whatever you feel most comfortable calling yourself. And if it's alloaro, then of course you can keep calling yourself alloaro. You do sound like you could fit somewhere on the ace spectrum, but I couldn't tell you where.

A lot of what I'm about to say you might already know, since it sounds like you've been doing your own bit of research, but here I go.

Whether or not you desire sex on its own doesn't determine if you're asexual. If you've never felt any urges to have sex with anyone specific, then you haven't experienced sexual attraction. So it's helpful to remove your interest in sex itself, along with libido, when questioning. Focus it all on if you've wanted sex with anyone in particular. If the answer is no, or very rarely, it's likely you could be on the asexual spectrum. You mentioned you've experienced it towards someone specific, so it sounds to me like you'd be in the gray area, if on it at all.

I will say, it is totally normal to be nervous, and even scared, of having sex at first. A lot of allos are able to get over this fear- possibly because of sexual attraction. I first felt sexual attraction towards my boyfriend, and though I was repulsed, I wanted to do sexual things with him so bad I was able to get over the fear and disgust through slow exposure. So I think sexual attraction on its own is a huge motivator to "get over" sex repulsion and go for it.

Of course, you should never do anything you are not comfortable doing. And never force yourself into doing any sexual activities. A lot of aces have ended up with trauma over that sort of thing. The reason I went for it was because I naturally became comfortable with things escalating as time went on. Kinda like exposure therapy, I guess.

I'm not sure if you already saw it, but I did write this post on an experience I had where I was sex-repulsed by someone I was sexually attracted to. So it is possible to be sex-repulsed and sexually attracted to a person, but I understand how hard it can be to tell for sure.

I can't tell you what it's like to be allo. But other than the few times I've experienced sexual attraction, I lived my life with a libido directed towards no one, fluctuating between being sex-indifferent and repulsed, and occasionally getting a crush I had no sexual attraction towards. 

As for what it’s like being sex-repulsed and ace: I can’t imagine having sex with anyone. I just can’t. Every time I get a crush, I try to imagine sex with them, and my brain just shuts that off. It wants nothing to do with those thoughts. Sex-repulsed with sexual attraction: It’s only happened twice and the first time (with my bf) I had no idea wtf was going on and it was 10 years ago so I can’t remember enough to tell you aside from what I’ve already said. The other time though, I wasn’t 100% sure if it was sexual attraction at first- but my body became aroused at the sight of him, and the arousal went away when he left. But when I thought of sex with him, I was grossed out. But I kept forcing myself to think of sex with him, and grew more comfortable with the idea. And the more I thought about it, the more I figured, “hey, maybe I am sexually attracted to him.” 

Every person is different though.

I can totally understand your confusion because some of your experiences sound like you’re allo and some sound like you could be acespec. I honestly don’t know what else to say or what answers to give. I will say this though: I strongly doubt any allo has had to question their allosexuality as much as you are.

But circling back to what I first said: you can label yourself as whatever you feel most comfortable with. It’s okay if you don’t fit the exact definitions of an identity 100%. Every person is different, even those sharing the same label. And if you decide your experiences are just too complicated for a label, you don’t need one either. 

Sorry if this was all over the place, but I hope it was somewhat helpful!

[ckret2]

idk if someone actually finally sent this ask but i'mma do it since it seems people are dancing around it: if you're comfortable with it, may we have some radiosnake sexual headcanons (wherein alastor is not sexually repulsed or is demisexual/grey-ace ofc)?? love, a very happy demisexual who just finished a cold day in hell literally two minutes ago

You win the prize for "actually has the courage to directly ask for sexual headcanons" because no, nobody else has asked yet. Sorry for taking so long to answer it but like... the answer is over 2000 words. Have fun.

Now, anon, I've got something important you should know.

When I brainstorm radiosnake stuff, there's a little chatroom I do it in. What happens is, a lot of times, I'll come up with a scene or a scenario or a plot arc, and I'll describe it to that chat. And then, every once in a while, I'll say, "... and then here's how that same thing goes over in the parallel universe where Alastor Fucks." I have. A looot of little ideas set in the parallel universe where Alastor Fucks.

(He's still somewhere on the ace spectrum in all those ideas—either he's demi or else he's sex-neutral/sex-positive ace, depending on the idea—but he does Fuck.)

However, 1) a majority of these ideas are very clearly set specifically in CDIH's verse, and so I don't wanna share them as broad "radiosnake headcanons" when they're tied to one specific fanfic; and 2) a lot of them are angsty, and if you're asking for general headcanons then I'm assuming what you probably want is them actually having a good time rather than several decades of self-induced suffering over unrequited desire. So if you want CDIH-specific stuff and/or angsty stuff (or, more likely, CDIH-specific angsty stuff), hit me up again and I'll share some more stuff. For now, I'll talk about more general non-angsty headcanons.

Okay so most of this answer is geared toward Alastor's perspective since it's like, it's the more interesting one to me in this context, he's the one gradually figuring stuff out while Sir Pent's hanging out being allo with over a century of having his sexuality sorted out.

So that you know what kinda headcanons I'm rolling with here: there's, like, several ways I can conceptualize Alastor's orientation in my head, and they're sorta ranked by how "true" they are to me. Not "true" as in "how canon I think they are," but "true" as in, like, what Feels the Most Right to me.

The #1 Most True version of Alastor in my head is 100% ace/aro. He's not "repulsed" by sex (or romance, for that matter) in the sense of "disgusted/horrified/never ever wants to hear about it," but he, like, has absolutely zero interest in DOING it. He's not repulsed by the subject but he is by most touch, including the kind of touching necessary for sex. Might have some, like, academic curiosity about sex & romance, might enjoy it in a fictional context simply for the drama it adds to a story, but has no desire to be a participant. He can listen to a friend talk about their sexual escapades in graphic detail for an hour without an ounce of discomfort but if they offer him a quick peck on the lips he goes "I'm out." He might have sex Once just to see what it's like/just to say he has and that’s where his curiosity ends.

So that's my mental Most True Version Of Alastor.

The SECOND most true version of Alastor is like, the exact same as that, except he's just barely demiromantic enough that he might, once, fall in love. The odds of him falling in love are the same as someone's odds of winning the lottery. This is the version of Alastor I use in CDIH and other radiosnake fics, where Sir Pentious happens to have been lucky enough to win the lottery, but also, it took fifteen years before it happened. Alastor's feelings about touch & sex are the same, EXCEPT that whoever he loves is excluded from the Touch Is Unpleasant rule, which opens up a few more possibilities.

And I've got more mental versions of Alastor but that's as far as we need to go to be relevant to this post.

So given the above: Alastor's natural internal pool of Enjoyable Physical Activities that he would be autonomously inclined to want to try with Sir Pentious is broader than "nothing at all" but stops short of actual sex. More like sensual activities.

The not-necessarily-sexual sensual things that are obviously & immediately available on Alastor’s Selectable Menu Of Romantic Physical Activities are gonna be things like:

--Cuddles! We're starting as vanilla as possible, folks. Cuddling and sleeping in bed together. 95% naked cuddles are acceptable, although Alastor is inclined to keep his underpants on. Moving to "underpants" from "underpants AND undershirt" is a Notable Intimacy Milestone for him because like Back In His Day undershirts were part of the required underwear, so to him that's taking off 50% of his underwear. It's like switching from loose boxers to a thong. On the other hand Sir Pent is just, totally nude, because look at him he already isn't wearing any pants, he's got nothing to hide.

--Massage! Neither one of them is any sort of professional but tbh on a scale of 1 to 10 a massage can be as bad as a 3 and still be enjoyable y'know? Alastor tends to offer if he notices Sir Pent is sore and/or if Alastor has decided he's gonna be in Extreme Over-The-Top Performatively* Romantic Mode tonight. He always sort of forgets that the option of being massaged exists until Sir Pent offers it in return, because, like, he thinks of himself as a floating radio voice with an inconvenient meat puppet attached, sometimes he forgets that the meat puppet can be pampered too. And then he sits there in a blissed-out daze while Sir Pent goes holy crap your shoulders are like oak, how have you not snapped your own spine with tension yet.

(*Note here when I say Alastor can get "performatively" romantic I don't mean "going through the motions but isn't feeling the love"; I mean that, like, basically NO romantic gestures come naturally to him because he just isn't feeling the gestures even though he's definitely feeling the love. He's sort of figuring out How To Perform Romance As An Action by drawing on how he's seen it done in books/movies/etc. and picking & choosing the things that seem most fun to him to do. So in a sense he is performing a role that he's conscious of when he interacts with Sir Pent romantically, but that's because "performing a role" is how Mr. Perpetual Radio Host approaches all of life—and he's only performing this one because he genuinely wants to and because he's enjoying it.)

--Body worship! Alastor is really deeply squicked out by touching someone's skin/hair/fur but on the other hand (and maybe specifically because it avoids the squick) he is really deeply fascinated by Sir Pentious's scales, which feel Not At All Like Mammal Skin. He also still does the "??? oh right, I have a body too" thing when Sir Pent returns the attention—but Alastor's like, okay, I’m obviously more familiar with my own body than Sir Pent is, I don’t find my body that interesting but it must still be interesting to Sir Pent.

--Showering together! Sir Pent has figured out that if he starts singing in the shower there is a 99% chance that Alastor will trip over his own pants trying to simultaneously strip down and run to the bathroom so that he can join in on SHOWER DUET TIME. Frankly it's a lot safer to just go "hey I'm about to take a shower, wanna join?" but sometimes he doesn't just to see how fast Alastor shows up.

--Kissing! Making out is completely and always an option. Three of Alastor's most defining character traits are being a radio host (which kind of reduces a person to their voice), his perpetual smile, and his cannibalism. Like 80% of this dude's existence revolves around his mouth. He's absolutely got some kind of oral fixation. He gets into making out—as long as it's with the right person. There is exactly one right person. Sir Pent is okay with this.

Other enjoyable mouth activities:

- Kissing places other than the mouth

- Being kissed in places other than the mouth

- Biting

- Being bitten

And there's the overall list of non-sexual sensual activities that Alastor is into!

... And then eventually at some point Sir Pent is like "no pressure but hhhhypothetically sssspeaking are there possibly any sexual activities you might be interested in trying out" and Alastor is like "What? Oh! Right! Actually forgot sex existed for a bit. Yeah sure fine let’s try it." And that's the point at which they start experimenting with activities beyond Alastor's default activities!

Despite just about everything else with mouths being good, things Alastor is NOT into:

- Blowjobs

They did try. It seemed like a logical starting point. Alastor was like "I've liked putting my mouth everywhere else on this snake, it stands to reason I'll like putting it there too!" He got himself psyched up. He faced down The Dicks. He went, hmm. He stuck his tongue out and poked one.

He went "Yeah this isn't happening."

And Sir Pent went "Honestly you've already surpassed my wildest dreams just by getting that far."

They tried it the other way around too and Alastor went "Yyyye... hmmm... nnnnnooo no, no, don't think so. Not into that at all."

And it took him all of five seconds to reject the mere possibility of ever trying rimming, and the only reason it took that long to reject is because first Sir Pent had to explain what that is.

But everything else with mouths is great! Like. Everything. Sir Pent could go "can you lick my eyeball" and Alastor would go "which one? :)" (Sir Pent would probably not ask for this. But the point is he could.)

Figuring out Alastor's acceptable/enjoyable sex acts was a lot of experimentation like the above with BJs. And what they figured out is: he doesn't want his junk touched. Like. At all. In any context. Which, you know, understandably cuts down on nearly all the sexual options out there. But that’s the hard line: no touching his dick and no touching his butthole. Even if he, like, actively has a raging boner.

(Fun fact that I actually had to do research on, because despite being ace I did not know this due to the fact that I don't have a dick: if you are ace and have a dick there's good odds you'll still pop a boner in sexual situations, even if you have zero interest in what you’re looking at or participating in it. It's like something in your crotch goes "oh! Oh! A naked butt! I know what to do here! We got training for this! Time to ready the cannon!" and something in your brain goes "why the hell are you readying the cannon, we are absolutely not going to use the cannon, the cannon is a major inconvenience here" and the something in your crotch goes "listen, pal, I'm just following my orders. I don't tell you how to do your job, don't tell me how to do mine." The tl;dr here is that when Alastor is experimenting with Sir Pent, he could be completely bored out of his mind and still get a boner because biology is funky like that.)

The first few times this happens Sir Pent goes "are you sure you don't want me to, y'know, give you a handjob or something?? I feel like an inconsiderate jerk not helping out" and Alastor goes "absolutely not" and Sir Pent goes well okay I've made a career out of being an inconsiderate jerk, I guess I can do it in the bedroom too.

What they do manage to gradually figure out is that Alastor is perfectly fine with touching Sir Pent's junk, as long as it's not with his own junk or with his mouth. So hand jobs? Totally fair game. Letting Sir Pent grind against his thigh or abdomen? No problems with that. (Alastor flopped on his stomach going "this really does it for you??" and Sir Pent rubbing in Alastor's tail fur going "... yes." and Alastor is like, "wow. wild.")

More than that, Alastor gradually starts to figure out he likes that. Not necessarily the sensation of having a couple of dicks rubbing on his thigh—that's just sorta weird and probably always will be—but the knowledge of what it's doing to Sir Pent. He likes knowing he's giving Sir Pentious pleasure. He likes hearing him gasp and seeing him writhe and knowing that it's because Sir Pent wants Alastor and that Alastor has the power to give him exactly what he wants. He likes hearing Sir Pent hissing his name and little praises and one-word requests. ("Alastor’s existence revolves around mouths” includes sounds coming out of mouths, he gets more out of words and little noises than he does out of sight & touch combined.)

They figure out that what Alastor enjoys doing best is spooning Sir Pent from behind, wrapped around him to jerk him off. In bed or in the shower or even sitting with Sir Pent in his lap or between his legs. Alastor can put his chin on Sir Pentious's shoulder to listen to the sounds he makes and watch how his long long body moves, he can wrap his free arm around his waist and feel how he tenses and relaxes and squirms, they can kiss (and/or bite, biting is nice) with a little bit of careful positioning...

Also it's easier for Alastor to quietly sing to him from there.

... Alastor sings during sex. For the record. The first time he does it it's a nervous "I don't know what I'm supposed to be saying and it seems too quiet—oh I've got a solution" but soon it's just. A thing he does. Sir Pent gradually goes from "what? seriously? this is what you're doing?" to "lmao you dork" to "well I guess I now have a new kink I will never be able to get rid of, thanks." Sometimes he'll shakily sing along and Alastor's guts will melt into warm goo.

So there's a general overview of the more, like, normal stuff they get up to. Considering that their shared hobbies include things like "murder" and "being better than everyone else" and one of them is a cannibal, I'm sure that once they get down the basics they just get weirder. Copious amounts of blood get involved! Not their own blood. Other people's. 

[cardboardqueen]

some thoughts on asexuality as represented in fanfic

this is by no means a condemnation of any particular action or group, just a representation of my feelings which don’t necessarily have any affect on the feelings or actions of others

but I am honestly so tired of the “but I like making you feel good” approach to asexuality in fan content. 

(under a cut bc apparently i have some feelings about this, TL;DR at the end.  if you’re sitting there going ‘how dare they’, please just scroll past this)

Again, it’s a completely valid and often very healthy way for people in an ace/allo relationship to go about things but oh my god i’m so tired of it!  Because I don’t! Yes, I love making my partners happy! I don’t like giving my partners sexual pleasure!! At all!!! I used to (think I did) before I realized that boundaries are a thing that you’re allowed to have with people you love, and that’s definitely had a huge impact on how I feel about this sort of thing, but it just feels so damn ubiquitous and it’s infuriating. 

I’ve experienced this mostly in The Magnus Archives and Good Omens fandoms.  Jon is canonically asexual  and (as of S5) in a relationship and angels/demons are described as sexless with Crowley and Aziraphale’s interactions having a lot of queer subtext.  I have seen lots of wonderful and incredibly sensitive portrayals of asexuality in fic (and art too, but i’m focusing on fic here) both with and without a sexual component.  But (esp in magnus in my experience) there are so many fics where the ace character saying “I like making you feel good” feels like it’s dropped in because the author just wants to be able to write their porn without putting much effort into thinking about or engaging with asexuality.  Which, I get it, that’s totally fine, the pwp tag exists for a reason.  And I go to a fair amount of effort to police my own experience wrt content I’d rather not consume.  But seeing it so frequently is kind of disheartening as an ace person who frankly would rather not make my partner “feel good” in that way. 

It feels very much like asexuality is ok as long as it doesn’t actually affect allosexuals in any tangible way.  Like, there’s the whole “I don’t find you sexually attractive” hurdle when you’re dating an allo person, but if the ace person is still down for sex (and there are ace people who are) then you can kind of ignore the more internal aspects of asexuality.  As long as the ace person is still happy to make their partner “feel good” then the allo person doesn’t actually have to engage in asexuality or how our sexuality affects our relationship with our bodies, our self worth, and the people we choose to date.  But it does! I didn’t realize for the longest time but my relationship with sex (and my body as a sexual tool) is COMPLETELY different than an allosexual’s.  It took me so long to realize in part because I thought that as long as I could still go through the motions and make my partner “feel good” then what did it matter? I could get into a whole thing about that, and maybe I will some other time, but my main frustration is this:

I often see fics where the allo character will ask their ace partner if they’re sure they’re ok with having sex, that they don’t want them to be uncomfortable.  And the ace character replies “don’t worry about it, I like making you feel good” or something similar.  Which is lovely as a display of communication and consent when it’s an actual conversation between two autonomous adults.  But when it’s 80% of the fics that deal with asexuality at all, it sends kind of a strong message that that’s the expectation.  You can be ace as long as you can still perform sex adequately and as long as you’re willing to put your partner’s sexual pleasure before your [preferred alternate activity/ comfort/ mental health]. 

What if the response was “Actually, no, I’m not ok with this.  I know I said I was earlier but upon closer reflection I’m actually really uncomfortable, can we not do this now or maybe ever again”? It doesn’t lend itself well to smutfic, which I understand is often the point of the thing, but it’s so incredibly gratifying the rare times you find it.  To have our comfort put above our partner’s sexual pleasure is (in my limited experience) so rare and so precious, and I feel like i only see it from ace creators (or very occasionally from allo people already in an asexual relationship). 

I think what I really want in my heart of hearts is for some allo creators to acknowledge that yes, actually, our comfort is more important than their sexual gratification.  Whether that comes in the form of fic I can enjoy without pushing through nausea and intrusive thoughts, or the potential future interaction where someone (an actual allo person with sexual desires) is accepting and supportive of a me (an actual ace person with firm boundaries). 

And again, I cannot stress enough that this is an expression of my own frustrations, not a condemnation or accusation.  But, to be honest, the fact that I feel the need to bend over backwards to assure allo creators that they can continue to make porn whose content makes me uncomfortable is just indicative of this whole thing, because apparently i’m a parody of myself

(and there’s a whole other post in my about the difference between “I’m having sex because its an activity I enjoy” and “I’m having sex because my partner likes it” but again different post)

TL;DR: having an ace character say “it’s ok, I like making you feel good” in order to write them into porn is all well and good, but is so popular in fanfic that it sometimes feels like that’s the only acceptable way to be asexual

[cantskank]

i think i’m having to accept that tma is just not the fan space for me.  i enjoy it now, but the only reason i got into was for the ace rep.  i’m not a fan of horror OR scripted podcasts (like i am neutral to actively dislike them pretty much).  i was not expecting it to be a romance.  not to be the grouchy aro but i thought getting into a horror podcast would be like “safe” for not having romance.  and i really like the pairing actually!  and like literally everyone else i project so heavily onto martin.  my relationship with romance in fiction is usually like- i like the part where they’re falling in love/getting together.  then the actual relationship itself is...like dicey at best for me (in terms of enjoyment).  it depends how it is portrayed really- sometimes i get it, and a lot of times it just seems so unappealing.  and like now is not the best time for either of them so i don’t really...get it.  honestly it just feels like they’re getting on each other’s nerves but are still together?  idk why that aggravates me- i acknowledge this isn’t a rational way to feel about this fictional relationship.

ANYWAYS.  idk i guess i hoped getting into tma that i would really relate to jon’s experience.  but we don’t even get his experience!  we find out secondhand, and it’s not even clear what we find out- so much so that it took someone asking a question and the creator’s response to clear it up.  even then, it was some “HE might not think of it that way but that’s what it is i guess” which is some straight BULLSHIT (pardon the pun).  i just wanna state for the record that that is WEAKSAUCE FUCKING REPRESENTATION.  at least don’t be so much of a coward that we can barely tell you’re trying to out him as ace (without him knowing) and then skirt the issue

and i don’t think he really got how important ace rep is so i maybe can’t fault him for that but...it sucks.  at least like...educate yourself on ways it might be good to portray aces in media.  again, though, my expectations are a me problem.  i just think that like we don’t have enough extant ace rep to like...casually make a character that misses the mark in those ways.  like yeah there’s a vast wealth of ace experiences and there are tons of aces who would probably not be like super ready to accept that they are ace!  like i’m basically not out at ALL irl and so i get it!  but at least like you could maybe not make that one of the few ace characters we have to represent us?  ace rep is not at that point yet!  we need characters that are open and unashamed to be ace.  todd chavez was a really weird character for me to watch!  i was like way thrown off by how comfortable he was with talking about being asexual (even though it did take some time for him to accept it!  which is totally reasonable!).  but i think it was necessary because it weirdly went such a long way to normalizing it for me?  like i’m asexual!  i spent a large formative part of my late teens/early twenties interacting with almost all asexuals on the internet (aven).  if anyone is accustomed to asexuality it should be me, right??  but actually seeing a character be asexual and even discuss it proudly made me realize how much of a shameful secret i thought of my asexuality as.  i’ve definitely framed it as a forbidden or taboo topic and really separated my active, open asexual persona online from my irl persona.  anyway the fact that that one character had such an impact on me just goes to show how much we still need that kind of representation and not some bullshit rep.

okay onto fandom shit:

i just find there’s so much fan content (mostly fic!  because i don’t really engage in any other way and i don’t really have any desire to!  because it’s even worse for this than fic i have a sense!) that doesn’t want to think critically about what an asexual relationship means/looks like.  either they are not ace and have heard “oh okay aces ‘can’ have sex, well jon will just have sex!” or they are ace and idk have internalized that message as well?  either way i fucking hate people who don’t think about how that relationship might diverge from an allo one.  THEY ARE DIFFERENT.  ASEXUALITY IS ITS OWN THING.  IT IS NOT A THING WHERE YOU JUST DO WHAT YOUR PARTNER WANTS.  IT IS NOT A THING WHERE YOU SAY “OKAY SURE” AND NEVER DISCUSS BEYOND THAT OR BOTHER TO SET BOUNDARIES.  IT IS NOT JUST ONE CONVERSATION AND THEN DONE.  like an asexual relationship can be those things but i don’t think that’s an ideal relationship anyways?  (even for allos tbh..)  and idk why you’d want to idealize that in fandom anyways?  like you can make that relationship look like whatever you want!  why would you make it look like that?  (not to generalize or like invalidate anyone’s experience but i....feel like there is some internalized shit there.  especially when these things are presented without question?  like it’s one thing to present things one way and it’s another to do it without questioning.  one of my favorite ace fics (notably, not tma) is all about the ace character exploring his sexuality!  and having sex with his partner!  but it’s presented with such attention to all characters that i have no trouble at all.  having sex as an asexual is not inherently negative, but i cannot deal with media that doesn’t consider and address the implications of having sex as an asexual.

and honestly there’s so much discussion around the Issue (that i don’t even get involved in but it swirls around my peripheries of my fandom experience) that that aspect distresses me a lot!  because the people who disagree with me make me feel like shit.  i’m sure it is really confusing and difficult to be an asexual who is okay with sex, or interested in exploring sex, or whatever people would consider themselves.  it just feels antithetical to the asexual activism of ‘sex can be cool but it’s not necessarily for everyone.’  like, if you’re an ace who has sex or whatever, cool!  and i hope you can find your corner of the ace community that vibes with that.  i cannot, and like.  compulsory sexuality does not need propping up.  if sex is for you, then congrats!  you fit into the norm in that way!  you might not fit into the norm re: sexual attraction and i’m sure that’s not easy to reconcile.  however, i am not personally in a place where i can be the person who supports that uncritically when i’m still working within myself to understand where compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity have worked within me.  because i have been hurt by both of those things, MY primary goal is to work on dismantling those things (at least in myself, ideally in the world around me).  and people who do not have that as a goal and who instead want to mirror allo-ness in writing an ace character just don’t get the same consideration from me, unfortunately.  i guess this has helped me see that i should just fuck that noise.  if you want to make that the big thing you complain about on the internet i won’t stop you.  and...it occurs to me that’s what i’m doing!  so i’m going to refocus and stop just moping about my aro aceness and how i’m being ignored.  i’ve got better things to focus my time on than haters online.  i will not be dragged down to their mopey level!

also i feel weird and way too old for the fandom demographic (even though there are certainly fans waaaay older than me in the fandom!)  i think i’ve outgrown a lot of the fandom mentality.  wait is hockey fandom for old people?  (i’m fully not old but i’m probably old-ish for tumblr/fandom.  certainly old for tma fandom)  it occurs to me it’s sort of a graduation into a societally-acceptable form of fandom and it probably doesn’t appeal as much to younger audiences.  AND things can be as sexy/romantic or platonic as you like.

anyway all this is to say that i thought getting into media with aspec rep would be good for me but i think i must conclude that it has NOT.  it has actually just upset me way more than it has helped me feel good about being ace (which was the whole goal!).  i will be glad when it is over.  AND i’m glad i’ve really just been engaging with rqg fandom.  it is much more fun and a much better story! 

[becca-becky]

i wanna prove to one of my gay friends that she's wrong for just straight up claiming Victor Salazar as gay. And since I saw you that you also think Victor is Bi, could you help me provide proofs that I can use to her? Thanksies!

Let me just preface this by saying that your friend can interpret Victor's sexuality however they want to, whether ace, bi, or gay. And also that this is just my personal interpretation and opinion of Victor's sexuality based on my own experiences and what I've seen.

You don't have to agree with all of these points and honestly, I don't expect most people to anyway.

So, with that, let's start!

(Also, for a look into Victor’s attraction and what it meant in the show, I recommend reading this post by @eagle-eyed-tiger)

The entire show, we’ve been shown and told Victor’s attraction to Mia:

Victor during Episode 3: “Well, Simon, I kissed Mia and it was great. I even got those little butterflies in my stomach people are always talking about,”

Victor during Episode 4: “Simon, I have big news. Mia and I are officially in a relationship. She’s basically my favorite person to hand out with.”

The way he says he likes kissing her, how he enjoys the ‘physical stuff’, he does seem to like her at least in the physical sense.

And, as well, we’re shown and told Victor’s attraction to Benji (I’m gonna show screenshots because these are mostly slo-mos):

And already you can see the difference in how Victor views them as objects of his affection.

To quote @eagle-eyed-tiger “Early on, the show basically yells in our face that he’s physically attracted to Benji, and then gives us scenes of them bonding to show feelings develop beyond that. Mia doesn’t get the slow-mo, sexy music scenes. She’s not coded as an object of desire in the same way Benji is. But she does appear to have a genuine connection with Victor, and vice versa.”

Victor does experience attraction for both of them. Granted, in different ways, but it’s still attraction.

So, take this quote from Victor in Episode 3: “Well Simon, I don’t know what’s going on. Because I thought I might be like you, but lately I’ve been hanging out with Mia and I really like her, which is confusing, so I’ve been doing research. Like, a lot of research. And sexuality is a spectrum. Some guys like guys, some guys like girls, some guys like both... I’m not even sure what I like... So, I think I’m going to give things with Mia a chance. I feel really connected to her, and who knows? I didn’t know I liked the impossible Burger when I had one, and it was actually pretty good.” 

And also take Victor kissing Benji in Episode 7.

They both have one thing in common:

Victor’s exploring his sexuality.

In my opinion, Victor seems desperate for a label. On his sexuality, the reasons he's been going back and forth on Mia and Benji, his questioning, all of it.

Because then maybe he'd finally be sure of something. Because then maybe he'd have a reason for why he's giving the two people he likes mixed signals.

We all saw it in most of the episodes until Episode 9 and 10. The confusion of his identity, how he explored his attraction with Mia and Benji and researched different sexualities.

I'm calling him bi (and ace, but that’s another discussion entirely) but really, I have no clue. It's mostly just basing my experiences of liking guys and girls and how I came to like them in the first place and seeing that in him.

I think the reason he said that he was gay was because that was the one thing he was sure of. Even though he knows he likes Mia in a sense, he still likes Benji in a more sensual way, and that's why he probably chooses 'gay' as a label instead of 'pan' or 'ace' Because (in my opinion, based on what I've seen) he's under this mindset that if he doesn't want to have sex with somebody, he probably doesn't like them in a romantic sense.

Victor in Episode 6: “Dear Simon, I really do like Mia, but what if that isn’t enough?”

Simon’s response: “Hey, Victor, I know you really like Mia, and you’ve been trying to figure out if you’re attracted to her. It sounds like tonight you’ve realized you’re not, and that’s okay. But maybe it’s time to really figure out what you want. Before someone gets hurt,”

Now let’s unpack all of that. Victor realizes that he most likely isn’t sexually or sensually attracted to Mia and Simon says that then Victor probably doesn’t like her. Which is a very allo mindset and something that is very not correct but I understand that it’s just an easy way for the show to tell the audience, “hey, Victor doesn’t like Mia despite everything you’ve just seen,”

I'd call his attraction to Mia alterous in nature i.e. (definition from queerundefined.com) "the desire to be emotionally intimate with that person, a desire that is wholly other than romantic and platonic. As in: 'I’d be cool with dating this person but being their friend is just as good. Like I wouldn’t actively start a romantic relationship, but I wouldn’t turn one down.'"

Keep in mind the fact that Victor doesn't pursue a relationship with Mia until Felix encourages him to during the party. Call it internalized homophobia or peer pressure, but Victor does tell us (or Simon rather) that he does have a connection to Mia that's immensely important to him. We aren't sure if it's friendship or romantic attraction but we do know he feels something towards her.

(Side-note, if you believe that you can't have alterous attraction for somebody and be bi, take a good look at me, buddy, and try again)

Now, let's talk about Benji for a bit (even though you probably know you already know how this ends).

At first, Victor's attraction to him is purely physical, as seen by the screencaps above.

From what I've seen, the attraction he's experiencing towards Benji is mostly sensual and aesthetic attraction. Well, it starts out like that, anyway. 

Gradually, it turns into a full-fledged crush. Victor kisses him, has a sexuality crisis, crashes with Bram and his roommates in New York to find ways to express his sexuality, yadah yadah, you know the rest.

But what I’m saying here is that Victor experienced (in some form (and including aesthetic)) attraction to both Mia and Benji in different ways. One girl, and one guy. Which doesn’t make him gay in terms of the definition, not the umbrella term.

Now, whether that makes him bi, pan, ace, or anything else under the rainbow, that’s up to you. 

But you really can’t deny that that- happened.

And not even to mention the fact that Victor’s been color-coded to purple in the background of the intro and in episode 3. You know, the color that bi, ace, and non-binary people have claimed as their own?

Like, he’s coded to be bi and ace in my eyes.

(This probably wasn’t the reasoning you were looking for, nonny, but like, yeah..?)

[theexistentiallyqueer]

Sorry to bother, but where do autistic and adhd brains overlap? Because both are neurodivergent (and beautiful, I agree) But how can I find out which behaviour belongs more to me being autistic (got diagnosed this year) and which is adhd? (No Matter What Deadline, after several years in hostile environment (failed university, then call center work) I panic. Hard.) How do I disentangle adhd and autism to find out what strategies to use to function better?

Please don’t feel like you’re being a bother, because you’re not! Honestly the fact that someone is coming to me to ask ADHD questions makes me teary-eyed, because I’ve fought so hard to learn to function with ADHD that people Asking Me Things like I’m a trusted expert just makes my heart grow three sizes, the opposite of the Grinch.

I’m probably not the best person to ask about how ADHD and autism overlap specifically, especially if you’re taking this from an autistic POV. And I’m also not a behavioral expert, which is a very strong preface. But I can (and am very happy to) talk a bit about my experiences with ADHD and how I’ve learned to make things work for my brain.

I’m going to put this under a cut, if that’s okay with you, anon. It got kind of long and I don’t want to overrun anyone’s dash. And you can always, always ask me ADHD questions, and I’ll try my best to answer.

My ADHD tends to manifest specifically in the following ways:

Extreme hyperfixation that has its own varying degrees (e.g., I’m really into Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but I have so lack of interest in Byleth/Claude that my lack of interest feels like an actual void)

An inability to process feelings regarding things other people care strongly about that I don’t. If we’re using the same fandom example: I could rant forever about how Byleth/Edelgard gives me ALL THE FEELS, but if I friend I care about started to talk about Byleth/Claude, I would immediately lose all interest in the conversation and struggle to react in a way that doesn’t present me as a selfish monster who doesn’t care about the person I’m talking to.

I tend to monopolize conversation if I’m given the opportunity because I LOVE getting the chance to talk about my hyperfixations. If someone cuts me off when I’m really into a topic, I get incredibly irritated and have to try to restrain from myself from acting petty in response. The number of times I have smiled my mouth is a knife and said, “ANYWAY, as I WAS SAYING…” is beyond count.

I don’t recognize or remember people until I have something meaningful to associate them with. I also don’t tend to notice things that don’t clock themselves as Important in my brain. I usually describe this as “background furniture.” Even PEOPLE become background furniture. A girl I work with mentioned a person on her team had quit, and I’d literally walked by that person’s desk earlier that day and didn’t notice it was empty, because that person and the entire space they occupied was background scenery.

If something affects or touches me personally, it hits me Very Personally. I had a complete fucking breakdown watching the video of Philando Castille’s shooting, because I heard his daughter crying while she watched him getting shot and went down onto a spiral of personal loss over my own father to gun violence and started to immediately correlate the two. Separating ADHD brainness from my  whiteness is complex and hard and (said sarcastically) so, so much fun.

The direct inverse of that are things like: I’m talking to my mom, who’s telling me about a high school friend of hers just got into a horrific vehicle accident and is in the ICU. My mom then goes on to give me regular status updates on this woman I don’t know. I get out of work, and she talks about this woman’s surgery. I get out of work, and she talks about this woman’s family’s attempt to find an adequate rehab center. They find a rehab center, and my mom shows me how her friend decorated her daughter’s room. My mom shows me a video of the girl working with a physical therapist, who gets her to push herself upright with a walker and take her tentative steps. “Awesome!” my brain thinks. “Great!” my brain thinks. All of it spans over several days, weeks, months. I have nothing to do with this constant influx of information. I don’t know how my brain should file it. I don’t know this woman who was injured. I feel for her in theory because no one should ever have to go through that even though so many people do, but I haven’t ACTIVELY PRETEND like I personally am invested in the situation or else my mother gives me Concerned Eyes because I seem to be In A Bad Mood Today.

When it comes to organization, I tend to lean towards hyper-organization rather than hypo-organization. By which I mean I over-organize to combat the fact that ADHD often results in disorganization, and disorganization results in chaos, and chaos gives me COMPLETE PANIC ATTACKS. At work at one point, I had my emails auto-tagging every incoming email based on the email type, on top of tagging for my clients. Every label had a different color, and it all made sense to me, because I’d made it. When my team had cover my stuff on a day I was out, my inbox was such a horror show that it left them feeling drained and distressed.

Let’s talk about socialization! I have a rocky relationship with my childhood best friend. When I discovered social justice in college, I started picking fights with everyone over everything Problematique. The first major fight I had with my best friend at the time was because she felt I was over-aggressive towards a mutual male friend of ours. She was probably right, because I know the kind of bullying behavior I later developed. I thought I learned from it. After the 2016 election, I messaged her on FB, thinking I had a sympathetic ear, to say that seeing her mother post constant messages of support for Trump and sharing stuff dismissing Trump’s sexual assault allegations was particularly hurtful considering I’d told my friend that my mom had been sexually assaulted.. I’m not going to share what she said, but she wasn’t in the wrong. We didn’t talk for several months after that.

Speaking of her! When she started dating the guy she’s now married to, at one point I asked her if they’d had sex yet. I asked it because I thought it was a thing you were Supposed To Talk About as friends, and also because I was, in a way, morbidly curious, because I’m grey-ace and queer. She confirmed that they had, but I still felt so icky and uncomfortable about that for so long afterwards. It was only after I started to understand that I’m not cis and not allo that I really understood why: I was forcing myself to perform what I thought female friendship was based on how it’s portrayed in media, and it’s only once I began to understand that I’m on the ace spectrum and that I’m nonbinary that I really started to understand how forced mainstream conversations of attraction are.

I’m loud! I’m loud! I’m loud! I’m loud all the time! I live with my mom and I socialize with my mom and when we’re in public spaces and I’m talking about something that interests me, she always, always, always feels like she has to shush me. What makes it ironic? If there are other people being loud around me, I can’t function. I can’t process the noise. It’s EVEN WORSE if they’re speaking in another language, because if it’s English I can process the words at least, but if it’s another language, it’s just pure, inescapable sound that I know has meaning but can’t intuit, and if I can’t understand something, that’s as bad as dying.

From what I’ve read about autism, here are ways I THINK my ADHD traits overlap with autistic traits:

I can’t read facial expressions. I think I have a better concept of emotional nuance in facial expressions than someone who’s strictly autistic, but I’ll still panic when I see a smile that isn’t bland enough. RDS (rejection-sensitive dysphoria) will kick in. They hate me, they hate me, they hate me, is the track my brain will play on repeat until I’ve drunk myself into oblivion. Whenever someone smiles, I mistrust it immediately.

Eye contact is incredibly fucking frustrating. I understand that it’s expected, but it’s SO UNCOMFORTABLE. Why do we need to stare into each other’s eyes to understand one another? How can you people write whole treatises on the sanctity of locking gazes and finding an instant intellectual bond without realizing that eye contact that’s not called for is personally invasive?

I can’t understand flirting vs not flirting to the point that I’m absolutely paranoid someone is flirting with me, at which point I usually become hostile if I think they ARE, because DON’T FLIRT WITH ME. TALK to me!

I hate, hate, hate unsolicited physical contact. If I’m in a state of over-expression, I hate it even more. I’m not physically withdrawn, because I love hugs, and cuddles, and human touch. But when I’ve spent the entire day listening to other people talk and I have to walk into a room where people continue to talk, if someone touches me, it’s fucking No-Oh-One.

Someone is interested in a thing I’m interested in. We’ll use Persona 5 as the concept, because this honestly happened recently. I talk with the guy whose desk is across from mine about Persona 5 all the time. He’s also excited about Royal. I started going into my Sophia theory that I’ve really only lobbied at @softspokensansa. I could see, I could viscerally see, the interest drain from his expression. BUT I HAVE AN IDEA SO I WILL TALK ABOUT IT ANYWAY, and then afterwards I felt incredibly resentful that I was being filtered through a cookie-cutter drain.

It’s painful–it’s really painful!–to try to talk about my spiritual ideas with other people. I have a side blog I just started and am preppy myself to share, and I’m absofuckinglutely TERRIFIED everyone is going to write me off without looking at what I have to say. IT’S THE RSD AGAIN! Nothing I ever said has actually mattered before, so why should it now?

I feel, constantly, like I’m halfway between a point of reality and a point of something. What that something is is indefinable, but regardless of it, I exist.

I’d like to direct you to two very positive youtubers I know; I meant to do this earlier, but now feels right in terms of how I’ve written: How To ADHD and Amethyst Schaber.I credit both of them in helping me find a safe place with ADHD before diagnosis. There are stories other than yours that matter.

I wish you the best, anon! If you think you’re autistic and ADHD: given the comorbidity between the two, you probably are! And ADHD is just as beautiful, complicated, and misunderstood as autism is.

If anyone reading this can speak to living as both autistic and ADHD, please respond so I can lift your voice. And to my anon: you’re beautiful completely. I hope my story has helped you in its anyway, and I hope that you find yourself at a place of peace. It’s a struggle to get there, but it’s worth it, every step of the way.