#for context: I'm aroace

[dragonussy]

I was playing Skyrim and when Miraak decided to flex his Dragon Aspect form in Apocrypha he full on flashed me and went commando

Look at his walk of shame away as he coveres his tiny dragon

[vanilla-bean-buttercream]

"Allies should be okay with hearing hard truths that we have been suffering through for years, because if a child has to experience it, they as an adult can take the time to understand it with their adult brain and their adult emotions, and if they cannot handle that, I shouldn't have to be okay with handling their feelings gently."

and

"Sometimes we go too hard on allies because they're the only person who benefits from the problem who will listen to us, and the anger that we have carried from being wronged for years should not be put solely put on the shoulders of people trying to help us, and they should not have to be okay with being mistreated with the same hatred that people have aimed at us."

Can and should coexist actually.

[maerhiya]

in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."

like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.

when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.

media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.

which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)

any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?

[dancerinthesky]

This particular population of Marauders fans can justify and contextualise themselves all they want, if they want. But as an aroace girlie, the sudden usage of asexuality as a trend just. Makes me sad.

[sirlancenotalot]

the fact that people still use the "no one would talk to a friend that way" "no one would grieve for someone like that if it was just platonic" etc arguments to prove a ship is canon is so annoying to me. yes i get it, we got queerbaited hard but where does it say that romance has to be higher than a friendship or no one said friends couldn't also be lovers or vice versa....? i normally say "popular media tropes that usually are for romance" when i talk about fiction but pulling a blanket statement like "NO ONE talks to a friend that way" is so invalidating to so much of our queer experiences. the beauty of queer friendship literally lies in the emotional fulfilment we get from our friends in a way that i don't normally see in cishet friendships for whatever reasons. so idk it's just been bothering me to see these kinds of posts every now and then. "you wouldn't do [x] for your friends" i would actually. i would sell my soul for them. i would kill for them and kill myself for them. i would do anything for my friends that i would do for a partner. the "proof" for a ship doesn't have to be by invalidating their friendship. also like aren't most of the ships so powerful when they're also each other's closest friends? do y'all not think of your partners as your best friends?

[thereallyreallylatebird]

Psst...aroaces

You're amazing and a vital part of the aro community

Also your flag is really pretty

-Your friendly neighborhood aroallo

[serpentface]

Given what you've said about braids and their relation to traditional feminity in the Wardi Empire how does it impact Couya as an odonii priestess and as an upperclass women very involved in politics. How is Couya wearing a men's cloak viewed? What are gender expectations for odonii priestesses?

Partially elaborated in another post, but I can expand. It's complicated because Odonii experience reduced pressure to conform to expected women's roles, and a degree of 'masculinity' is accepted and normalized.

This is most prominent in that they do not marry and are expected to remain celibate (marriage and childbearing is otherwise basically a given for women, especially in the upper classes in which marriages are almost invariably arranged and a means of brokering alliances between families). This both frees them from very practical social restrictions and costs, but also of perceived spiritual pollution otherwise considered inevitable to women via pregnancy and as receiving sexual partners.

Their involvement in the military sphere (otherwise considered wholly the realm of men under normal circumstances) also by proxy frees them of certain dress standards. A lot of their base clothing would be considered 'masculine' in other contexts, being less physically restrictive and more practical for free movement. (This style of clothing would also be associated with poverty- ie women who have to perform hard labor, but this association is offset via expensive blue dyes and other visual signifiers).

They occupy a unique, somewhat nonbinary space in the cultural gender framework- they are considered women but without flaws and weaknesses considered otherwise innate or inevitable to women (and in a material sense they are afforded legal rights and privileges otherwise only accessible to men). So a degree of 'masculinity' can be not only accepted but deemed highly positive, reflective of their superior qualities. But this is only the types of 'masculinity' already implied by their roles and function (ie physical strength, practical dress, an assertive and commanding personality, etc).

This doesn't mean they are entirely freed of gender presentation norms. Couya wearing a men's style cloak is in the 'acceptable' range (would be clocked as pretty masc, but acceptably so for her station- masc dress=freedom of movement and a display of strength, appropriate for someone who serves as a physical embodiment of military might). Frequently wearing hair loose and unbraided is Not similarly appropriate. It's not just that she's diverging from an expected women's beauty standard, but that it also culturally indicates laziness, looseness, and inappropriate masculinity. It (combined with everything else) crosses the line from appropriately de-feminized to inappropriately masculinized, and will receive some scrutiny and judgment. But the very, very powerful social status of Odonii means that most of the consequences are immaterial.

So Couya more or less gets away with it, but this has contributed to her being generally unliked and a frequent subject of gossip and jokes (tends to be of the 'good thing no one has to marry THAT' and 'she swore virginhood because no one was gonna fuck her anyway' ilk, including from other priestesses). And more of this social scrutiny means her other unfavorable traits become more apparent (social awkwardness, inappropriate bluntness, etc).

Just in general she was not set up for success. She is technically an illegitimate child- her father had an affair after his wife's second son was born fatally premature. She was claimed and given the family name to avoid the associated shame on her father and legal mother above anything else.

From a young age she was considered slow, antisocial, strange, devastatingly unconcerned with presentation, and annoying (she's autistic and does not exist in a context where that is like, understood and going to be readily supported), which only further disincentivized her parents putting any real efforts into developing her into a suitable female heir. They were kind of just running through the bare minimum motions of raising her. She grew up with the (TREMENDOUS) benefits of a very wealthy family, but had no chance at receiving a good inheritance and would have been married off at the first profitable chance. She and Janeys both experienced some pretty horrific parental abuse after Faiza was selected as an Odonii (chosen by the Odomache herself, a Big Fucking Deal) and removed from the household, and this four year period kind of shaped everything she is now.

Faiza was the only member of Couya's immediate family who actually liked her, and was motivated enough to get her out of there to persuade a senior priestess to select Couya as an Odonii. Their parents readily encouraged this once the possibility became clear (becoming a high-status priestess would be of greater benefit to the family than anything Couya could have provided via marriage, and it was a little concerning that they were losing out on another chance of producing legitimate heirs, but it would be alright since they had a legitimate son who was Totally going to do that). Couya performed very well in this context and was inducted and sworn, which pretty much saved her from a life of privileged misery.

She takes her role very seriously, and on a more personal level her unconventional presentation is a matter of pride. She's kind of flaunting her status by consistently presenting this way and experiencing few consequences worse than mockery. She gets to behave and present in ways that she was punished for throughout her childhood, and there's nothing anyone can really do about it. There's definitely a "FUCK YOU MOM" undercurrent to it, but it also pleases her on its own terms. (On a less profound level, she just prefers this style of clothing, likes having a masculine presentation, and doesn't like how braided hair feels).

So like all that being said, her status as an Odonii is a powerful protection against things that would otherwise be RUINOUS for a woman of her stature, and she is Not a good case study for how her presentation would affect a woman of her political standing. She gets away with a lot and faces mainly petty social consequences.

[aceredshirt13]

gang i have to share this P. G. Wodehouse quote with you all because ever since I found it I can't stop thinking about it. it's from a letter he wrote when he was 78 years old to his friend Guy Bolton (many thanks to P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters)

I have been on the sick list myself, but am better now. Inflamed bladder or chill on the bladder or something, the symptoms being agony when I passed water, as the expression is. It brought back the brave old days when I used to get clap.

he really said "yeah the pain from my bladder issue reminds of the days when I used to have so much sex I repeatedly got venereal disease"

[local-limebug]

it physically hurts me to try and write a friendship like the one i have with my best friend and realizing that it sadly reads like the characters are romantically in love

like bro wdym they can't be half of each other's heart and soul without being in love. i literally do it everyday with her. wdym they can't love each other with a love so strong it defies labels yet not want to sleep with each other or get married. I LITERALLY DO IT EVERYDAY WITH HER.

[likeabxrdinflight]

I've been thinking a lot recently about the differences between romantic and platonic love in the absence of sexual attraction and I'm kind of realizing...I can't actually come up with anything other than the desire to engage in the social construct of a romantic relationship (just without sex.) and I'm...finding myself wondering how much of that is just that- a social construct, the same way gender is really more of a social construct.

it's real, because social constructs are still real, and therefore aromanticism is real too, but it's just...I'm not feeling so sure that romantic attraction (and therefore the lack of it) is an innate biological thing the same way sexual attraction is...without sex as part of it, it just feels like a version of platonic love that fits into our socially constructed ideas of romance...or a version that we choose to fit into that construct because we want it to, mutually with our partners...but if you break it down, really...what's actually different? Can we not be platonically in love, can we not have partnerships with platonic loves, can we not feel deep and powerful attachments in platonic relationships? No one would say no to that. So then what's different, really, without sex in the picture? Can you quantify it, break it down in a way that actually separates them on a biological level?

I don't think you can. I've never heard someone manage it, anyways, in a way that fully makes sense.

[cookinary]

If I knew how to write properly, I'd write a furry YA novel where the main character is aroace, so if she somehow ends up in a love triangle she'd just go "Nope." and then go back to overthrowing the government

[kookies2000]

Huh, I just realized I never officially came out as asexual or demiromantic to anyone. I legit just started posting things about aroace, and that's how people online knew. As for family and friend's, they kinda figured it out when I didn't care about dating as a teen. An actual conversation when I "officially" came out to my friends on the group chat. Note: I had Covid, so I was kind of out of my mind.

Me: There's such thing as demi romantic?!? And no one told me!!!

Pansexual friend: I just thought you were a suppressed aroace. You did seem hesitant about sex and relationships.

Me: I legit told you I never cared about sex or romance. The only time I would ever find a guy attractive is if I was close friends with him. HOW DID THAT NOT GIVE YOU ANY HINTS!!! Instead, I had to find out about demi romantic through Tik Tok!!!

Gay friend: Wait, are you aroace? Or on the spectrum?

Me: There's a spectrum!!!!????

Pan friend: It's pretty complex, I can explain it to you........

Me: Nope! Just found out about on Tik Tok. Congratulations! You guys have a demiromantic and asexual friend now.

Straight girl of the friend group: 🥳 Jo's out of the closet!

Me: Dag nabbit Claudia!!! I'm still processing this!!!!

[tuxedo-rabbit]

I don't get to use my Japanese language skills very often, but!

Every once in a while I'll be watching/reading Japanese media and wondering if the discussions around it in Japan are similar to the ones on English speaking websites. And then I'll google it in Japanese and read up on it.

It's fun!

[carmillatism]

u may lose ur mind when u learn that straight is oftentimes used as a generalized term to mean not queer and/or cishet

[starsonpaper]

not into women, not not into women, but a secret more sinister third thing idk how to unpack

[graylilacs]

for the record:

i think about you a lot