#this started as platonic coparenting but i like the idea of them becoming romantically involved

[persephoneggsy]

second part to my sebhawke witcher au, this time ft. blackwall and vivienne, bc in my head, sebastian is pretty much the ciri of this au, just minus the magic powers. so blackwall and vivienne are his geralt and yennefer lol

long story short, Thom “the Blackwall” Rainier is a griffin school witcher who ended up with a child of destiny when he invoked the Law of Surprise (”that which you have but do not know yet”) as payment after rescuing a nobleman from a monster. Unbeknownst to him, this nobleman was royalty, and when he arrived home, he found his wife was pregnant with their third child. When the baby was born, Blackwall arrived to take him back to the witchers, though he agreed to the boy’s grandfather’s last request -- that he keep the name they gave him: Sebastian.

Meanwhile, Vivienne is a sorceress who’s worked with Blackwall on a few occasions. They mostly snipe at each other, but then Blackwall shows up with the most charming little boy, and she adores him. Vivienne’s pretty much the reason Sebastian’s still a fancy lad despite being raised by witchers (and also the reason he still wears mostly white lol).

[werepuppy-steve]

taylor (@steddie-island) and i have been in the trenches for the past week creating the most beautiful (and smutty) steddissy au and i'm very 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 about it. it's still mostly headcanons right now with inklings of plot sprinkled in, so i thought i should make a worldbuilding post about it since it's officially being added to my wip pile <3

tagging some people i think would be interested in this: @dangerous-disposition @tboybuck @patchworkgargoyle @thefreakandthehair @starryeyedjanai

@corrodedbisexual @sidekick-hero @spectrum-spectre @munsondickprint @augustjustice

@worstsequence @rozzieroos

it doesn't get real graphic under the cut but putting it under one bc it's a lil long

the beginnings of it are touched on here, but it's expanded a little bit.

it's a modern au. steddissy are still in that platonic/friends with benefits stage: steve and eddie are dating but chrissy is very happy and content being single. she likes that it gives her more freedom to do things without having a controlling partner breathing down her neck every time she turns around.

they're streamers. i don't have their niche's fleshed out yet but they do collabs with each other a lot.

we went into dirty details in dms about the three of them sexting constantly, which turns into them rolling out their onlyfans accounts. they already have so many things filmed just from their texts alone, so why not make money off of it?

some more headcanons and ideas were thrown around (along with taylor giving me snippets of her own steddissy wips that you should def ask her about if she's willing to share them 👀) that i'll probably make a separate post for.

it's been established that chrissy is a squirter

but between all the filthy smut, there's love. so much of it that i get choked up just thinking about it.

i started thinking of people who are in mostly online spaces and have probably never interacted with the queer community in real life, and how they wouldn't have the kindest opinions.

so eddie would get all of these tweets that are like "you're gay but you enjoy having sex with a woman??? [confused math lady] make it make sense." he ignores them at first because randos on the internet aren't entitled to his relationships, but it becomes frequent enough that he starts getting accused of "calling himself gay for clout" and dragging steve and chrissy into it, and then he has to address it.

he does it in a video because he's still dramatic.

"having sex with a woman doesn't make me not gay. i've been gay since i was 15 and a boy gave me my first hickey. chrissy is my platonic partner. yes, she's very cute and adorable and it makes me want to scream sometimes, but i'm not attracted to her because she's a woman. i'm attracted to her because she's my best friend and my feelings for her run so much deeper than romantic love. chrissy doesn't even label herself with a sexuality. she just likes people.

steve is my boyfriend. i'm romantically involved with him and physically attracted to him because he's a man. steve, however, is bi, so he does find chrissy attractive as a woman, and there's nothing wrong with that. they're also not interested in dating each other. the three of us fool around with each other because it's fun and we like making each other feel good and we trust each other. it's nobody else's business what we do."

and because he's a petty little shit (a trait he learned from steve) he posts a video of him and chrissy having the most tendernasty missionary sex, complete with kissing and hand holding.

then it turned into the three of them being roommates. and then somewhere along the line it turned into chrissy being steve and eddie's surrogate and the three of them coparenting (a big win for steve "breeding kink" harrington), because at this stage in their relationship, they're pretty secure in knowing that chrissy is their life partner. they're not Together together, but they know she's not going anywhere.

i think that for them to get to this point, something would've had to happen between chrissy and someone outside of their relationship. someone she's had frequent collabs on onlyfans with, who maybe wanted something more and called her a hypocrite when she said she wasn't looking for anything serious, because of steve and eddie, and wouldn't listen when she insisted that it was different with them.

she tells the boys this and it turns into her coming with sobs of "i'm yours" as she rides steve while eddie fucks him. taylor mentioned they dp her and i said that that would be the moment it kind of clicks for them that this is how they were always meant to be.

and it gave me thoughts about possibly arospec chrissy. she loves her boys with her entire being, but she knows it's not romantic love. like eddie says, it feels deeper than that. to call it "romantic" almost feels like it cheapens their relationship (she knows it doesn't, she knows that eddie and steve's romantic feelings for each other are real and just as important). she's not sure if she's ever felt romantic love for anyone.

and that's all we have for now, outside of the smut alkgjldkfgj. none of them actually care about who the kid belongs to. they've got chrissy's light hair and dark eyes.

[splenderai]

What does it feel like being aro? Because I identify as demiromantic and lately I've been wondering if I'm just full aro. Like I've had crushes before and can imagine being in love but like actually being with someone??? Wouldn't know what to do or anything. Or am I just being paranoid because never in my 20+ years have I had a relationship?

Hello, anon ! This got very long (I apologize in advance !), so I'll be putting this under a read more.

It's... different.

You often feel alienated from everyone else. Everyone outside of the aro spectrum (alloromantics), whether they're straight, gay, bi, pan, or any other identity, experiences romantic attraction and can, on some level, relate to other alloromantics (the shared desire to fall in love, go on dates, maybe get married, etc.) That's not exactly the case for us aros. While some of us are okay with and can appreciate romance in theory, that's not true for all aros. Some have varying levels of repulsion towards romance. For me, I don't usually mind the idea of romantic relationships, but I'm repulsed by even the mere thought of being in one myself. I feel physically ill and uncomfortable at the thought of someone being interested in me in that way, and my mind completely blocks out the idea of me being in a romantic relationship with all the fixings. It's a complicated relationship with romance. While I can enthusiastically talk about, say, a couple in a series I'm watching and share that excitement with another fan, or I can feel real joy about a friend getting into a relationship and listen with interest about what that relationship is like, I can also be really repulsed with certain discussions of romance and struggle to understand certain kinds of relationships that are just not logical to me (like people who date who aren't friends or people who say they fall in love after a week of knowing someone). Society also puts a huge emphasis on romance and makes it seem like such an enormous and important part of your life. People around you are always talking about it starting from a young age. Television shows, movies, and other types of media are oversaturated with romantic plotlines. (As a result, representation for us in mainstream media is practically non-existent.) Romantic relationships are even placed on a pedestal and viewed by some as being more valuable and just overall better than platonic ones. None of it makes sense, and you feel a real disconnect from all these ideas and feelings that are just natural and commonplace to just about everyone around you.

It's tiring. Amatonormativity also leads to a lot of negativity and ridicule directed at single individuals. You're seen as immature if you've never dated before, and even in middle and high school kids will make fun of you if you've never had a significant other. If you're not married by the age of 35, people will assume you're undesirable, have a terrible personality, or something else of the sort. It's always assumed that there is a problem with you. A person who wants to live on your own with a pet makes you the Crazy Cat Lady who is someone you should avoid or never become yourself. When you try to tell others that you don't experience romantic attraction, they might say you sound ridiculous, that you just haven't found the right person yet (or worse, they might even see it as a challenge and try to pursue a relationship with you), that (especially if you're cis aroace or cis aro and heterosexual) you're just making it up so that you can feel special and weasel your way into the lgbtq+ community where you don't belong.

It's scary sometimes. Society tries to hammer into you (starting from a very young age) the idea that you're meant to find the love of your life with whom you'll spend the rest of your days. You'll have your 2.4 kids and spouse by your side, so you won't die alone. It's almost like there's this guidebook for the future, and yet you find yourself flipping through the pages trying to find the chapter or even just a footnote about people like us and what we can expect. Society tells us we'll be forever alone. Yeah, you have your friends, but they're likely alloromantics and at some point they'll be too tied up with their nuclear families or romantic partner(s) to fill that lonely void you'll have. Society doesn't have a positive outlook for people like us, so we have to forge our own paths.

There's usually a lot of inner struggle involved. Because of society's emphasis on romance and amatonormativity, there can be some internalized arophobia that some of us struggle with. Plus, a lot of us don't learn about aspec identities until later on in life, so we've spent many hours, days, even years distraught because we were under the impression that there must have been something wrong with us. I only found out about aromanticism and asexuality when I was in university, so I had my fair share of years where I just couldn't understand why I was so different from my friends, the people on TV, and all the others around me. I know some aros who would have panic attacks because they thought that they'd inevitably have to get into a relationship, have kids, and so on because they were led to believe that there was no alternative or that it'd be even scarier to live alone for the rest of their lives. A few of my aro friends and I (and I would think a lot of other aros) have talked about how we're all almost always going through these bouts where we doubt whether or not we're actually aro. It's really hard to know if you're outright lacking romantic attraction or if those people are right and you're just a late bloomer or haven't found the right person yet. Like I could be demiromantic ? I can't really be sure, so there are times where I think I'm feeling something, and I have a crisis because it could be romantic attraction ? Or maybe it's just indigestion ?  I've also gone 20+ years without being in a relationship, so I can understand your concern there. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer.

It's a lot.

But it's also really liberating and something that a lot of us are very proud of.

When you're able to climb past the internalized arophobia and learn that you can absolutely live a very fulfilling and happy life without being in a romantic relationship, you really start to see life through a new lens and have a much more positive outlook on the future. There is nothing wrong with wanting to live alone, with a pet, with a close friend or friends (this is especially important !!! it's often looked down upon and people will insist that there must be something going on between two friends living together but that doesn't have to be the case !!!). All of these are options available to you. You're never truly alone, either. A lot of us have really great relationships with our friends and family (blood or found), in part because we don't put romantic relationships on a pedestal and tend to spend more time with them since we're just not involved in romance. There are interest groups out there (both locally and long distance like on the internet) that you can join to meet new people and do or talk about something you really enjoy (ex. a dnd group that meets weekly). Maybe even get to know your coworkers ! In most cases, you see them eight hours a week, five days a week, and it can be nice learning about these familiar faces (some of my closest friends have been current or former coworkers). There are communal housing initiatives out there where you can have your own space, but you are also surrounded by neighbors (similar to dorm life in university). You want kids but don't want to have a romantic partner or spouse ? You can adopt and coparent with a close friend ! There are so many possibilities out there, and I hope that one day they will become more accepted and even commonplace in society.

It's a lot to consider, and these are only my own experiences and those of my friends and others that I've read about over the years. The best way to figure out whether or not you're aro is to talk to other aros, read the accounts of other aros to see what their own concerns, experiences, and thoughts are on their own identity, and read through some helpful resources on aromanticism ! This blog is a really nice place to start, and this is also a really great resource (that I found on the aforementioned blog). If you're still unsure, that's totally valid and understandable ! If you feel more comfortable using the aromantic label in the meantime, that's absolutely okay, too ! Just like with sexuality, romantic attraction can be fluid, too. If the you today feels closer to aromantic than demiromantic, then you can identify as such. If you realize that you are demiromantic or even something else later on down the road, that's also okay ! You're just as valid either way. Remember that, anon. It's okay to be aro, it's okay to be arospec, and it's okay if that changes down the road. At the end of the day, you're you !