#kind of aspec you were if you wanted to

[contagious-watermelon]

it's kind of like insanely isolating that literally every aspec or "ace & aro" space I've found has been in actuality, solely for aces. perhaps arospec aces or aroaces who entirely prioritize their asexuality could also find company there, but even as an aromantic person who is also asexual, they're really not intended for me. so I can only imagine how isolating it must be if you're aromantic and allosexual

[fountainpenguin]

I need to make a whole post sometime about Timmy's Mom and the things she is and isn't tolerant of... Doesn't want to go out for her own anniversary, turned off by her own husband, goes on defensive when people are nice to her (or Timmy, technically)... Fascinating.

She loves holding kittens despite being allergic to cat hair. I'm guessing her defining childhood trait was that she wouldn't question anything, hence why she was chill with "Timmy's Dad" (Timmy) talking to her in the past about how she would one day grow up to marry him and that her new task was to gaslight him into believing he had run a race... ok.

[astriiformes]

Understand that this is coming from someone who is decidedly romance-averse and has been active in the aro & ace headcanon and fanwork sphere longer than many people have even been on tumblr, so I get it, the frustration with shipping culture is real, I have the text posts I've been harassed over to prove it.

But also. If you are so focused on the lens other fans will choose to apply to certain scenes that it totally poisons your ability to enjoy any close, affectionate interactions between two characters you otherwise like, you are.... also kind of falling prey to "This is your brain on amatonormativity" and I promise you there are other options.

Embrace ambiguity. Have fun with ace and aro headcanons on various parts of the spectrum or imagine characters having messy and complicated relationships with aspec identity. Interpret canon queerplatonically. Ignore the voices of people who insist the "only" way to make sense of an interaction is if two characters are involved romantically and instead do a cool high-five with the ones who like the ship but also like letting you do your thing and can respect someone else who loves the same relationship they do, just in a different flavor. Not only is it less exhausting, but it's decidedly more radical and relationship anarchist than saying "These two characters held hands, so I guess they're basically dating.... sigh"

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Sea Of Broken Glass

fantasy

two sisters who live on a floating village in a shallow ocean are exiled when one develops magic and can’t hide it like her sister does

they travel to the land, trying to survive searching for their mother who was exiled 20 years ago, through the wilderness and magical caves

crystal/mineral magic, magical creatures, sister relationships

[eyesoftxmorrow]

i wish i could love in a way that matters

[ceilidhtransing]

I've cropped out the username because I have absolutely no desire to start drama or make a personal “callout” or have people go harass someone or anything like that (and if you take this kind of thing as an opportunity to go and be horrible to another Tumblr user then that is terrible and you should stop), but wow, I have never seen such a clanging example of amatonormativity. I don't think OP necessarily meant it this way, I don't think they meant any harm, I don't think they're consciously arophobic or something - it's far more likely that they're simply unfamiliar with aspec issues, and I always prefer to assume good faith - but I want to talk about this post anyway because it provides a really good and explicit example of the way society just sort of... asserts the centrality of romantic attraction and entirely forgets aromantic people exist.

I do want to first say that I actually agree with the initial point this post is making. Romance as a genre is unfairly derided as some kind of “lesser” form of art, and this derision very frequently comes with generous helpings of misogyny. I totally agree that romance is not at all an unintellectual or superficial thing to write about, and it's bad that it gets treated that way and that readers and writers of romance get so often mocked and condemned. Romance is a totally valid genre and enjoying it doesn't make you vain or stupid or superficial.

HOWEVER. As an aromantic person I find the rest of the post just... I don't know, it's just so perfect as a probably unwitting expression of baked-in cultural amatonormativity. It's brilliant. It's so funny to me. I can almost do a line-by-line breakdown of the way it so completely forgets the existence of aromantic people. In fact, let's do that.

It is so fundamental to us. The issue here should be pretty obvious. The assumption that romance is some integral part of The Human Experience and that it's fundamental to All People is pretty much amatonormativity 101. It reinforces the idea that people who don't experience romantic attraction are “lacking”, forever sitting apart from The Human Experience, and possibly in some way not quite fully human, since we don't experience the thing that is apparently so fundamental to humans.

To want to love and be loved. The post seems to be incorrectly equating “romance” with “loving and being loved”, when in fact there are many people who don't experience romantic attraction yet absolutely love and want to be loved. (And of course loveless aros, aplatonic people, various folks who don't “want to love and be loved” also exist, and it's important to emphasise that this desire, just like romantic attraction, is also not necessarily integral to all people.) “Love” is not automatically “romantic love”, but this post seems to imply that romance is the only, or default, form in which love can exist.

If you don't think every great work of literature. philosophy. metaphysics. was ultimately about romance. I don't think you were paying enough attention. OK this is the line that elevated this post from “sigh, more casual amatonormativity to scroll past” to “I just have to respond to this”. Where to even begin with this assertion. This is a level of “assuming romance is central to everything humans ever do and ever create” that I've almost never encountered before. It feels like a manifestation of the tendency for alloromantic people to declare that, because romance is very central for them, it is thus central to Everything. And I'm homing in on “romance” because the post doesn't say “ultimately about love” - which would still be a reach, but less of a reach - it specifically says “ultimately about romance”. As an aromantic person who is an academic at heart and highly educated in the humanities and social sciences, the idea that my ability to understand literature and philosophy and metaphysics is somehow greatly hampered by the fact that I don't experience or relate to romantic attraction is just... what??? This idea is really very funny to me but also genuinely pretty insulting, even though I'm sure it wasn't meant that way. Not only does it feel like the summation of every patronising “oh, you couldn't possibly understand” directed to aromantic adults who are, in fact, entirely capable of understanding, but it also flattens the incredible breadth of human intellectual experience into “being about romance”. I sometimes find myself wishing that alloromantic people would peak outside the bubble of amatonormativity and realise that actually, there is an enormous swathe of human experience and intellect and creativity and expression that has nothing at all to do with romantic attraction and romantic relationships. And no, stating that, I don't know, the Book of Job is not actually about romance has nothing to do with our society's misogynistic denigration of romance as a genre; it has everything to do with the fact that the Book of Job is not actually about romance. (And if you aren't familiar with Job or for some reason don't consider it a “great work of literature”, replace with whatever other example you can think of; there are many.) It's insulting to imply that aro-spec and/or ace-spec people are somehow less able to participate in art and literature and philosophy etc because we might bring a perspective that doesn't include romance or sex at all and we're just not capable of understanding that Actually Romance And/Or Sex Is Central To Everything. It's genuinely absurd to argue that all the pinnacles of human intellectual achievement really, at their core, come back to romance, and it speaks to our very blinkered society's tendency to declare things like “everything is really about sex” or “everything is really about romance” or “everything is really about breakups” or whatever and then look at aro-spec and ace-spec people like we're aliens and go “but like... how do you even live?” Newsflash, there is so much more to life than romance and love and sex. You can live an entire, very fulfilling, very meaningful, very thoughtful life without these things being at all relevant to you. That's not to dismiss those things as minor or unimportant - they are indeed very central to a lot of people's lives, and they're not “dumb” or “shallow” or whatever - but they're not central to everyone's lives, and they're hardly The Only Things In The World.

And if your response is something along the lines of “well OK there's a tiny minority of people who don't engage with romance and/or sex, or relate to it in the same way most people do, but that doesn't mean that romance isn't still at the core of humanity, or that all the most important things don't still have romance at their heart”, imagine telling a woman that “well, you can focus on a career if you want, but what's really fundamental to being a woman is being a wife and mother - in fact, motherhood is the most important thing in the world, it's fundamental to women, it's what all women's literature is about”. Or, hell, telling a person of any gender that “parenthood” is the central pillar of all of humanity and that every great work of art ever produced is ultimately about parenthood and obviously parenthood is fundamental to everyone's being - forgetting that actually some people will never be parents, and implying that their childlessness makes them less able to understand The Human Experience. That might give you some small idea of what it's like to be an aspec person and be repeatedly told that feelings you don't experience and relationships you don't have and attractions you don't relate to and acts you don't engage in are somehow Fundamental To Humanity and are what lie at The Core Of Everything: how excluding that is, how alienating that is, how oppressively stifling that is.

Feeling that love and/or romance and/or sex are very important to your own life is totally valid, but I wish alloromantics and allosexuals could be more capable of opening their minds and imagining and empathising with an existence for which these things aren't central. Our lives aren't lesser, or emptier, or sadder, or shallower for lack of romance or sex. Our experiences are part of The Human Experience. Our perspectives on art and life and relationships and philosophy and humanity and everything else are just as valid. We are just as capable of profundity, of creativity, of insight - because romance and sex aren't “at the core” of any of these things. We are here, and we're tired of being forgotten, ignored, sidelined, dismissed, erased, talked over, talked past. It would be great if society at large actually remembered we exist once in a while, and that our lives are just as beautiful and important as anyone else's.

[crows4luna]

759 words. mature, no explicit content. gn!reader. allusions to having sex for the first time, reader identifying as aspec.

Gods, this was embarrassing.

You always berated yourself for feeling different from others, not seeing or understanding the pull of attraction that your friends ogled about. More often, that grimacing discomfort came up amid the overwhelming desires the public had over celebrities. Deep down, the detachment wasn’t from a place of malice or pure hatred.

You just… never had the explicit feel, so to speak.

Even in high school, through college, you thought of crushes as an obligatory part of your generational experiences. (For a brief moment, your mind flashes back to when you were gifted the latest album of your favorite boy band by some guy who was infatuated with you. It ended quick, lasting only for two weeks before you cut things off through text.)

Considering everything you’ve dealt with, you like to say you have refined tastes. It holds up in truth, for you were currently laying in Sylus’ lavish bed, clad in only his burgundy robe he often wore after showers. It was early morning in the N109 Zone, as much as a morning could show itself, and he had gotten up first. You couldn’t help but to let your gaze linger on his slightly sluggish form.

Sylus was everything you’d dreamt of and more, that sometimes he didn’t feel real. He knew the kind of man he was, confident of his status and power. Certainly, that played a part in how you two got off on the wrong foot when it came to your first meeting.

But now, he means everything to you. He means the world. Your heart was sated knowing the feeling was mutual.

He stretches his right arm across his chest, craning his head from side to side to even out the tensions in his shoulders. Your observation is a bit intense, but you can’t even blame yourself.

Sylus was already tall in his stature, maintaining a build that was the result of hard work and priority of physicality. The foundation of broad shoulders, followed by delicately contoured lines surrounding the center line of his back. A slim waist with slightly wider hips and defined, thick glutes. Though his back was facing you, your breath hitches knowing of the frontal plane of his abs and hardened, cushioned pecs.

He was captivating, and though his figure appeared godlike, blessed to even spare a glance, you’ve seen it in action countless times. The very same figure that protects you like a natural reflex, that trains with you to heighten your own senses and defense.

“I can feel your stare, sweetie,” his deep voice rumbles, a low, amused chuckle filling the room. “Enjoying the sight, are you?”

Quickly, you avert your gaze, curling in on yourself and now focusing on the tousled sheets of midnight silk. You clear your throat, speechless and overwhelmed that it is Sylus who dedicates himself to you. The heat that pools in your stomach makes itself evident when your cheeks warm up — then you feel a dip in the bed.

Your eyes flicker up, now face to face with those sharp, red eyes.

Sylus grins, tracing his finger over your jaw, “Don’t get shy on me, now. It’s quite alright—I like that you��re enjoying yourself.”

Damn it. Say something, you coward.

Cautiously, you lift your hand to cup his. The slow motion is familiar and tantalizing, practicing it the same way Sylus’ touch would linger on your skin. You’re perceptive to the way he inhales just slightly, anticipating your next move. The mystery of your initiation.

“I…” You begin to say, your voice nearing a whisper, “I think… I wanna try.”

He raises a brow, subtly smirking: “Try…?”

“Sylus, please. You know what I’m—it feels embarrassing to say.”

“We’re both adults, capable of voicing our thoughts and consent,” he surmises, shifting his hand away to lean into your palm. He lets his cheek rest for a second, before turning to press a soft kiss. “I told you before, I won’t make a move until you gain that confidence to tell me what you want. I want you to be honest with me, and only honest.”

Your expression softens, nodding slowly in understanding. You lean forward a bit more, now cupping his face with both hands. Your thumbs brush over the areas beneath his eyes, admiring him.

“...I want… you. To make me feel good.” You tell him, your voice firmer this time, contrary to moments ago, “I trust you. I want this, and I want you.”

He lets out a relaxed sigh, chuckling again. He nods, “Okay.”

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for asking people in my GSA to cool it with the PDA?

so i (17f) am aroace and sex repulsed. i'm the only aspec person in my school's GSA. at meetings couples will hold hands, kiss, sit on each other's laps, make out, etc. it grosses me out and makes me really uncomfortable to see PDA, especially with people i'm not close to. i had been trying to ignore/look away when people would get all lovey dovey bc i know it's the one safe space for gay kids to be themselves since it's a rural area in a famously homophobic state, but it still makes me really uncomfortable. the problem happened when we were all sitting in a circle talking about fundraising ideas and a girl (i'll call her jen) started talking, so i looked at her, and she finished by saying "it was actually abby's (her gf) idea!" and kissed her cheek. i reflexively made a face and looked away but jen saw and got offended and said "what? i can't kiss my girlfriend? are you a puritan or something?" other kids started saying stuff like "yeah she got all weird when she saw me and my bf holding hands". they all KNOW i'm aroace and sex repulsed so it's not like it was a surprise. i said "well PDA makes me really uncomfortable and honestly you guys can be kind of gross sometimes" to which abby said "oh my god it's not like we were having sex in front of you! get over it!" at this point the teacher overseeing everything told us to "stop bickering" and finish the agenda for the day. at the end of every meeting we have a wrap-up where we talk about plans for the next meeting and stuff so i asked if everyone could lay off the PDA, at least during the actual meeting (not counting before/after/breaks since i can just go in the hall). everyone got really pissy and started calling me a puritan and prude and i started crying. after the meeting when i was waiting for my mom to pick me up the teacher pulled me aside and said that i shouldn't ask the other kids to "hide their affection" just bc i didn't like it especially since it's the only safe place for them to do it. i started crying again and asked wasn't this supposed to be a safe place for me too? she said she sympathized with me but i was asking a lot of the other kids. some of my ace mutuals i talked to said the other kids and teacher were being rude and i'm just as queer as they are, so they should respect my boundaries too. but i'm second guessing myself after the teacher told me i was asking them to hide their affection. i really don't want to leave the GSA bc i do love it and except for the last meeting i've gotten along really well with everyone there. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[jerthebear]

I just randomly got bored and wanted to see the percentages. Additionally is there another way to say the gender spectrum? It would be hilarious if that was actually it but that doesn’t sound right so who knows? 🤷

Side note:I’m so sorry if I messed up and you were not represented in this pole. Overall it’s a mix of the limit in the number of options I could put and also kind of incompetence on my side. Again I’m super sorry and everyone is completely valid and deserves just as much recognition. Stay safe out there💜💜💜

[redbirdandbluebird23]

Gay's Still the Word

Written for @dc-aspec-week 2024

Masterlist

Jason couldn’t quite stop the hitch in his breath as Dick buried a hand in his hair and used the grip to tip his head back so he could deepen the kiss. Jason reacted in kind and slipped the hand that had been on the back of Dick’s neck up into his hair as he tightened the arm he had around the other man’s back. Dick shifted some of his weight onto his other forearm, so he wasn’t completely crushing Jason into the bed, without breaking the kiss. 

But Jason couldn’t help but tense up as Dick ground his hips against Jason’s thigh. 

Dick pulled back, breathing slightly faster than normal through his swollen lips. “Not tonight?”

“Not tonight.” Jason echoed. “Sorry.”

Dick just smiled softly as he readjusted how he was lying over Jason so his hips weren’t touching him anymore. “I thought I’d already told you to stop apologising, Jay.”

Jason shrugged as Dick gently nuzzled their heads together. 

“I’m happy just doing this, or cuddling up and watching a movie or reading, little wing.” Dick said before pressing a kiss to the side of Jason’s mouth. 

Jason lent into him. “I know, it’s just…”

“I know.” Dick said quietly. 

They’d had a lot of conversations over the past eight months about sex and what it meant to them both. It took a while, but Jason was eventually in a position that he could and wanted to try. Dick was exactly as Jason thought he would be; sweet and gentle and more than willing to take charge. Jason enjoyed it, and they’d started having sex on a semi-frequent basis. But Jason had to be in the right headspace for it and he was well aware that their sexlife was… lacking compared to most normal couples. Though, as Dick kept reminding him whenever he used that word, there was really no such thing as normal . 

“Hey.” Dick said, carding a careful hand through his curls to pull his attention back to him. “I can practically hear you thinking, care to share with the class?”

“I think you already know what I’m thinking about.” Jason said with a lopsided smile as he bumped his nose against Dick’s. 

Dick hummed. “You need another reminder about how perfectly happy I am with our relationship?”

Jason shook his head. “No, I know. It’s just…”

“Brains are weird.” Dick smiled. 

“Brains are weird.” Jason agreed, matching his smile. 

“Soooo, have you decided on which of the options you want to choose for the rest of the night?” Dick asked, still smiling. 

“What were the options again?”

“We can carry on making out, or we can have a cuddle night with books or a movie?”

Jason debated each one before answering. “ Or , we could watch a boring movie that inevitably ends up with us making out anyway.”

Dick laughed. “That’s definitely something I’m onboard with.”

Read on Ao3

[macbxth-pdf]

Fish Flag

Original Flag, Inspiration, and Palette by @estrogenism (Thank you for the permission to edit this flag!)

What does Fish mean?

Fish is a black exclusive term for a femme lesbian. This label was first recorded as a counterpart the label 'Stud' in a Masters of Arts thesis titled, 'A Study of a Public Lesbian Community' by Ethel Sawyer. Black masculinity is to Stud as Black femininity is to Fish.

The Flag: Symbols and Colors

School of Black Fish: In the original flag I found on my dash, estrogenism uses an image of a tropical fish to represent the body diversity among black femmes. I decided to go with a school of fish to represent the community among black femmes. Initially, I wanted the school to look like a crescent moon to represent femininity further, but I wasn't fuckin' with it.

Colors:

The darkest purple: Womanism (a feminist school of thought centered around the black experience)

2nd darkest purple: Black sapphicism

2nd lightest purple: Black sapphic history

Lightest purple: Unity between all fish (trans, cis, intersex, aspec, arospec etc)

Lightest pink: Subversion of femininity

2nd Lightest Pink: Vulnerability (????)

Orangey-Pink: Persistence

Red: Love

Recommended Reading

Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, and Bad Girls (Edited by Laura Harris and Elizabeth Crocker) [There are two relevant segments. Fish Tales and Fish Pond]

A Public Study of a Lesbian Community by Ethel Sawyer (This study was done by a heterosexual woman. Due to the time it is from, harmful stereotypes of both studs and fish are portrayed in this thesis. These misconceptions are incredibly dated.)

Note: Based on the reading that I have done (Including the original thesis itself), some bisexual women were involved in the lesbian bar culture and identified with the label Fish. Out of the 7 fish interviewed by Sawyer, 2 out of 7 (28%) enjoyed sex with men. That being said I don’t mind or care if black bisexual femmes use this flag. But please understand the difference between presenting femininely and femme culture within the sapphic context (specifically butchfemme/studfemme/stud-fish community) before using this label.

THIS IS THE FIRST FLAG I MADE SO PLEASEEEE BE KIND

Software/Website used: Canva (Design and Assets) and Coolors (palette picking)

[goodoldfashionedengineer]

Even though I post shitty/funny billford memes, this explains perfectly what I think their relationship was like pre betrayal

As someone who is aspec myself, I love the idea of aroacespec Ford within the context of billford. *Especially* Ford grappling with a lifetime of bafflement about romantic and sexual attraction, and then feeling *some* kind of powerful emotion about Bill and getting excited about it like “this is it! This is the attraction thing that everyone always talks about! I’m finally experiencing it for someone, I’m doing ‘humaning’ correctly!!!” and maybe he’s correctly identified it, or maybe its something else, such as queerplatonic attraction, or scientific fascination, but either way, feeling something like this for someone for the first time that feels more genuine than any of his attempts to feel heteronormative love in the past for an *eldritch god* is a whole other thing for him to grapple with, like, the internal confusion of “Why am I feeling this for the first time for a non-human entity? Does that cancel out the increased normalcy of me feeling This Kind of Love? Does it outweigh feeling Love and make me even weirder??”

And maybe, with any luck, this could end with Ford realizing that it *doesn’t matter* what kind of love and/or affection and interest he and Bill have towards eachother, and it doesn’t matter how much he conforms to society’s ideals for what a human being “should be like.” It doesn’t *have* to be romantic for them to want to be together from now til the end of time. And even if sometimes their relationship might seem like it crosses into romantic and/or sexual territory, *they’re* the ones who get to define it, and the multiverse is the limit. They don’t *need* to confine the way they see their love for eachother to the human definitions and expectations for how people should feel and act within a long term relationship. And if humanity thinks that makes Ford less human, well, he doesn’t fucking care, because what has the seemingly-always-just-out-of-reach ideal of “being human” that society has pushed upon him ever done for him except make him feel intensely isolated and unworthy? It doesn’t matter if society hands him the title of “human” that they’ve cruelly dangled over his head his whole life or not. He is living the life he wants to lead, in the company of the person he cares for most, and that is all that truly matters.

[onesidedradiostatic]

On one hand I get why Mammon might be problematic aroace rep but on the other. I genuinely cannot imagine him going out of his way to form ANY kind of relationship that isn't inherently exploitative of his partner. It's just not in his nature. Like the word 'mammon' literally means money/wealth/profit 😭 there is no room for someone else with a person like that

okay anon I know you mean no ill-will with this but like… the reasons you listed is precisely why mammon as aroace rep is kindaaaa problematic (although again granted we don't know for sure AROace is the intention, but if the ace of spades asexual symbolism was intentional it seems that way)

exploiting every relationship you're in is completely independent of attraction. anyone can do that regardless of whether they are attracted to the person they are exploiting.

a character shouldn't be aro simply for the reason that they're too compassionless to have or want a partner, because that's just feeding into harmful aro stereotypes. that's kind of exactly what the "no love for the wicked" trope is.

and okay some may wonder "oh but what about alastor", admittedly even with alastor I was kind of skeptical going into hazbin since I was under the impression he was a full-on villain, but going through all of it, despite his immorality he still shows the capacity to care for others with mimzy, rosie, niffty and some extent the hotel. so he doesn't fully fall into "oh he's too evil to care of course he wouldn't feel romantic love" because he does care in certain cases, but I worry mammon falls into that category because we haven't seen any instance of him caring about anyone but himself yet

it's okay for an evil character to be aroace but they shouldn't be aroace because they're evil

also I do wonder if octavia is intended to only be ace or specifically aroace too, because unlike mammon she doesn't have the ace of spades imagery, it would be cool if she was though, she would at least balance out as being the only non-evil aroace in the hellaverse LMAO. but I also wish vivzie played around more with different type of aspecs and didn't have every ace be aro (or even GASP. include an aroallo character), honestly if it were between mammon and octavia I'd prefer for octavia to be aro over mammon, but obviously if mammon is intended to be aro I wouldn't deny him of it I'd just be… silently judging but accept it because we have so little aspec rep as it is I'll accept anything.

[acoraxia]

What's the relationship between Aluhé and Narinder as well as Jahel and Shamura? Why was Jahel chosen over Aluhé, with Aluhé going to Nari?

Aluhé and Narinder's dynamic was mutually toxic. Toxic to the point that if you tried to intervene to help them you'd end up messing up their entire arrangement and realize they were healthy for each other just not by normal standards.

Narinder, as an older god and eldritch being who did not understand the capability of mortal connections, was lonely; Aluhé, who's bloodlust for the gods and their unjust culling of their kind left them unable to put their guard down again, was willing to provide him with company if they got something in return. It worked out!

They are both very attached to each other but they don't necessarily fit the "can't live without you" trope. it'd break them to the point where they'd get worse if either of them died but they can also just... stop.. being around each other and be emotionally stable. Currently as Aluhé tries to become a god (or something akin to it), Narinder's very much both chasing after Aluhé and letting them come to him and vice versa. They both have a strong effect on each other and abuse that very often. Match each other's freak if you will. To a dangerous level.

Jahel and Shamura are "devoted follower who wants to be god's favorite chewtoy" and "tired god who wants nothing to do with a mortal being". Jahel is a violent but strategic person. They grew up studying Shamura and all their history, indulging themselves into knowing most everything about them and wondered how it'd be to become theirs; Shamura chose Jahel because he was a willing sacrifice and because they needed a weapon to control if the time came to it (it did! and Jahel was defeated! and Shamura didn't want him to die! Strange!). Shamura's someone who is very much willing to sacrifice a few pawns to protect the king and Jahel is aware of this.

They still want to be Shamura's favorite, however, and go to great lengths to accomplish that. Shamura's both put off by it and very much indulging in the attention it gives them. Jahel's bond to Shamura was broken when Shamura died to Aluhé in Silk Cradle and he went to dig up their corpse and bring them back to life.

Mystic Seller: are you guys ok Aluhé and Jahel: [most mentally ill gay aspecs to have crossed these lands] No

[rockalillygirl]

Murderbot Holding Hands

(Minor spoilers alert for Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy pls check the tags)

First real post because I’m shy. Don’t know why it’s going to be a hyper-specific murderbot meta but here we go:

I’ve been rereading all the books after finishing System Collapse <3 and I want to talk about a small moment in Artificial Condition that I’d never noticed before. It’s near the end of the book when Tapan is in ART’s medsystem after nearly dying, and SecUnit says that when Tapan wakes up it’s holding her hand.

When Tapan woke, I was sitting on the MedSystem’s platform holding her hand. (Artificial Condition, p. 155 in my ebook)

I thought it was a really sweet moment, but it also kind of puzzled me because of SecUnit’s aversion to touch. Later when I was reading Exit Strategy, I noticed a similar moment when SecUnit holds hands with Mensah to help disguise them as they’re trying to escape TranRollinHyfa.

[Mensah] took a deep breath and looked up at me. “We can look calm. We’re good at that.” Yeah, we were. I did a quick review to make sure I was running all my not-a-SecUnit code, then I thought of one more thing I could do. As we stepped out of the pod, I took Mensah’s hand. (Exit Strategy, p. 87)

Reading these scenes felt different in a couple ways. In my opinion, SecUnit taking Mensah’s hand in Exit Strategy seemed like more of a big deal because it was a part of SecUnit’s reunion with Mensah, and we see its thoughts and emotions leading up to it. And it tracks that SecUnit might feel ok holding Mensah’s hand in that situation because of their close friendship. But the moment in Artificial Condition is more mysterious. We don’t get any of SecUnit’s internal monologue at the beginning because the scene opens when Tapan wakes up. And even though it’s clear in the book that SecUnit likes Tapan along with Rami and Maro, I wouldn’t say their relationship is anywhere near as close as its bond with Mensah. So why did it hold her hand?

I think it’s a neat moment that’s fun to ponder! And I have some vague ideas I’d like to share about it. (Some of this is based on the books and some is my speculation as an ace/aspec person dealing with touch aversion.) (Also none of these thoughts are mutually exclusive!)

Maybe SecUnit saw holding Tapan’s hand as a form of first aid after her traumatic experience and didn’t want her to panic waking up in a strange ship’s medsystem. This fits with SecUnit bracing itself to hug Mensah in Exit Strategy. (The memes of this moment are perfect lol)

But I was the only one here, so I braced myself and made the ultimate sacrifice. “Uh, you can hug me if you need to.” She started to laugh, then her face did something complicated and she hugged me. I upped the temperature in my chest and told myself it was like first aid. (Exit Strategy, pp. 82-3)

But I feel like SecUnit might not care as much about comforting Tapan in a similar way if it hadn’t already built up some kind of trust with her? Which brings me to Thought 2:

I think SecUnit might have felt safe holding Tapan’s hand because of the moment in Artificial Condition in the second transient hostel when Tapan laid down next to it. (Ofc I think rescuing Tapan from Tlacey’s ship was also a factor, trauma-bonding and all. But to me this moment in the hostel is more important.)

Thirty-two minutes later, I heard movement. I thought Tapan was getting up to go to the restroom facility, but then she settled on the pad behind me, not quite touching my back… I had never had a human touch me, or almost touch me, like this before and it was deeply, deeply weird. (Artificial Condition, pp. 136-7)

This is one of my favorite sequences in Artificial Condition (which is also my favorite book in the series because of ART! And because I find it quiet, reflective, and weirdly cozy even though objectively few cozy things happen now that I think about it). The scene is pretty mundane with a lot of fun bits like SecUnit pretending to need to use the restroom, be on a diet, etc. And we usually don’t get to see SecUnit hanging out with only one person. So it gives room for some small, but important feelings that I don’t think SecUnit has time to explore when it’s busy saving the day. Like how it feels about physical contact with humans.

(idk it reminds me of how like in ghibli films there’s usually at least one scene with the characters eating a meal or something because it sort of grounds everything else. I just like it!)

Tapan being close to SecUnit seems to throw if off-guard, but the context of the scene feels non-threatening and pretty mellow. So I think this gives SecUnit the opportunity to check-in with itself about this new experience. It still feels weird about it, but not in a scary or upsetting way. I think it’s almost this mutual vulnerability (Tapan feeling vulnerable and seeking comfort and SecUnit feeling vulnerable about her closeness and its own boundaries) that creates a bond between them, and that’s why SecUnit reaches out to Tapan to comfort her when she wakes up onboard ART.

That scene has become really special to me. And I would argue that it’s an important moment to SecUnit too because it brings it up again in Exit Strategy, along with a later moment in Rogue Protocol, thinking about times when it’s experienced physical contact with humans in a non-traumatizing way.

Except it wasn’t entirely awful. It was like when Tapan had slept next to me at the hostel, or when Abene had leaned on me after I saved her; strange, but not as horrific as I would have thought. (Exit Strategy, p. 83)

These moments seem to lead up to SecUnit offering to comfort Mensah later on because it’s reached a point where it feels willing to do so for her sake, even if it doesn’t want to seek out that kind of comfort for itself. And it’s really cool to see SecUnit navigate this throughout the books.

SecUnit starts the series with a strong innate sense that it doesn’t want to be touched by humans, but it’s allowed to refine those feelings in light of its new experiences. It’s boundaries are situational and personal, and even well-meaning humans sometimes struggle to understand them at first. Other times, SecUnit finds it difficult to understand it’s own feelings regarding touch and even changes its mind. But, importantly, the narrative always presents this as valid and worthy of respect.

This is a much more nuanced and realistic portrayal of defining boundaries than I’ve seen in a lot of media- one where it’s a constant and sometimes confusing process of self-discovery.

And these might seem like obvious concepts to some people, but they weren’t for me growing up. I really wish I’d read these books when I was younger, and maybe I would’ve given myself more grace to define my comfort level, grow, and change. But I’m glad that I’m in a place now where I can see and appreciate these things in what’s become one of my favorite series.

Anyway, I don’t want to say "thanks for coming to my TedTalk” lol. But very grateful to anyone who reads this and hope it was thought-provoking. Would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts on these scenes!

[arotaro]

I love voidpunk but I’m also curious about if there are any guidelines or rules, like what things are allowed and what things aren’t? /genq sorry if you’ve answered this before or answered something similar and I missed it I’m not super pro at finding stuff 😭 also double sorry if it’s an offensive question to ask. I’m genuinely not trying to offend you I’m just trying to learn more and since I’m kind of a baby queer I want to make sure the words I use fit me.

You can check the voidpunk tag on my blog, since I have talked about it before, but I'll go over some quick points:

There is no "requirement" for participating in voidpunk. Anyone who tells you "oh, only such-and-such group can be voidpunk" or anything along those lines is lying. HOWEVER:

The "punk" part of voidpunk is not there for no reason. It is tied to the punk subculture and it's best to have a general understanding of this subculture before participating in voidpunk. Also, voidpunk is specifically a reaction to dehumanization, and it's important to understand that certain people experience this more than others. People of color get dehumanized. Disabled people get dehumanized. People with personality disorders get dehumanized. Trans people get dehumanized. Aspecs get dehumanized. etc. etc. We are here to call attention to and take power away from this, not to be niceys about it. I left the voidpunk subreddit and its associated Discord server because it was full of entitled white cunts who acted like they couldn't possibly be racist because they were autistic or some shit and I was being sooooo mean and disruptive for asking them not to be blatantly racist, and I just want to make it clear that if this had been a real life social group and not an online space, I would have knocked their teeth out. Understand? That said, you don't have to be every oppressed minority ever to participate in voidpunk- you just have to be respectful and willing to listen.

One misconception I see very often is that voidpunk is some sort of personal identity along the lines of otherkin, etc. This is not true. Voidpunk is an aesthetic and philosophy, NOT about genuinely believing yourself to be inhuman. There certainly may be people who identify as both voidpunk and otherkin, or what have you, and that's fine! That's cool! I love those people. But they're not synonymous and should not be treated as such. You don't assume I'm really a vampire because I'm goth, right?

Also, the "void" part of voidpunk doesn't really mean anything. Genuinely, it was chosen because it sounds cool. I think another misconception I see sometimes is that voidpunk specifically is about like, literal voids or shadows or black holes or space or something, which is not true. It's kinda whatever. There are as many flavors of voidpunk as there are blue guys in the X-Men.

Have fun!