#CRAspecFestWk2

[cr-aspec-fest]

CR Aspec Fest Week 2 is here - Asexual Spectrum!

You know the drill by now - the goal is to create a fanwork according to this week's prompt (ace-spec) by this time next Saturday! (although late submissions are still welcome)

When you have a fanwork you're ready to share, use the #CRAspecFest tag, and tag this account in your post so I can reblog it! (Or, if you don't have an account you wish to share it with, just send an ask and we can make a fresh post just for you!)

If you're posting on AO3, you can add your work to the collection here and use the tag cr-aspec-fest's Critical Role Aspec Fest 2025 if you'd like!

What are some ideas for this week's prompt?

asexual, demi/grey-ace, aceflux identities; turning down or negotiating sexual propositions; intimacy (even BDSM) without sex; sex averse/neutral/favourable spectrum

Check out the pinned post for rules/FAQs! And happy fanworking!!

[but-the-library-of-alexandria]

In honour of #CRAspecFestWk2 I feel that this is the perfect time to Soft Launch the fact that I have been working on an Aeor Date Shadowgast fic for a little while... I wanted to have a lot more of it finished before I revealed it but fuck it lol, maybe this will motivate me to write!

I'm being a little Fancy with format lol, I've tentatively decided to present it as a kind of Found Manuscript, the manuscript in question being the research diary Essek kept during the trip, which starts out being strictly business with a few slips and deliberate ommissions, and slowly gets more and more personal until he's barely writing about the research at all and it's just fully a personal journal lol. It's a Getting Together fic so expect a lot of Longing as well as a bit of early relationship honeymoon phase

Anyway, in the interest of getting some Aspec Vibes out there this week, see below the cut to read some curated snippets from three scenes which may or may not be used in the final version, which I feel touch upon the Demisexual Experience to some extent:

Snippet 1: a pre-gettting-together musing on different 'speeds' of attraction:

I am not stupid. I do know that the feeling is mutual. Nor do I think he is stupid, and I am sure he knows as well. Similar as we are, I find him easy to read, although, different as we are, I suspect we came at it very differently. Like fire and ice, Cheszara said, and it does ring true: I am glacially slow to move, while Caleb’s feelings catch quickly and burn bright. I dare not wonder how much earlier he arrived upon it than I did. I’m afraid that, if I asked, he’d say, immediately. He has the capacity for it, in a way that I don’t. In the past year or so alone - according to Jester and Beau and my own eyes - that spark has kindled for half a dozen people (if you count the three of them who have taken turns in the same body). Of course, when I think of that, a quiet voice in the back of my head that still has a shred of humility (that voice is never very loud in wizards) asks how I can possibly hope, being one of so many options, to be the one he chooses. Perhaps in my slowness to bloom, the moment has passed, and someone else’s claim has taken precedence. The much louder voice of my ego (again, a wizards’ trait) takes an inventory and reassures me that I am probably the best option, or close to it. 

That likely speaks more of his questionable taste than it does of my virtue. 

But no, I am certainly not afraid that he does not feel the same, or that I would be a bad choice for him, but despite what some may think, that does not leave me with nothing to fear. He may feel more for someone else. He may feel against his will, and choose to reject those feelings. He may be advised away by others. He may find that the life he wants to live does not have room for everything he wants, and compromises must be made. His logical mind may make a different choice from what I will generously call his heart (generously to myself, anyway). The simple phenomenon of two people feeling similarly towards each other does not make everything else fall away; life is many-faceted, timing is important, and circumstances must align - choices, as I have learnt the hard way, must be made consciously and hollistically, with consideration for the ripple effect they will have. To want something does not always lead to choosing it. 

I would choose it, of course. But I am only half the authority. 

Snippet 2: a flashback featuring Marion, my favourite aspec headcanon, which is maybe only tangientally aspec and more about just Being Hot But Not Wanting A Lot Of Sex in general, but I wanted to include it bc I love it lol:

“It's ‘break',” Marion said. 

“What?”

“The lyric,” she said, referring to the song I'd just finished. She was sitting next to me on the piano stool. “I break every lovely thing I touch. You said burn, instead of break. Why?”

“I misspoke,” I told her honestly. 

“Why?” she did not let me escape her question so easily. 

I shrugged evasively. “Common is not my first language.”

She was not fooled. “You don't have to tell me why,” she said. “Just ponder it yourself.”

“I don't need to ponder,” I allowed her a glimpse of the truth: “I know why.”

“Beauty,” she said, in a change of subject that seemed incongruous at the time, “is not always the blessing some people think it is, is it?”

“I don't know - you've built quite an empire with yours.”

She gave a perfectly charming laugh. “Oh, I like that - an empire of beauty! What an amusing turn of phrase. Well, perhaps - but don't pretend you have not learned to turn your own curse to your advantage. You would not look like you do if you had not.”

With a smile I reminded her that the face she was looking at was not my real face. She knew what my real face looked like, of course, but we were in public, so at this moment it was hidden behind an illusion.

“Exactly,” she said. “If you resented your pretty face so much, you'd take this opportunity to wear an ordinary one, to blend into a crowd - but you have chosen another just as beautiful as the original. If you did not wish to be beautiful, you need not wear all that finery, the jewellery, the shimmer, any of it. You could try to hide, but you don't.”

I did not know what to say. She narrowed her eyes perceptively.

“It is strange, isn't it? How frightening it is to walk through the world, minding your own business and yet affecting people regardless - breaking hearts and making waves you never intended to, simply because of how people react to something you carry with you always, something out of your control -” she leaned in and added in a conspiratorial stage whisper: “but isn't it even more awful to hide your face under a plain veil, and walk down the street without seeing a single child gaze up at you in awe as you go by?” 

She had perfectly captured a feeling I had never even thought to put into words, the strange paradox of going through life as an object of desire to people you had no desire to captivate: the coexisting dread of catching someone looking at you with hunger, wondering if they’re calculating in their head how much resistance they'd be willing to push through, how much they'd be willing to risk to get their hands on you - alongside a habitual dependence upon being able to slide through any barrier with a well-timed smile and a well-chosen perfume. The endless longing for the world to ignore your exterior and see a value in you that is more than skin deep, and yet the impossibility of being able to untangle your own self-worth from the crutch of your looks. The strange addiction of beauty, of resenting it and all the unwanted side-effects it brings to you and the people around you, and yet being too intoxicated by the sight of your own face in the mirror to ever give it up. I held Marion's gaze, and in each other we saw someone who knew that depressingly shallow truth: beauty is power, and like any power, it is as dangerous as it is irresistible, and it most commonly falls to those who can do the least good with it. 

I told her why I'd said burn instead of break, and she grinned as though I'd given her the most delightful gift. I know the feeling: it is far more enjoyable to watch the chequered romances of others than it is to be in the ring yourself.

Snippet 3: an open conversation about demisexuality, the most on-the-nose acknowledgement of it but also probably the least likely to make it into the final cut bc I think it's a little TOO on the nose as it currently is:

“Life certainly can be stranger than fiction,” I said with a smile. “I must admit that if someone had come back in time and told me on the day we first met that this is where we would be a year later, I might have struggled to believe them.”

“I certainly would not have,” Caleb agreed. “Not that I would have been surprised at my own feelings, of course, but surprised at my luck. I daresay you’d have been equally surprised on both counts. I don’t believe your eye was on me as mine was on you, on day one.”

“Don’t take it personally,” I said, not feeling inclined to lie, “but I’m afraid that’s not really how my brain works. I have never seen a stranger and felt that kind of attraction to them.”

“Really?” His tone was curious, but not particularly surprised or disbelieving. 

“No. It’s not that I don’t care for appearances or…” I struggled for the word in common, “presence, at all - I can make aesthetic judgements, and once I am attracted to someone, I do find those things attractive, it’s simply that… well, for most people the attraction comes first, and then as you get to know the person you come to truly care for them - for me, the attraction tends to come last. If it comes at all, that is; it is not guaranteed, of course.” 

“Seems convenient,” he said. “You’re never going to find yourself drawn into an impulsive entanglement you regret.”

“It feels less incongruous as I get older,” I allowed, “but you can imagine the animosity in my student days, when everyone wanted my… attention, and I would not give it. And don’t think I’ve never been attracted to someone I wished I wasn’t; to know someone intimately, to be close to someone, is not necessarily the same as liking and respecting them.” 

“Very true.”  

Thanks for reading if you did! This is only my second fic in uhhh over ten years lol, and only my second long(ish) form fic - I hope to post the first chapter this week, if I'm feeling brave!

@cr-aspec-fest

[but-the-library-of-alexandria]

I almost went to bed without posting this before the end of aspec week - chapter one is now available! it's short, and posts will probably be slow, but feel free to give it a read (or bookmark it and wait for some more chapters to build up lol)

In honour of #CRAspecFestWk2 I feel that this is the perfect time to Soft Launch the fact that I have been working on an Aeor Date Shadowgast fic for a little while... I wanted to have a lot more of it finished before I revealed it but fuck it lol, maybe this will motivate me to write!

I'm being a little Fancy with format lol, I've tentatively decided to present it as a kind of Found Manuscript, the manuscript in question being the research diary Essek kept during the trip, which starts out being strictly business with a few slips and deliberate ommissions, and slowly gets more and more personal until he's barely writing about the research at all and it's just fully a personal journal lol. It's a Getting Together fic so expect a lot of Longing as well as a bit of early relationship honeymoon phase

Anyway, in the interest of getting some Aspec Vibes out there this week, see below the cut to read some curated snippets from three scenes which may or may not be used in the final version, which I feel touch upon the Demisexual Experience to some extent:

Snippet 1: a pre-gettting-together musing on different 'speeds' of attraction:

I am not stupid. I do know that the feeling is mutual. Nor do I think he is stupid, and I am sure he knows as well. Similar as we are, I find him easy to read, although, different as we are, I suspect we came at it very differently. Like fire and ice, Cheszara said, and it does ring true: I am glacially slow to move, while Caleb’s feelings catch quickly and burn bright. I dare not wonder how much earlier he arrived upon it than I did. I’m afraid that, if I asked, he’d say, immediately. He has the capacity for it, in a way that I don’t. In the past year or so alone - according to Jester and Beau and my own eyes - that spark has kindled for half a dozen people (if you count the three of them who have taken turns in the same body). Of course, when I think of that, a quiet voice in the back of my head that still has a shred of humility (that voice is never very loud in wizards) asks how I can possibly hope, being one of so many options, to be the one he chooses. Perhaps in my slowness to bloom, the moment has passed, and someone else’s claim has taken precedence. The much louder voice of my ego (again, a wizards’ trait) takes an inventory and reassures me that I am probably the best option, or close to it. 

That likely speaks more of his questionable taste than it does of my virtue. 

But no, I am certainly not afraid that he does not feel the same, or that I would be a bad choice for him, but despite what some may think, that does not leave me with nothing to fear. He may feel more for someone else. He may feel against his will, and choose to reject those feelings. He may be advised away by others. He may find that the life he wants to live does not have room for everything he wants, and compromises must be made. His logical mind may make a different choice from what I will generously call his heart (generously to myself, anyway). The simple phenomenon of two people feeling similarly towards each other does not make everything else fall away; life is many-faceted, timing is important, and circumstances must align - choices, as I have learnt the hard way, must be made consciously and hollistically, with consideration for the ripple effect they will have. To want something does not always lead to choosing it. 

I would choose it, of course. But I am only half the authority. 

Snippet 2: a flashback featuring Marion, my favourite aspec headcanon, which is maybe only tangientally aspec and more about just Being Hot But Not Wanting A Lot Of Sex in general, but I wanted to include it bc I love it lol:

“It's ‘break',” Marion said. 

“What?”

“The lyric,” she said, referring to the song I'd just finished. She was sitting next to me on the piano stool. “I break every lovely thing I touch. You said burn, instead of break. Why?”

“I misspoke,” I told her honestly. 

“Why?” she did not let me escape her question so easily. 

I shrugged evasively. “Common is not my first language.”

She was not fooled. “You don't have to tell me why,” she said. “Just ponder it yourself.”

“I don't need to ponder,” I allowed her a glimpse of the truth: “I know why.”

“Beauty,” she said, in a change of subject that seemed incongruous at the time, “is not always the blessing some people think it is, is it?”

“I don't know - you've built quite an empire with yours.”

She gave a perfectly charming laugh. “Oh, I like that - an empire of beauty! What an amusing turn of phrase. Well, perhaps - but don't pretend you have not learned to turn your own curse to your advantage. You would not look like you do if you had not.”

With a smile I reminded her that the face she was looking at was not my real face. She knew what my real face looked like, of course, but we were in public, so at this moment it was hidden behind an illusion.

“Exactly,” she said. “If you resented your pretty face so much, you'd take this opportunity to wear an ordinary one, to blend into a crowd - but you have chosen another just as beautiful as the original. If you did not wish to be beautiful, you need not wear all that finery, the jewellery, the shimmer, any of it. You could try to hide, but you don't.”

I did not know what to say. She narrowed her eyes perceptively.

“It is strange, isn't it? How frightening it is to walk through the world, minding your own business and yet affecting people regardless - breaking hearts and making waves you never intended to, simply because of how people react to something you carry with you always, something out of your control -” she leaned in and added in a conspiratorial stage whisper: “but isn't it even more awful to hide your face under a plain veil, and walk down the street without seeing a single child gaze up at you in awe as you go by?” 

She had perfectly captured a feeling I had never even thought to put into words, the strange paradox of going through life as an object of desire to people you had no desire to captivate: the coexisting dread of catching someone looking at you with hunger, wondering if they’re calculating in their head how much resistance they'd be willing to push through, how much they'd be willing to risk to get their hands on you - alongside a habitual dependence upon being able to slide through any barrier with a well-timed smile and a well-chosen perfume. The endless longing for the world to ignore your exterior and see a value in you that is more than skin deep, and yet the impossibility of being able to untangle your own self-worth from the crutch of your looks. The strange addiction of beauty, of resenting it and all the unwanted side-effects it brings to you and the people around you, and yet being too intoxicated by the sight of your own face in the mirror to ever give it up. I held Marion's gaze, and in each other we saw someone who knew that depressingly shallow truth: beauty is power, and like any power, it is as dangerous as it is irresistible, and it most commonly falls to those who can do the least good with it. 

I told her why I'd said burn instead of break, and she grinned as though I'd given her the most delightful gift. I know the feeling: it is far more enjoyable to watch the chequered romances of others than it is to be in the ring yourself.

Snippet 3: an open conversation about demisexuality, the most on-the-nose acknowledgement of it but also probably the least likely to make it into the final cut bc I think it's a little TOO on the nose as it currently is:

“Life certainly can be stranger than fiction,” I said with a smile. “I must admit that if someone had come back in time and told me on the day we first met that this is where we would be a year later, I might have struggled to believe them.”

“I certainly would not have,” Caleb agreed. “Not that I would have been surprised at my own feelings, of course, but surprised at my luck. I daresay you’d have been equally surprised on both counts. I don’t believe your eye was on me as mine was on you, on day one.”

“Don’t take it personally,” I said, not feeling inclined to lie, “but I’m afraid that’s not really how my brain works. I have never seen a stranger and felt that kind of attraction to them.”

“Really?” His tone was curious, but not particularly surprised or disbelieving. 

“No. It’s not that I don’t care for appearances or…” I struggled for the word in common, “presence, at all - I can make aesthetic judgements, and once I am attracted to someone, I do find those things attractive, it’s simply that… well, for most people the attraction comes first, and then as you get to know the person you come to truly care for them - for me, the attraction tends to come last. If it comes at all, that is; it is not guaranteed, of course.” 

“Seems convenient,” he said. “You’re never going to find yourself drawn into an impulsive entanglement you regret.”

“It feels less incongruous as I get older,” I allowed, “but you can imagine the animosity in my student days, when everyone wanted my… attention, and I would not give it. And don’t think I’ve never been attracted to someone I wished I wasn’t; to know someone intimately, to be close to someone, is not necessarily the same as liking and respecting them.” 

“Very true.”  

Thanks for reading if you did! This is only my second fic in uhhh over ten years lol, and only my second long(ish) form fic - I hope to post the first chapter this week, if I'm feeling brave!

@cr-aspec-fest

[dwarvensteel]

Hey go get hyped for my bestie's stuff!

In honour of #CRAspecFestWk2 I feel that this is the perfect time to Soft Launch the fact that I have been working on an Aeor Date Shadowgast fic for a little while... I wanted to have a lot more of it finished before I revealed it but fuck it lol, maybe this will motivate me to write!

I'm being a little Fancy with format lol, I've tentatively decided to present it as a kind of Found Manuscript, the manuscript in question being the research diary Essek kept during the trip, which starts out being strictly business with a few slips and deliberate ommissions, and slowly gets more and more personal until he's barely writing about the research at all and it's just fully a personal journal lol. It's a Getting Together fic so expect a lot of Longing as well as a bit of early relationship honeymoon phase

Anyway, in the interest of getting some Aspec Vibes out there this week, see below the cut to read some curated snippets from three scenes which may or may not be used in the final version, which I feel touch upon the Demisexual Experience to some extent:

Snippet 1: a pre-gettting-together musing on different 'speeds' of attraction:

I am not stupid. I do know that the feeling is mutual. Nor do I think he is stupid, and I am sure he knows as well. Similar as we are, I find him easy to read, although, different as we are, I suspect we came at it very differently. Like fire and ice, Cheszara said, and it does ring true: I am glacially slow to move, while Caleb’s feelings catch quickly and burn bright. I dare not wonder how much earlier he arrived upon it than I did. I’m afraid that, if I asked, he’d say, immediately. He has the capacity for it, in a way that I don’t. In the past year or so alone - according to Jester and Beau and my own eyes - that spark has kindled for half a dozen people (if you count the three of them who have taken turns in the same body). Of course, when I think of that, a quiet voice in the back of my head that still has a shred of humility (that voice is never very loud in wizards) asks how I can possibly hope, being one of so many options, to be the one he chooses. Perhaps in my slowness to bloom, the moment has passed, and someone else’s claim has taken precedence. The much louder voice of my ego (again, a wizards’ trait) takes an inventory and reassures me that I am probably the best option, or close to it. 

That likely speaks more of his questionable taste than it does of my virtue. 

But no, I am certainly not afraid that he does not feel the same, or that I would be a bad choice for him, but despite what some may think, that does not leave me with nothing to fear. He may feel more for someone else. He may feel against his will, and choose to reject those feelings. He may be advised away by others. He may find that the life he wants to live does not have room for everything he wants, and compromises must be made. His logical mind may make a different choice from what I will generously call his heart (generously to myself, anyway). The simple phenomenon of two people feeling similarly towards each other does not make everything else fall away; life is many-faceted, timing is important, and circumstances must align - choices, as I have learnt the hard way, must be made consciously and hollistically, with consideration for the ripple effect they will have. To want something does not always lead to choosing it. 

I would choose it, of course. But I am only half the authority. 

Snippet 2: a flashback featuring Marion, my favourite aspec headcanon, which is maybe only tangientally aspec and more about just Being Hot But Not Wanting A Lot Of Sex in general, but I wanted to include it bc I love it lol:

“It's ‘break',” Marion said. 

“What?”

“The lyric,” she said, referring to the song I'd just finished. She was sitting next to me on the piano stool. “I break every lovely thing I touch. You said burn, instead of break. Why?”

“I misspoke,” I told her honestly. 

“Why?” she did not let me escape her question so easily. 

I shrugged evasively. “Common is not my first language.”

She was not fooled. “You don't have to tell me why,” she said. “Just ponder it yourself.”

“I don't need to ponder,” I allowed her a glimpse of the truth: “I know why.”

“Beauty,” she said, in a change of subject that seemed incongruous at the time, “is not always the blessing some people think it is, is it?”

“I don't know - you've built quite an empire with yours.”

She gave a perfectly charming laugh. “Oh, I like that - an empire of beauty! What an amusing turn of phrase. Well, perhaps - but don't pretend you have not learned to turn your own curse to your advantage. You would not look like you do if you had not.”

With a smile I reminded her that the face she was looking at was not my real face. She knew what my real face looked like, of course, but we were in public, so at this moment it was hidden behind an illusion.

“Exactly,” she said. “If you resented your pretty face so much, you'd take this opportunity to wear an ordinary one, to blend into a crowd - but you have chosen another just as beautiful as the original. If you did not wish to be beautiful, you need not wear all that finery, the jewellery, the shimmer, any of it. You could try to hide, but you don't.”

I did not know what to say. She narrowed her eyes perceptively.

“It is strange, isn't it? How frightening it is to walk through the world, minding your own business and yet affecting people regardless - breaking hearts and making waves you never intended to, simply because of how people react to something you carry with you always, something out of your control -” she leaned in and added in a conspiratorial stage whisper: “but isn't it even more awful to hide your face under a plain veil, and walk down the street without seeing a single child gaze up at you in awe as you go by?” 

She had perfectly captured a feeling I had never even thought to put into words, the strange paradox of going through life as an object of desire to people you had no desire to captivate: the coexisting dread of catching someone looking at you with hunger, wondering if they’re calculating in their head how much resistance they'd be willing to push through, how much they'd be willing to risk to get their hands on you - alongside a habitual dependence upon being able to slide through any barrier with a well-timed smile and a well-chosen perfume. The endless longing for the world to ignore your exterior and see a value in you that is more than skin deep, and yet the impossibility of being able to untangle your own self-worth from the crutch of your looks. The strange addiction of beauty, of resenting it and all the unwanted side-effects it brings to you and the people around you, and yet being too intoxicated by the sight of your own face in the mirror to ever give it up. I held Marion's gaze, and in each other we saw someone who knew that depressingly shallow truth: beauty is power, and like any power, it is as dangerous as it is irresistible, and it most commonly falls to those who can do the least good with it. 

I told her why I'd said burn instead of break, and she grinned as though I'd given her the most delightful gift. I know the feeling: it is far more enjoyable to watch the chequered romances of others than it is to be in the ring yourself.

Snippet 3: an open conversation about demisexuality, the most on-the-nose acknowledgement of it but also probably the least likely to make it into the final cut bc I think it's a little TOO on the nose as it currently is:

“Life certainly can be stranger than fiction,” I said with a smile. “I must admit that if someone had come back in time and told me on the day we first met that this is where we would be a year later, I might have struggled to believe them.”

“I certainly would not have,” Caleb agreed. “Not that I would have been surprised at my own feelings, of course, but surprised at my luck. I daresay you’d have been equally surprised on both counts. I don’t believe your eye was on me as mine was on you, on day one.”

“Don’t take it personally,” I said, not feeling inclined to lie, “but I’m afraid that’s not really how my brain works. I have never seen a stranger and felt that kind of attraction to them.”

“Really?” His tone was curious, but not particularly surprised or disbelieving. 

“No. It’s not that I don’t care for appearances or…” I struggled for the word in common, “presence, at all - I can make aesthetic judgements, and once I am attracted to someone, I do find those things attractive, it’s simply that… well, for most people the attraction comes first, and then as you get to know the person you come to truly care for them - for me, the attraction tends to come last. If it comes at all, that is; it is not guaranteed, of course.” 

“Seems convenient,” he said. “You’re never going to find yourself drawn into an impulsive entanglement you regret.”

“It feels less incongruous as I get older,” I allowed, “but you can imagine the animosity in my student days, when everyone wanted my… attention, and I would not give it. And don’t think I’ve never been attracted to someone I wished I wasn’t; to know someone intimately, to be close to someone, is not necessarily the same as liking and respecting them.” 

“Very true.”  

Thanks for reading if you did! This is only my second fic in uhhh over ten years lol, and only my second long(ish) form fic - I hope to post the first chapter this week, if I'm feeling brave!