#otherwise. everyone is ace/aro. like every single one

[crimsondestroyerofgarlicbreadth]

Okay okay, hear me out:

Aroace superhero

The reason that a lot of superhero movies/content has romantic subplots is to make those deaths punch you in the gut harder. It creates motivation for the main character, or fuels them to live / or sacrifice themselves so that the other can live.

And that the supervillains are coded as aroace a lot because it makes them unlikable and unrelatable.

Well I want them to create a superhero movie with an aroace superhero who everyone thinks will be cold hearted and won't care about saving the world and everyone's cautious about if they'll turn into a supervillain. But then a threat comes along and this hero is fighting HARDER than the rest of them, like full out GOING FOR IT. And after the battle, they're like, but you had no one to fight for? And the aroace superhero just pulls out a photo of their family and friends and just say they had a village to fight for. That they might not have had a significant other to fight to come home to but that doesn't mean they had no one significant.

Like, throughout the movie, the superhero is alone but there's always hints that they have people to fight for. Like they take a phone call from their sister/brother and ask about the kids. They text their friends some memes that don't really mean anything but show that they have a connection. They stop by a cemetery with flowers for an unspecified reason. They take the original call to action phone call in a nursing home. After the battle their phone is BLOWING up. All small things that show they care about people. Specifically that they have people they're fighting FOR.

A scene where they're meant to be doing something important (scouting who knows) and they see something that they think one of their friends would love and put the whole team on a five min break to get it and then go to extra measures to keep it safe for the rest of the scene. And the others tease them about having a crush to which they EXPLICITLY say that they're aroace and that isn't the first time they've told them.

They wear a pin badge with the aroace flag, and have the aro and ace flags hanging around in their home and base. It's their phone screen background etc. It's not subtle. They're out and proud and know that they're aroace and won't take anyone's opinion stating otherwise.

Throughout the movie they show obvious signs that they're annoyed by what the other imply about not having anyone to fight for and they get pep talked more often than the other to 'ensure they'll stay on track', but they don't say anything about it until there's a heart to heart scene with who the audience is tricked into thinking is a love interest about how as an aroace, they're used to the comments and the best thing to do is usually to ignore them because it takes more energy to explain than it does to just mentally brush them off.

How they wish more people understood the complexities of being aroace instead of boiling it down to loneliness and how loneliness isn't being alone. They're happy being single, would love a QPR maybe, but happy being single either way and no one can understand why because they don't want to think that romantic love isn't the pinnacle of human experience.

That they don't fight for romantic love but for friendships and family and the people who have no one and are alone because those are the relationships that will last forever. Romantic love can be fleeting, can come and go quickly. But familial and platonic love lasts forever.

That they are out as aroace because they are not just fighting as a superhero but also so aroace people don't feel alone or broken like they did. They're trying to destigmatize being aroace, and they have to work harder than the other members of the team to be seen as 'good' or human. Bonus if they have mutant powers. Every mistake is highly scrutinised in case it wasn't a mistake and they've been corrupted because they're seen as heartless. That they've lost friends and family because they couldn't accept that they're aroace. They're fighting many battles that the others don't see that all stem from their aroace identity.

And in the end, after the final battle is over, they're accepted. The others bother to learn what aro and ace mean and stop confusing them and using it as a bad joke. They go see their family and friends and pets who were all worried sick throughout the final fight. Their 'risk level' lowered from likely to turn to the dark side to unlikely.

Being aroace is beautiful and challenging experience and I think we deserve a movie that reflect that.

[altschmerzes]

I really hope this isn't wierd or anything but I initially found your account from ao3 and started to really look up to you as a writer- then I found this blog and read some of your posts about being aro and something just clicked. Even though I'm still a teenager, I've been struggling to figure out my sexuality for years, and aroace was the one label that I was always scared of identifying with. I'd never really met an aro or ace person before so for some reason it felt like if I identified that way, I would be isolated and othered not only by straight people but also by people in the lgtbq+ community. But seeing your posts made me feel so validated and secure, it's provided me a lot of clarity in my identity. I'm still not sure of everything, and would appreciate any tips that anyone has about how to figure themselves out, especially in relation to the aroace spectrum, but I just wanted to say thank you for being so real and open about all of this. Your posts have helped me feel normal for once, thank you.

oh gosh, wow!!! that's not weird at all i'm actually really happy and honoured to hear that. figuring that stuff out is so, so tough and i'm really glad to hear that i could make it even a little bit easier for you. that's part of the reason i try to be loud about my identity and my experiences online, because i think things would've been a lot easier for me if i'd seen that when i was trying to get it sorted. especially when i was a teenager. i've been identifying as aro or ace or aroace since i was fourteen, and that was real tough.

i think the main tip that i have is to not feel like you need to pressure yourself into anything - using a label, not using a label, having a Concrete Clear Answer that you're Sure about, identifying the same way forever, etc. you don't need to piece and parcel out every single bit of whether you feel attraction or not or what kind if that brings you stress or pain. if an identity feels comforting or validating or Right to you, then it's yours and you are welcomed with open arms as far as i'm concerned. if it changes, that's okay, and if it doesn't that's also okay. if you're not 100% certain or find it to be true 100% of the time that's okay, and it's okay to be 100% certain and never feel any differently too!

online identity communities can be wonderful and affirming and open up a world of vast possibilities but they can also be intense and prone to infighting and bitterness, too. you never have to be bound by what the trend of the moment is or live up to the expectations of what people think you should experience or think in order to fit their own experience of any shared identity, questioning or otherwise.

everyone has their own timeline, too. i think that's a really important thing to hear, as many times and from as many places as possible. you're not behind or failing or underdeveloped or immature if you're not feeling what your peers are feeling or you don't want what they want. whatever you feel or want is fine and normal, and that belongs to you and nobody else.

<3 <3

[roguelibrarian]

books I read in 2023

Threw together a list of books I read this year plus brief thoughts about them Just Because.

The Marsh King's Daughter by Karen Dionne - I was so, so ready to like this book and then like one chapter in suddenly got hit with the reveal that the backstory to it is the racist trope of "big scary Native man kidnaps a pure, virginal white girl to be his wife." So....fuck that shit.

So Many Beginnings by Bethany C. Morrow - Heck yes. Excellent book. It's a retelling of Little Women set in the Roanoke Freedmen's Colony. The author leans into how aro-coded Jo is. Also Beth lives.

Renegades by Marissa Meyer - Yeah, I didn't finish this one. I got so bored.

Common Bonds: A Speculative Aromantic Anthology ed. by Claudie Arseneault, C.T. Callahan, B.R. Sanders, and RoAnna Sylver - I mean it's an anthology, so some of the stories just did not work for me, but I am ecstatic over the concept alone and most of it was amazing.

The Companion by Katie Alender - Creepy as shit in the best possible way. My one complaint is that after 200 pages without a hint of romance, suddenly a character showed up who was so obviously meant to be the main character's love interest and that part was exhausting. Otherwise excellent, amazing, chilling as hell, and you know I love me some abuse narratives.

All These Bodies by Kendare Blake - I wanted to like this one so bad and it's not that I didn't like it, but it was just kinda...mostly okay? I felt like I was supposed to be creeped out and scared and tbh I should have been because there's some pretty disturbing shit in this book but all just fell so flat.

Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Everything Else by Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca - Bad. Just bad. Oh my g-d this book was so bad and irritating and just...if you want to learn more about aspec people or think you might be aspec yourself, please read literally anything else. I won't go into detail because I wrote a whole post about it here, but just...bad.

Ace and Aro Journeys: A Guide to Embracing Your Aromantic or Asexual Identity by The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project - So, this was definitely better than Sounds Fake But Okay overall, but there is a thread of deep discomfort with the existence of sex-repulsed and romance-repulsed aspecs that keeps popping up throughout the book. It is pretty clear that at least one of the authors (and probably more than one since there were several and apparently no one raised a strong enough objection to get any of this shit scrapped or rewritten) really Does Not Like sex-repulsed and romance-repulsed people.

The Wicked Remain by Laura Pohl - Second part of a duology, and the first book was definitely better. I low-key suspect that this book might have just been Once Upon A Time fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off. That said, I am always here for queerplatonic relationship rep and stories where the Cinderella character ends up single.

Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce - Series of four books, but I'm putting all of them together here because a) my thoughts are kinda the same and b) this post is already too long. I'm not gonna say much because I have a whole post about this series in my drafts already so I'll just leave it with yeah my nostalgia for these books has worn off quite a bit.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo - This was another reread and yeah it still holds up just as good as the first time I read it. Literally this is one of my favorite books.

The Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo - Another reread. Excellent. Love a sequel that's just as good as the first one. Also one of my favorite books.

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo - Yeah I was on a rereading spree this year. This one is also so damn good.

Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo - Last Grishaverse book on the list, I promise. So good. Nina went completely off the rails in this one and I love every second of it. Really everyone went off the rails a little bit but Nina most of all.

The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan - I have a post about this one here so I won't say too much in this post but g-d I love how unapologetically Jewish this book is. No stopping to explain things to any goyim who might be reading. No coddling goyishe feelings while portraying antisemitism. This book is for Jews and that's beautiful.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson - Yet another reread. Actually, genuinely accurate portrayal of how PTSD triggers work. First sign of healing not being a romantic relationship but being the main character telling a shitty friend to fuck off. Literally the only thing stopping me from wholeheartedly shouting "I love this book so much" is that there's a random use of the r-word because this book is from the 90s and back then it was basically illegal to publish fiction about teenagers without having your characters use that word.

We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation by Eric Garcia - So I've got mixed feelings about it but ultimately I'd say this book is a net positive. Definitely recommend it for nonautistic people and for autistic people whose only exposure to the autistic community is through spaces like tumblr. Just don't have this be the only book you read about autistic people, you know?

[naninadz]

Genuine question: is split attraction not ok? It makes sense to me cuz as someone who is on the aro spectrum but not on the ace spectrum, I’m aware that sexual and romantic attractions are separate and not the same experiences/feelings. Am I wrong? It’s ok if you don’t want to answer this, I just can’t tell if you think split attraction all together is wrong or not.

For me I guess it makes sense for the ace spectrum but when its used otherwise things just get messy.

I don’t have the energy to really talk about this stuff publicly because nobody will ever fully Agee with each other. Everyone is entitled to and has their own views.

Pretty much like do whatever makes you happy but on the other hand I just feel that the need to label every single experience under its own ‘microlabel’ does more harm then good when the purpose of original labels is to encompass not just one specific feeling. That’s all I need to say

[princessgemma12]

I'm gonna use this as a quick jumping-off point.

Firstly, I'd to apologize to @kanjeghavebrod. You're completely entitled to use or not use words--you obviously already know and are secure in this, but I just wanted to establish my agreement here. I'm also sorry that filtering out isn't working for you, that must really suck ass. Here's to hoping that it starts working. Now, to the serious shit:

(Let it be known, I do not censor words I use for myself, such as "queer" and "dyke." If this causes too much discomfort, I apologise and whole-heartedly invite you to scroll past/close out, etc., for your own sake. If you can, though, I encourage you to stick around and hear me out. It depends on what's best for you and your health, though, as I know some terms are extremely closely related to some peoples' trauma. Do for you, folks.)

This is a positivity post. That's it. This was just a young queer person wanting to put a little extra positivity on their mutuals' dashboards last pride. Please stop using this post to shame other community members for not reclaiming a word. Queer has a very long, complicated history in our community--it is rooted in our community, both positively and negatively. It has been used by, for, and against us as non-cishets for years. It is, in fact, used as a slur, to this day. Just

That said.

It is every LGBTQIA+ person's right to use it for themselves. It is our right to use it as an umbrella term in appropriate company (such as online, around others who identify with it, academically, etc.). It is also our right, to reject it for ourselves. You don't have to be transphobic or otherwise exclusionist to have a complicated, or downright negative, relationship with the term "queer."

It is my choice to use queer for myself, just as it is my choice to use gay and bisexual and demisexual and asexual. It is my choice, also, to use queer as an umbrella term in my personal spaces (online, irl, my work, etc.).

It is your choice whether or not you do the same. It is not my place to police whether you adopt the term or not. Just like it is not your place to police whether I use it or not. That's not how any of this works--if you don't want to be personally referred to as "queer," that's fine. LGBT-etc. etc., or whatever you prefer, it is for you. No problem. It is fine if you don't like or agree with every term being used by the larger community, or even pockets of the community. I use phrases to describe myself that a lot of people in the community would ascribe to internalized homophobia or something, but to me, it's just the way I talk about myself. If I direct a phrase or term at you specifically, and you're not fond of it, please tell me so I can. Not do that.

I will not judge you for it. I will not condone other people judging you for it. Because it's a word. It's a piece of communication, one that has a lot of connotations, and one that has been very heavily abused. If you don't like it, are uncomfortable with it, it triggers you, anything--you do not have to use it.

You also can't tell other people not to use it--just to not use it toward you specifically. It's a complicated thing, yeah. Difficult, yeah. But such is the way of language--it evolves over time, and not everyone is going to like or be comfortable using word used or adopted for whatever usage. This doesn't automatically mean they're wrong for it.

Do TERFs spew the rhetoric that "queer" is only ever used by homophobes? yes. Is it nothing but an attempt at making our language purposefully exclusive of trans and ace people, among others? also yes. does this mean every single person who doesn't adopt the word, or dislikes the word, is a TERF? fuck no.

language. is. cultural.

of course a lot of people who had the word "queer" heavily weaponized against them throughout their lives probably don't wanna use it. some of those people, I'm sure, are trans or ace or pan or aro, or any of the numerous other groups TERFs target. it's literally no worse than me automatically wincing whenever someone says something is "gay"--even if they're gay, even they're right, even if it's a perfectly innocent statement. people have different traumas, different triggers, different experiences, and lead different lives. being uncomfortable with certain language is not an automatic "You're Actually A Bad Person And You Should Work On That."

I don't use the F-Slur or the T-Slur, even though I use dyke and queer all the damn time. I also don't tell other people they can't use those terms for themselves, because that's not my place. I don't tell other sapphics that they have to use dyke or other people in the community that they have to use queer. That would. frankly ludicrous

my philosophy and I recommend this to y'all, is you don't necessarily have to say it, just don't deny it. As in, you don't have to call me queer, or a dyke, or any other thing. Just don't deny that I am. Don't me I'm not. Don't say I can't say it myself, or that no one else can. there's a difference between "I don't like the word queer" and "You're not queer, you're gay/whatever." those are two different statements. There's a difference between "I don't use queer" and "I'm an exclusionist." there is a difference.

Now, to wrap this up all nice and pretty: yes, I do encourage everyone who is uncomfortable with any word, but especially words by/for/against their community/ies to examine why they don't like it--I think it's important to know whether you think a word is objectively bad or if it's just bad for you. a lot of the time, these days, words are bad for some people, but very cozy for others. there are, of course, words that are labeled as "objectively bad" and those words will change over time, and that's just how language works. what's important is realizing why you do or do not use certain language, and realizing that it's not always your place to determine what language other people should or shouldn't be using (especially for themselves).

now, I wish every who may be reading this a good day/night/afternoon, and invite apologize if this wasn't greatly articulated. I tried.

rude ass people will be ignored and blocked, and that goes for anyone tagging this as "cishets do not reblog" or any other fucking ludicrous thing.

If you like the word “queer” reblog.

[mxdotpng]

dude stop recommending me ff7 ships i literally hate all of them

[nerdygaymormon]

Sorry if this is a too nsfw question, but what are your thoughts on kink/masturbation? I accidentally discovered I was into both as a late teen and have stayed as far away as possible, knowing I need to keep the Law of Chastity. It's gotten difficult because I've discovered I'm aro and I just feel more and more like I won't ever have a romantic partner, so no opportunity to experience/enjoy that part of mortality. Am I going to unhappy with this for the rest of my life?

I’m now in my 50′s and I’ve observed most everyone finds someone. As my aunt puts it, “Every pot finds a lid.” 

I have an ace friend who married and had to negotiate with their partner about the role of sexual activity in their relationship. While sex wasn’t important to my friend, sex was important to their partner. My friend was not sex repulsed, so they collaborated together to find ways to satisfy the partner’s needs in a way that didn’t demean or harm my ace friend.

Regardless of romantic attachment styles, a person can still experience love. Aro people still have social needs, and need emotional support and community.

As an aro person, you can be in a healthy, satisfying relationship without needing romance. Many people do have an emotional need for romance. This is something to discuss with potential partners. 

It’s possible for you to enjoy the activities commonly considered romantic even if they don’t prompt romantic feelings in yourself. Because it’s not meeting a need for you, romantic gestures may not be something you’re prone to do spontaneously, but knowing it’s important to your partner/spouse means you can choose to do things to help meet their needs and expectations. 

Successful relationships require a lot of collaboration, compromise, learning what your partner needs and them learning what you need. 

What behaviors are considered romantic vary by culture. For example, in the United States, romantic partners are more likely to hold hands. In South Korea, friends hold hands (yes, even two male friends), it’s not a romantic behavior. I point this out to show what is ‘romantic’ can vary and you and your partner can find things you can do which satisfies their need for romance.

Also, most humans are wired to seek physical connection with others in some form. The amount of physical affection enjoyed varies by individual. One problem single queer people have, particularly in the church, is they are touch starved. Physical touch may be perceived as romantic by one person and not romantic by the other.

I understand that the rest of the world seems obsessed with romance and that can be intimidating as you think about your future possibility for relationships. It’s not a deal breaker. There’s no reason to think you can’t find happiness in a loving relationship with a partner. The main obstacle to finding such a relationship is if you don’t put yourself out there to meet and date people, if you’re willing to do that, I think the chances are very high you’ll be successful in finding someone to love. You’ll have to work through the importance of romance to the other person and what you can do to meet those needs.

You asked for my thoughts on masturbation and kink. 

I’ve posted several times about masturbation, here’s 2 posts I think may be helpful in how to view masturbation:  #1 and #2. 

A friend recently told me their Mission President said it’s a good thing he doesn’t have to send people home for masturbating, otherwise they’d have to shut down the mission. Similarly, if men were considered unworthy for masturbating, ward boundaries would have to be dramatically enlarged in order to find enough men worthy to hold all the callings needed for a ward to function. In other words, it’s a normal, natural behavior a majority of people engage in, whether single or married and regardless of age.

I don’t have much to share about kink other than everyone involved needs to provide consent, they need to be willing to participate and not shamed into it.

[ckret2]

Do you have any headcanons about the Hazbin's (minus Charlie) lives back when they were alive?

I scrolled through all 42 pages of the hazbin tag on my blog and literally every one of my premortem headcanons are about Alastor and Sir Pentious lmfao

So sure! Want an entire novella about my headcanons for Sir Pentious's backstory?

For Alastor, I can offer:

a traumatic toddler experience

his mother observing him with ghosts as a child

Alastor working with demons (funny)

Alastor working with demons (creepy)

Alastor and his asexuality/aromanticism (mostly postmortem but it has some premortem flashbacks)

Alastor with friends in the 20s trying to explain he does not get horny

a fic that didn't ACTUALLY happen but that demonstrates my headcanons for how he works with demons

And moving away from fics and on to tumblr posts!

For Alastor:

Alastor fought in World War I

another WWI post

headcanon about how he died (I've since changed my headcanon—hunting accident rather than manhunt—but the position's the same)

excerpt from one of the fics above about Alastor's first kiss

early headcanoning on Alastor's relationship with the queer community in life

Alastor saw but didn't learn the lindy hop in life

Alastor's accent makes people (in this case Sir Pentious) think that he's upper class when actually he's just had theater training

Alastor's family tree comes from a mix of socioeconomic backgrounds and before he died he achieved fame but not fortune

Alastor does not feel broken/insecure due to being ace/aro and never has

what people in Louisiana thought of Alastor as a radio host

what did Alastor look like (and Sir Pent)

Alastor only saw 10% of the Golden Age Of Radio and that's fucked up

fun fact when Alastor was on air radio stations weren't "just news" or "just (one genre of) music," a single station would play music and news and soap operas and sports etc

random links of queer history, 1920s gay culture, slang, and NOLA history

Alastor's mother grew up while Sir Pentious was menacing the US and she has very vivid memories of living in fear of him, and also she doesn't know her son is a cannibalistic murderer

Alastor wore glasses in life and only switched to a monocle in death

Alastor was never identified as a serial killer and there's probably unsolved true crime documentaries made about his killings (and these documentaries unknowingly use a recording of the killer's real voice, a clip from a news broadcast where Alastor read about the killings on air)

check out how hyped this newspaper in the 20s was for radio like goddamn

Alastor listened to radio all day every day

more 1920s research links

very loose overview of New Orleans race relations 1890-1920

how NOT to write about Voodoo

reminder that "alastor did magic in life" is a headcanon until we SEE him using magic before he died—also "Voodoo" is a religion not a magic power

how Alastor avoided getting caught as a serial killer

I doubt Alastor was famous enough for queer historians to have discovered he existed, only niche radio broadcast historians know about him

Alastor was raised to be courteous to (respectable) women, but not to genuinely see them as equals in a modern sense

1920s hair facts and headcanons on Alastor's hair

scene from one of the above fics of baby Alastor being haunted as shit

Alastor is a hedonistic thrill killer not a mission-oriented killer

his killing method was shooting from a distance, like hunting game

Alastor was kinda psychic in life and his psychicness interacted with radio signals

this includes developing a hella accurate sense of time

Alastor's always been hella into Mardi Gras

here he is in a ridiculous Cajun Mardi Gras costume

how the Great Depression probably affected Alastor

Alastor feels 0% empathy for other people but 500% empathy for fictional characters in musicals

For Sir Pentious:

he was so infamous that today he's a common character used in historical fiction in the same way that Victorian-era historical fiction commonly uses Queen Victoria as a character

(and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle references him in a Sherlock story)

(and he really did call himself Sir Pentious in life)

(and every character who lived after him had to study him in school, including Vaggie writing a paper about him and Alastor was cast as him in a school play)

(and now let's talk about historians dying and meeting the people they studied in Hell)

he has a son who's probably now in heaven

Sir Pent is trans

no seriously he has a son

Sir Pent has a chain of deadnames he used before settling on "Sir Pentious" and all of them are snake puns

one of Sir Pent's chosen names

based on Victorian sexual mores Sir Pent probably got kinda homoerotic with some dudes

this is just big Trans Sir Pent energy

what did Sir Pent look like (and Alastor)

I don't think Sir Pent used a wheelchair in life (but do think he had to for a while after he died)

Sir Pent is Pussyeating World Champ no I do not accept arguments

Sir Pent and his wife were very loving until his wife went "nope, you're planning world conquest, that's too evil for me"

he rigged his clothes to self-combust so he could choose death if he was ever on the verge of capture

his wife was named Helena and here's why

this is his self-destruct binder/corset

the one headcanon everyone shares

Sir Pent ain't Jack the Ripper

And there's a ton more headcanons on @dontasktheradiodemon my Alastor ask/RP blog but listen, I just went through 42 pages of one tag and it's 3 a.m., I'm not going to comb my roleplay blog for every premortem headcanon I've ever mentioned about him over there. It includes stuff like "he did deliberately shitty horoscope readings on air" and "the first time he summoned a demon he was on the Western Front and also coming down with Spanish flu so he's not sure how much of the ensuing chaos was real vs fevered hallucinations or how much was the Germans' fault vs the imp's" and "he lived a few years in New York and did drag."

These are not the only headcanons I have. These are just the headcanons I've been asked about or made time to type down. (And not counting all my postmortem headcanons. Or the premortem headcanons sprinkled into postmortem fics.) Feel free to ask me for more. Ideally with a topic you'd like to hear about; otherwise asking me "do you have any headcanons?" is like walking into a library and asking "do you have any books?" Gimme a section to start with.

[jelibaen]

If you need to trim any of these answers down, please do. I dont know how much info you are looking for, but I feel like this is a good opportunity to put a lot of stuff plain and out in the open. For those of you curious about me and my sexuality, here you go.

1. I identify as nonbinary and aro/ace with an attraction to women.

2. I didn't realize I was ace until I was 18. I was a whole legal adult before I figured out that there was a word for how I felt. I can't remember exactly where or how I found out, but I do remember the relief of realizing that I was not, in fact, broken. There was a word for why I never properly felt like I had a crush, or why every romantic relationship I had felt forced and jagged. There was a word to explain me.

3. Everything around is based on relationships. The only rep I see around is what has been clawed into view by fellow LGBTQ+ people. Occasionally I will see stickers or little ace flags being sold in local shops. Otherwise everything else is... his and hers, or made for two people, or based on the idea that you're searching for a relationship. And that's fine if you have someone to share that with! But so much of every day life is hearing about dating and marriage and relationships that you can't really get away from it.

4. I struggled more trying to conform into being straight than I did when I figured out I was ace. It was literally like a fog lifted. Instead of wondering why I never understood what people meant about crushes or finding someone else cute or why everyone was so focused on dating and relationships, I had a definition for the lack of all of that. Instead of trying to find excuses to avoid being asked out, or explain why I didnt want to date, or try to find a non-offensive way to politely tell someone that I didnt want to kiss them... I could say it all in one word. It was freeing.

5. When I came out, all of my friends were extremely supportive, and still are! My grandparents were a little confused but got the idea and after a while understood that this was who I was, and that was fine.

It was a lot harder with my parents. The idea that their oldest daughter never wanted to get married or have children was painful. In their minds, I was going to die alone. My mom tried to understand. She did a little bit of looking things up in the beginning. Initially she asked the familiar questions like 'how do you know you dont like it if you havent tried it?'. I retorted back with a 'how do you know you're not gay if you've never tried it' and that seemed to make her.. not understand but I guess appreciate it more? I feel like since I came out as nonbinary to her, we have backpedaled a bit. Now we are back in square one of 'this isn't the child I thought I was raising'.

My father is... hard to get through to. It took a solid three years before he stopped fighting with me that I hadn't found the right person yet or that I didnt know until I tried it. Another two before he stopped arguing with me about needing a label and how it was shutting doors. He knows now that I do not want a relationship and if I ever do have one it will be with a woman, but he does not attempt to correct anybody else when they ask all the same questions. Ever. The last few years have been a landslide backwards with all the political bullshit that has come out and infected his brain. We don't talk about my sexuality anymore. I'm tired of expecting a change of mind and heart from someone who has failed to try every single time.

I have been out as aroace since 2015. The first and only time I have been told 'Happy Pride' by my parents is last year when my mom got me a rainbow heart scrub top. My father has yet to try saying something even remotely close.

6. This is such an easy answer. Yes. A thousand times yes. There's a saying that being queer is like being a zebra in a herd of horses. You go through life thinking you're just a fucked up horse until you see another zebra and realize there's more like you. If I had aroace characters in my childhood, maybe it wouldn't have taken 18 years to realize. Maybe I wouldn't have pushed myself into 3 relationships thinking I had to try to be 'normal' even if it didn't feel right. Maybe it would have been easier to come out to everyone by pointing to that character and saying 'Please look. They are just like me. This is normal.' There's no other answer. Just yes.

7. For those questioning: you dont have to get it right the first time. You can be straight, then bi, then gay, then ace, then realize that isnt quite right either. Its okay to try new things until you find what is right for you. Its okay to grow. Its okay to ask questions! My inbox is open. Talk to me.

For those that know but haven't come out: I know how this feels. Dont feel like you have to choose a label - labels are good, but if the word doesn't feel right, it might not be. You can be true to yourself even if you have to put on a mask for the rest of the world. Even so: dont force yourself into things if it isn't you. Dont force yourself into relationships or sex because that is expected of you. That will do more damage than you think. Be you with yourself.

For those that are out: I see you. I know you. In a modern society where our identity may not even be accepted by others that fall under the acronym, let alone those that don't, know you are not alone. We are important, we are valid, and we are real. There is more to life than romance and sex. Don't be afraid to be loud and be proud. We have every right to fly our flag as anyone else. But also: not everyone knows what aro or ace or both are. Learn not to be offended the first time someone asks what you mean. Sometimes they aren't being jerks: they genuinely don't know what 'asexual' is. Learn to be patient, offer knowledge, and expect nothing. Your identity is yours. You dont need someone else to validate you to appreciate yourself.

I know this got very long but this is something that has always been important to me. I know who I am, even if that's hidden from people around me. I understand myself, even if others dont.

Hi. My name is Jeli. I'm nonbinary, I use she/they pronouns, I'm aroace, and I'm very happy to meet you.

Hi it's Hampter and I got questions for aroace indivdials or aro and ace peoplle.

I am doing research project for school about rep for aroace people in the film industry but I would like some of everyone's opinions.

I can't use our aroace experience blog as a source because I didn't actually "interview" them. All quotes will be anonymous unless you give me a fake name that I can put down.

What do you identify as?

When did you figure out your sexuality?

What representation do you see in today's world concerning aroace individuals?

Did you struggle with coming to terms with your sexuality?

Did coming to terms with your sexuality hurt any aspects of your life? (Friends, family, relationships etc)

Do you think you would have benefited seeing characters in tv shows/movies growing up if they had aroace characters?

Is there anything you would like people to know about what being aroace means to you, or anything you would like to say about it?

You can answer all of them or some of them. You can DM me or reply in the comments.

Hugs!<3

[aroaceingtheline]

AroAceing the Line - an RQG AroAce Event

[image ID: a d20 dice in the aro colours with the ace flag in the background]

To celebrate Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, we bring you an event based around a-spec identities for the Rusty Quill Gaming Podcast! Please join us in our quest for more content and positivity around aro and ace characters/headcanons!

Prompts February 2021

22nd: Pride - Doubt - Stars - White 23rd: Coming Out - In the Closest - Erasing the Line - Black 24th: Relationship - Single - Dancing - Pale Green 25th: Awareness - Secrets - Flowers - Purple 26th: Family - Friends - Magic - Grey 27th: Love - Sex - Experimentation - Dark Green 28th: Spectrum - Dessert Toppings - Discovery - Rainbow

Please tag any work you would wish to have reblogged here as #aroaceingtheline2021 and/or @aroaceingtheline us, so we can find it!

Rules & Guidelines

There are many ways to participate in this event: creating fanworks, sharing headcanons and ideas, writing meta and analyses, and commenting on works you like! Regardless of what you’re here for, we do ask that all participants keep the following in mind:

Please tag any work you would wish to have reblogged here as #aroaceingtheline2021 and/or @aroaceingtheline us, so we can find it!

Or AO3 collection is called aroaceingtheline2021 and you can find the link as well on our Rules and Guidelines page. Please note that if you are using the app, you may need to open this in a browser instead.

There are myriad ways to experience and express aromanticism/asexuality, and all of them are welcome here. As far as this event is concerned, everyone is expected to help ensure their fellow fans feel comfortable - which means being conscientious about what we create, how we tag that content, and how we treat others. Comments suggesting that one aromantic/asexual experience or expression is better or purer than others, or otherwise attempting to police others, are not permitted.

Works can focus on asexual and/or aromantic  content and anything that falls under the aspec label (demi/grey/etc.), it does not have to be solely aroace content. The characters and relationships portrayed don't have to be canonically aspec.

While works should contain aspec characters or relationships they do not have to be focused on aspec issues. The aspec aspect of the work may be anything from the focus of the work to an incidental/implied part, as long as it is featured in some form.

All types of fanwork are welcome, including every length of fic, visual art either digital or traditional, crafts, fanmixes, moodboards, poetry, prose, crocheting, baking and even meta can be included.

All works should be properly tagged. See our tag page for tag suggestions. Please tag any mature or explicit rated material accordingly as well. Not all content is for everyone. That’s okay! That’s why we ask people to tag their contributions so that people can search for what they are looking for and avoid content they are not interested in.

If you do see fanworks that you don’t like, you are expected to keep that to yourself and move on. If you have a serious concern about how something is tagged, you can bring it to the mods; otherwise, give people the benefit of the doubt that they’ve created that thing in good faith.

No harrassment or headcanon/kink/ship/character bashing or shaming in works or in comments or tags.

All headcanons / interpretations of RQG characters are welcome and encouraged.

If you are not aro and/or ace yourself you can participate in this event! We do ask that you check out some of the provided resources or look up some of your own before tackling the subject. If you have any doubts or questions please feel free to contact us!

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this blog, it’s helped me so much throughout my journey 💕 do you have any advice for feeling left out/dealing with internalized amatonormativity? I’m at that age where my friends are getting married and having kids and I’m genuinely happy for them, but as a single aroace who’s never so much as been on a date (and doesn’t ever want to) I can’t shake the little voice in my head saying there’s something wrong with me for not having those experiences, or that I’m just lying to myself about being happy single, even though I know those things aren’t true. it’s gotten to the point where I’m now avoiding social media completely - which I don’t want to do, since it’s the main way I can keep up with my long-distance friends - because it feels like every time I open it up I’m just hit with another reminder that I’m different.

Alright, so two thoughts.

First, it's good to keep in mind that people are social creatures. For better or worse we're very influenced by people around us and if everyone else around us fits into the same mold, we usually want to fit into that too. So yeah, society at large tells us we should get married and have kids, but it's a lot easier to internalize it when everyone else you know is doing it too.

So this is a lot of words to say one thing that may help a lot may be expanding your social group and get some single friends too. If you want to meet other ace or aro people, than that's even better. And if you're not sure how to meet other ace or aro people, Aces and Aros is a great resource for seeing if there's any meetups near you. Otherwise there's a lot of online communities, especially on places like Discord.

Otherwise to meet people could be things like taking a class, getting involved in a hobby, etc. But knowing other people who aren't doing the marriage and kids thing or prioritizing other parts of their life can make a big difference and help you feel less lonely.

Media is great too, try and focus more on found family type media over anything that centres on relationships as the big happy ending. So Star Trek and Kung Fu Panda for example. Anything with ace or aro characters is good too, podcasts and books are probably the best way to find ace/aro characters these days, and you can find lists. Personally I've really liked the Jughead 2015 run from Archie comics where Jughead is canonically ace and heavily coded as aro.

Following ace/aro people or positivity blogs can also help a bit.

And just in general avoid anything that's amplifying amatonormative messaging.

Which brings me to my second thought, it's probably a really good idea to avoid social media for the time being. Especially ones like Facebook and Instagram where people are doing a lot of sharing of their personal lives. And the big reason for this is that social media isn't giving us an accurate view of other people's lives. It's showing us a very curated version.

In real life relationships are hard, and can vary a lot on how good they actually are. Social media doesn't show the work, or the fights or any of the more negative side of relationships. And that can really amplify the 'oh wow I'm really missing out here' feeling.

You don't have to cut it out entirely, especially if it's your only way of keeping up with some people. But you can do things like only go on it once or twice a week, or try and manipulate the algorithms so they aren't showing you the type of posts that are bothering you, or see if you can add counter stuff to your feed to kind of water it down a bit and see some ace/aro friendly stuff. You can also take a break for a bit until you've got this more under control, and those posts shouldn't bother you as much.

So yeah, that's all stuff that should help. The other thing is that these kind of feelings aren't really something you can just turn off, even if you can logic your way to seeing that they're not accurate to real life. But the more ace/aro positive input you get and amatonormative input you get rid of, the more that should help a lot.

Sometimes other techniques can help too, fake it till you make it. Even if you don't believe it, keep telling yourself you don't need a romantic relationship/kids to be happy. Write it out a bunch in a journal. If you find yourself thinking amatonormativity might be right, consciously catch it and correct it. So if you find yourself thinking "Maybe I'm not happy single" say "I generally enjoy my life the way it is now, and relationships are not a magic potion to happiness and in fact how happy people are in relationships can vary quite a bit."

So yeah, hopefully that helps.

All the best, Anon!

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

This is totally cool, lol! That's why I tagged you, I like different perspectives 🥰 and I adore lesbian Jenny

I've been thinking a lot about Jenny's character and sexuality lately since I'm in the middle of rewatching the show. I totally agree that she's attracted to women and most times she pursues guys it's mainly to increase social status and not because of genuine interest. Nate always felt different to me, though. Like, the two times she really pursues him is in season 2, when she's being homeschooled and trying to make it as a designer, and the end of season 3, which is after the whole Damien drama and she's just looking for someone who cares about her and respects her (I know you said once that it doesn't even feel romantic here, which I also agree with, poor girl just needs a connection). I do really see how it can be interrupted as comphet, though. Like she feels like she's supposed to be attracted to Nate because who wouldn't be?

I think the reason why I lean the other way is probably just projection. Jenny's been my favourite GG character since I first watched the show when I was 12, partly because I relate a lot to her, and since I'm bisexual... Add that plus the fact that I totally have had a crush on Nate and of course I'm gonna ship them. I've been relating to Jenny even more this time around cause I dropped out of school this year, so her season 2 arc really hit close to me. So this made my jenate feelings come back tenfold and also made me that much madder at Rufus, lol. I just wanted to go through the screen and shake his shoulders like "There are other paths than the one you want your daughter to have, not everyone has to go through life like society expects you to let your daughter carve out her own unconventional path you fucking idiot!" Luckily my parents have been way more supportive.

Mainly I just see Jenny as bi with a strong lean towards women, but I like to think about lesbian Jenny, too. It wouldn't exactly be the first time I had contradicting headcanons.

I don't know I just think it's really cool that different people can have such different interpretations of the same character. I think that's what's so interesting about fiction, to see how we view things differently depending on how we view and relate to things based on our own experiences. Tumblr can be so focused on hating people who disagree with you, but I like following people with different opinions, it helps me understand people better.

Yeah, I'm glad you tagged me!! back in November, some anons were mean to me about shipping Jenate (me??? who literally does not even - anyway) and ever since then I've been trying extra to ensure that Jenate shippers feel welcome on my blog - you may already know this, because I've brought it up before, but I'm saying it here to let you know that every time you tag me in your Jenate edits I get so happy that you're sharing something you're so passionate about with me!! I'm also a big believer of like........ making the content you want to see (a big part of why I even learnt to gif is because nobody was giffing Dan & Nate, and I was like...... that's the content I need, so if it's not already existing, I'm gonna make it happen!) so regardless of my feelings it's always so cool to see the way you conceptualise JN + their feelings re: each other, and your choice of scenes + lyrics (??? I'm not actually familiar with where you got the words for your edits, they're likely songs I haven't heard, haha) is just so interesting & good!

OH my full Jenny & Nate feelings are a lot more complicated than just comphet on Jenny's part. I feel like..... neither of them was romantically/sexually into each other? and that is kind of the appeal to me? I've always interpreted Nate's interest in Jenny during the s2 arc as sort of like - everything in his life is so unstable and undetermined, and here is Jenny who is so clear on who she is and what she wants, and he admires and respects that, and he wants to be there for her and support her, so when she kisses him he just sort of lets her take their dynamic wherever she wants to? that is very much the vibe I got. You already know how I feel about lesbian Jenny, I mean, you quoted my meta right back at me :'))

but I DO agree with you that Nate is different from the other guys to Jenny. JN have this really specific kind of honesty to them - well, when Jenny wasn't spiralling and trying to get power and acting out, and when the writers actually cared? I still think that NJ had the potential to be a SOLID dynamic but the writers made it sorta unhealthy on the show :(( - but I've spoken abt moments like in seventeen candles and the empire strikes jack before, where they're both able to be emotionally vulnerable around each other in ways we don't see them be with anyone else. I've even compared that to what I like about Derena, whom everyone knows I ship in every possible way, haha. But there's something about characters who trust each other and allow themselves to be honest with each other in ways that they wouldn't otherwise EVER be - especially with characters like Jenny & Nate who have spent so long trying to seem fine and okay even when they're really not.

I honestly really like the idea of queerplatonic Jenate - they're life partners, they're each other's rock, they're each other's person - but it's not romantic OR sexual - and for Nate & Jenny, whose adolescence has involved navigating other people sexualising them so much + not having the best track record with romantic relationships - for them, I feel being qpps gets REALLY interesting, because you get all the perks of a relationship without the romantic/sexual obligations? (obligations isn't the best word, but i don't know what else to use here? LOL) and that's something i love to explore.

I feel like book Jenny was bi! The way she gushed about Nate, whom she canonically had a crush on, and the way she gushed about Serena were EXACTLY the same. Also YES I love multiple headcanons always, it's a lot of fun seeing people explore that!!! I know people who have aroace readings of Jenny, or aro lesbian / ace lesbian readings of her, and I find that really cool, too!

I also definitely get you about relating to Jenny a lot, and feeling that kind of connection. It's similar to how I feel about Dan, and .... explains a lot of my contradicting dair views, actually. A few years ago I had a seriously intense crush on a girl who was... a lot like Blair, in many ways. I spent a ridiculous amount of time writing poetry about her, etc etc, but I never actually acted on it. If she'd fabricated schemes that involved us kissing, though..... I don't know. I don't think I would've denied it if I'd felt like I actually had a chance. I think we just had a case of bad timing, & I like to think in another universe, maybe we were actually together for a bit. I'm glad that your parents are supportive of you and better than Rufus! <3

I think that's what's so interesting about fiction, to see how we view things differently depending on how we view and relate to things based on our own experiences <- THIS exactly! this is a big part of why that "proship" is in my bio. like this is exactly what it means to me and how I conceptualise & understand it!!! Like you, I also like engaging with people who have different understandings and opinions of the characters -> it definitely helps you make new friends you would otherwise not meet by staying in your bubble, & from a fandom point of view, it also helps you develop a more nuanced understanding of a character. Some of the best written Jenny Humphrey I've read was in Jenate fics - and I've had people who don't even ship Blenny tell me they liked the way I wrote Jenny in my post canon blennyfic, so... idk. it's loving Jenny hours - each and every single iteration of Jenny!!!

[comingoutofthecauldron]

let’s talk about lesbophobia in fandom

i don’t like to use the word “lesbophobia” unironically because of all the gross radfem terfy connotations, so i will clarify right off the bat that i am neither a terf nor an aphobe and that if you are i want you off my blog like, right now. unfortunately, the meaning of lesbophobia has been so warped by alt right lesbians that seeing it in an unironic context makes me, a lesbian, uncomfortable, which speaks volumes in itself. so to clarify, lesbophobia is essentially homophobia with a pinch of sexism thrown into the mix, and it’s running rampant in supposed safe spaces and, more relevantly, fandom. 

/i’d also like to clarify that i’m not only speaking on lesbophobia, but also the general disgust and disdain for all wlw in fandom, and am using it as a sort of umbrella term/

lesbophobia and disdain for wlw has been around forever, but whilst gay positivity, mlm and mlm ships have been steadily increasing in popularity within fandom over time, wlw and wlw ships have remained perpetual underdogs. why? because lesbophobia has become a fandom within itself. both in and outside of fandom, we see instances of casual lesbophobia every single day—from aggression towards wlw to something as simple and prevalent as the complete and utter lack of sapphic ships and characters in media. hatred of lesbians and wlw is practically a trend, and it’s seeping in through the cracks of fandoms who are already facing issues with minorities and marginalized groups (i.e. racism, ableism). if you honestly think that lesbophobia isn’t prevalent as hell in fandom right now, you’re either not a wlw, you’re not all that involved in fandom, or you’re dumb as shit. 

just look at ships. in almost every single fandom, the ratio of mlm ships to sapphic ships is ridiculously unbalanced. people are quick to ship male characters who so much as smile at each other (and i don’t condemn that) but would never do the same for two women—even on the rare occasion that the ship is actually canon. i once wrote a wlw fanfic for a [predominantly straight] fandom, and received messages like this gem:

on the flip side of that, if there is a sapphic ship in canon or fanon, it is often fetishized and sexualised to a disturbing degree. there will be double the amount of nsfw art and fics, and ninety percent of it will be derogatory and fetishized as hell. having been actively involved in several fandoms over the past few years (and currently a content creator in one), i’ve seen instances of all this hundreds of times. people go crazy for mlm ships, but the second you say you ship/prefer a wlw ship, there’s always someone at the ready with, “i think all ships are great!” or “it’s not a contest” or “i prefer [insert m/m or m/f ship] actually” or “they’re my brotp!/why can’t you just let them be friends?”. not only do lesbians and wlw not get to have any rep in media, any rep that they try to create for themselves in fandom just gets attacked or ruined. this is so detrimental not only to all wlw, but especially to younger wlw who will end up being indoctrinated into this belief that their sexuality is something dirty, something that can never be tender and sweet but rather something that deserves to be preyed upon. 

building on that, let’s talk about engagement. i run an instagram account (where i have a significantly bigger following) as well as this blog for my fandom, where i post the content i create (mainly text posts). when i first started creating content, i made a lot for a relatively unpopular wlw ship, in which both girls are canonically romantically involved with a dude—though one of them is canonically pan. their canonical m/f ships are both very popular, and i noticed that my engagement was dropping every time i posted them, so i eventually just stopped. it wasn’t even a conscious decision; i merely resigned myself to the fact that the fandom didn’t want to see sapphic ships, and some people would even go as far as to condemn them. for reference, my instagram posts get an average of about 500 likes per post (popular ones usually exceeding 1k), but when i post this ship, my engagement drops to about 250 likes. similarly, my tumblr text posts have an average of about 140 notes per post (popular ones usually reaching up to 750), but my wlw content rarely surpasses 100. this just feeds the cycle of wlw never getting rep: if, like me, content creators become disincentivised by the lack of engagement with their sapphic content, they’re more likely to stop making/posting it, leading to further lack of rep—and when new content creators try to rectify that, they face the same problems. 

and then, of course, there’s the treatment of actual wlw in fandom. my best example of this is when my friend and i made an anti account on instagram (the first instagram anti account in that fandom), our bio saying something like “salty and bitter lesbians being salty and bitter”, and received an onslaught of lesbophobic insults and threats from angry stans within hours. (tw: r*pe) one commenter even went as far as to tell us that they wanted us to get r*ped. as well as this, i’ve seen so many instances of people using slurs against lesbians in arguments/in anons, often for no apparent reason other than they feel that they have the right. when i first mentioned i was a lesbian on instagram, my account only had about 200 followers, and within a day i lost 20. i also lose followers whenever i post f/f ships, not quite to that extent but enough for it to be noticeable, on top of the aforementioned engagement dips. in the face of all this adversity, i think a lot of wlw turn to mlm ships because they’re the closest thing we have to actual rep, but when we do we get accused of fetishizing them by the same people who fetishize us. there’s an endless list of double standards that non-wlw have been upholding for years, and i can firmly say that i’m really fucking sick of it. because of our sexuality, we will never be allowed to enjoy something without someone labelling it or us as dirty or otherwise problematic, when to them, the only problematic thing about us is that we aren’t pleasing men. 

as i mentioned before, the lack of rep for wlw in media is appallingly consistent, and part of that stems from tokenism. in a lot of modern mainstream media, you’ll have one, maybe two lgbt characters, and nine times out of ten those characters are white cis male gays. of course, there are exceptions to this, but generally, that’s it. script writers and authors (especially cishets) seem to have this mentality of, “oh, well, we gave them one, that’s sure to be enough!”, which means that on the off chance you do get your gay rep, the likelihood of also receiving wlw or any other kind of rep becomes practically non-existant. this belief that all marginalized groups are the same and that one represents all is what leads to misrepresentation on top of lack of rep, which is what makes tokenism so dangerous. if you treat your only gay character badly, you are essentially treating every single gay person badly in that universe. so not only is lesbophobia and disdain for wlw harmful to sapphic women via their exclusion in media, it’s also harming those minorities who do get rep. when people try to defend lesbophobic source material, that’s when fandom starts to get toxic. the need for critical thinking has never been more apparent and it has also never been less appeased—and wlw are getting hit hard by it, as always.

finally, a pretty big driving factor of lesbophobia is, ironically, lesbians. my lesbian friends and i often joke that though everyone seems to hate us, no one hates lesbians more than lesbians do. though i’d say it’s most prevalent on tumblr, i see traces of it all over the internet. the growth of alt right lesbian movements is not only reinforcing hatred for lesbians, but also reinforcing hatred for bi and pan women. here you have these terrible lesbians using their platforms to express their disgust for bi/pan women, for aces and aros, for trans women/nb lesbians, and people see them and say, “gosh, lesbians are just awful.” and just like that, all of us are evil. occasionally, lesbian blogs that i follow get put on terf blocklists for no other reason than the fact that they have “lesbian” in their bio. and the lesbians that actually deserve to be on those blocklists? they’re too busy spewing misinformation about trans women and bi women to care, boosted up by their alt right friends in an ever-expanding movement. i’ve found that this heavily influences fandom on tumblr, lesbians often getting branded as “biphobic” when they hc a female character as a lesbian rather than bi or pan. this criticism of both lesbians and wlw by lesbians and non-wlw alike only ever allows lesbophobia to grow, both in and out of fandom. that said, lesbians aren’t to blame for their own discrimination; rather, many of us have been conditioned into subconsciously endorsing it after spending our entire lives hearing heterosexual platitudes about lesbians and sapphic relationships. homophobic cishets are and always have been the nexus of this oppression—the only difference is that now they can hide behind alt right lesbians.

one thing has been made apparent to me throughout my time in fandom, and that thing is that no one likes to see men “underrepresented”. people hate sapphic ships and lesbians so much because there is no room for men, and men Do Not Like That. so, like the worms that they are, they slither their way in, be it through fetishization or condemnation of wlw characters and ships, and they ruin whatever good things we have going for us. the thing about worms, though, is that they’re easy enough to crush if you’re wearing the right shoes.

so to all my bi/pan gals and lesbian pals: put on your doc martens, because we’ve got ourselves some lesbophobes to stomp on. 

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

Ships You Can Ship in Cats 1998: Part 3 (Cassandra, Coricopat, and Demeter)

Any ships involving characters with names that start with A or B have already been mentioned and will not be repeated, so some of the most obvious ships for this characters won’t be brought up here.

Content Warning: Sensitive pairings, I don’t ship all of them, blah you know the drill.

So, Cassandra:

Her most obvious ship has already been mentioned and I only have two more for you.

1. Cassandra/George

Alonzo passed on an opportunity to dance with Cassandra during Bomba’s section and George paired up with her instead.

Not like he has any idea how he got there. She’s way out of his league and he knows it. But, he :D because :D is what he do.

2. Cassandra/Mistoffelees

A lot of Broadway-based productions, which paired Alonzo with Demeter, implied this pairing. 1998 doesn’t really do that, but the Lovely Assistant thing is still there. Why did he pick her?

I’m not counting the fact that Cassandra, like nearly every other queen in the show, has a thing for Tugger, because these ships are implied to go both ways and he doesn’t really single her out, but I’ll mention it unofficially.

And now...Coricopat

Poor Cori rarely gets to be a single character by himself, so his list of ships is also quite short.

1. Coricopat/Mungojerrie

Without looking at each other, they both decide that Doggo Go Pant and still their tongues out. Clearly, these two think alike. They also both have female counterparts with slightly more common sense in everyday situations than the boys do.

2. Coricopat/Tantomile

ANTIS THIS IS A JOKE. The twins are inseparable. They basically share a brain. It’s hard to find good ships for either one, because whenever everyone pairs off, they always go together. Even during Bomba’s section, in what’s otherwise supposed to be a flirtatious dance. Even during the mating dance orgy, they just vibe in the corner together. Their telepathic link is so strong that they seem disconnected from everyone else. Because Tantomile drools over Tugger, she, at the very least, probably isn’t completely aroace. I have no idea about Coricopat. But, whether they’re aroace, just aro, just ace, or none of those things, they’re psychically isolated together. They might hear each other’s thoughts when one of them is having sex, which would be really weird, so if they might both just be celibate to preserve their sanity.

Yeah, that wasn’t even a ship, just a tangent. Let’s talk about Demeter, because she has several good ships:

1. Demeter/Grizabella

I’m starting with a stupid one. There is some kind of bond between the two that stands out. Demeter is the only character who knows exactly who Grizabella is and doesn’t hate her for it. She just can’t stand up to Bomba and Munk.

When Grizabella’s welcomed back into the group, Demeter seems reluctant to let go of her.

2. Demeter/Macavity

Another semi-canon ship. Like Bomba, Demeter is implied to have had some sort of past relationship with Macavity. She’s clearly more messed up about it than Bomba is, not knowing how to feel about being attracted to a man she despises, who probably did very bad things to her.

Bomba mentions how Macavity sways his head from side to side and Demeter, who’s placed closer to the audience than the character singing the line, sways her head in an imitation of what’s described. Throughout the number, she relives moments with Macavity.

This ship works better in the past tense.

3. Demeter/Munkustrap

Another one that’s strongly implied. He saves her from the bad guy. A classic set-up for a romance. Munkustrap fights for her and his wounded. After the fight, she goes to check on him and thank him for saving her. You can imagine, in a story about humans, that they might kiss at this moment. But, they’re cats, so they nuzzle

Also, I think Pouncival ships it. When the lights go out and he finds a flashlight, he provides them with mood lighting.

4. Demeter/Plato

There’s not much here, but it’s interesting to think of her with a character played by the same guy who plays Macavity. Munkustrap, the most obvious choice of partner, doesn’t participate in any of the sexy parts of the mating dance, so during Bomba’s section, Plato steps in.

During the mating dance, it’s Victoria’s tun and Demeter’s all by herself though.

And that’s part three! Next up, in part four, are Electra, Etcetera, and George, all characters placed in the kitten category at least some of the time. This should be interesting.

[flame-shadow]

something i think more people should do regarding the orientation of characters in media: assume everyone is aro/ace until told or shown otherwise

not only is that cool for those of us who appreciate recognition and representation, but it means the storytellers have to step up their game on establishing certain relationships as romantic or sexual.

[ slightly aimless rambling under the cut ]

because get this- you can look at someone and not be attracted to them. it's a thing that happens a lot. making eye contact shouldn't be the only indicator that two characters want to fuck now. accidentally bumping into someone in a crowded coffee shop shouldn't be the one single thing that shows the MC wants to date their love interest. where's the chemistry? where's the communication? where's the connection? how can i be expected to think they're romantically attracted to each other if they aren't even friends?? how can i know that the end-of-the-movie marriage won't end in divorce when they've yet to demonstrate that they're compatible?

but more than all that, i think it'd be nice to just allow characters to be friends. just friends. with no desire to go further and no undercurrent of sexual tension to make some of the readers/viewers cringe. let friends hold hands without expecting them to flip a switch and suddenly want to kiss. let people lounge on each other like cats without making it weird. let characters have sleepovers or be stuck in a hotel room where they platonically share a bed. the floor is gross anyway.

hell, do this in real life too (but with the added feature of recognizing that they're real people and not characters for you to manipulate). let people be friends without implying anything further. not every friendship will develop into something else. not every friendship should! the expectation that friendship is only a stepping stone for something greater or more intimate is detrimental to so many people. real people.

this started about fiction, but go figure these expectations bleed into reality too. okay so they started in reality, but anyway.

uhhh im not rereading so my final points are -writers: do a better job writing relationships to be believable and compelling -shippers: friendship is a damn good option too -aro and/or ace people: i love you (platonically) -everyone: appreciate your friends -everyone 2: remember to go outside and get some fresh air

[strixton]

HAPPY PANSEXUAL AND PANROMANTIC VISIBILITY DAY!!!💖💛💙

Today I get to say it is pan visibility day! And I want to clear up some things i've had people ask me about being pan, along side share a story.

First off, pan does not equal bi. Pansexual is an "gender blind" attraction to people. Basically we are attracted to people regardless of their gender. Gender does not hop into the question of our attraction to them. At least, that is my definition for it. To me, it doesnt matter what my partner will identify as, i will still love them with all my heart and soul.

Secondly, we are not attracted to kitchen tools. F off

Thirdly, we are not attention seekers, we are not attracted to every single solitary person, we are not wanting to date everyone, and we are not bi. These are all things i've had to explain to people.

now for my story

I didn't originally think i was pan, actually i thought i was bi when i first came out.

Growing up in a more well off area and being lucky to have such a good beginning to life, and I was able to have a good education. Thing was being gay = bad when I was little as told to me by my classmates, and i never talked about it with my parents so i never was told otherwise. I just listened to my classmates told me about being gay. Deep down, I knew I wasnt like my classmates.

Then in middles school, one day i was in the courtyard and three of my friends ran up and asked what letter of LGBTQ was I. I was confused, so they explained it to me using the marker method. I carried crayola markers with me everywhere at the time. It was my first big introduction to the gays, and if it wasn't for the interaction, I would have probably started questioning later on.

Self reflection made me realize I also liked girls, specifically one girl, so I thought I was bi. Then i realized I never thought I had sexual attraction to someone, so I was biromantic.

Well turns out that was a lie, and i just sat confused with a wrong label for a few weeks, till I found pan. Pan hit me and I hit it back, and I stuck with it. It fit me, it fit me well. Pan just fit with me, and it was perfect. I realized I wasn't panromantic, but Pansexual. I did in fact feel sexual attraction.

Now oh so many years later, I am proud to be Pan. I love myself enough and I accept myself. I have an accepting family and accepting friends. I am lucky.

I know others aren't though, and I want to give y'all a hand. No matter if you are pan, bi, gay, straight, ace, aro, poly, trans, nb, gender fluid, intersex, etc etc (there are so many terms i can't say them all sorry) I am here for you. I am a safe place for almost everyone. Please know I am here for y'all, and I can be your internet parent.

(I do have a list of dni, including racists, homophobes, transphobia, biphobes, aspect-phobes, Nazis, xenophobes, people hating on someone else for their race/gender/sexuality/religion/etc etc, maps, and terfs)

So this is me

I am Strixton (Strix/Strey) The Pansexual Demigirl

I am proud of myself and nothing will make me feel bad for being me

Happy Pan day!!! Support your local pans!!!

💖💛💙