#partially because as an acespec I like it

[cosmic-chelonian]

The fact that there are so many lore inconsistencies in Dr Who is sometimes a good thing actually because it means I feel justified in having headcanons that vastly and grossly contradict show canon. If the writers can ignore things they don't like why can't I.

[cagandante-communistoide]

Obligatory Why is aphobia A Thing ask

-💜

Get ready, this is my manifesto.

Content warnings for mentions of sexual violence and intimate partner abuse.

Before I can answer why aphobia is a thing, I have to answer what aro and ace phobia are, and for that I have to define amatonormativity and allonormativity. And for that, we need to define romance and sexuality as social constructs.

WHAT IS LOVE (baby don't hurt me):

THINGS I WILL NOT BE ATTEMPTING TO DEFINE FOR MY OWN SANITY:

the emotion of romantic or sexual attraction. the question of what these emotions are like is highly individual, partially socially constructed and entirely irrelevant to asking about the effect of certain positionalities in society related to these concepts.

THINGS I WILL BE DEFINING:

the social construct of romance and sexuality and how the dominant relationship model operates in society. Basically, what is considered romantic and sexual and what romance and sex is "supposed" to be, not what romance and sex actually feel like.

So: what is love? Romance is the whole motley of expectations that come with a romantic relationship- monogamy, priority over platonic relationships such as friendship, cohabitation and sharing of all assets and life decisions, and among most people on earth today, heterosexuality and the bearing of children. Sex in society is a social currency, something that is required to secure romantic relationships and for normal human psychology, but that must only be present in certain amounts in the context of a normative romantic relationship (or normal amount of hookups, in some cases) to be considered moral. It is the automatic placement of these models of romance and sex as universal goods, goals to be strived for as well as the “natural” order of things and lack of adherence as significant of some form of problem a la “maybe you have hangups, maybe you have a medical issue, maybe you’re single because you’re a bad person”.

Too much romance and sex (polyamory) or too little (aspec) both fall outside this norm. To not be asexual in any way is to be ALLOSEXUAL, and to not be aromantic in any way is to be ALLOROMANTIC. The status of being somewhere on the asexuality or aromanticism spectrum will be referred to as ASPEC. ACESPEC is for asexual-spectrum and AROSPEC is for aromantic-spectrum. The social construct of romance + its mandatory nature will henceforth be referred to as AMATONORMATIVITY. The social construct of sexual attraction + its mandatory nature and rules will henceforth be referred to as ALLONORMATIVITY. When a statement applies to both amato and allonormativity, I will simply write allonormativity. When it applies only to aromanticism and amatonormativity, I will write amatonormativity. WAIT, BUT IS ALLONORMATIVITY REAL? (yes):

here's some things people who are in romantic and sexual relationships and experience normative attraction on both counts, especially ones that progress into legal marriage, get most everywhere in the world that people who are not don't - regardless of whether they'd want to or not!

Tax benefits. The government literally gives you free money just for being married.

Lower prices for a lot of things: "family rates" for all forms of insurance, tuition discounts for education you have to pay for. additionally:

Greater financial benefits. It's easier to be approved for rent if you have a partner. it's easier to get bank loans and finance expensive things if you're married. If your spouse dies you automatically get insurance payouts and inheritance by default, without probate or even being taxed. A lot of the time your cohabitating partner or spouse is the automatic beneficiary of your financial services. Informally, everything is priced for couples. When there's economic downturn, the default bourgeois media excuse is "if you don't want to struggle financially, get married". Poor economic conditions are used as a lever with which to push people into amatonormativity. Additionally, the only relationship you are financially punished for for legally leaving is marriage through an expensive court proceeding. If your romantic relationship has been reified enough, the incentive to remain in it is literally that you have to hire a lawyer to leave.

Legal recognition. Your next of kin is automatically your spouse. If you are not a minor child and you want someone to inherit your things, make decisions for you when you can't, or receive say, jubilation or insurance payments on your behalf, the only way you can do that without filing power of attorney documents is marriage. The only relationship you cannot leave without going to court is marriage, and the only other people who are so difficult to leave because of societal and legal pressure to cohabitate and share assets with them is your nuclear family. Want to make sure cutting contact with you is so expensive, exhausting, and difficult for another person that they would never even try it? Be in a relationship. Then get married. Also, if you're asexual but in a marriage, your marriage only counts if you have sex with your partner in a lot of places. Allonormativity is a requirement for amatonormativity- the normal definition of romance makes normative sexuality obligatory.

Social currency. Romance and marriage are considered "essential life stages". People in relationships are automatically seen as more functional, more trustworthy, more mature. if you don't express interest in relationships you are labelled mentally ill or antisocial and if you can't get one by a certain point you're labeled a failure of a human being. There is much invested in the social narrative that "everyone's purpose is to find love", and not finding it results in a perception of having failed said purpose. Leaving a romantic relationship, especially for reasons of incompatibility instead of some kind of wrongdoing, is frowned upon. Most benignly, it's seen as an inherent tragedy to leave a partner you didn't want to begin with or don't want anymore. Often, it marks you as a bad person. Romance carries immense social currency as a universal good that washes any situation or person of their horror. See:

In many parts of the world, marital rape and physical abuse is legal to some extent. If you're partners but not married, or it's illegal, then even so partners are the people least likely to be suspected of abuse right after parents, even with proof. Many an abuser has gotten away with obvious abuse just by saying "it's a lover's spat". many forces like misogyny, homophobia, and racism compound this effect, but ultimately what they reify is a system where romance and family are considered automatic goods that negate or permit abuse. "It's okay because he's your boyfriend" is just as common as "it's okay because he's your father". Again: want to have an unhealthy amount of control over another person with complete social acceptability and cover? Be in a relationship. Then get married.

Psychiatric legitimacy. Again, romance and sex are considered automatic goods. Allonormativity asserts that regular romantic and sexual activity within a monogamous heterosexual relationship especially (but not exclusively, this expectation exists regardless of whether any individual subject is accepting of queerness or nonmonogamy) is universal healthy human behavior and should be strived for. Romance and sex are frequently said to be human "needs" and denial of either to another person is almost always treated as an aggression by the person saying "no". If you fall in love and have sex, you are automatically the "healthy" person next to someone who does not. Your reality is the default life goal for everyone, in both casual and clinical settings - whether they want it or not.

AND NOW FOR THE BENEFITS OF SEXUALITY SPECIFICALLY:

Medical legitimacy. Again, you are the "default" healthy option for human behavior. Development of sexual attraction labels you a normal, untraumatized, healthy person by default and doctors will never use your sexuality to question you about your hormone levels or whether you have an intersex condition to be "fixed". Your sexuality is not a currently diagnosable "condition" internationally and people will not suggest physical therapy, medication, or surgical intervention to "fix" you into having sex. (Of course, people who actually DO have medical or trauma related reasons why they don’t have sex who may or may not want to reduce them have a lot of pressure on them to resume “normalcy” as soon as possible - this is an example of the social asexualization of the otherwise allo subject.)

Legal legitimacy: again, marriages are only valid in several places when sex is involved.

Social legitimacy: same applies as for the latter iteration of this but slightly differently- you can lose sexuality based social currency by being polyamorous or otherwise too promiscuous. However, if you have the "correct" amount of sex with the "right" people, you are by default considered a more mature, correct person. You command more trust and inspire more respect than someone who clearly has not had the "right" amount of sex just by being someone who is presumed to do things "correctly", because you've cleared an "essential life stage". You are natural, you are normal, and those are both very powerful social positions to wield over someone who isn't. Just look at how much social currency cis people have over trans people for an example of the same thing. Your relationship is also not at risk because of "withholding sex" in the vast majority of cases (because you are compliant with your partner's "need", of course).

WHAT ABOUT APHOBIA?: WHAT YOU HAVE TO LOOK FORWARD TO AS THE POOR BASTARD WHO IS ARO/ACE

On the flip side is arophobia and acephobia, the bigotry and structural injustice that enforces amatonormativity and allonormativity onto those who do not fit. Here's a trying-to-be-comprehensive list of the smorgasbord of indignities, injustices and inhumanities aro/ace people can be and often are subject to on the basis of their orientation:

Pathologization- asexuality. "Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder" is an internationally diagnosable condition in which doctors attempt to "fix" that you don't want sex and are unhappy about it by trying to "fix" the "disordered" sex drive. Because being unhappy about asexuality is something that would only happen because it's wrong, and not because normal sexuality holds immense social, medical, and legal capital, amirite? If you need to be explained why taking a natural harmless variance in sexual orientation and making it a "disease" to be cured is wrong, ask yourself if you think homosexuality should still be a disorder to be "treated" with medications and conversion therapies.

Pathologization- aromanticism. Romance is considered a "need", a universal part of life and achieving a romantic partnership is considered a universal good even in clinical settings. Not desiring romance is considered a sign of antisocial behaviors associated with a range of pathologies, including depression, social anxiety, avoidant personality disorder and conduct disorder/antisocial personality disorder. Every single aromantic person I have ever met, whether personally or in passing, who has set foot in a psychiatric setting has experienced some form of conversion therapy through continued harassment to date or through abuse of medication. ALL OF THEM. It is legitimately unavoidable.

Legal disadvantage: all of the above privileges reserved for romantic partnerships, especially marriages,  are barred from aromantic people either entirely or functionally through the creation of a long, difficult process to achieve the same thing marriage gets by default. If you are alloromantic but asexual, all of the above privileges reserved for marriage can be revoked if your marriage is declared invalid due to lack of sexual activity or your partnership is dissolved because of your asexuality. In addition, while aro/ace people are subject to almost all the same indignities of homophobia + aphobia, we are functionally not considered a protected class anywhere where homosexuals are because allonormativity obscures and denies our very existence. This is the third of many examples of how being aspec is its own positionality which intersects with and worsens other queerphobia, and how allo queer people benefit from specifically not being aspec. I will elaborate on this later.

Financial disadvantage: as opposed to the legal category where if you waste enough time in court you might be able to appoint someone with the same rights and benefits to confer upon you (given that they are not prioritizing their own romantic + sexual relationship), aro/ace people will NEVER benefit financially from the structure of the economy being designed to reward couples. I hope the above list has explained sufficiently why this is significant and that the preference for romantic relationships monetarily is not at all a victimless or neutral happenstance.

Social neglect + abuse due to allonormativity: Do you perhaps enjoy everyone you know and love leaving you behind because they have significant social and financial incentive to prioritize their romantic relationships over you? How about being considered automatically less valuable to your partner because you won't have sex with them, or less valuable to the people you love because your relationship is purely platonic compared to a partner that literally waltzed in a few months ago? Do you salivate at the thought of being bullied everywhere from school to your home to your doctor's office for being a virgin? How about for being single and never dating? Do you derive enjoyment from being called homophobic slurs without, contrary to popular belief, being able to "opt out" of it by saying you're not gay? Do you like seeing every person who is like you treated as a joke, a crazy, presented as an unnatural perversion of human behavior and mocked resoundingly in every public sphere as a human who has failed to mature? Who has failed to develop humanity? Do you enjoy the thought of the definition of what makes people "human" excluding you? No? Too bad. You can look forward to this anyway.

Corrective violence, including sexual harassment, molestation, assault, all forms of abuse and murder, especially for rejecting an allo’s advances and/or in the context of intimate partner violence.

Homophobia from straight people, and aphobia from allosexual queer people as well. Remember, the other marginalized groups still benefit from being more "normal" than you! But you're not oppressed, because you're not gay.

HEY, NONE OF THIS IS EXCLUSIVE TO APHOBIA! IT'S ACTUALLY HOMOPHOBIA/MISOGYNY! (deep sigh) :

You're right, it isn't. But no analysis of bigotry is about having a "unique experience". It's about identifying the ways in which society is designed to hurt you, in which other people have power over you, and who benefits from your suffering.

A gay person and an asexual have the same experience having a slur hurled at them for denying a straight person's advances. But a gay person and an asexual person do not have the same experience going to the doctor and mentioning their sexuality, because it is entirely likely and extremely common that a gay person gets to walk away free and an asexual person is diagnosed with "hypoactive sexuality". An asexual person does not have increased social license by established norms about sexuality and romance to rape their partner for denying them garlic bread, but a gay person wields the power to do so to their asexual partner and have it justified by "they were denying me sex. They’re being cruel to me by denying me this when it means so much to me". A gay person can sexually harass an asexual on the basis of their virginity with "why haven't you had sex? you should really do it. stop being frigid. go to the doctor, that's not normal. maybe it's a hormonal imbalance", or say things like “All these people are virgins now because they’re afraid of sex. All these people are single now because they have bad personalities." without having it questioned. A gay person, in many countries, can reap the benefits of marriage, and aromantic people famously do not often wish to marry. The aspec experience is to have this denied - asexuals and aromantics cannot be victims of the homosexual or heterosexual in the allo imagination because the aro or ace is not real to them. They are always a perpetually shifting list of character defects but never a real class of people. Just a disease to be eradicated. Something wrong with an otherwise allo person - a failed allosexual, but also someone who has deliberately reneged on their humanity and thus forfeited dignity or even existence in the public consciousness. Invisibility for us is not safety. It is our guillotine.

You can be oppressed for your sexuality and still be privileged for NOT being aspec. Being aspec is its own positionality, and our oppression is specifically targeting US. We are not caught in your crossfire, or anyone else’s. You, reader, whether you be a woman or homosexual or transgender or nonwhite, may have similar experiences as described. But if you are allosexual, you will never experience it for BEING aspec. You can opt out of aphobia, you are privileged on the basis of your allosexuality and alloromanticism. I can not "opt out". I will always experience meaningfully different and more social scrutiny on basis of sexuality than you, allosexual reader, ever will, because every single allosexual and alloromantic can wield aphobia towards aros/aces. Yes, even if you're gay. THAT is aphobia. AND NOW ONTO THE HORRORS OF CAPITALISM:

Now it's time to answer the original question: WHY does aphobia exist? Well, let's think about what else romance and sexuality are. They're extremely useful tools. Ever since there has been a class of people who lived off the labor of others and a class who had nothing to sell but their labor, there has been financial incentive for the former to make sure there is a steady supply of the latter. The next generation of serfs, peasants, and later proletariat needed to be secure for an economic model in which a select few live entirely off a many laboring on their private property to survive. And what better way to do that than to enshrine the two emotions most associated with reproduction as mandatory parts of life? To then construct a model of romance and sexuality that rewards those who create an easily traceable geneaology as property for the patriarch and continue producing children to become laborers without creating children that would complicate this process, and punish those who do not?

Tie sex to marriage and that’s more incentive for people to marry just to have sex. Make the process of reproduction a mandatory aspect of life. Make it so that it’s only acceptable with your spouse, who has control over your finances and legal processes to some degree (it was very common in feudalism for the wife to outright be a husband’s property), to tie you to that person forever, and then make it a very socially elevated role to fill and a very hard bond to break to make sure the maximum amount of people keep reproducing with one family patriarch for as long as possible. What’s the end result? A socially engineered values system which serves to ensure that there will always be new laborers in the working class, because every person MUST marry and MUST have sex with their partner and therefore must reproduce. This is the same reason homophobia exists economically, except allo gay people wield additional social capital over aspecs by subverting the direction allonormativity expects you take in terms of partnerships instead of eschewing it. Why? Capitalism can still sell allonormativity back to allo queers with some slight tweaks. That’s not to say that the gains of allo queers are not significant liberation from homophobia, but it’s just that - it creates holes in homophobia. Holes in homophobia for gays that are “close enough” to how things are “supposed” to be done, at that. It does nothing to address the allonormative cisheteropatriarchal superstructure that creates both homophobia and aphobia. For example, it is extremely important for gay people to earn the right to marry, but then the institution of marriage which creates a single standard for a “correct”, respectable relationship and then rewards compliance for it is not questioned at all by that step. It just expands the box you are allowed to be in slightly, and ultimately reifies the same institution from which homophobia stems - allocisheteropatriarchal capitalism and its legal code. Detractors then argue that gay marriage isn’t “real” marriage or isn’t moral, and the purely gay positionality oriented argument against this (that being that attaching morality to gender of partner is a construction of heteronormativity and is artificial), while correct, fails to destroy the angle from which this bigotry continues to emerge repeatedly - that being that ALL the trappings of the “normal, moral, natural” relationship are artificially constructed and oppressive in nature. Including the institution of marriage itself. Aphobia is a thing for the same reason racism, homophobia, and misogyny are a thing: it has made the bourgeoisie money for generations. It is a social invention inherited from feudalism that serves the same purpose as it ever did- population control for the army of laborers.

[auburnflight]

Okay, so. Emotional rant about NieR:Automata that I mentioned. Because it's the kind of thing I might have become interested in tangentially anyway, but for it to become a life-changing hyperfixation.... the TIMING.

Under a read more for ~traumatic backstory~

It's obvious from a list of my favorite series that I like tragedy. But it's kind of bonkers how close NieR:Automata touches on some of the themes that have only come to my light in the last couple years.

First off, I NEVER would have played the game. I've watched my spouse play it and the gameplay doesn't appeal to me at all. It's just not my thing. Enter 2023: we now have the anime! A way to become acquainted with it that actually works for me!

Interesting because since 2023, my identity/our identities have taken on unique flavors of queerness that resonate very closely with the androids. Specifically, being non-human/alterhuman, and having no reproductive parts (the ideal). Suddenly, we're given this series that intimately appeals to both! We started pursuing our nullification surgery in earnest in late 2022, so the timing of the release of the NieR:Automata anime is impeccable.

Tangentially related, the idea that a being can experience sexual attraction even without genitals. Specifically thinking of 9S here. He experiences a lot of different kinds of attraction imo, but one of them is very specifically said in the canon to be sexual. It seems like a paradox, and yet, having 9S right there as an example is so validating. (We're also varying degrees of demisexual, so all the acespec possibilities that 9S lends are so freeing, too. There's so many emotional and sensory details.)

But even this idea of sexual attraction is fairly recent for us--within the past 3 or 4 years. And realizing in late 2022 that nullification surgery is a possibility really gave us a realistic avenue to grapple with it. So bring that, and then NieR a few months later, and you have this incredibly validating series that brings tragedy (yay) and a niche flavor of queerness that we didn't know how badly we needed.

One of the themes touched on briefly in 9S's arc is shame. The scene where he's kidnapped by Adam was of interest to me to begin with, just because there's a certain amount of internalized shame involved with being queer when you grew up surrounded by the thought that queer people basically didn't exist, or were unnatural. And given that I'm a lesbian (i.e. I'm attracted to women), I can kind of relate to 9S feeling ashamed for his attraction to (and specifically, desire for) 2B.

But then, no sooner than a couple months ago, right when the second season of the anime, I came across a buried memory from my childhood involving shame surrounding my attraction. I realized I had carried it with me this whole time, over a decade, and let it deeply influence how I thought about my own attractions without even having remembered it happening to me. So uncovering it completely recontextualized how I feel about experiencing lesbian attraction, and made me realize how much shame is going to be a massive hurdle for me even though I'm now in an accepting environment.

See: 9S. Even if all the YoRHa propaganda went away and he was allowed to exist without it, he still wouldn't be free to be himself, because his own shame is an obstacle. So I've reopened this newly-fresh wound from my childhood, and I see this character I already adore struggling with this same thing in a new light. So validating.

Even just the idea that the YoRHa androids have a very specific prescribed framework for what things they think about and how they think about them. I came from an environment that was very much the same. I was discouraged (partially through said shame) from thinking about anything outside of the template that I was given, to the point that I didn't even realize there was a template to question. In my late 20s, I'm finally breaking out of this template and reconceptualizing my/our sense of self/selves, and all the little moments of freedom in our life/lives are so much sweeter when we see them happening in NieR, too. I get emotional when 9S and 2B lose their visors just for the symbolic value (and hey, it's anime, they're pretty).

The icing on the cake for me is how many of 9S's traits and experiences resonate with mine as someone with dissociative symptoms. I don't have a lot of memories, so the ones I do have are precious. Sometimes I know I'm missing something, but I don't know why or what I could possibly be missing. I have past experiences that aren't really like my present sense of self--more like past iterations of me in the same body. Sometimes I just want to tag my stuff "dissociative!9S".

Let's be real. NieR has tragedy, nothing is ever going to be okay (except it kind of was at the end of the anime, which shocked me, but still--OTHER than that), existential questions, cyclical timeline shenanigans, even some psychological horror. And almost all of these have marked all of my strong interests since 2019, when I graduated from college and really broke into having my own interest and sense of self/selves. So had the anime come out earlier, before all this selves-discovery was happening, I probably still would have enjoyed it. But for it to permeate my sense of self this deeply, and through such specific avenues? It could only have happened in the last year, maybe two.

And that's kind of mind-boggling for me to think about.

So yeah, no wonder it's consumed nearly 100% of my emotional energy since last month.

[10piecechickenmcnugget]

😺👽🎭🏳️‍🌈 for the headcanons thing, c!lizzie perhaps? (any smp version you want :D)

😺 An animal related headcanon

well we all know lizzie likes cats, in my headcanon that girls a fae and as such a shapeshifter and cat is one of her favorite forms to take ^_^

👽 A headcanon about a weird quirk of there

lizzie writes everything down. and i mean EVERYTHING. she’s got lists for everything you can conceive of and more

🎭 A headcanon about what they lie about

she 100% just lies for fun. like she’ll just gaslight you just because. partially cause she’s a fae but she’s also just Like That yknow

🏳️‍🌈 A sexuality headcanon

bi for sure obviously, and probably arospec/acespec. i can make any character aroace

(headcanon ask game!)

[aplarotape]

upon further reflection i might actually be panaspec instead of omniaspec

thinking this mainly because like. i don't think i really feel that much attraction in any spectrum if at all. like i'm in an intuspluric relationship w two others rn yeah and me being acespec is like. generally give or take because it's partially influenced by other factors that put me on the fence on how exactly i'd label it (which is why i personally use the label alicosexual or aliusasexual when i do describe that that specific spectrum of attraction is. messy for me to figure out)

but like. other than that? highly doubt i feel any attraction really like i genuinely do not get what other people are describing when they say they experience some form of attraction

[bubblyaquarium]

we're going to do all of these and yes it took like two hours but I had fun. just a warning this is super long lmao

1. What is your System name and / or the name you collectively go by?

Our system name is The Aquarium. We won't share the name we collectively go by / the body's name for privacy reasons, but it's nothing fun lmao it's a basic white boy name.

2. Which word do you prefer to use for your System? (example: System, Collective, Constellation, ...)

We prefer either system or plurality, Circus likes to jokingly call us a 'school' since our theme is based on fish. We also use Aquarium as a collective term for ourselves.

3. What are your Systems origins, if you choose to label them?

We use the term quoigenic as we partially don't know fully how we formed and partially because we don't want to talk about it, at least not publicly on our blog.

4. Do you have any Subsystems?

Nope.

5. Do you have any Sidesystems?

Nope.

6. What is your opinion on you& / your& language and similar types?

For us personally we don't use it, but I think it's a cool way to refer to yourself/others for those that do! It is a tad confusing for us though

7. What methods do you use to keep track of your System and it's Members?

Simply Plural is our main way of documenting everyone, we have pronoun.cc and pluralkit but those tend to be outdated.

8. What is your Systems ways of communication?

We don't really do anything to communicate to each other, we remember (almost) everything between switches so we haven't really had a need to. We can talk to each other or at least sense each other's feelings when co-fronting together.

9. Is communication hard or easy for you (and why is it the way it is)?

I guess it's fairly easy?

10. Do you view yourselves as parts of one person or as multiple people in one body?

It depends on the headmate, most of us see ourselves as parts of the core (albeit differently sized pieces of the core), though a feel of us (like Mirror, Ren, and Breeze for example) feel like separate people.

11. Who are you out to as plural?

Just our one close friend, who is also a system.

12. What languages do you collectively / one of you speak?

Only English unfortunately, we want to learn more but we are so inconstant we haven't been able to get past a few weeks before dropping it.

13. What is something you can't seem to collectively agree on?

Our hair lmao, it changes all the time.

14. If you have a collective Identity (such as Gender or Orientation), what is it?

Transgender guy and gay acespec.

15. Do you collectively identify as queer / LGBTQIA+?

Yep! Almost all of us are queer in some way.

16. Do you collectively identify as Otherkin, Alterhuman or Nonhuman?

Collectively we're demihuman (part human part not), though some of us have specific kintypes. Angel is dollkin, Circus is a cat therian, Ty is nonhuman, plus we have physically nonhuman headmates as well.

17. Do you have a collective rentry / carrd / something along those lines? (feel free to share!)

Nope, we tried rentry but didn't like it much.

18. What does switching feel like for you?

For the most part it's real subtle and we don't notice it until later, but for a few of us it's more intense. Switching to Corci feels almost like having part of ourselves 'turned off', like we lose energy and our emotions become dull. Switching to Ro is like having someone else force their way into your brain, it makes us confused and dizzy. Sometimes switching out makes us feel jittery or causes us to dissociate, it depends.

19. Are you Monoconscious, Polyconscious or something else?

I believe hydraconcious, it's hard to wrap my head around having different consciousness or what that feels like so it's really hard to tell.

20. What does fronting feel like for you?

For me (Corci) it's feels like I'm in a dream, kind of like I'm just autopiloting through things but I'm only half-there. However I am often very dissociated and I know it's not that way for everyone.

21. How many System members do you have?

As of right now 33.

22. Which word / words do you prefer to use for members of your System?

I personally prefer headmates or members, though some of us use the term alter. A few of us refer to everyone as 'the others'.

23. Which age group seems to be the most common in your System?

Early to mid twenties, which is the bodies age.

24. Which gender seems to be the most common in your System?

Definitely male or masc-aligned.

25. Are there any talents / hobbies you picked up because of a Member?

No, but I'm not the right person to ask as I don't really enjoy any hobbies, and don't do the ones we share.

26. Do you have any in-system relationships?

Nope, I'm one of the headmates that's more like a piece of the core, and we don't have relationships, that's just the ones that are more separate.

27. Do you label roles within your System (and if yes, which ones?)

There's too many to list, but we tend to use more specific roles (like I'm technically a protector, but I use the term buffer, which is a more specific variation of protector).

28. Are most of your Members introjected, brainmade or something else?

I'd say it's 50/50, though brainmade headmates tend to be more complex and fully formed people than the introjects are.

29. Do you use names, emojis or something similar to sign off messages (and if yes, which ones and why?)

We use our names, we do have emojis but they're mostly just for fun and ngl we tend to forget ours.

30. Do any of your System members use Xenogenders?

Yes! Circus uses a lot (audiogender, stickhoardic, catgender, clutterboy, sanriogender, clowngender, etc etc, ze is a gender hoarder), and Buttercream is girlthing.

31. How do Members pick face claims?

We all tend to form with a pretty vivid idea of what we look like, so it isn't to hard for us to make ourselves in picrew.

32. Do you have any Introjects of popular sources?

Dio and Ro are both from jjba, and we have a bunch of introjects from nct.

33. Do you have any Introjects of unpopular sources?

Sian from tfn and both Oz and Pigtails are from IDV, which idk if that's considered unpopular or not but we don't see introjects from it often.

34. Do you have nonhuman Members?

Yes, quite a few. Pigtails and Oz are both dolls, Percy is a forest spirit, Buttercream is a deity, Zee is a virtual zombie, and Breeze is a dryad.

35. Do any of you use Typing Quirks?

Idk if it's a quirk or if it just can't spell, but Zee spells a lot of things weird.

36. Do all of you front, or only a selected amount?

Most of us do, there's a handful that can't. Dio, Sunny, Marky, Jay, Wyatt, Lenny, and Johnny have never fronted. Mirror can front but does so rarely, she usually is just co-con.

37. Are there any Members who can't or prefer to not speak?

Jett is semiverbal and struggles to speak, Amy doesn't speak often we assume because she's shy, and Percy is fully mute.

38. Are most of you short or tall in height?

Kind of in between, most of us are around 5'7 (the body's height) though some of us are shorter (Zee, Deliliah, Ren, Percy) and some are very tall (Buttercream and Oz).

39. Is there a Member that is collectively loved by all in the System?

We all like each other for the most part but we all adore the littles, and as our peacemaker Chloe gets along well with everyone.

40. Do any of you struggle with being front-stuck a lot of the time?

I do, yes. During stressful periods in our life I tend to get either frontstuck or switch out near constantly. No one else has that issue though.

41. Do you have a Headspace (if not, is there a reason)?

Not really? Mostly because we struggle to visualize, though we'd really like one.

42. What does your Headspace look like?

As I said we don't really have one, but there's a few places we have: a big dark room with a huge fishtank in the middle (for destressing or a place to hide when we're super overwhelmed or overstimulated), an alleyway where Chaos lives, and a fancy room with a library where Dio lives.

43. How do Members look like in Headspace? (example: Cartoony, Foggy, Realistic, ...)

Pretty realistic, we have a good sense of our what we look like.

44. Is there a reason why the Headspace looks the way it looks?

Skipping because we don't really have a headspace

45. Is it easy for you to enter Headspace?

It's very challenging for us

46. Do you remember what happened in Headspace when you switch into front?

Yes but then again nothing really happens there

47. Does time in Headspace pass (and if yes, is it at the same speed as in real life)?

No idea

48. What is your favourite place in Headspace?

I mean there's not much there lmao but for sure the fishtank room, it's so calming

49. Are there "NPCs" within your Headspace?

No, unless we're counting the fish

50. Are there any interesting fun facts about your Headspace?

Nope

51. Are there any "System Stereotypes" you fit into?

We have the stereotypical 'edgy persecutor' and a lot of introjects from our hyperfixations.

52. Who of you would be considered the "evil alter"? (in a lighthearted, joking manner)

Chaos 100%

53. What is your favourite inside-joke with a Member?

I can't think of any rn

54. What is your favourite Plural meme?

55. Is there any character that you headcanon as plural?

It's like semi-canon but Foo Fighters from jjba

56. Is there any show or movie that you believe is a good plural representation, despite that not being its intention?

I haven't seen many tbh

57. Is there any song that you believe describes your plural experience?

Not that I can think of

58. What about an artwork that describes your plural experience?

None

59. Which Member of your System do you believe to be the prettiest of them all?

Sian lmao he's our pretty boy, I think Buttercream is pretty too though

60. Do you collectively have a lucky number?

83 is our collective lucky number, I personally favor the number 9

61. When did you first discover your System?

A few years ago but we kind of just ignored it lmao

62. How many Members did you know about during your Syscovery?

6 or 7 (Gray, Delilah, Mirror, Rocky, Breeze, and Chaos + the 'core' or Inky at the time)

63. Was accepting your Plurality a challenge for you?

Oh yeah. Before knowing much about plurality we thought the concept was super cool (like not the trauma behind it obviously, but the way people's brains could just. Form other people) so we felt like we were unconsciously faking because we thought it was interesting, hence we ignored it for years.

64. How did you learn about Plurality?

Partially through tiktok (that's where we first heard of it), but we learned about it through an old friend of ours that's a system.

65. Where there any signs of your Plurality, if you look back at your past?

Yeah for sure, starting at age 13 or 14 we had a lot of instances where Chaos fronted, as well as Buttercream, which looking back is very obvious as they are super different from Chloe, who was the host back then.

66. Do you think your Syscovery changed a lot in your life?

Not really tbh, it's been a comfort to have names to our different 'moods' but it doesn't really affect how we live day to day life

67. If you're out to others as plural, have they ever told you later on that they already thought about it before you realized?

Nope.

68. What was the biggest struggle during your Syscovery?

Differentiating between mood swings and actual headmates.

69. Was there any big event that led to your Syscovery?

Not really? It was a gradual realization during a rough period in our life that hey, sometimes when things are super shitty I start using different pronouns that's weird

70. What is something you want questioning plurals to know?

It's okay to not know everything right away, it takes a while to process and learn all the terms and figure out headmates, and sometimes you need to just exist without worrying about who you are and who's in your head.

71. Are you Neurodivergent (and if yes, how?)

Yes, we might(?) have ADHD, plus a couple personality disorders which are like our Main Issues lmao, being plural is almost like a secondary thing

72. Do you have any physical disability?

Uh...maybe? We don't feel disabled enough to call ourselves disabled but we for sure aren't fully able bodied.

73. Do you have a dissociative disorder?

No idea

74. Do you have any other disorder?

Borderline Personality Disorder 🤩 we have npd as well but bpd affects us the most by far it SUCKS

75. Do symptom vary in intensity depending on the fronter?

Yes! I'm the bpd holder so bpd seems to affect me more than the others (Delilah and Chaos as well), and npd affects Angel the most. Circus has the worst ADHD symptoms.

76. Do you think your disability / disorder has an influence on your plurality?

For sure, we're heavily affected by bpd and it causes us to be blurry a lot as well as making it hard to keep track of headmates as we have awful mood swings and identity issues and it's hard to tell what's an episode and what's a new headmate. In fact we sometimes wonder if most of if not all of us are made up just to explain away how inconsistent our personality is, which even if that is true we've found a lot of comfort in being a system and it's helped us tons so we wouldn't change how we label ourselves even if we aren't wrong.

77. Do you have amnesia of any kind?

Mostly emotional amnesia, though we have memory blocks between certain headmates, like Mirror and Buttercream.

78. Are there Members who deal better with symptoms than others?

Some of us cope with things better than others.

79. Do your disorders / disabilities influence communication or switching within your System in any way?

It makes it harder to keep track of switches

80. Does being plural help with your disorders in any way? (example: another Member switching in to take care of the body during difficult times, ...)

Yes but I don't feel like elaborating rn

81. Which is your favourite plural flag?

I'm biased but I like the quoigenic flag most. It's like a sunset over the ocean.

82. If you have one, which is your favourite plurality related tumblr blog?

This one (pluralasking) not to be a suck up lmao we just like answering questions

83. What is a fun fact about your System?

We are collectively super hyperfixated on scambaiting! I can't tell you how many hours we've spend watching / listening to youtube videos and livestreams of scambaiters. We know Way Too Much about how scams work.

84. What is a flavour of ice cream that describes you collectively?

Cookies and cream. Don't ask why the vibes are just right.

85. Which pride flag is the prettiest, in your collective opinion?

We love pride flags but our favorites are omnisexual, queer, and abrosexual. Plus there are a ton of xenogender flags we like as well.

86. If you collectively had to choose between being a sweet or a sour candy, which do you pick?

Sweet

87. Your body always morphs into what the current fronter(s) look like, would you want this power or not?

Uhh for me it wouldn't make much a difference. I supposed overall it would be cool but considering how often we switch it would bring a lot of unwanted attention, plus we don't always want it to be known who is fronting

88. Is there a Hatsune Miku in your System?

No lmao

89. Who has been in your System the longest (if you can remember)?

Chloe is the original so for sure her. Amy, Breeze, Chaos/Corci (we split off from each other at some point but we used to be the same person I'm pretty sure), and Buttercream have also been here a while.

90. If you collectively had to choose, would you rather only eat sweet foods or only eat savoury foods for the rest of your life?

Collectively sweet, but I prefer savory

91. If you collectively had to choose, would you pick to become a vampire or a werewolf?

Vampire

92. Your body is transfered into one of your Members sources, which do you pick and why?

Sian, his source is pretty and gives us a lot of gender envy

93. If all of you turned into animals right this second, which animals would we find in your System?

A lot of cats, deer, and mice lmao

94. What would a Minecraft server with all of your Members look like? (example: chaotic, peaceful, laggy, ...)

A mess, just all sorts of unfinished houses and farms everywhere. And we'd only play on create mode.

95. If you could choose between only living in Headspace or only living in Meatspace (real life), which would you choose?

Headspace, idk if it's basically nonexistent I don't like the real world

96. What topic would you collectively make a youtube channel about? (it can't be plurality!)

Scambaiting, or queer or otherkin related stuff

97. Which superpower would your body obtain, if you had to collectively decide on one?

Shapeshifting or invisibility (or like making ourselves unnoticeable to people)

98. Who would pick the coolest tattoo for the System and who would pick the worst?

Coolest would be Chaos (he wants us to get a snake that wraps around our arm) and worst would be Circus (it would be something jjba related I just know it)

99. If you only were allowed to eat one food for the rest of your life, but you would have to decide on the food collectively, what would it be and what would the decision making look like?

Ramen because A) it's easy B) we all like it and C) I'm the host and I say ramen

100. What is the most fun about doing polls and answering questions, in your opinion?

Talking about ourselves lmao, we have npd we will take any excuse to focus on ourselves

#One-Hundred

[pt: #one-hundred]

In order to celebrate 100 days of posting, here are 100 questions for you to answer! You can either answer them all at once, or let others send in the numbers they are most curious about!

Some of them are general questions, others are just really silly and should not be taken too serious. I put a lot of effort into coming up with all of these, so I truely hope you have fun with this!

For simplicity sake, all questions will use the words "System" and "Members".

1. What is your System name and / or the name you collectively go by?

2. Which word do you prefer to use for your System? (example: System, Collective, Constellation, ...)

3. What are your Systems origins, if you choose to label them?

4. Do you have any Subsystems?

5. Do you have any Sidesystems?

6. What is your opinion on you& / your& language and similar types?

7. What methodes do you use to keep track of your System and it's Members?

8. What is your Systems ways of communication?

9. Is communication hard or easy for you (and why is it the way it is)?

10. Do you view yourselves as parts of one person or as multiple people in one body?

11. Who are you out to as plural?

12. What languages do you collectively / one of you speak?

13. What is something you can't seem to collectively agree on?

14. If you have a collective Identity (such as Gender or Orientation), what is it?

15. Do you collectively identify as queer / LGBTQIA+?

16. Do you collectively identify as Otherkin, Alterhuman or Nonhuman?

17. Do you have a collective rentry / carrd / something along those lines? (feel free to share!)

18. What does switching feel like for you?

19. Are you Monoconscious, Polyconscious or something else?

20. What does fronting feel like for you?

21. How many System members do you have?

22. Which word / words do you prefer to use for members of your System?

23. Which age group seems to be the most common in your System?

24. Which gender seems to be the most common in your System?

25. Are there any talents / hobbies you picked up because of a Member?

26. Do you have any in-system relationships?

27. Do you label roles within your System (and if yes, which ones?)

28. Are most of your Members introjected, brainmade or something else?

29. Do you use names, emojis or something similar to sign off messages (and if yes, which ones and why?)

30. Do any of your System members use Xenogenders?

31. How do Members pick face claims?

32. Do you have any Introjects of popular sources?

33. Do you have any Introjects of unpopular sources?

34. Do you have nonhuman Members?

35. Do any of you use Typing Quirks?

36. Do all of you front, or only a selected amount?

37. Are there any Members who can't or prefer to not speak?

38. Are most of you short or tall in height?

39. Is there a Member that is collectively loved by all in the System?

40. Do any of you struggle with being front-stuck a lot of the time?

41. Do you have a Headspace (if not, is there a reason)?

42. What does your Headspace look like?

43. How do Members look like in Headspace? (example: Cartoony, Foggy, Realistic, ...)

44. Is there a reason why the Headspace looks the way it looks?

45. Is it easy for you to enter Headspace?

46. Do you remember what happened in Headspace when you switch into front?

47. Does time in Headspace pass (and if yes, is it at the same speed as in real life)?

48. What is your favourite place in Headspace?

49. Are there "NPCs" within your Headspace?

50. Are there any interesting fun facts about your Headspace?

51. Are there any "System Stereotypes" you fit into?

52. Who of you would be considered the "evil alter"? (in a lighthearted, joking manner)

53. What is your favourite inside-joke with a Member?

54. What is your favourite Plural meme?

55. Is there any character that you headcanon as plural?

56. Is there any show or movie that you believe is a good plural representation, despite that not being its intention?

57. Is there any song that you believe decribes your plural experience?

58. What about an artwork that describes your plural experience?

59. Which Member of your System do you believe to be the prettiest of them all?

60. Do you collectively have a lucky number?

61. When did you first discover your System?

62. How many Members did you know about during your Syscovery?

63. Was accepting your Plurality a challenge for you?

64. How did you learn about Plurality?

65. Where there any signs of your Plurality, if you look back at your past?

66. Do you think your Syscovery changed a lot in your life?

67. If you're out to others as plural, have they ever told you later on that they already thought about it before you realised?

68. What was the biggest struggle during your Syscovery?

69. Was there any big event that led to your Syscovery?

70. What is something you want questioning plurals to know?

71. Are you Neurodivergent (and if yes, how?)

72. Do you have any physical disability?

73. Do you have a dissociative disorder?

74. Do you have any other disorder?

75. Do symptom vary in intensity depending on the fronter?

76. Do you think your disability / disorder has an influence on your plurality?

77. Do you have amnesia of any kind?

78. Are there Members who deal better with symptoms than others?

79. Do your disorders / disabilities influence communication or switching within your System in any way?

80. Does being plural help with your disorders in any way? (example: another Member switching in to take care of the body during difficult times, ...)

81. Which is your favourite plural flag?

82. If you have one, which is your favourite plurality related tumblr blog?

83. What is a fun fact about your System?

84. What is a flavour of ice cream that describes you collectively?

85. Which pride flag is the prettiest, in your collective opinion?

86. If you collectively had to choose between being a sweet or a sour candy, which do you pick?

87. Your body always morphs into what the current fronter(s) look like, would you want this power or not?

88. Is there a Hatsune Miku in your System?

89. Who has been in your System the longest (if you can remember)?

90. If you collectively had to choose, would you rather only eat sweet foods or only eat savoury foods for the rest of your life?

91. If you collectively had to choose, would you pick to become a vampire or a werewolf?

92. Your body is transfered into one of your Members sources, which do you pick and why?

93. If all of you turned into animals right this second, which animals would we find in your System?

94. What would a Minecraft server with all of your Members look like? (example: chaotic, peaceful, laggy, ...)

95. If you could choose between only living in Headspace or only living in Meatspace (real life), which would you choose?

96. What topic would you collectively make a youtube channel about? (it can't be plurality!)

97. Which superpower would your body obtain, if you had to collectively decide on one?

98. Who would pick the coolest tattoo for the System and who would pick the worst?

99. If you only were allowed to eat one food for the rest of your life, but you would have to decide on the food collectively, what would it be and what would the decision making look like?

100. What is the most fun about doing polls and answering questions, in your opinion?

[izzasecretredacted]

Using A Spark in Fate Core to Build My World

I thought I’d show you my process through A Spark in Fate Core, a worksheet for creating an original campaign setting. This doubles as a writing tool and something that will contribute to gameplay, even after going through it, so I think it’s worth showing what I ended up doing before formulating that introductory post.

Since Spark in Fate was made specifically for Fate Core, a TTRPG I’m not using, I’m using part of it. I also homebrewed this a bit, since it’s built for collaborative worldbuilding and I’m just doing this on my own, but not that much..

Step 1: List Media

Going into this project, all I knew about it was that I wanted it to be kinky, in a world that’s atleast better than real life, and related to space. This first step, which is to list some media that I like or has things that I want in my world, will help me get a more solid idea. I’m not going to justify my choices, because I don’t have to, not until step 2.

Usually, you would have 1 or 2 per player. I picked 3 total, which is a bit less than you’d normally have, but that’s because of a future step.

Cowboy Bebop

Star Trek

Tekken 3

I didn’t need all of the media to be sci-fi, and in fact, only 2 have space travel. I didn’t need media with a story, either. I’m actually pretty sure that, every time I’ve done this with an actual group, atleast one person gives an album. I make a point that it works just as well as anything else. I picked these because they were either cool, or were cool and also had themes I wanted to explore.

Step 2: List Inspirations

After asking for some of the stuff I like, Spark in Fate then has the gall to ask ‘why’. This means I have to pinpoint specific things in the media I’ve listed that I want to see in my world, and put that concept into a phrase that’ll be called an inspiration. I went for 1 ‘cool’ inspiration and 1 ‘thematic’ inspiration for each piece of information, just to keep a balance or something.

I’ll describe my thought process for deciding each inspiration. I won’t go in depth about how that inspiration relates to the media it comes from, because I don’t need the inspirations to be perfectly reminiscent of how they were explored in the media I chose.

Cowboy Bebop

Bounty Hunting

This felt like a good way to facilitate swashbucklery duels, and maybe have an excuse to explore dub-con/cnc style dynamics.

Holding on to Identity

I tend to get bored of sex that just exists for its own sake (acespecs gonna acespec), so I figured it’d be fun to ask what makes sex, and for that matter, romance and gender as well, meaningful to the characters doing it.

Star Trek

Space Adventure

It’s fun, you should try it! That, and I recently came across a book called “Elf Genders” that has tables for randomly rolling genders for fantasy cultures. I won’t use that specific book, because some of the tables are checks for if certain things are discriminated against, and I just don’t want to introduce that in this game. I’m giving it a shoutout because it made me realize that it’s kinda silly how aliens in media are often just a couple of genders that humans ended up with, and I thought I’d contribute to rectifying that.

Almost Utopic

Utopian fiction appeals to me because I just think it’s a more productive way to comment on real world issues, and because not being depressing doesn’t make something less intelligent or meaningful. I went with ‘Almost Utopic’, partially to acknowledge that Star Trek’s politics aren’t perfect, but mainly because it makes fitting it into the Thirsty Sword Lesbians framework slightly more straightforward.

Tekken 3

Expressive Fighting Styles

I like when characters have fighting styles that fit their personality, and are flashy to the point of ‘that would never work in a real fight’. Basically, professional wrestling.

Tech Awakening Old Horrors

I wanted to interrogate the idea that technological advancement is inherently good. Obviously, as a tool, it's done some pretty cool things like develop modern medicine and make long distance communication practical, I guess. I’m more talking about the idea that we should have more powerful technology just for the sake of it, and thought maybe having really powerful technology that poses an existential threat could be a good jumping off point. I didn’t intend to end up with ‘fossil fuels but Lovecraftian’ but maybe I can lean into that.

Step 3: Genre

This is when you pick a genre and put an adjective infront of it to make it more unique. That’s about it. It sounds easy, but with a group, it can sometimes take awhile…

Anyway, I went with “Kinky Sci-Fi Adventure”, of course.

Step 4: Scale

Ironically, this is another one-question-long step. It asks what problems the PCs will need to face, ranging from small town drama to saving the world from a mad god. This is actually a pretty complicated question when you put it in the context of a single campaign, which is probably why it gets its own step. It asks you to say something like ‘small scale’ or ‘big scale’, but then add a phrase to elaborate on the nature of that scale.

I plan on this campaign being a monster-of-the-week with space travel and rival characters. Since the broader problems of the world aren’t being tackled (atleast, not in the start), this would actually be a ‘small scale’ campaign. I’ll specify that the setting takes place in a large location, but focuses on a certain type of character.

I went with “Small Scale (Space, but Filled with Rivals)”.

Step 5: Establish the Facts

At last, I get to start putting in some more tangible elements into this world. Normally what would happen is the DM would ask a question (my favorite starting question is ‘What does mundane life here look like?’, but that’s neither here nor there), and a player answers it in a way that incorporates one of the inspirations. Then, that player asks another question, and another player answers it by incorporating another inspiration. This goes on until every inspiration is incorporated, making sure everyone gets to ask and answer a question.

When I’m doing this on my own, I sometimes write down a question and randomly roll for what inspiration to use to answer it. For this campaign, I don’t have to, because Thirsty Sword Lesbians has a worksheet for worldbuilding, with questions that I can use for this process. This is why I only used 3 pieces of media with 6 inspirations, because there were six questions that I wanted to pull from the TSL worksheet.

Since the questions were decided by another source, I just picked the inspirations I wanted to use.

What community does the PC live in?

The Sell-Whips. (Expressive Fighting Styles)

What’s the scale of this community?

Scattered across two galaxies. (Space Adventure)

What is especially positive about this community?

Complete and mutual respect for each-other’s needs. (Holding on to Identity)

What is a serious flaw of your community?

Sometimes you need to ‘grab’ someone to help keep the ship running. (Bounty Hunting)

What poses a threat to your community?

The sorta benevolent Federation, which pressures others to assimilate to a specific way of life. (Almost Utopic)

What poses a threat to the world?

The chaotic, powerful, and destructive Extinction-Tech. (Tech Awakening Past Horrors)

Step 6: Name Your Child

It wants a title for the world. Most groups skip this step. I figured there’s no better title than my blog title, so refer to that and continue to Step 7.

Step 7: Step 7

This is Step 7. It’s the step where ‘Sparks’ are come up with, root problems that have an effect on the entire world, and it’s the last step that I want to do. This step exists even for small scale campaigns, because they give an understanding of where more local problems originate. This is normally done by each player thinking of 2 sparks, but I like to make sparks usings the facts I established in Step 5, which is not Step 7. Step 7 is this.

Remember these Sparks, they’re the whole reason why I thought this process was worth showing. They’ll come up in a future, similarly ‘behind the curtain’ post, and will hopefully play a huge role when actual gameplay starts.

It’s a dangerous job, but someone’s gotta do it. (The Sell-Whips.)

Interstellar travel takes a while. (Scattered across two galaxies.)

Sell-Whips stick together. (Complete and mutual respect for each-other’s needs.)

Sell-Whips hunt each other. (Sometimes you need to ‘grab’ someone to help keep the ship running.)

Life’s hard for those who aren’t homogenous. (The sorta benevolent Federation, which pressures others to assimilate to a specific way of life.)

Extinction-Tech is never good news. (The chaotic, powerful, and destructive Extinction-Tech.)

In later steps, a group or solo player would create more local issues, and then create some key characters and places. I plan on doing all that without Spark in Fate, so that’s why I’ve neglected them. I just needed to come up with a skeleton (or the outside of the iceberg, if you’ve seen that Brandon Sanderson lecture that one time), and get those Sparks as a secret tool that will help out later. It’ll be a bit until I start the actual journal, I got some homebrew ideas I want put into writing, plus a bunch of rivals and my PC’s crew, but next post will have atleast a little bit of narrativeness to it.

[asexual-society]

Hello, I'm bisexual and trying to get an honest answer.

I'm pretty heavily in the aro/aspec community on Tumblr. Partially bc I'm low libido and was questioning asexuality in myself, mostly bc my partner is aroace and it helps me understand them better.

I see a lot of posts by aro/aspec people venting about amatonormativity, and the things they find weird or gross. Which I think is innocent enough. Although recently I've been coming across these vents where people will talk about how allos themselves are disgusting and weird. For an example, there was one talking about how allos will undress people they're attracted to in their heads. There was a specific tag saying "It's like they're violating the person in their head". For me, it was extremely hurtful, as it's part of my sexual experience to fantasize. It kind of feels like that it's not just the acts that are weird or gross to ace people, but the allo people are also perceived as gross.

I vented my frustration to my partner and they tried to explain it to me, why ace people making comments like that is okay. But I'm still confused. I feel like if there's people trying to find out other peoples' experience on asexuality, seeing comments like that could be harmful, and make them feel ashamed for their feelings.

Again, I just want to understand better. I'm willing to read links, too, if you have any.

I totally agree with you actually, I think we (as acespec people) need to be really careful about the way we talk about attraction and allosexual (especially queer allosexual) people, because there's a very slippery slope that some of those people are on and sex negativity is especially harmful within the queer community.

I've made posts before about sex negativity in the ace community which I'm sure have been lost to the sands of tumblr (will link if I find them), but I think you're completely correct, it's not true that ace people can say whatever they want about sex and sexual attraction being gross or disgusting or inherently bad or violating. There's a line between sex repulsion and sex negativity, and there's a line between "I think sex is gross so I don't want to do it" and "I think sex is gross and so are the people who have it", or "I feel uncomfortable with people fantasising about me" and "People should not have sexual fantasies about other people".

I genuinely would recommend blocking people like that, because if you are allo you're unfortunately probably not gonna change their minds and honestly, if it's a bigger blog their opinions on other important topics that they may post about are probably not going to be particularly sophisticated either.

I hope this helps, anon, and I'm sorry I've had to deal with people's ignorant takes.

- mod key

[queer-mafia-family]

Aspec post

This post goes over all of the Acespec identities that I have gone over.

Asexual - An individual who doesn’t experience Sexual attraction

Dmisexual - An individual who only experiences sexual attraction after a string emotional bond with someone is formed

Greysexual - An individual who is partially but not completely Asexual

Autochorissexual - An individual who feels a disconnection between themselves and the target/object of arousal ex. someone who likes watching erotica but doesn’t want to join in.

Apothisexual - An individual who is asexual and sex repulsed

Fraysexual - An individual who’s sexual attraction fades over time

Reciprosexual - An individual who only experiences attraction after realizing someone is attracted to them.

Cuplosexual - An individual who wants a sexual relationship but has no sexual attraction

Placiosexual - An individual who doesn’t want sexual/romantic acts done for them but is ok with doing sexual/romantic acts for others

Iamvanosexual - An individual who enjoys sexual acts being preformed on them but isn’t ok with preforming sexual acts on others.

Fictosexual - An individual who only experiences sexual attraction to fictional characters and never irl people.

Caedsexual  - An individual who feels like they once had sexual attraction but due to trama it has been taken away or cut away from them.

Inactsexual  - An individual who has sexual attraction and wants a sexual relationship but is sex repulsed.

Bellussexual - An individual who doesn’t have sexual attraction and doesn’t want a sexual relationship but has interest in certain sexual actions and sexual relationships/ the ascetic of them.

Ansexual - An asexual with no interest of sex, sexual relationships, or sexual attraction. Can be used to describe a dislike or hate towards anything sexual/sex related. 

Ametoric - An individual who is asexual who wants/plans to have sex later in life weather it be because of trauma, age, or they just aren’t ready yet and want to.

Aceflux - An individual who’s sexual attraction changes but stays on the ace spectrum

Myrsexual - An individual that experience multiple aspec identities at once. They can fluctuate or  experienced at the same time.

Requisexual - An individual with little to no sexual attraction due to some for of emotional exhaustion.

Alicosexual -An individual who is one the acespectrum but doesn’t know where they fit or can’t find a label that dose fit them. 

Acespike - AN individual who has no sexual attraction occasionally getting a spike in sexual attraction for a short time before going back to having no sexual attraction.

Aromantic - An individual who doesn’t have romantic attraction

Demiromantic - An individual who is only romantically attracted to someone after and emotional bond is formed

Greyromantic - An individual who is partially Aromatic but not completely

Aegoromantic - An individual who has a disconnection between themselves and the subject of romantic fantasies ex. they like shipping characters but don’t want a romantic relationship themselves.

Caedromantic - An individual who feels like they once had romantic attraction but due to trama it has been taken away or cut away from them.

Anoromantic - An aromanitc with no interest of anything romantic or having a romantic relationship. Can be used to describe a dislike or hate towards anything romantic related.

Requisromantic - An individual with little to no romantic attraction due to some for of emotional exhaustion.

Fictoromantic  - An individual who only experiences romantic attraction to fictional characters and never irl people.

AroFlex - A person who has a constant less intense form of romantic attraction who also has fluctuating reactions to romantic gestures. Ex. likes getting flowers as a romantic gesture one day and the next doesn’t.

Aroflux - AN individual who’s romantic attraction fluctuates but stays on the arospectrum

This post is not complete and I am still updating it, if you have a aspec identity that isn’t up there yet and you want it to be you can type the name in the replys!

[canis-constellate]

things that are apparently common in multiple systems that we have never experienced or only experienced to a very, very minor degree:

differing music tastes (we all generally like the same music, but some of us lean towards different sounds. we don't have things though where some headmates are neutral towards or actively dislike the music that other headmates like)

different sexualities (we have a particular lean, and the most difference from that lean we get is "leaned that way but moderately less", and some folks express being aromantic and acespec more than others do)

different genders (since it's what we have the most collective evidence for, going back to when we identified as a trans man: the vast majority of us were at least mainly masc, and all xenogenders generally had to do with the same themes (flora, cold, sun, moon). even the like... three (out of five hundred, mind you!) headmates who identified partially as women had xenogenders that aligned with those themes)

different pronouns (ish) (by that, i mean that while most of us have at least slightly different pronouns, literally all of us actively use and/or are comfortable with it/its and ze/hir pronouns.)

different general opinions (we all have the same opinions on major discourses. the only ones who have different opinions are introjects from a source with a different opinion from us, and they change their minds within a day or two at absolute maximum. the most extreme internal disagreement we have is over whether or not peppermint tastes good.)

significantly different personalities between individuals (pretty much all of us can be grouped into "rough" (serious, no-nonsense, distrustful, distaste towards other people), "soft" (usually serious-leaning, gentle, calm and collected, cool-headed except under extreme circumstance, usually pretty good caretakers), and "sparky" (silly little guys who are just here for a good time), and while some of us mix and match characteristics, it's not common, and we rarely get things like a "soft" headmate having the "rough" trait of "distaste towards other people"--even then, a "rough" and a "sparky" headmate will still be more similar to each other than we often see in other multiple systems)

like, yeah, we're all different people, but we sort of... coalesce? it weird ways? we've never really had serious arguments (the most serious we've had is "should you put lemonade in a bowl or a mug". yes, that was an actual argument, no, you don't get context or exposition), we might have different interests but those interests usually have to do with the same general things (canines, metaphysical reality, certain types of games), we never feel the urge to change what the body is wearing because we generally have a pretty similar style of dress, etc etc.

we generally know where other people folks in the Constellate are in Yhine (world), sometimes down to exact location--which is wild, considering the Archidivum (continent) is the size of Eurasia. we can communicate quickly and easily with each other without talking--we can understand exactly what the other person meant even if they didn't use words. even if, by all means, we should not know each other, we still have an intuitive sense of who the other person is and how we mesh. we all tend to have the same symptoms in generally the same amounts save for a few outliers (looking at Cream Soda with the extreme HPD traits), it just presents differently between "rough" versus "soft" versus "sparky" headmates.

i dunno. tonight has been a time and now we're suddenly discovering that we might be mediple which we were not expecting. if we had a nickle for every time a random personal Tumblr post (as in, not a post for coining, but a post made about someone's own personal experiences) made us discover a new identity for ourselves, yadda yadda you know the meme (probably).

"wow i only barely relate to 99% of multiple systems. still totally multiple though because we identify ourselves as separate people :)"

"what do you mean that identifying as separate people does not inherently mean you are totally multiple."

[unlikelyjedi]

Star Wars TV Pride Headcanons

Hey, folks! This one is for all the Live-Action TV shows that have been released!

This list will be much smaller than my other list, but I'm still not going to do all the characters because, God, do you know how long that would be?? I'm only doing characters that I care about or I find an interesting headcanon for.

Disclaimer: As always, these are just my opinions and it’s totally cool if you have different ideas. Art is subjective and there are plenty of ways to engage with said art. This is just for my personal fun!

Without further ado:

Din Djarin (he/him): Pan-Demi

Being someone who lives his life masked constantly, he's not one to have a preference based on appearance or gender. It's all about connection for him.

Greef Carga(he/him): Unlabeled

Technically, everyone in the galaxy is unlabeled, but for this thought experiment I give people common labels based on our world. He just love who he love.

Cara Dune (she/her): Trans, Lesbian

This headcanon is partially derived from me wanting to piss off G*na C*rano. Either way, it's a very good thing to believe. I'd love for Cara Dune to come back with a trans actor playing her! Also I just think she's a butch who love women of all shapes and sizes.

Moff Gideon (he/him): Gay

Why? Vibes. Just vibes.

Bo-Katan (she/her): Straight

I'm cheating a bit, since she was originally introduced in Clone Wars, but oh well.

I... don't really like Bo. But I can understand the people who do.

(Katee Sackhoff is also incredibly attractive... 👀)

Tbh, I think she's only an ally to Mandalorians. But only Mandalorians she considers "true" Mandalorians... Otherwise, there will be a hate crime.

(Please don't fight me on this. Woman was literally part of a terrorist organization during the Clone Wars).

Fennec Shand (she/her): Lesbian, acespec

Women are pretty, but she's got a job to do. Work first, flirt later.

Boba Fett (he/him): Aro/Ace

Like his father before him. He just doesn't have attraction and that's okay. He's had hard life as it is. He doesn't need relationships on top of that.

Black Krrsantan (he/him): Gay

Again, why?? Vibes. The Wookiee is gay. Good for him.

Reva/Third Sister (she/they): Sapphic

This is another one I feel is just ✨vibes✨, but also in her presentation. It might partly be due to them being an inquisitor and therefore accidentally giving off a goth/butch/queer aesthetic, but it simply feels right for them to be both GNC and into femmes.

That's all folks!

Only one more of these where I'll discuss all the characters I missed and some I just wanna gush about that didn't fit in these categories.

Until Next Time!!

[acespec-ed]

is ace/allo-Ness fluid like other parts of sexuality? I feel like when I hit puberty I felt really allo but it sort of 'wore off' as I grew up and I'm not sure what to do with that XD

sometimes I feel like there's something wrong with me specifically because I didn't always used to be this way. Nothing specific happened that I know would change things though, so I don't know what to think.

It is! There's even terms like acespike (when one is usually asexual but experiences rare spikes of feeling sexual attraction) and acejump (the opposite of acespike). Aceflux can be used for when you keep fluctuating between feeling sexual attraction and not feeling sexual attraction- or used for someone whose orientation fluctuates between acespec labels regularly. (Kinda like abrosexual, but with ace identities and/or allosexuality only.) Erassexual is another label for when one's sexual attraction has partially/fully disappeared for any reason- including no reason at all!

Even for me, I went a period of several years not experiencing sexual attraction to the point where I switched from gray ace to asexual. But last year it came back full swing. And I ended up sexually attracted to two people in just one year which is an absolute record. It was enough to give me a full blown sexual identity crisis, when I never needed to question it before. (Basically, I had the opposite of your case. 😅 )

I do think it's natural for people's libidos and hormones to chill out as they get older. Especially when people reach menopause, and stuff like that. If you're really worried about it, you could see a doctor. But if you're not having any other changes, I don't see it as a problem. And ace is still a valid identity for you if you want to use it.

[radiomogai]

ok y’all know this post by @othergenic going around???? yeah Tumblr won’t let us reblog it to this blog with commentary so i’m posting our response as its own post because we did NOT type that much only for this to happen. also hi othergenic we tagged you in this so you can still see it as a response and stuff let us know if you want to be untagged

oh boy here we go

collectively, we’re figuring out what our collective identity is but we do have some things down. we’re two-spirit, and polyam, and mspec somehow, and aspec somehow. and we’re genderqueer, and a trans man, and transneutral, and likely transxenine. we’re alterhuman, being collectively catkind, and physically nonhuman with being a hybrid vampire. and we collectively use rai/rainy and petri/petrichor pronouns, and we’re pretty sure we collectively use it/its as well!!!

i, Cecil, specifically, will sum up my identity as a two-spirit horrorcosmium drakefluid xenic horror, with my orientation being a polyamorous grayasexual arospec omnisexual gay man. i’m physically nonhuman, being a cyborg errantery {errantery being tldr’d as a carnivorous shapeshifter}, a cat therian, a dragon theriomythic, deer therian, zombiekind, and i’m otherhearted. i’m an intradeity, and i have two xenidens, one focused on rot/decay/decomposition and another focused on rebirth/regrowth, though i likely also have an eye-themed xeniden that i just need to focus on a bit. i use various pronouns but most commonly it/its, deca/decay, rot/rots, 🦷/🦷s, and stygia/stygian. i’m a fictive of Cecil from Welcome To Night Vale, and my roles in my system are very important to my identity {particularly being an organizer}. when asked “who are you?” i can sum it up as “i’m a helper, i help people”

that said!!!! yeah. that’s the summary of my identity. but you said we can go into as much detail as we want so here we go folks my gender is trans, my gender is queer, my gender is largely masculine, my gender is largely xenine, my gender is related to eyes, my gender is related to gore, my gender is related to decay, my gender is deep, and complex, and multifaceted. as an organizer, it’s very important to me to label every facet and aspect of my gender, along with the rest of my identity. this results in me using a lot of different labels, some contradictory and many overlapping. i do this for the sake of my own mental ease, but also partially out of spite

my orientation is a little more nebulous. i’m polyamorous, that’s very, very important and inherent to me. i’m grayasexual, but it’s not central to my identity. i’m arospec but not entirely sure how. i label a lot of different types of attraction i feel outside of sexual and romantic, delving into things like tutelary, sensual, spiritual, queerplatonic, and all of that sort of thing. i’m attracted to men, i know that for sure. i’m not sure if i’m attracted to women, i think it may fluctuate? i’m attracted to xeninity for sure, and i believe to neutrality, and really, i, as someone inherently queer, i’m attracted to queerness. i’m objectum, conceptum, and especially soundrum as well. i’m medusan, and nonhuman-loving-nonhuman, and nonhuman-loving-human. i’m not fictosexual, but i’m a fictive largely attracted to other fictives

most of my pronouns are darker and edgier. i prefer to be called a horror rather than a man, woman, or what have you. idk what else to say about myself so i’m gonna let Jon write now since he’s staring at me

Oh, okay, I didn’t expect you to actually let me write. I’m Jon, my archival name being Jonathan, and my identity is currently in crisis. I’m questioning a lot of things, from my gender, to orientation, to presentation, to species, to pronouns. I’m largely male, with archival-related genders I believe. I currently sum up my gender as being a digiorganizeaic man. I currently sum up my orientation as being asexual biromantic, but I am certainly questioning that as well. I’m acespec and attracted to men, certainly, but I’m still figuring it out. For now, I use he/him pronouns. Like Cecil, being an organizer in the system is important to my identity.

Jack flipped me off when I tried to pass the front to eyir to type, so we’ll just leave eyir alone to mope.

The three of us (Cecil, Jack, and I) run this blog for the most part. We still need to make an introduction post or page for ourselves.

[waterfoxy]

A little guide to some lgbtq+ identities

(Disclaimer: I take the knowledge and definitions of these identities from my own experience because I either currently identify or once identified with them. If anyone has any problem with how I define an identity please contact me and we can figure something out. But if you simply "don't believe" in these identities or think that they are "made up" you can keep your opinion to yourself. This is a post meant to inform, not to start any discourse.)

Asexual: feeling no sexual attraction. It's a spectrum with different subidentities to better describe where people fall on the asexual sprctrum. Often used as an umbrella term alongside with acespec for the ace spectrum.

Ace: short version of asexual

Aceflux: an identity on the asexual spectrum that fluctuates. It is an identity for people whose attraction changes but always stays on the ace spectrum or fluctuates between asexual and allosexual (allosexual = not asexual or on the asexual spectrum)

Demigirl: also known as demiwoman/demifemale. A nonbinary gender identity that describes someone who feels partially as a girl and partially as something else. This something else can be no gender (agender) or another gender but they feel more connected to womanhood/femininity and therefore prefer to identify as demigirl. Everyone regardless of agab can identify as demigirl if they feel it fits their experience.

Polysexual: a sexual identity refering to people who are attracted to three or more genders. It is part of the multiple gender attraction specrtum, also known as mspec, alongside some better known sexualities, bi and pan. Polysexuality is not the same as polyamory. Polyamory = being in a relationship with multiple consenting people at the same time. The shortened version of polysexual is ply not poly.

Nonbinary: a gender identity and umbrella term for all genders that fall in between the gender binary (like demigirl), outside of the gender binary (like agender) or a changing gender identity (like genderfluid).

Genderflux: a gender identity that falls under the nonbinary umbrella. It describes a person whose gender fluctuates in intensity. Unlike genderfluid or bigender this person doesn't "jump" from one gender identity to another (for example female on one day, boy the other) but instead shifts in how intense the person is experiencing their gender (for example: one day they align very intensely with a gender, the next only half way and the day after not at all). But they always shift between different genders.

Girlflux: this is a form of genderflux where the person's gender identity fluctuates in intensity between female and agender.

Pansexual: a sexual orientation. Unlike with bisexuality or with polysexuality, where you are attracted to multiple but not necessarily all genders, pansexuality means attraction to all genders, without exceptions. Some people also add to their definition of pansexuality that it is attraction regardless of gender, meaning their attraction is the same towards all genders. Other people argue though that pansexuals can still have a preference for (a) certain gender(s). It always deepends on how each person defines their own sexuality.

[a-spec-community-issues]

Hey, I'm an ace person, and pretty romantic. I've been actively learning more about aros after not understanding at all for ages and just never ever talking about it because it was awkward and I knew nothing. Now, because I think my queerplatonic partner miggght be aro, I want to really know it and be a great ally, even if they aren't. My issue is that I'm not sure what counts as arophobia. I know the really obvious stuff, but like what's the more small and insidious stuff to watch out for?

Arophobia By My Aro Friend!

“a lot of arophobia is subtle

things that at first you night not even bat an eye at. since i dont know specifically what it is the anon already knows, ill just go down a laundry list. another thing to note is that not a whole lot of arophobia is explicit, or even intentional. someone may say something arophobic without even knowing aromanticism exists. im of the opinion that bigotry can be accidental.

an obvious one would be dehumanisation. The obvious "we can still love!" And "love is what makes us human!" Are common examples. but smaller ones like implying life can't be fullfilling without a partner, or that love is inevitable, and to a degree concepts like soulmates can be hurtful to aros. and expecting everyone to want such things is hurtful. the idea that casual sex is bad is also one that hurts aros- most of all non-ace, and especially alloaros (like myself). there seems to be this idea some people have, ive noticed, that romance = consent. which is hurtful not only because sex outside of romance can be consensual, but also cause it implies that those who are romantically involved will always consent, but that's a tangent i dont have time for right now. acknowledging that romance isn't a prerequisite for happiness for everyone, in general, is a good way to be supportive of aros.

a less obvious example of arophobia is erasure.

and this partially ties into one of the things ive mentioned just a bit earlier, but we'll get to that. erasure comes in many forms. obviously there's just,,, ignoring and not listening to aros. but there's a bit more to it than that, and this is a point i find very interesting considering how prevalent it is in aspec communities. It sounds simple enough to say "acknowledging that aromanticism and asexuality are different is a good thing", but that means a lot of things. it means not using asexual as an umbrella term for the whole aspec community. it means not thinking of aromanticism as a subdivision of asexuality. it means genuinely considering it as its own standalone identity that can exist apart and separately from asexuality. it means not putting content exclusively about asexuality in aromantic tags, and it means not tagging content exclusively about aromanticism with ace tags. acknowledging that they are not one and the same. however this also means avoiding misplaced division. it means acknowledging that we share terminology. it means not writing "arophobia/aphobia" or "arospec/aspec", which excludes us from our own communities. cause aphobia means both arophobia and acephobia, and aspec means both arospec and acespec. you can see how writing aromanticism separatlye from the rest of the aspec community alienates us. acknowledging that aromanticism and asexuality are separate is good

and this partially ties into one of the things ive mentioned just a bit earlier, but we'll get to that. erasure comes in many forms. obviously there's just,,, ignoring and not listening to aros. but there's a bit more to it than that, and this is a point i find very interesting considering how prevalent it is in aspec communities. It sounds simple enough to say "acknowledging that aromanticism and asexuality are different is a good thing", but that means a lot of things. it means not using asexual as an umbrella term for the whole aspec community. it means not thinking of aromanticism as a subdivision of asexuality. it means genuinely considering it as its own standalone identity that can exist apart and separately from asexuality. it means not putting content exclusively about asexuality in aromantic tags, and it means not tagging content exclusively about aromanticism with ace tags. acknowledging that they are not one and the same. however this also means avoiding misplaced division. it means acknowledging that we share terminology. it means not writing "arophobia/aphobia" or "arospec/aspec", which excludes us from our own communities. cause aphobia means both arophobia and acephobia, and aspec means both arospec and acespec. you can see how writing aromanticism separatlye from the rest of the aspec community alienates us. acknowledging that aromanticism and asexuality are separate is good.”

To add onto this, not everything about soulmates- like how soulmates can be friends or the idea that soulmates aren’t just romantic are nice- and some Aros like it. Sometimes Aros are so romance-repulsed and wouldn’t consider QPRs dating and others call it dating. Viewing QPRs as Romantic can make an aro uncomfortable or comparing it to romance.

And shitty formatting is Tumblrs issue, but arophobia from the Ace-Spec community is often as my friend said, Erasure. And I spent like three days wondering how to rewrite this and decided I wouldn’t. This works out for it.

If anyone has anything to add on, reblog the post.

- Mod D

(This ask is old, figured it was necessary to post though.)

[pentacass]

may I ask, what’s your opinion of Greymoor overall? and who are the 3 dead wlw? 😟 I’m on the fence about buying it because I love Skyrim and vampires, but I wasn’t as into Elsweyr as I thought I’d be either

short blurb: meh. buy when on sale. anyone reading this and wants to chip in, pls feel free!

longer blurb:

My feelings towards Greymoor is lukewarm at best. If you’re into the story, Greymoor has the weakest main plot of all chapters so far imo. The main cast is entertaining, but the villains and side characters? Meh, touch and go. Plot twist came outta someone’s ass and smells like it. The ending was obviously truncated and saved up for the year end DLC.

The 3 dead wlw are very minor, involved in side quests. 1 has a little ouchie, 1 is typical wlw-turns-evil-and-hurts-partner Bad Trope, 1 is just a ‘pick up item, deliver to someone’ quest, that’s it. I remember only 1 mlm couple, you save them and their mom from a WB monster. But you get some acespec rep here.

I can’t get over how lacklustre the writing is lmao. It tries nothing new in general and fumbles with Reachmen and Falmer. (i.e. they bad. grrr) and the vampire shenanigans is really just ‘they’re up to something bad. stop them pls’

Can’t talk about about the trial, never did it. 

One saving grace which made my purchase feel...partially worth it was the antiquities system. It’s fun - puzzle-solving, digging up artifacts all over Tamriel. Gives a ton of lore, and you get motifs, furnishings, adornments, costumes from it. You’ll have to grind for the nicest stuff, but eh. Viddy games amirite. At a discounted price, Greymoor would feel totes worth it just for the antiquities.

If you really love Skyrim and vampires, well. Greymoor certainly does give you more of that, though how well it’s done is really up to opinion. It doesn’t try much that’s new. It does give more hints on Ravenwatch vampire lore, so if you’re into that, could be a plus! But if you’re just into the vampire rework, it’s free for everyone so......

gah this is all over the place. mostly negative, really sorry about that, but yeah. wait for discount lmao