#this doesn't even really have to be an aro statement like i think it could fit most queer experiences

[shmaroace]

don't get me wrong, i love all the positivity around being aro, like "be proud of being aro!! love who you are!!", but we never talk about how hard it is to reach that spot. so here's to the aros who are still trying to understand themselves, who aren't proud of who they are yet, who are still coming to terms with their new identity.

[platonically-loving-alastor]

Aroace Alastor

Hoo boy here we go- This one might make some people mad at me, so I'll preface by saying I do not want to start a fight and as long as you respect my business, I'll respect yours. But let's get this over with-

First off, I genuinely don't understand how some people can see the Ace-In-The-Hole quote and still believe that Alastor is only intended to be asexual and not also aromantic. Yes, the term Rosie used for purpose of the pun was 'ace', but can we look at the context of that moment before jumping to conclusions?

Rosie, motioning to Charlie: "Oh, who's this you brought with you? Come now, Alastor, she's much too young for you! Oh, I'm just kidding. I know you're an ace in the hole!"

Her original statement implies nothing sexual, only that he's involved in a relationship with Charlie, and she follows it up with why she knows that couldn't be because he's an 'ace in the hole'. I don't think you have to read too far between the lines to see that.

I would also like to say that when Vivienne has spoken about his orientation before, I recall her saying that she didn't want to confirm him being aromantic so that she wouldn't 'ruin anyone's fun', which I just feel like is an odd thing to say if she wasn't already explicitly picturing him as aroace. If she thought he had romantic attraction, why wouldn't she just say that? What fun would that ruin? I also feel like keeping things like this ambiguous just to appease the shippers is a little weird, but I digress-

And to those of you who I know are saying "But aromantic people can be in relationships too!!" *deep inhale* yeah I know. I'm not gonna pretend you're not right about that, but there are also aroace people who have exactly 0 interest in romance or sex at all. This is the part of the post that really is based on how I interpret certain moments, but to me he is absolutely one of those people. I don't really know where people get any vibes of him being interested in that stuff. I have never once looked at him and thought "Yeah I could see him in a romantic relationship with *insert character here*". Even aside from attraction in general, since that's what we'd be talking about at this point anyway, he just seems like the kind of guy who'd rather work and live independently instead of relying on anyone, whether practically or emotionally (which is also probably part of the reason he never joined the Vees, but that's another topic entirely). Hell, I'm pretty sure he's in heavy denial about even developing any kind of care or friendship with the people at the hotel (ie. the episode 8 scene with him and Niffty).

The only ships I see him involved in with people he doesn't hate (so ignoring RadioApple, RadioHusk, and StaticRadio. But to be real, maybe the fact all his main ships are enemies to lovers coded says something about the whole situation, but that's just me-) are Charlastor - which I will not even try to discuss here, people aren't gonna like this post as it is - and RadioRose. Rosie and him would at least be fair, if it weren't for one thing (which is also personal opinion on my end), and I don't know exactly how to word it. I'm tempted to say she has wingwoman vibes? But she knows he's aro, so that's not the right word, but there's vibes of like, she probably did act as a wingwoman before she realized that about him or something.. There's also something about her joking around like "Oh this is the girl? You have a girlfriend and I'm only now meeting her?" is almost giving motherly behavior. Idk man they're just besties to me, I could see them in a QPR though (not that they'd probably label it that way, considering the word queerplatonic is likely just complete gibberish to Alastor lmao).

So to summarize: It feels incredibly likely, if not practically canon, that Alastor was written with aromanticism in mind, even if Vivienne refuses to explicitly state it. Subtext and not-that-subtle implications can say just as much about a character as word of God, especially when that God has explicitly told us why she won't confirm or deny this information. Do I think any of this will stop people from shipping him romantically with literally any other character? No ofc it won't, and that's okay, that's just what fandoms do. I do think there's something to say for the fact the one aroace (or even at the very least asexual) character gets constantly shipped with everyone else in the cast, but this post is long enough I think. The only point of posting this is that I wanted to get information out there in one post to say "Hey, let's look a little bit past the surface for a second before saying there's no proof of him being aromantic"

Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you at least took something away from this

[ilovedthestars]

and also just. the way ambiguity in relationships is assumed to be romantic, too. see, i wrote that whole post a while back about how I loved ambiguous fictional relationships, with deep devotion but no clear label as to the type of relationship. i called it love as in significance--that's where my tag comes from. love as in being important to someone, in whatever form that takes.

and what I said then about how this applies to romance still applies--when I'm reading about a fictional romance, I'll be much more engaged with one that feels built on that foundation of significance than one that isn't. flirting, the trappings of modern courtship, those feel empty to me without the feeling that these characters already matter to each other. (this is why in real life I'm so perplexed by things like dating apps, or people who actively seek out romance with strangers--I just personally can't fathom the idea of wanting that kind of closeness with someone you don't already know and care for.)

but in regards to ambiguity....I feel like I've been burned a little. I loved ambiguity because it meant you could take many things away from it. other people could see romance, but I could see the kind of deeply devoted platonic relationship that, let's be honest, is incredibly rare in fiction. but I'm starting to feel frustrated by the way ambiguity is assumed to be romance, without an explicit statement that it's not. (I've joked about the obligatory "no hetero" moments that have to be inserted into the start of a piece of media that has a male and a female protagonist with any kind of relationship other than romance--the "not with those lips" moment in the D&D movie, for example. It's funny, and i appreciate it being made very clear, but it's kind of sad that it has to be.)

and...okay, there's an elephant in the room that i really should acknowledge. I was talking about it in that first post, but I made a point of never mentioning it, although i'm sure plenty of people guessed.

I haven't watched Good Omens season two. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to. When I first wrote about my love for ambiguous relationships back in February of 2023, Aziraphale and Crowley were at the top of my list. When I wrote about how ambiguity left room for anyone to see themselves represented, and how i wished that a little more space was left for aro voices, I was talking about them. I was frustrated by people who saw that ambiguity as "queerbaiting"--didn't they see that the story was already queer, that Aziraphale and Crowley cared so deeply for each other, and whether they kissed or not wouldn't change anything?

But they did kiss. And it did change something. I don't feel like there's a place left for me anymore. And there's social pressure to celebrate, to be happy for another canon queer love story on TV, and god I'd love to celebrate that, but I can't help but feel a little betrayed by a story that I thought would leave space for me.

(and yes, a kiss doesn't have to mean romance--but in this, in hollywood, it's assumed to. the creators and the audience both understand it as such, unless someone stops to say no, we're friends who kiss each other the mouth, we're subverting your expectations. because the expectations are inescapable.)

I've been trying to give myself the space to feel upset about this. To remember that aro stories are queer stories too. And I think I'm raising my standards. I'll take ambiguity--I'll take any carved-out space I can find. But I'm not sure I trust it anymore. I want explicitly platonic relationships with the level of love and devotion and care usually reserved for romance. I want to read and watch and listen to stories about people who are significant to each other without romance even being in the picture. I want love that isn't synonymous with romance. I'm going to stop feeling like I have to settle for anything less.

[yarrayora]

📜Hello! We've been going back and forth for days on how to message you about this, but we wanted to say we really, super love your thoughts on Falin from dungeon meshi and the pov centric art you've made of her. We didn't know if you were interested in hearing this, but we heavily related to Falin a lot, and not just because we always choose the healer/cleric in things ;^^ We're a system, and share souls with more that one being in the same body. We had already liked Falin, but when her shared soul plot with the red dragon kicked off we felt very deeply connected to her then. She really felt like someone we could heavily relate to and wanted to see her arc blossom in the story of Dungeon Meshi. But like you said in your Falin post she gets... essentially table scraps compared to every other important character? Which honestly shocked us considering so much of the narrative revolved around her. This is a bizarre statement, but it's the only way we could describe what we felt to a friend of ours:

Also, um, hello! I'm Marcille of this system. Our own Falin (yes there's also a Falin in here) had her own timeline and interpretation of events. And she basically thought on it so hard that I sort of... popped into existence?? As what "alter type" I am, I was literally labelled "Falin's Girlfriend"... ;>.> I do so hope this ask isn't annoying or aggravating in anyway, for some reason we saw your post and got very excited and wished to talk to someone else who felt similarly to our thoughts on Falin! So, we hope you're having a wonderful day, and keep being you, please! Thank you for existing! 💌- Marcille of the Panda system

thank you for writing paragraphs about this! it's really flattering! I really love Falin and I can understand the disappointment you guys feel about the lack of resolution when it comes to Falin as a person

at the same time it does fuel my creative needs for tragedy considering her role as a reward is Prime Ingredient for that

it's also the reason I started shipping Farcille in the first place

I'm still an Aro Touden Truther but I'm the type who have multiple gender/sexuality headcanons depending on the narrative I want to tell so it's not hard for me to imagine a lesbian/bi Falin too

I like the idea of Falin finally communicating the stuff she hates to her girlfriend instead of just following Marcille's whims

We already had a glimpse of that back in Laios' flashback about his first meeting with Marcille but even then she didn't think she could just tell Marcille no and ended up dragging her to the dungeon to get Marcille's permission to stay as an adventurer, despite her being a grown adult who doesn't need her friend's permission

I'm grateful for the post-canon content showing us how she rejected Shuro's proposal, and how Shuro takes it gracefully

it's an ending that shows people have finally seen Falin as a person instead of an object of affection, or at least Shuro does, and how much agency Falin has gained after losing her free will when turned into a chimera

There's something about how she has to be turned into a beast that can't speak her own mind for people to finally hear her voice

[frogs-and-books]

Disagree with your post about Riz on two fronts. First, he's no more canon ace than he is canon aro. The word of god statement from someone who doesn't even control the character isn't a definitive statement of canon. That's not how fiction works. If it's not in the text, they could justifiably walk it back at any time. Second, if anything, it's more accurate to call Riz canon aro because of his coding. A character doesn't have to say "I'm gay" to be canon gay. All they have to do is explicitly express interest exclusively in people of the same gender expression to be acknowledged as gay. Why does an aro character have to explicitly state their identity in order for it to count when that's not an expectation for allo queer people anymore? And has never been an expectation for straight people?

I agree no one should be harassing anyone, though. I'm with you there

I assumed that he talked to Murph before saying anything, but I'd hope that if someone just lied about his character, Murph would clarify. But we have no evidence either way. I would still say that someone on the team confirming it is more canon than anything implied, tho. And yep, he shows the signs, but that doesn't make it canon. He does not have a label in canon, we can say how he thinks and feels about relationships and how he reacts to those things as facts, but we cannot factually state one way or the other what his sexuality is (in the romantic sense). Anything implied is up to interpretation, which makes it unreliable. Subtext is fun, but it's like two people debating whether the color red in a painting represents love or rage, no one really wins. It's simply two different interpretations, neither is right or wrong until the artist confirms one way or another.

Something isn't canon unless it's clarified onscreen or stated to be canon by someone behind its creation. Anything else is up to interpretation.

And I think if a character explicitly shows interest in the same gender but never says they aren't attracted the other, they could be gay or bisexual. Maybe someone would get mad if you called them bi, but I wouldn't because they're just two different interpretations of the same thing.

Headcanons are valid, as long as you remember that no one is forced to have the same interpretation of media as you do. That's the great thing about media analysis. You can't be right or wrong because it's all just your interpretation.

So, in the end, Riz is not canonically Aromantic because coding doesn't equal representation and because what you see as coding could be read differently by someone with different life experiences from you.

[modelbus]

Ayup! I saw that your requests are open so I was wondering...if you have time, could you possibly write something about CC!platonic!Wilbur x GN!aromantic!teen!reader and they have a cute sibling relationship? Maybe after reader comes out to the public, they get hate for "ruining" romantic ships that fans created with reader and someone else (can't think of any specific person so it could be reader's best friend they've had on stream a couple times) and Wilbur stands up for them?? As an aromantic who craves and adores this type of content, it kinda bums me out that I can't seem to find it anywhere. (sorry if this is too long or too specific, i just really like the way you write). Could be headcannons or a oneshot, whichever is comfy and easiest for you. Whether you'd like to ignore or write, it's up to you, feel free to do with this what you will. Have an amazing day/night! :]

Happy Pride month!! Here's some headcannon things! I used "Alex" as the best friend's name because it's pretty androgynous and can be used for any gender.

I've been crazy busy recently, and so caught up with other things, but hopefully this offers you the content you wanted <3

Pairing: CC!Wilbur x Gn!Aro!Reader (Platonic)

Abashed Aromantic

Wilbur is absolutely pissed when he sees the sheer amount of hate you're getting on Twitter.

He wants to make a statement right then, but you convince him it's fine and that the love you're getting from the community greatly outweighs the hate.

It takes a lot of convincing to get him to stand down though, he's just so upset that people would dare be mad at you for who you are.

"Are you sure you don't want me to say anything? You know I'd gladly tear into them. It's not right-"

"I know, Wilbur. I'm sure." You say softly.

Wilbur nods, then pauses and starts again, unable to help himself it seems.

"They're all full of shit anyways-"

No matter how much hate you get, you keep telling him it's okay, so he respects your boundaries and doesn't say anything.

Even as your dm's flood with threats and messages about how you're ruining "ships" for your fandom, you stay quiet, hoping it'll just go away.

That is, until the hate goes too far, to the point where not even your Moderators can manage all the hateful messages on streams. Some slip by, and, of course, those are the ones you manage to read.

It's meant to be a peaceful "just chatting" stream when the donation comes through, somehow making it past all of your mods.

The stream donation sound sounds out over your headphones, and you perk up, waiting for text-to-speech to read the message aloud.

"I can't believe you're ruining all of our ships by being aromantic. You really would've been perfect with Alex. Fuck you." The robotic voice reads out. For a voice that's usually so comforting, ice-cold hurt races through your veins at the message.

It's just too much. You were trying so hard to ignore all the hate, ignore how the ship name for you and your best friend trended for days after you came out, but you can't anymore. And all because of something you couldn't even control.

Silence falls in the stream. That is, until Wilbur speaks up. You had almost forgotten he was in a call with you, so swept away in the donation.

"Who said that? Who was that?" He asks. Wilbur didn't get truly mad often, but in this moment you're glad you're not the one he's pissed at. "To that person and anyone else who thinks that message is okay, fuck you. That's not okay."

"Wil-"

"No. It's not okay." You snap your mouth shut, realizing that there's no stopping Wilbur. Even though you tried to stop him, a part of you can't help but rejoice at him speaking up for you, protecting you. "You aren't ruining anything by being yourself. Hear that, chat? Get that through your heads."

You scan chat, waiting anxiously to see their reactions. For the first time since you came out, it's overwhelmingly positive. True relief comes rushing through you, like a breath of fresh air.

"Now. Where were we?" Wilbur asks, nudging you along. "We were talking about bees, right?"

Later, you thank him, but Wilbur won't even let you thank him. He just keeps saying that it was "his job to protect you" and to "fuck the haters."

He makes sure to post a Tweet about it too, once you give him the okay to.

...and he makes an Instagram post with just photos of you two. Just to make it very clear.

In order to make sure you're entirely okay, he insists on having a movie night and binge-watching all of the Marvel movies in order. Popcorn, snacks, blankets, and all.

(Wilbur is upset at himself for a while after because he felt like he should've done something sooner, but eventually he's just glad to have put an end to the overwhelming hateful messages you were getting.)

And, of course, he makes sure to not let anyone give you shit after that. Even the slightest hint of hate towards you has him loudly proclaiming how amazing you are.

"You're aromantic, right?"

You pause at the question from the other streamer before answering carefully. It's your first time talking to them, and it's in a MCC no less. "Yeah."

"Oh. That's... interesting."

Maybe it's the tone of their voice, but something about the statement rubs you the wrong way. You shake your head, planning to move on, but Wilbur jumps into the conversation.

"Damn right it's interesting. And only in the best of ways." He proclaims.

You smile to yourself, thankful for Wilbur every goddamn day.

"What's your Ace Race time again?" He asks you. "Isn't it ridiculously fast? You're just so good at MCC, you'll have to carry this team. You'll get us the points there for sure, probably single-handedly get us to victory-"

[chiisana-sukima]

@nosammycomeon I moved here so I could go more in depth.

He didn't actually say the writers' room was writing destiel--afaik none of the writers has ever said that explicitly (although it's obvious which writers in the late seasons were in fact doing it, even without explicit confirmation). He said some stuff in a Then and Now additional patreon content interview question that got interpreted in a way he felt he needed to go back and clarify, which is what the tweets are for. The Then and Now content is supposed to be private for patreon subscribers only, but fortunately for clarity's sake, information wants to be free.

You can really see here how the complexity of communication makes everything Worse. Something I've noticed as an autistic person who sometimes finds communication difficult and pretty much always finds lying infuriating is that people in general have a relaxed view of facts. When someone makes [bald statement X] about almost any relatively nuanced topic, [bald statement X] is usually a stand in for a whole big set of information not formally in the communication that the listener is supposed to just understand the speaker means through context. But unfortunately everyone's understanding of any given context is different, so then often the speaker thinks they have communicated [huge set of context about X] but the listener thinks they have communicated [different huge set of context about X]. This is further complicated by the fact the speaker may be intentionally lying about [X], but it's often hard to know one way or the other, and by the fact that sometimes the speaker isn't lying, but doesn't themself understand what they actually believe the context of the statement they made to be.

Here, Edlund is pretty clearly saying as [bald statement X] only that in The End, Cas is ride or die for Dean and he got a note to change the wording because it was too obvious to be good writing. He was taken by some destiel fans to mean that he got a note to change the line because it made it too obvious that Cas was gay for Dean. This is clearly not actually what he said. BUT. To me, both Edlund's bald statement and the subsequent interpretative statements by destiel shippers are probably standing in for a lot of context that fandom is split on.

Cas' decisions in The End are honestly pretty extreme for platonic devotion. I mean, me, an aro, might be that devoted to someone platonically. And me, an aro, values highly the emphasis spn put on platonic devotion throughout the length of its run. To me, the context in spn is always 'yes these people are all platonically insane for each other'.

But lets be honest here, most alloromantic people are not used to thinking about devotion this way, and do not have it as a floating ball of context about spn or about life in general. They have the different floating ball of context that people only do this weird shit for each other if they are romantically in love. In the many cases of Sam and Dean's excessively devoted decision-making, spn uses the excuse that they are brothers (like that somehow explains it all. huge Lisa knows moment, i would not fucken do all that for my sibling).

But with Cas in The End, they don't even have that excuse. Cas just... gives up his entire family, his home in Heaven, his identity as an angel, destroys himself with drugs and cheap sex over the pain of simping for someone who no longer has the capacity to care for him, and then is all 'yep, I'll let you use me as meat-grinder bait without even the courtesy of telling me first'. And not to be all 'there's no platonic explanation for this' but given that it did indeed turn out that Cas canonically has been pining romantically for Dean in the main universe too and doing dumb sacrificial stuff because of it on the regular, and that most alloromantic people don't do world-ending platonic devotion, I think its very reasonable to assume that the destiel shippers are assuming that Edlund's bald statement about "its bad writing to be that obvious" includes the context "its bad writing to be that obvious about Cas being in love with Dean". And I think it's even quite reasonable to assume they are right and that was the context Edlund was speaking from within. His later clarifications don't imo negate that, because they all come with context we may or may not know too. Here is a post where the OP calls out some of that possible context. They are absolutely right imo that contending that Cas' speech in 15x18 could have been platonic reeks of corporate bullshit and impeaches any similar statements about other episodes considerably.

Meanwhile though, it's also true that Edlund didn't say anything explicitly about Cas being in love with Dean in The End and it is also reasonable to take people at their word. Spn really was primarily about platonic devotion. So of course people with a more platonically-minded set of conceptual assumptions will take the context as being "I said what I said and I meant it and nothing else", and they aren't actually necessarily wrong or acting in bad faith imo either. Because who tf knows what Edlund meant; we are all just isolated brains out here floating in our individual meatsuits and having confusing-ass, shit communication.

it's so obvious they knew all along that people shipped it… can't believe anyone would say otherwise.

So like, here's the other side of the destiel fans assuming a bunch of context that may or may not be the context that was intended. When people say "the writers didn't know about destiel", they can't mean it literally. Obviously the writers knew at latest by s10, because they acknowledge it on screen in Fan Fiction. But I think the ball of context around this is not unreasonable either. I think when people say this, the listener is supposed to understand that what they mean is "well of course the writers have heard about fan ships through the grapevine or whatever, but they never took any of that, including destiel, seriously. They never paid it much mind. Maybe they did some fanservice/cheap pandering once in a while, but they never meant it. They never queerbaited and they never intended us to take it seriously."

And while I think the evidence points to this not being the case, I do also think it's a reasonable position. The powers that be really have said multiple times over many years that "destiel doesn't exist", that they'd never heard of it, that "we don't pay any attention to what the fans are saying or change story elements based on what the fans want" (my google fu is failing me for that last one atm, but various writers and showrunners have said this multiple times), etc. The last one at least is CLEARLY a blatant, outright lie once you know enough bts information, but you can't blame people for believing it. These are professional liars; lying believably is their job. That people who believe them and are invested in a platonic reading of the show and often are-- not coincidentally--irritated at destiel shippers' insistence on reading thing (including sometimes ridiculous things) romantically would then go on to be impolitic/imprecise in their language on twitter or their personal blogs is pretty much just human nature.

[chupacabraatemybrother]

I think a major bug in human interaction and misunderstanding (which leads to hostility) is due to black and white or binary thinking. I also think that this type of thinking is a very human trait that comes to us inherently, and if we're not careful enough we can find ourselves slipping into it at any time.

I was thinking about that scene in Star Wars Revenge of the Sith when Obi-Wan says to Anakin "only a Sith deals in absolutes." It's really funny because in that moment Obi-Wan is also using an absolute, thus negating his statement: Obi-Wan is definitely not a Sith.

Humans do this all the time in so many places, especially places like Tumblr in which discourse is high. People pick and choose which binaries they will reject and which ones they will embrace and enforce. On Tumblr for example, which is a primarily liberal space, we're pretty much in agreement that things such as disability, autism, gender, etc, are not black and white binaries and there is so much nuance, not even among a gradient but among a matrix.

These same people will then turn around and use other binaries such as rich versus poor, Democrat versus Republican, urban versus rural, etc. (I could write a whole post on how liberal culture both places rural living and being "one with nature" on a pedestal, while also vilifying the people that already live here and our established practices of living in nature, including [especially] hunting).

An example of this selective thinking I've witnessed is the whole discourse seen in some lgbtqa+ spaces surrounding the inclusion of Ace/aro individuals: people that don't neatly fit the binary (ex: aro but het) are considered with suspicion.

I've also heard stories of masc non-binary people not fitting in in various genderqueer spaces because they come across as too masculine to be perceived as gender non-conforming, but oddly enough I've minimally encountered the same issue when it's someone being femme.

TL:DR; everyone falls into the binary thinking trap sometimes because it is a inherently human trait. However there will always be someone who doesn't fit neatly into any of the binaries that you have assigned to the world, and people need to be prepared to face and challenge these assumptions as they become a exposed to different ways of thinking and existing in this world. There is no one right way to be a human, and people on the internet need to stop acting like there is.

[thetooclevermartian]

need to get on my a-spec soapbox for a bit

something that's been on my mind and bothering me is the fact that people are, in a way, gatekeeping characters from being headcanoned as aro/ace. most often i see it manifesting as "this character can't be aro/ace/aroace because they did x!" and it really really bothers me because we a-spec people have such little representation, and when we try to find some for ourselves, even through headcanons, that's taken away from us too.

for example, i saw a post about how katniss everdeen can't be aroace because she married peeta and had kids. (no hate to op btw, i'm just explaining why i disagree strongly). but that statement negates several things. 1) sexual and romantic attraction are spectrums. meaning that some people are going to be on them and still experience sexual and romantic attraction to a degree. they're still a-spec. personally, i headcanon katniss as demiromantic demisexual, meaning she'd need a close emotional bond with someone before she could be attracted to someone in either way. which fits with canon that she is attracted to peeta and also doesn't acknowledge experiencing attraction to anyone else (except maybe platonic attraction with gale but that's another thing). anyway. 2) ATTRACTION IS NOT REQUIRED FOR A RELATIONSHIP. or marriage. or kids. or sex. or kissing. or anything, really. to say katniss can't be a-spec because she does these things erases the experiences of aroaces that do do these things. plus, for younger me, an aroace kid who didn't know he was aroace, seeing a character that wasn't focused on romance at all was important to me. even now, it's still important to me! i'll stand by a-spec katniss because of that!

one that also bothers me, though i see where people are coming from, is kaz brekker and inej ghafa. and though i completely understand not headcanoning them as a-spec, i have seen people shaming the fact that others would interpret them as such. (not to mention i have a-spec headcanons for them both that are supported by canon, but that's a post for another time). in a world where a-spec people have such little representation, why would you try and make us feel bad for looking for it? who does it harm if we headcanon characters as such? i've also seen other people say, "you have tolya and harshaw [other grishaverse characters if you don't know], who are either confirmed or heavily implied, why would you headcanon kaz and inej?" and again, no hate to these people, but have you ever considered that a) i want a wide variety of aro/ace spectrum characters. this includes characters that experience sexual/romantic attraction to some degree, or not at all but still engage in sexual or romantic actions. b) aro and ace people are never the main characters. (and in the case of tolya and harshaw, i'd like there to be more than just two minor characters who are in only 4/9 books combined). because in typical literature and media, main characters have to have romance. they have to have sex, or sexiness, at least. and behind that, they have to have attraction. if they have these things without attraction, they're a slut or a whore or an emotionless robot. c) so often, i am looking for myself in characters, because i know if i don't search, i will almost never explicitly find them.

all this big long stuff to say that i cannot put into words the exact, deep, acute ache i feel when i think about aroace representation and about how little we have. who does it benefit to keep us from finding ourselves and our unique experiences in characters we like? i'm just so exhausted of having my identities' representations stolen from me just because people don't understand what it means to be aromantic or asexual. so for the love of all things, please just let me find happiness in my favorite characters, cause god knows we aren't getting good, varied, common representation anytime soon.

[drearydisastress]

i. initium

Wednesday x fem reader

Word count: 3k+

Multiple parts

You're the new student Wednesday finds herself forced to show around your first day. You claim to live a life of normalcy, but Wednesday quickly learns that much more lurks beneath the surface of your mundane facade.

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

Being called into Principal Weems office came as no surprise to Wednesday Addams, there were a plethora of things she could've been in trouble for; sneaking out to sleuth, sneaking people in to help her sleuth, attempted homicide, anything was possible really. What did come as a surprise to her was the presence of Ms. Thornhill, who held a pot containing a Middlemist Red Camellia (Camellia species) in her hands.  

"Miss Addams, please have a seat," the principal motioned towards one of the chairs in her office, but the gloomy teen preferred to stand.  

"Why have I been called here?" she inquired, not wanting to spend any more time than she had to with the pair of women. 

"Straight to the point as always," Thornhill hummed. "Wednesday, as you might have heard, we have a new student joining us and after reading her personal statement I thought that you were the best person to show her around-" 

"No," Wednesday deadpanned, she'd heard rumors of a new student, but figured it was nothing more. "I think we all know that I'm never the best person to show anyone around, why didn't you just ask Enid? She was sufficient in showing me around my first day."  

"We didn't think Enid was the best suited to show this particular student aro-"  

"Yet you thought her and I would make the perfect pairing," she turned her attention to the principal. "I thought this school didn't accept people mid-term." 

A quiet knock at the door killed the conversation in the air and the principal looked to the stoic girl once more. 

"You are living proof that all rules have exceptions. This is not a request Miss Addams, you will be showing Miss Salvatore around today," she spoke before plastering on a welcoming smile and inviting whoever was on the other side of the door in.  

Whatever the eldest Addams was thinking before you walked in went out the window when you entered, you were striking, but not in the way she could say she liked. You looked between the unfamiliar faces in the room with piercing, cherry red eyes, even in a school full of outcasts she'd never seen anyone with eyes quite like yours. Your hair fell just past your shoulders in waves and your lips were painted a burgundy red that almost matched her own perfectly. Surely, they'd have no problem finding someone who would take much more pleasure in doting on you, you were pretty, and she could already feel all the eyes that would inevitably be on the pair of you if she walked you around the school. As Ms. Thornhill surged forward to greet you, Wednesday took the opportunity to speak privately with Weems, her usual blank expression dark with irritation. 

"I'm not doing this." 

"If you'd only give this a try, I think you'd find that you and Miss Salvatore may have a lot in common." 

"I'd rather you rip my tongue out and force me to eat it. Principal Weems, this-" she stopped as you approached. 

"Y/n Salvatore, this is Wednesday Addams, Wednesday this is Y/n Salvatore. She'll be showing around today," Ms. Thornhill introduced you. 

"Nice to meet you," you spoke, extending your hand to the gloomy girl, but recoiling once you were met with nothing more than a cold stare. "The pleasure is all mine, I'm sure."  

You shifted uncomfortably under her stare, and she stared for a while, trying to gauge the energy you brought into the room. You seemed harmless, but so did pandas, and they could rip you to shreds if you crossed them. She couldn't determine what kind of outcast you were; she hadn't noticed any fangs when you spoke and you weren't wearing any headgear so you couldn't have been a vampire or gorgon, perhaps you were a werewolf like Enid or-  

"Y/n do excuse her rudeness, Wednesday doesn't like," she stopped, tearing the Addam's from her thoughts. "Anything." 

"Isn't it more logical that her roommate shows her around? Why me?" 

"If you must know, she does not have a roommate Miss Addams. Now, we are not requesting you show her around, we're requiring it," Principal Weems finally interjected. "Now if your time is that precious to you, I recommend you not waste any more of it arguing. Miss Salvatore is to be taken around to each of her classes, then to collect her uniform, and lastly to her dorm in Ophelia Hall." 

Wednesday glared at the pair of women once more and understanding that she wasn't going to get her way this time, she begrudgingly turned to face you once more, speaking not a single word as she led you out the office and through the quad. The world didn't stop the second the two of you stepped foot in the buzzing center, people took sight of you slowly, whispering to their friends and starting a chain reaction that resulted in all eyes on the two of you. The whispers buzzed in your ears and although you wanted to cave in on yourself, you opted to put on a confident smile, everyone was clearly curious but cautious as you followed behind the grey girl, and it would be stupid of you to not take advantage of the power being the new girl would bring you for a few days. 

"How surprising to see the psychopath leading around the fresh meat?" a taunting, unfamiliar voice rang in your ears. "I liked this place more before they started making exceptions for any tragic misfit that stumbled through the gates, does the integrity of this school mean nothing to Weems anymore?" 

"Y/n, this is Bianca Barclay she's every bit as sad and desperate for the acceptance of her peers as she seems."  

You'd met many Bianca's in the past, they'd made your formative school years hell, but you didn't let them get the best of you and you weren't about to let her.  

"The bitchy mean girl act is awfully tacky don't you think?" you challenged, earning a shocked look from the woman. "I honestly don't think you could be more cliche if you tried and I can see that you are, a little too hard if you ask me."  

The siren rose from her seat at the edge of the fountain, stalking towards you until she invaded your personal bubble. She towered over you, but you wouldn't be shaken, unwavering you glared up at her; behind you Wednesday's eyebrow cocked upwards, interested as she watched you pair. 

"I read about you on wolfies blog, a trouble making normie who couldn't play her own role amongst her own kind becomes so terribly ostracized that she's forced to come to school with the rest of the rejects? I'm not buying it, we've had plenty of normies transfer here under the guise of not fitting in when they really just wanted to destroy this place from this inside out," she spat, stepping impossibly closer to you, observing your features closely. "Although...I've never met a human with eyes quite like yours, but mark my words newbie, you may be front page fodder now, but you'll fall back into obscurity where you belong within a few days. I'm keeping my eye on you nuisance and if I catch you even an inch out of line, there will be hell to pay, got it?"  

"Someone has a hero complex," you looked back to the Addams behind you. "Is she always this intense or only on days when she feels threatened?"  

Wednesday was intrigued by you, not very, but certainly more than she was by the rest of her class; she would have never guessed you were a normie with your appearance. Besides, anyone who stood up to Bianca like that couldn't be that bad and something she said made the gloomy girl's ears prick up, it wouldn't hurt to have a little fun in a bad situation. 

"Her desperate need to be on top means she's always on edge and had a lonely childhood, don't take it personal. We really must be continuing the tour, I don't want to waste more time than I have already," she deadpanned, turning to walk away from the two of you. 

You chuckled at her answer, glaring up at Bianca once more before following after your woeful tour guide, walking much closer to her than you had been earlier.  

"Is everyone here that intens-" you started, taking notice of the way she looked at you, with much more intensity than before, like she was trying to see through you. "Never mind. You know, I figured my first day at Nevermore would be weird, but this is a lot even for me. Also, why isn't your uniform blue like everyone else's? Are you valedictorian or something?" 

"I'm allergic to color."  

You chuckled, "Is that all I have to say? I already wasn't thrilled with the vertical stripes, but blue really isn't my color."  

"I'm not lying," she deadpanned, not even glancing your way as she spoke. "I'll break out in hives and the skin will fall off my bones." 

"Is that even possible? If so, aren't black and white colors?"  

"You're in a school full of vampires and gorgons, do you really doubt anything anymore? Black and white aren't colors, they're shades, I thought that was common knowledge. Your plan is flawed anyway, how can you possibly expect anyone to believe you're allergic to color when you're wearing a yellow shirt."  

You shrugged, "Fair. I guess it still isn't a great uniform, but definitely better than the blue one." 

You reached to touch the fabric as you spoke and despite her going out of the way to avoid you, your fingers grazed her arm. 

Upon first contact with you, her body involuntarily stiffened, and her neck snapped upwards, electricity coursed through her body as she was plagued with a vision. A couple images flooded her mind; men whose faces were obscured by the large hoods of their black robes surrounding a table decorated with candles and symbols she didn't recognize, your photo sat at its center. The next was of you, bound to the ground of the woods and screaming in abject agony as you desperately tried to surge forward, reaching for something she couldn't see; then your heart was ripped from your chest. 

"Wednesday?!" she heard as she came to, your face coming into focus as blinked. "Thank goodness, I thought I killed you or something."   

Her heart pounded so violently that she worried it would come out of her chest, and after seeing it happen firsthand, it no longer seemed as fun as she previously thought. The smell of lavender and rose eased her out of discombobulation as she took in her surroundings, it was only then that she noticed the crowd that formed around the two of you and the position you were in. You were sitting on your knees, cradling her head in your lap, your face mere inches from her own; cherry red eyes scanning the Addams' features frantically for injuries. Wednesday stared back at you for a second, finally expressing an emotion other than indifference, she was perplexed. Her head spun as she shot up, glaring at the crowd until they dispersed and putting distance between the two of you.  

"Are you okay? Do you need to go to the nurse?"  

"I'm fine."  

"Hey what's going on?" a voice you didn't recognize, but that was all too familiar to the girl beside you rung out through the thinning crowd. "Woah, I never thought I'd see Wednesday Addams playing welcoming committee," the bubbly blonde spoke, staring between the two of you. 

"I'm not playing anything; I was forced into this role. Enid this is-" 

"Y/n Salvatore, the normie newbie who got kicked out of every school in her town, earning herself a reputation so bad that only Nevermore would take her? I'm almost offended that you thought I didn't know, her info has been up on my blog for like 3 days now, you’d know that if you kept up with it," she looked at you once more. "I thought the red eyes were just editing, are they contacts? Would you be willing to answer some questions my readers have been just dying to know?" 

You were slightly disturbed by the information Enid just relayed to you but considering the fact that she had been the friendliest person you'd met thus far, you figured there'd be no harm in answering her questions; she'd find out on her own soon enough anyway.   

"They aren't contacts and sure I guess, yours must be the blog Bianca mentioned earlier," you pulled a cell phone from your pocket and extended it to the girl. "Follow it on my phone, I'd love to see what else you've dug up about my mundane life."  

Enid practically bounced as she typed the information into your phone before placing it back in your hands.  

"Wednesday will bring you back to our room when she's done showing you around, I have to go prepare!"  

The eldest Addams opened her mouth to protest, but closed it promptly, the vision showed her that much more lurked beneath surface of your mundane facade; you were in danger. She had no choice now but to keep an eye on you now and it annoyed her deeply, but if her clairvoyance followed any sort of rule, she would only have to make sure you didn't die until the next morning. 

"She seemed nice, I was starting to worry that everyone here was a bitter Bianca or woeful Wednesday-" you stopped, realizing how rude that sounded. "No offense."  

She walked ahead of you before responding, 

"I take it as a compliment, nothing you could possibly come up with could insult me, let's get the rest of the day over with." 

The remainder of the tour went relatively smoothly compared to the first half; you tried (and failed) to get your hands on a black uniform, walked through each of your classes, and saw your room for the first time. It was big and bare and for some reason sent a sick feeling into the pit of your stomach, you had really hoped for a roommate, but you could manage being alone. Despite your attempts at starting a conversation, Wednesday hardly spoke to you, it wasn't until the two of you made it to her door that she broke the silence. 

"Give me a few to tidy some things up before you come in."  

She didn't wait for a response before entering her room and closing the door in your face. 

"Howdy roomie," Enid greeted the gloomy girl fondly. "Where's Y/n? I thought you were bringing her." 

Wednesday didn't respond, moving swiftly to her desk she loaded her typewriter, quickly typing and scribbling on a document, before handing it to her roommate.  

"These are some questions I would appreciate you asking Y/n, she doesn't get to know they're my own," She deadpanned before opening the door once more and allowing you entrance to the room.  

"Wow," you mused, looking around their half-pastel, half-gothic room. "You two are a cute pair of besties, I love the opposites attract theme going on in here." 

"We aren't 'besties'."  

"Oh em gee, I know right!" The pair spoke over each other. "I could totally help you decorate you room when you get to it, but let's get down business."  

You watched Enid plop onto her been and open a laptop that's top panel was adorned with cute stickers, the blonde looked up at you once more, patting the spot in front of her. 

"Come sit, I don't bite, well not anymore."  

You obeyed, sitting crisscross in front of her as she began prodding you with questions, Wednesday watched the two of you from her side of the room.  

"Okay, let's start by addressing some of the most popular rumors going around the school about you. Some people have started wondering whether you left your town in order to escape a stalker that was coming after you, what do you have to say about that?"  

You laughed, shaking your head before speaking,  

"So not true, you had it right the first time; I came here after getting kicked out of every school in town, my parents sent me here as some sort of punishment. If I couldn't behave myself in human school then they'd throw me to the freaks and see how I fared, their words, not mine."  

The tick of keys as Enid typed was impossibly fast and you watched her stunned before she moved on to the next question. Wednesday was unsure of how many ridiculous questions her roommate had asked you before finally moving onto the important ones, hers.  

"There's been buzz around the school that you aren't really a normie, I mean they famously don't tend to have naturally occurring red eyes, what are your thoughts on this?" 

Wednesday listened closely as you pondered your answer for a second, 

"I'm not sure of the science behind how my eyes got to be this color, but I can assure that I'm as normal as they come, both of my parents are normies and sadly closed minded to those who are different." 

Something about your response piqued Wednesday's interest, most people embellished their lives, desperate to come off as the exact opposite dull and ordinary; you openly painted a picture of and welcomed mundanity when describing your own. Enid looked down at the page resting on her laptop and shot her roomie a strange look from across the room before asking, 

"Some strange students speculate that you have a cult pursuing you, any comment?" 

"Are these the same students that think I was being stalked? Unless these students are the cult, I have no idea what that's all about, people come up with some weird theories to fill the void."  

Wednesday earned yet another look from Enid as she asked her final question,  

"Do you recognize these symbols?"  

Your eyes widened slightly for a split second that went unnoticed by the blonde as you took in the symbols doodled on the page, you certainly recognized them, but snapped out of it pretty quickly.  

"I don't recognize them," you lied, handing the page back. "Your readers wanted to you to ask me that?" 

Enid looked past you as she spoke, 

"Someone did."  

You decided to leave shortly after she finished interviewing you and was surprised when Wednesday stood, telling more than offering to walk with you, lying that she was going that way anyway. The brisk walk was just as awkward as the tour had been, she walked beside you, never once glancing in your direction or attempting to make small talk until you got to your door.  

"Will you be staying here for the rest of the night?" the gloomy girl questioned, shocking you once more. "Or will you be wondering around the school?"  

"I'll probably stay in here, why? Are you the stalker people speculate is following me?"  

Your joke fell on the deaf ears of Wednesday Addams and she wasn't laughing, your cheeks warmed slightly in embarrassment; you coughed uncomfortably, thanking the stoic teen for showing you around before disappearing into your room. Wednesday was happy for that to be over with, she could stop babysitting and start sleuthing. She may not have been looking at your face when Enid showed you those symbols, but your body language told her everything you needed to know, you stiffened sharply the second they came into view. Clearly you were lying, but about what was for her to figure out. Perhaps Bianca wasn't far off in thinking that you came to Nevermore with ulterior motives, but she'd have to do a lot more investigation before she was willing to admit that the siren was correct.

She was in her head about you well into the late hours of the night when something concerning caught her eye, you were sneaking around campus, clearly headed towards the woods. That wasn't what concerned her though, what concerned her was the hooded figure that followed swiftly behind as you disappeared into the forest.

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

I posted this before on a different account, but got burned very badly by a blaze and wanted to start again lmao. This is a personal writing that I've been working on for a short while, it ended up being much longer than originally intended, but I am happy with it and hope you were too. I'd love to hear whether or not you all think I should continue with it, but I probably will reguardless. I hope the mystery lurking beneath Y/n's surface was enough to intrigue you into staying, but even if it didn't, thank you for your time <3

[askanaroace]

Ask An Aro Ace ASAW Day 2: Being a Non-Favorable Aromantic

Today is another day where I kinda talk about something that's treated as different within and without the community. Today I want to talk about being romance-indifferent or romance-averse or romance-repulsed.

A quick primer for those who might need:

Romance-favorable: generally likes and is open to romance.

Romance-indifferent: generally unbothered by and doesn't think about romance. Doesn't really want it but isn't strongly turned away from it.

Romance-averse: generally uninterested in romance but not especially upset or uncomfortable with it.

Romance-repulsed: generally experiencing discomfort and upset surrounding romance.

This may be in the realm of romantic content to personal outlook on romance and the desire or lack thereof to be in a romantic relationship. And not everyone has to use these or may even feel the scale is useful to them, for example because someone might be favorable to romantic media but repulsed by the idea of personally participating in romance or their feelings may fluctuate over time and be different at different times.

I would say I fall along the lines of being romance-indifferent. In the past, I have been touch-repulsed and sex-repulsed (and now probably lay somewhere along indifferent to averse), so I have general experience with how intense and upsetting repulsion can be and how it can impact your life, though I can't speak specifically to romance-repulsion.

What I want to talk about is the extremely different perspective that comes out about romance depending on if you're looking at things from within or without the community.

When your general allo hears about aromanticism, they are most likely to assume someone completely uninterested in romance and potentially even repulsed by it. You may get gross comments about being picky or immature or afraid of commitment and have it said or implied that the "right person" will "fix" you (as if romance-favorable aros aren't still aro!). Dehumanization is especially common with aros with claims of "love is what makes us human".

But within the community, this treatment by allos has led to a sense of shame surrounding aversion and repulsion, as well as aplatonicism, heartlessness, and lovelessness. There is a tendency to try and defend aros from such judgements by using amatonormative claims like "aros can still want to date!" and "aros can love in other ways!" which leaves out aros for whom these statements aren't true and sets up the prospect that the only acceptable way to be aromantic is to be romance-favorable and partnering (whether that be a romantic or queerplatonic or platonic partnership).

I know very well that romance-favorable aros face their own struggles and often feel invalid and fake due to their favorability. That's a real and valid feeling and struggle. But truth is that I see a lot of validation, positivity, and encouragement for favorability.

And if you run in the right circles, you'll see that same energy given towards indifference, aversion, and repulsion. But overall, it can be very difficult to talk about being repulsed in particular. People treat you like your discomfort is difficult to accommodate, like your feelings are a burden to them. And it's an especially terrible burden for a repulsed person to have to carry because we're the ones dealing with literal repulsion over these subjects. Accommodating us takes a little conscious, thought yes, but when I was repulsed, that could manifest as:

Being unable to stomach watching certain shows/movies

Getting very easily embarrassed and flustered and uncomfortable with such material

An actual, physical sensation of freezing up and my body shutting down

Dissociation

Involuntary flinching

Anxiety and fear over having to face certain situations

People can also experience things like nausea, dysphoria, depression, etc.

I get that accommodating us does take some mindfulness and effort, but I promise that it is easier on you than it is on the repulsed person to go through the above.

And acceptance for this definitely has improved over time. But making room for non-favorable folk means more than us being an after-thought. It means including these experiences in your definition of aromanticism. It means updating your content warnings. It means changing the way we defend our identity.

Humans are defined based off of general biology and society building defined by traits like bipedalism, language, tool-making, foresight, and opposable thumbs. Nothing at all to do with love, which is something we can observe throughout the animal kingdom. All aros are humans because that's the scientific classification we're born into. You don't need love to be compassionate or kind towards other people. Every living creature is worthy of basic respect. Aromanticism doesn't harm people (anti-aro bias and amatonormativity do). Whatever our feelings, those deserve to be respected and considered.

By breaking down these barriers and stereotypes, we help everyone. Because there's a lot of different ways to feel and live, and we deserve to get to explore those options.

[snek-eyes]

Hi Vee! How are you? I hope you had a great start into the new year 🥳

I have a meta question! I'm not very good at comprehending stuff sometimes, so it might be a dumb question but alas. I'm ace, so it really bothers me not to know which is why I think you could help.

When Shax dresses up as hitchhiker and talks to Aziraphale on the way from Scottland, she says she's bemused as to why Crowley would risk destruction for him because "you don't seem his type at all". Does she mean judging by Crowley's looks and coolness and so on or does she mean Crowley had other lovers before and Azi doesn't fit in with them? The latter would bug me ngl, I'm the kind of romantic who even wants that kiss we saw to be the first kiss for both of them 😅 And then again Neil said that they can still be ace because the kiss was romantic but there is "no evidence for sexual relations" between Crow and Azi which then must include that of course there are also no hints that they've ever been involved with others...right? (I'm ace and I'm aware aces can have sexual relations if we want to but I think since Neil says they can be ace because there's no evidence of that, it means he includes those of our community repulsed by sex, too.)

I'd love if you could shed some light on the matter 😄

Cheers!

- 💫

Hey, happy new year! ✨🎉

So first, to actually answer your question, I think Shax in the car is just trying to rattle Aziraphale, like she does later in the bookshop by calling him Crowley's emotional support angel—except the one in the car doesn't work because Aziraphale's not going to be made to feel too lame to be Crowley's type, pfft. He's confident by this point that he very much *is* Crowley's type, even if they haven't acknowledged it.

Secondly: IMO, one of the funnest things about shipping Aziraphale and Crowley is how versatile they are. The only thing for certain is they, against all odds, have become each other's most important person. What exactly that means is pretty open to interpretation. All that to say, if you think they're Ace or even Aro, absolutely rock on!

I have a great appreciation for how Neil keeps emphasizing that canon is only whatever's "on the page," (or on the screen, in this case), and whatever he or anyone else might say outside of that technically doesn't count. He and Terry wrote these characters, but ultimately, they aren't real people with a real tangible history. The gaps in canon are free real estate for the viewers to respond to and mentally fill in.

There seems to be nothing in canon that says either of them have kissed anyone before—or that they haven't. Sex is always going to be part of shipping culture in one way or another, but just because someone might interpret Shax's statement to mean that Crowley's had lovers before doesn't mean you're not just as free to believe that was their first kiss with anyone ever. Even if interpretations contradict, both are technically headcanon and can be equally valid until something in the show itself says otherwise. Have fun!

[Personally: I love Ace AC! It's actually my interpretation of canon. I'm also on team "neither had ever kissed anyone" because that just feels like it makes sense, both for their characters and frankly that's how it feels like David and Michael acted it (those two men know how to kiss, if they wanted it to feel like something other than 'desperately attempting something both of them had only seen before' they would have).

But reading fics where they're *not* that can be fun too, even if I personally don't think they were actually making out just offscreen this whole time. I've read and enjoyed fics I thought were blatantly out of character, but still told me a good story. And man, I will never forget feeling like an absolute king on AO3 in the months after I watched s1, putting in whatever combination of tags I was in the mood for and finding piles of gold.]

[mdhwrites]

I heard Dana gave toh fans the freedom to consider their headcanons canon, or smth like that. There's probably more info on twitter but I don't use the app. What do you think?

So what I've heard is that it's not entirely this. It is just saying that whatever Dana says outside of the show, like in livestreams, panels, etc. don't count as canon. The only things that are explicitly canon is that which is in the show. Otherwise, everything else is her personal headcanons which are just as valid as any fans'. I was introduced to this a few days ago by someone sharing it with me (this was apparently said in a livestream btw so will almost certainly get lost to time) a tweet with me about someone being happy about their fan children being 'canon' It was cute and I didn't check what the ships were. I mostly responded to that person being happy that they could headcanon Lumischa as having eventually happened because that was more fun for me especially with my hands being bad. Besides, I think the statement is dumb on multiple levels that I'll get to eventually. Reading this question, I spent more than a single second thinking about it and went "Wait, but Amity is only a lesbian because Dana says so. This is absolutely going to make 70% of the fandom choose to make her bi because then they can ship her with whoever they want." AND GUESS WHAT SHIP THE TWEET WAS ABOUT!? FUCKING AMITER! It has always been a problem for the show that Amity's sexuality is not stated in it. It creates a similar excuse to what people who have to defend stuff like SasuNaru (my introduction to shipping through my older sister btw) of "They don't have a canon sexuality." Well... No longer does Amity. We do know she's interested in girls but that doesn't mean she isn't pan or bi.

I personally do not agree with this interpretation. For me, changing characters who appear to commonly be straight to gay is fine... Because there's close to zero gay characters in most genres, let alone mainstream popular shows. How many are in Shounen anime in general? Okay now remove the villains who are queer coded and tell me again. If the LGBTQIA+ (which I want to remind you I'm not a part of so I don't benefit from this interpretation) want to tell their stories within the media they like, they HAVE to change sexualities. They have no other choice. Meanwhile, Amity is not a particularly special archtype so if you're a straight dude wanting to ship her with yourself, you can find that elsewhere. Even within the same show, just use Lilith who in S1 was similar to Amity. Though yes, Lilith is technically aro/ace but only by decree from Dana and the show never actually sways one way or another on her feelings on relationships because... Why the fuck would it? It's a comedy adventure. Which brings us to the complicated question of what is right to include in a story or not (which I could go into a LOT more in a different blog). It's not like everyone is constantly stating their sexualities in real life after all. It's a rough place for a lot of creators, just like saying if a character is nuerodivergent. A lot of stories just don't have a place for that sort of exposition and honestly the author letting us know outside of the work IS useful for that. Would it be better if it were stated in the show? In TOH's case, because of how much it stakes its reputation on representation, YES. For most? Not really but most don't court the romance genre, where saying those sexualities is more reasonable, like TOH does.

So that's one reason why I don't like the statement. Dana sticking to her guns on her ideas is one of the few saving graces I could give her and just saying "Fuck it, you all decide what you want to be canon so long as it isn't in the show" is just... not that. Not unless she was going to go whole hog and say that the IP was in the public domain so LITERALLY MAKE THE CANON YOU WANT! Which would have been novel but is also NEVER going to happen. Instead, her statement amounts to "I officially give you permission to make fanworks." Which... Lady, you don't get to decide that. No creative does. If people want to make work off of your story, they're gonna do that regardless of what you say. The creator of Calvin and Hobbes is FAMOUS for how anti-commercial he was of his work and spent much of his career making sure that his strips, panels, characters etc. didn't appear on t-shirts. And he still failed mostly because stopping EVERY avenue was simply impossible.

Also Dana has not really put much authoritatively on the scales besides the sexualities, making the statement even more pointless. If she's dropped giant lore dumps, I haven't heard about them and I've been in this fandom long enough that I feel like I should have heard about them. Instead we got small things like Amity dying her hair because her mom forced her to. That isn't going to break anyone's story and I even personally used it as a bonding moment between the two because I made Odalia neurotic about stuff like that.

So I guess my big question is... Who cares? Unless you actively don't like the few answers we've been given by the crew. And if that's the case... That's what fanworks are for. For when you don't like canon and want to change it. You don't need permission for that. You never have. =========

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[sn0wcake]

elaborating more on this (i should also clarify that i myself am on the asexual spectrum, just in case)

for one thing, it's been brought to my attention that some people are uncomfortable with the way karkat saying tavros is incapable of hating people (a very ace coded statement in troll romance) is presented, and i personally don't really agree? like, karkat is in the wrong here for calling him broken in the head i think we can agree on that, but like? he's still calling attention specifically to tavros being at the very least incapable of kismesis and this is presented as a pretty important part of tavros and vriska's relationship!!! karkat's being a dick about it sure but this IS undeniably part of tav's character another thing is that i'm not quite sure if tavros should also be considered aromantic but that really comes down to whether you think his crush on jade was real or not (or, if you think he had a crush on dave which if that is true and his crush on jade wasnt real he might just be gay tbh (my personal favorite option because projection but least likely)). so, pretty subjective i guess. just don't try to say that he was ever in any way attracted to vriska literally at all (yes, even in the dream bubbles. tavros is a heavily codependent person and by this point has been conditioned to think that vriska is the only value/worth he has) or i will remove your vital organs through your ears another thing that could point to him being aro is one of the screenshots i used in this image (the one w/ rose) but he could have been upset by the implications of rose's previous statement about tav's "evocative" word choices or just. by the idea of being a relationship with dave specifically (and this cant be used as a way to claim tavros isnt asexual because he is also upset by vriska's "scandalous imagery" regarding jade, who he at least THOUGHT he had a crush on, and if this crush was in fact real then combined with the other evidence that basically disproves any notion of tavros concievably not being in some way asexual. if you want to say tav had a thing for dave then this also doesn't disprove that since this is while he was trying to troll him so before he started heavily admiring him) or the ace subtext was simply a coincidence and i'm reading too much into this (realistically most likely option but lamest)

tavros is asexual and it's an integral part of his character argue with the wall

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

"Everything inside me came undone as I stared at the tiny porcelain face of the half-vampire, half-human baby. All the lines that held me to my life were sliced apart in swift cuts, like clipping the strings to a bunch of balloons. Everything that made me who I was—my love for the dead girl upstairs, my love for my father, my loyalty to my new pack, the love for my other brothers, my hatred for my enemies, my home, my name, my self—disconnected from me in that second—snip, snip, snip—and floated up into space.

I was not left drifting. A new string held me where I was.

Not one string, but a million. Not strings, but steel cables. A million steel cables all tying me to one thing—to the very center of the universe.

I could see that now—how the universe swirled around this one point. I’d never seen the symmetry of the universe before, but now it was plain. 

The gravity of the earth no longer tied me to the place where I stood."

(Breaking Dawn, page 237)

How the fuck do you read that, or better yet WRITE IT, and not think imprinting is a horrifying brainwashing?? Just HOW!?!?! I was sick to my stomach when I read it and was about to fucking cry. Is the fandom just that delusional?

I wouldn't blame the Twilight fandom on this one as this is most fandoms I've seen.

Soulmates are Big, Yo

People really really really really like soulmate AUs or the idea of soulmates and people destined to be together/made for each other in a way no one else is.

You see media with in-universe soulmates and many times in fandom you'll see AUs of the same tropes (soulmates in general, soulmate tattoos, the red thread, etc.) if there wasn't a soulmate idea already there. And we'll get conflict in that two people who hate each other discover they were soulmates the whole time, they rage against it for a bit, then discover destiny was right and get laid.

Imprinting is the spicier (not quite ABO but on the track of it) version of that where your soulmate is not only made for you/destined for you but will be whatever you need them to be, you will be their only priority in the entire world, they will be your wolfy wolf protector, etc.

Where the Meyer insanity comes in that sets her apart from your typical Ao3 author is that she sets imprinters up with babies. Multiple times.

Bella Also Doesn't Question It

It also helps that Bella our narrator specifically does not question it much. She gets a few questions out of the way with Jake where she gets the "they're whatever people need them to be" but ultimately finds the idea very romantic.

Bella is also quite gullible in her own way. She tends to believe what people tell her immediately and rarely believes they have hidden agendas. She questions Aro but has no idea which of his statements are true and which are lies and why he’d be lying. Edward she takes at face value, Alice, Jacob, there’s not even a question of if they’re lying to her or telling her something that they believe is true but might not be.

Bella just kind of accepts whatever she’s told.

Because Bella doesn't question it, the readers have to be actively questioning Bella or even Jacob in the above bit you have, to really have a "wait a minute" moment. That's not how most people read books, usually a person can take what the narrator says for granted in that "this is what I'm supposed to know and how I'm supposed to think about the universe these characters are in". Remember, that unreliable narrators for most people need to be explicitly pointed out.

So, you get this soulmate idea that people really like and combine it with Bella viewing it in a very rose-colored romantic view and you don't get people questioning it as much as they would otherwise.

[aro-culture-is]

Hi! How are you?

Recently a lot of my friends have started dating, and I feel somewhat unconfortable thinking that they are dating. Have you ever experienced something like that? Could it be it's me just projecting myself on to their realtionships even though I know I don't anything like that? I don't have any aro irl's I could talk about this, so I hope it's okay that I'm asking you.

Hope you have a great day :))

hi! this sounds pretty normal from what i've heard. aro folks especially tend to take their friends dating kinda hard, because it's... not uncommon for new partners to stop hanging out with us, and it's pretty normal to be worried about that.

if you're worried that you're in some way being uncomfy almost all the time around them, if they've commented on it, or if it just feels like a good idea, it isn't a bad plan to communicate with them. if you think you're worried that they haven't spent time with you, or you're worried that they'll eventually leave you or something like that, most friends will appreciate you reaching out. you can say something like "hey, so, since you and x began dating, i've been worried about being kinda... left behind. i'm really glad for the two of you, but I'm wondering if we could make sure to still spend time with just the two of us."

if it doesn't feel like that's what's up, it's a little harder for me to help. maybe it's romance repulsion - you could also talk to them about maybe not wanting to see much of pda, while making sure it's an ask and a negotiation, not a demand that they cease all activities you're uncomfy with. you may need to pick the things that are hardest on you.

when you have those types of convos though, please, please, please use "I statements". When you say "you two do this and that makes me feel this way", it comes across as aggressive, and often leads to an unproductive, hurtful argument that could have been a discussion. instead, try to phrase it as "I feel this way when you two do x, and I don't want to force you to stop something you enjoy, but I wanted to have a convo about it."

i hope things go well for you, and that you get some understanding if not resolution :)

- mod axel