#non ace aro culture

[aro-culture-is]

Non-ace aro culture is being tired of the response "Hey, I'm aroace too!"/"Hey, fellow aroace!"

.

[angieblogging]

shipping aroaces + yelena belova 🏹 ♠️

!! reminder !! this is in no way to start drama, hate or anything, this is just me trying to explain, so read it, then give feedback, but be respectful or as respectful as you can be in the moment, i will be blocking trolls or people who claim aspec to be fake or those who cuss me out or are just plainly rude.

so i see this a lot… “but aros can date so i can ship this character!!!!”

and that is true, in some cases.

the thing i feel like people miss the most is:

being aromantic is a label, it mean no romantic attraction. but if a person is arospec, aka on the aromantic spectrum they can experience it (rarely / under certain circumstances etc.)

if you are aromantic, that doesn’t mean you can’t date, you obviously can, but not all aros chose to do so and both are just as valid.

aromantic as a term can be used as an umbrella term, a demiromantic can call themselves aro.

so while aros, just like all people can date and can choose to not date that doesn’t mean you get to throw that excuse around, same thing goes for QPRs but i will talk about that some other time.

i see allos throw around this excuse with Yelena Belova mainly, she is an aroace character, she has never shown interest in dating and has shown repulsion to sex. SO HOW COME YALL WRITE HER AND SHE SUDDENLY LIKES BOTH??? because well yk “aros can date” “aces can have sex”…

while both are true it literally takes away from her identity??? she is openly repulsed by sex and uninterested in romance AND THAT IS OKAY.

she doesn’t need to date, she doesn’t need a qpr either.

the only reason she is put in romantic/sexual situations is because people thirst over Florence (she is beautiful), you can write fics about her other many roles & leave the only aroace character she has played ALONE.

she is only put in QPRs by allos, because they want her to be a lesbian (even though she clearly states she is not a lesbian in the comics), so they say it’s a qpr and they get their way. she isn’t attracted to women. if the mcu will make her anything it is straight, as SHE IS NOT ATTRACTED TO WOMEN (hopefully aroace tho)…

and to aroaces who purposely disregard her preferences which are clear, idk what to say, it’s a shame that yall are so deep into amatonormativity.

++ just to add to all this “the comics aren’t the mcu”, imagine if there was an openly lesbian character and everyone just ignored it, they’re being shipped with a man, smut of them and men is created, so then the lesbian community tried to educate them, they try to explain that it is erasure and everyone just uses that argument. feels shit doesn’t it???

[ilovedthestars]

why are all the queer stories romance (unless they're about the 1 token ace person)

[sorcerous-caress]

I've been reading the drow dictionary to incorporate it into my Minthara writing, and here is a list of my favourite words so far.

Mine - Usst

lover (female) - mrimm d'ssinss

lover (male) - mrann d'ssinss

Love and lust meaning the same thing is very interesting, since it puts onto perspective how much drow culture doesn't see a difference between the two, or how they see love as glorified lust.

love - ssinssrigg

lust - ssinssrigg

loving - ssinssriggin

lusting - ssinssriggin

Even compliments are very few in drow language, and the ones that do exist, despite their translation, are still taken directly from the lust word.

allure - ssinss

attractive - ssin'urn

beauty - ssin

beautiful / handsome - ssin'urn

[halfmouse]

[aromanticofficial]

shocking news, The aroallo guy is here to talk abt being aroallo. everybody gasp

anyways. i wanted to explain why aroallos are so "sensitive" about our identity and place in the aspec community.

the aspec community has a sex negativity problem. this is obvious. the amount of "sex bad" takes that are boldly labelled "aspec experiences" instead of what they actually are (puritan culture) is enough to make anyone who actually experiences sexual attraction feel more than unwelcome in the aspec community.

aside from that, there's also the erasure. aromanticism is always treated as a subcategory of asexuality. there's this constant underline to every mainstream-ish discussion of aromanticism that basically comes down to the inherently aroallophobic idea that "not all aces are aro, but all aros are ace". it's not that anyone says this out loud; it's that everyone seems to imply it subtly, everyone seems to believe it without even thinking twice about it.

aside from that, there's the lack of representation. name an aromantic character. chances are, you've just named an aroace character. and even in the very very rare case of a character being canonically aromantic but not canonically asexual (e.g. carpenter from the silt verses), the fandom still treats them being asexual as canon. fandom treats aromanticism as something that must only exist within asexuality, not as its own separate identity.

our fellow aspecs spew aroallophobia at us in a misguided attempt at humor (i've gotten several asks from aroaces telling me i "should" be aroace), our posts are mistagged as asexual when we make it extremely clear they're just about being aromantic (and when we point out that we don't like that, we get called control freaks. true story), the aromantic tag is filled with posts just about asexuality, allos either call us emotional abusers and imply we objectify people by simply experiencing sexual attraction, or imply that we're just afraid of attachment and that they can "fix" us.

the absolutely jarring truth of being an aroallo on tumblr dot com is making a post about being aroallo and immediately getting ten anons telling me i'm "no better than a straight man", "an aroace in denial", "an emotionally abusive predator", or just a slut, while at the same time someone comments on my post "you're making up an issue that doesn't exist" "why are you so mad about this" "you wanna be a victim so bad"

whew. okii that's all. hope that clears stuff up for non-aroallos out there /gen

what they said

[laurellala-comics]

I've been having so much fun with my Ace Attorney comics lately but I've been feeling the pull to do original stuff again. So to ease into the transition, here is my (very first!) comedy zine. You may spot some familiar faces B)

Thanks for reading my goofiness! I'm including some nerd thoughts about zines under the cut

Zines are sooo cool and I assume most people have heard of them since this is tumblr BUT if you haven't! Zine is short for magazine (pronounced "zeen" it does not rhyme with vine). It usually refers to handmade pamphlets that can be created by folding and cutting a single sheet of paper, which is what I did, but it can be used for any sort of self made publication. The goal is to make something that can be reprinted and shared so mine is technically not in the spirit of that because of all my little interactive details but shh that's fine. Zines have been used in sooo many ways (Was Martin Luther's 95 theses not in a way the first zine (this is a joke)) but they are especially recognized as part of the punk movement as a way of fighting back against mainstream media and of sharing information around! It was a way to get around censorship and spread the word about social movements and political messages buuuut it has also always been used to share fun things, like music recommendations OR FAMOUSLY. STAR TREK SPOCK KIRK FAN FICTION (this is real and there are academic papers about this). Some of the earliest m/m fanfic was passed along through zines because they did not have ao3 back then! All they had was a typewriter and a dream! It's actually sooo silly, but I took a class in college that heavily emphasized these zines as leading to the fandom culture we had today, so they really did shape the world we live in today. Tumblr posts are like our own little zines that we share, with our own messages and thoughts and yes even hand drawn gay people...

Anyway, like I mentioned, in these fandom spaces you had queer zines that were about explicitly romantic and sexual relationships between fictional men. At the time, slash shipping was not the most common way to engage with fandom, but today it has become very mainstream and widely accepted amongst the fandom. But you know what queer behaviors are still not mainstream within fandom spaces, even within queer fandom spaces? Aro ace rep babyyyy. With that in mind, I feel like what is considered radical and abnormal these days in queer fandom spaces is to engage with fictional men (or any characters) from an aromantic or asexual lens. And so I am here to hold your hand and walk you through the wonderful radical world of imagining non-romantic scenarios with fictional guys. You can have so much fun with it and I think more people should do it. What if you stood in line at the bank and your favorite anime man was in front of you. What if you had to go in for jury duty and the guy from five nights at freddy's was there. What if you went to the library and spock and kirk were both there researching the history of zines. In a world that expects us to prioritize one normative romantic and sexual relationship as the big thing that will bring you happiness and fulfillment, it is radical to say "actually, i could probably still be really happy and fulfilled if i had some cool friends to hang out with and do mundane things with. And also what if those friends were fictional lawyers."

Anyway. Thank you to all the spirk shippers who worked hard to get us here, I will pick up your mantle and continue to push against societal norms but with fewer sex scenes this time around. Not that you aren't valid for that, this is just personal preference. The end. Go make a zine everybody.

[artigas]

I’m really happy that Black Sails is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, but (predictably) some of the takes I’m seeing online are so busted. It’s wild to me that anyone would complain about the fact that Anne Bonny kisses Jack after she’s developed this life-changing relationship with Max. It’s absolutely wild to see anyone roll their eyes or feel uncomfortable about the fact that Flint has sex with Miranda when he returns to her in season one or that Max is most likely a lesbian but actively has sex with men for pay and knows how to make that pleasurable. It’s crazy to me that some of the very audiences who claim to want queer representation feel so discomforted when they actually see the mess and seeming inconsistencies of queerness that they asked for.

The reality is that there are lesbians who have had (and will have!) meaningful, mutually-gratifying, and deeply sexual relationships with men. There are gay men who’ve enjoyed having sex with women, who are gay as the day is long and nevertheless feel sexually attracted to a woman or two and are nevertheless gay men, full stop. There are gay cis men who are happily married to trans women. There are femme dom tops and butch bottoms and there are mascs afab people who like femme boys. There are non-binary people and trans men who actively identify as lesbians. There are ace and aro people who enjoy thinking about and engaging with sex — sometimes in fiction and sometimes in real life. Queerness, in fiction and in reality, defies neat categorization. That is the beauty, power, and (perceived) unorthodoxy of queerness.

Now, I’ll say this — do I think the straight men behind Black Sails were actively thinking deeply and insightfully about the paradoxes and fuckery of queer identity when they wrote Black Sails? No! By their own admission, Steinberg and Levine have owned up to the fact that some of the writing of the show was really hinged on their own blind spots as people who are not (to my knowledge) members of the queer community. If I want to be generous, I think that the beautiful mess of Black Sails is that, in not feeling like experts enough to designate specific identity labels to any of their characters, the writers stumbled their way into more authentic representation of lived queer experience, which is to say that the notion that James Flint was actively thinking of himself as a gay man was anachronistic. As many lesbian archivists and theories have noted, the notion of a queer identity — as in, queerness is who you are, not what you do — was patently unthinkable for most cultures in the past. In other words, the idea that Anne Bonny operates in the eighteenth century as a lesbian and thus would not willingly engage in relationships with men is not only untrue of the series, but untrue of most recorded lesbian experiences in the real world. The notion that a lesbian would operate her entire life without engaging sexually or romantically with men, for instance, is a very new privilege that some of us are very lucky to enjoy, but it is not true for the vast majority of human history — hell, it’s not even true of our present world.

This is all to say that think that there’s something really funny about how we want queer characters to fit into neatly organized boxes. This isn’t a new problem, either. When the show was still airing, the BS fandom would get itself into tizzies about wether or not Flint is gay or bisexual, wether or not Anne Bonny is a lesbian, wether or not Silver is queer when his only canonical relationship is with Madi, etc etc. We’ve been having these discourses for years and I don’t know. I get that much of it is fueled by how badly some people want to see themselves represented in media, but . . . well. The siloing of queer characters and queer narratives into neat little boxes has never felt very authentic to me and nine times out of ten, it’s also just so damn boring.

[oneslimybastard]

There might be a cultural difference/translation shenanigans/general romance writing tropes that is the cause of this, but I think it's nifty that both Towa and Akira from their respective horny gay visual novels kind of read as acearo. Akira is a deadringer (sex doesn't exist to him to the point where he doesn't realize the "slaves" Arbitro breaks and peddles in his little tag shop are a sex thing, romance also does not exist to him), Towa is more debatable since he does get dicked down on the regular but it's clear from his internal monologue that it's nothing that really interests him beyond maybe cashing in some stimuli to make his turbo-depression let through at least 1 dopamine. Neither really express attraction, ever, even when they're like 3/4ths through any given route with a guy, sexual and romantic attraction from their end is just non-existent. It mainly culminates in "we're ride or die now. I guess I don't mind it if you tickle my prostate in passing." rather than "I love you and want to husband you" which is oddly perfect to my partly romance repulsed aro brain.

Towa especially is pretty detached to a degree that almost becomes comical. The closest he gets to being romantically invested I'd argue is with fucking Madrame. Because ofc that's how his brain would operate. Otherwise he's just like "yeah ig we can hang and do monogamy if ur gonna be this into me." and the narrative is so real for never making a problem out of it. Or maybe it does bring attention to it at the end of lawyer guy's route buuut Iiii haven't finished that yet ooooopppsss. In so much romance media, one party never dropping the "I love you" would be framed as a Problem milked for Angst which always makes me shrivel and die a bit, so it's soothing when these twinks are never vilified for being romantically unavailable on an emotional level.

Aoba meanwhile i dont think is ace i just think he's kind of a no-homo brained bimbo. Oh no Clear's dying wish is that i get bouncing on that dick, guess i have to!! Oh wow gee, Noiz feels nothing in the body? I'm bouta disprove that big time, get your peanits out brother and we will see about those nerve endings!! My dog is a man in my brain who wants to boink me? Well I'll be darned can't argue with that--

I think about nitro+chiral games too much

[aro-culture-is]

Non-SAM aroace culture is hating the double standard you’re held to where alloallo folks are allowed to talk about their romantic and sexual orientations as interchangeable/intertwined but if you talk about your relationship with sex as being a part of being aro or your relationship with romance as part of being ace suddenly people both inside and outside your communities suddenly start implying/outright stating that you’re being aro/acephobic for perpetuating harmful stereotypes. I just want to be able to talk about my experiences without needing to add a foot long disclaimer to every time!

*digital hug if you like those, or sympathetic nod if not*

[black-ace-culture-is]

Welcome!

This is a culture-is blog for Black asexuals, demis and greys, inspired by general ace-culture-is blogs.

Who is this for?

Black asexuals, Black demisexuals, Black graysexuals, Black alloaces, Black aroaces, Black non-SAM aces. All things Black asexuality. Mixed Black aces (Black and white, blasian, etc.) are welcome, just bear in mind the experiences of non-mixed Black aces, especially those who are dark-skinned.

If someone has made or will make a Black aro-centric page, let me know so I can tag you!

Submissions

Start with 'Black ace culture is...', 'Black asexual culture is...'

Keep all asks about Black asexuality

Rules

No racist, colourist, lesbophobic, homophobic, biphobic, transphobic, misogynistic or ableist asks

No ace/aspec exclusionists

No TERFs or radfems

Pfp is the Black asexual flag created by @caytheblkmermaid

[diversestardewvalley]

Diverse Stardew Valley 4.0 is officially here!

DSV 4.0 is a pretty different beast than 3.0+, and it’s bigger & better than ever 😆 The biggest difference is that we’re back on NexusMods and we’ve returned to an all-in-one download: the changes we made for 3.0 was the best move for the DSV team at the time, but things have changed in the last couple of years and we’ve updated accordingly. 

DSV 4.0 also overhauls the interior of the mod with a shiny new C# engine, DSV Core, coded by the amazing KediDili. This should improve performance and make it much easier to configure DSV to your liking!

It’d take too long to list everything that 4.0 adds or changes, but here’s a quick summary:

Added over 250+ lines of variant-based dialogue

Added new additional variants which can be used alongside other variants:

Nonbinary Abigail, Sebastian, and Emily

Aro-Ace Gus

Jewish Mullners and Elliott

Hard-of-Hearing Haley

Added new small cultural map edits for modded variants

Re-added Marigold, Linus's service dog (this option requires Sprites in Detail, Custom NPC Exclusions, & Anti-Social NPCs) with improved higher-resolution sprites

Added new minor config options:

Mermaid Pendants - Rival Hearts & Canon Couples

Flower Queen's Crown Immersion Mode

Vanilla Beach Style

Enable Variant-Based Dialogue and individual dialogue toggles for each character

Abigail Goth Makeup

Elliott Helix Piercing & Ear Piercing

Penny & Pam Dynamic Outfits

Penny Freckles

Shane Punk Accessories

Marnie Dynamic Outfits

Clint Beard

Reworked character art for modded Pam, Black Haley & Emily, and modded Sikh and non-Sikh Harvey so that they have brighter, more accurate skintones

Clarified cultural backgrounds on the DSV website for several characters:

Romani Haley and Emily are of the Lovari vitsa

Black Haley and Emily have Ghanaian heritage

Indian Sandy is Deccani

Native Leah is of the Haida nation

Black Elliott has Jamaican heritage

Updated many outfits

Added compatibility with many mods

We also have a non-seasonal version for anyone who just wants the diversity edits (although it also contains some small tidbits for vanilla players such as improved beach art) and an add-on pack so that Always Raining in the Valley NPCs Sterling, Mia, and Henry can become Flower Queens through DSV’s Flower Queen’s Crown feature.

The DSV website has also been updated with visual guides to all of the new options, so please check it out! For any translators or mod authors interested in adding compatibility, there's also a new page with detailed instructions to help you out.

Thank you all for supporting DSV! 💖

[queerliblib]

Hello. First of all, thanks for your service as a platform to promote these kind of material.

My question is a bit tricky. On second year of college, a teacher recommended us if we wanted to go deeper into gender studies, she recommended a Spanish (although I'm not sure if he is from Spain at this point) writter. The problem is that I don't really remember his last name to read his works now that I have time, was something like "Manzanero" or "Manzano", but then again I've been looking for almost a year with no satisfactory results.

If you have no leads on this, can you please recommend some gender studies over pansexual and aro/ace people? Thank you so much for reading and for your work!

any chance it’s Cruising Utopia by José Esteban Muñoz?

for your second question, here are a few!

Ace: what asexuality reveals about desire, society, and the meaning of sex by Angela Chen

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: a black asexual lens on our sex-obsessed culture by Sherronda J. Brown

Ace and Aro Journeys from the Ace and Aro Advocacy Project

Bisexual and Pansexual Identities by Nikki Hayfield

if you’re interested in more queer theory in general, or more academically-leaning non-fiction check out our non-fiction guide & lists like ‘let’s get studious’!

[poppitron360]

Hello :)

What is in your opinion a) the best Sapphic ship and b) what are your headcanons for them?

This has been in my ask box since may, and it’s been on my mind for a while.

So sorry I took ages to answer, I was waiting to finish the series so that I’d have all the relevant info (I’d heard Thalia x Reyna is a thing and I wanted to see for myself) don’t worry I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU-

Also, Life has gotten pretty badly in the way of things lately.

Tbh I haven’t really seen/paid attention to the sapphic ships in PJO.

Currently, drafting this before BoO, I’d say it’s probably Ruegard (Selena x Clarisse). While I very much think Beckendorf and Selena were in love, you can’t have two same-sex characters parallel Patroclus and Achilles and NOT have them be queer-coded (Unless Rick genuinely believed that Patrochillies really were just platonic besties, which is objectively false and factually incorrect and gay erasure honestly Rick).

I think Dying For Each Other IS queer culture (Valgrace for LIFEEEE).

While I swear by Aro/Ace Reyna and will die on this hill, the ships she’s paired with are cute dynamics.

- Theyna is badass. It gives similar vibes to Buffy x Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (easily one of the non-canon sapphic ships of all time) I just love how when they first met Thalia kidnapped Reyna and Reyna hit her with a chair. I just see that and think “couple goals”.

- @demigod-shenanigans has forced me to think about Pipeyna and honestly yeah they would be really cute. Particularly their dynamic paired with Valgrace. I love Reyna and Jason’s friendship and I love her relationship with Leo.

- Reynabeth (is that a ship? It should be). Daughter of War Goddess x Daughter of War Goddess SUPREME!!!!

But also, we need more aro/ace rep in media. I heart my aro/ace siblings.

Pipabeth is also some of the most sapphic shit I’ve ever seen. I think it’s just RR not really knowing how female friendships work (or maybe it’s me never really having the kinda touchy-feely female friendship I see on TV all the time, and so being unable to comprehend that kind of platonic compassion, but I’m not gonna unpack that here) but you can’t tell me these aren’t two cottagecore lesbians collecting mushrooms and building a fence and shit that cottagecore lesbians do.

Also shoutout to Rachabeth and basically any sapphic Annabeth ship. She is bi in my mind.

Shelper is underdeveloped. There is so much potential in a mortal x demigod relationship that was explored a little bit with Perrachel but never fully. I need to write a fic about them at some point.

I was writing something earlier and ended up maybe starting a Nyssa x Lavinia ship (hardened grunge Lesbian x bubblegum Lesbian)

But my favourite???

EMMIE AND JO!!!

We NEVER get sapphic romances for old people. I NEED a spinoff about them. I mean, you’ve got the forbidden romance from being in the Hunters of Artemis turned marriage (Idk if they’re canonically married or not but they are in my mind) and you’ve got them being badass fighters and you’ve got them being moms to Leo and Georgina and basically everyone at the waystation. It seems like “giving up immortality for each other” is Rick’s standard for “true love” and Emmie and Jo did exactly that. I love them sm.

[cl0ckworkqueerness]

this pride, be sure to respect:

bi/otherwise mspec people who have significant preferences, even for those of opposite gender(s)

the couple who might "look straight" but are some form of queer

transhet people

intersex people (not just the ones who call themselves trans, and not as "the nonbinary sex".)

pre-transition, non-transition, or closeted trans people

ace/aro/apl people, yes, even the ones who are acehet/arohet/etc

trans men who are connected to femininity, trans women who are connected to masculinity, or any other trans person whose gender or presentation "doesn't make sense"

people with xenogenders or neopronouns

detransitioners

queer people who were raised by queerphobic families and had to unlearn their teachings

queer people of colour & native queer people

queer people whose identities are reliant on their culture, even if you don't understand it

disabled queer people

fat queer people

neurodivergent queer people

young queer people

old queer people

queer people who live under oppressive governments

queer people in crisis

the identities of queer people who did bad or even terrible things (i.e. don't misgender trans people just because you don't like them)

people who don't know they're queer yet

queer people who don't "look queer enough" (whatever that means)

queer people who plaster pride flags all over their home and body and belongings

every queer person.

once you start disrespecting one group of us, you disrespect us all. we are a community because we need and support each other. there are no exceptions

[sky-scribbles]

I did Taash’s second personal quest today. And every single gender-related aspect felt right. I cried in real time as Taash talked about feeling how their mother had limited their ideas of what they could be. But then when Taash needed advice on handling their gender journey, the dialogue option came up to tell them to ‘embrace Qunari culture’ or ‘embrace Rivaini culture,’ and… what the hell?

It's not just the obvious. Taash clearly should not have to choose between two aspects of their heritage and identity. That is ridiculous. But what really, really gets to me is that to ask Taash what they want when it comes to their gender, I had to encourage them to ‘choose’ being Rivaini over being Qunari.

Here’s the thing. I’m a queer author who’s spent the last year and a half talking to queer people about their experiences (specifically in the aspec community, but these issues are by no means limited to ace and aro folks). And so many queer people of colour, and those from non-Christian religions, have told me the message they keep getting from white, culturally Christian queers is 'If you're not being accepted, just leave your religion/country/community/etc so you can be yourself!' As if their heritage is something that stops them from being themself, rather than being a part of them.

And I see the shadow of this in that dialogue wheel. This suggestion that Taash embracing their nonbinary identity means that they have to reject their Qunari identity. If they want to be out and proud and queer, they have to pull away from a part of the heritage that made them. It's especially uncomfortable to me considering that Bioware have explicitly referred to the Qunari as being Muslim-coded.

Portraying a character with mixed heritage as needing to choose or favour one or the other is bad enough. But that 'choice' should definitely not be conflated with them being able to embrace their queerness. Because that is fucked. Up.