#fray discourse

[flip-flopping-frede]

No hate to the author, this post is for educational purposes only.

This post seems like a great example of hyper-inclusion in the ace community. Not only are fraysexuals not mentioned in the post (just tagged), but it’s only the ace flag. Not everyone, especially acespecs that experience frequent, strong sexual attraction, feel represented by the asexual flag. Asexual-only awareness the only the asexual flag doesn’t actually result in fraysexual education or awareness. It’s hyper-inclusion and hurting the fraysexual community.

Happy Ace Week to my fellow aces!! Whether you're asexual, demisexual, greysexyal, aceflux, or anywhere on the spectrum, this is your week to celebrate! I first realized I was asexual when I saw the definition somewhere, looked it up, and was like "oh..I thought that was everyone?". Shoutout to younger me who thought I was "too mature" to be interested in boys like that, and who thought sexual attraction was a big joke everyone was in on. It made me feel kind of ostracized from the people around me, but finding a community full of people like me was amazing. Happy Ace Week, and don't let anyone tell you that you're invalid! Sex repulsed aces, sex favorable aces, and sex neutral aces, you are all asexual and all valid <3

[theautismcorner]

I just posted this on Twitter but I think you guys will like it too. Also some of the inspo ships for this post are listed in the tags.

Side note: weird and gay for my best friend and I is different than the weird and gay of my shipping for the most part but the verbiage still applies. The exception in which we sometimes mirror a ship is (aro - bc me too) Sasha and Tim but we are both also ace. I need to finish TMA so I can write fic for them.

And hello dear best friend who will see this post.

[flip-flopping-frede]

You know how white women want black women to fight for abortion and other women’s rights. And black women have been leading and organizing the movement. And now, white women have failed black women by helping to vote for trump, and want black women to help them fight for abortion rights. And some black women have taken a step back and said “this is not our fight”?

I’m a lithromantic who doesn’t experience or see lithro awareness, education, acceptance, pride, positivity, art, representation, or anything for the lithro label. You know what I do see? Aro awareness, education, pride, acceptance, positivity, art, representation, etc. This is especially the case when it comes to the ace side of things as well.

I’ve witnessed how the aro community treats people like me. People who don’t want to feel bad about their ignorance on my identity non-consensually relabel my label as “microlabel” or “sub label” or “variant” or “type of aromantic” or “sub type”. You feel better about yourself when you attach and associate diminishing terms to my label, right? It’s easier for you to justify excluding labels like mine from awareness when my label is just a “type of aromantic” and “aro awareness is the only awareness that matters”.

No. As a lithromantic, I’m not ok with this culture of aros, aces, and aroaces “speaking over” and “speaking for” marginalized labels that don’t get awareness, like lithromantic. If you, as a label that has the privilege of having some awareness, are trying to “put my label down” by relabeling my label as a microlabel, or some other term with diminishing connotation (to boost your own awareness), you are hurting me and the lithro community from getting the awareness we deserve.

Hot take, but lithros deserve as much awareness, acceptance, pride, positivity, etc. as the aro community.

“The aro community includes everyone! The aro community includes you!” Yeah, that hyper-inclusive mindset of making aro the “poster label” is how I did not discover/realize I was lithro until about a year after being involved in the aroace community/aspec side of social media.

People in the Acommunity, especially fellow aspecs, need to recognize how diverse the Acommunity is.

I’m slowly starting to see more awareness and acceptance for being aromantic allosexual, or aroallo. What I’m not seeing is awareness or acceptance for aspec labels that experience romantic or sexual attraction, particularly primary attraction. I would say that even some people who use the demi/grey labels aren’t helping.

There are people who are so desperate to experience romantic attraction that they convince themself they might be demi/grey. Because they suffer with internalized arophobia being aromantic. I’m unsure what the grey label is exactly, but I believe it is experiencing attraction, rarely, weakly, or under certain circumstances. And demis typically only experience secondary attraction. My point is, it is easy for greys and demis to “fit” into the aro, ace, or aroace labels. Especially when demis are able find themselves in a long term relationship with someone they were able to experience attraction to, they can have a “happily ever after”, and no longer necessarily affected by aro, ace, or aroace struggles.

Another hot take is that I feel it can be really easy for demis to perpetuate amatonormativity. Because, for them, it is a matter of finding someone they connect with and being in/entering a traditional allo relationship after that. I have only seen blatant use their identity to perpetrate, justify perpetuating amatonormativity once, however, I strongly think the demi community especially needs to be educated on amatonormativity.

For me, I experience romantic attraction, but I can’t with romantic relationships. Getting romantically involved with someone is usually a very painful experience for me. I understand how bad it is pressure someone into a romantic relationship.

I feel like my experiences as a lithromantic should matter, and I feel like my label, lithromantic, and other labels that experience primary attraction, like frayromantic and fraysexual, are worthy of more awareness. This one sided, inequal awareness for labels that experience secondary attraction (demiromantic/demisexua), or rare/weak/only under certain circumstances attraction (greyromantic/greysexual) is obvious exclusion aspec labels that experience primary attraction. And it’s hurting people/these communities. How are you supposed to accept yourself or your identity when the aro/ace/aroace don’t see your labels as worthy of awareness, and actively try to diminish your identity by attaching diminishing, “othering” descriptors to your labels, like “variant” or “sublabel” or “microlabel”?

[io-iota]

im just vaguely pissed and incoherent about it. onimai is like. also kind of for lolicons i dont know if you noticed that but. thats kind of a major part of its appeal. thats why theres so many scenes of mahiru pissing herself. because its erotic. fucking okay explain why it isnt what it is. because you want to watch cute anime and feel good about it not having the pedo ick too. yay for you.

[flip-flopping-frede]

No hate to the creator, this is for educational purposes only.

I like seeing fraysexual included and first, and also frayromantic included. Not going to lie though, this is still technically a bulk/collection post, and fraysexual is will labels I’ve never seen before, and probably will never see again. It feels like the author is communicating that they see and treat the fray labels as microlabels, which feels…off-putting? And mixing up gender identity with, not just romantic orientation and sexual orientation, but arospec orientation and acespec orientation, seems really confusing.

This author unfortunately didn’t take the time to provide fray awareness either. Kind of a meh post ultimately? It kind of feels like fray was excluded from an aspec version of these, and is being included here with the “outcasts” or “misfits” just so the author can check a box that “technically they did include the fray labels”.

I know this post wasn’t a serious post by any memes, but I really think creators need to be more mindful of the way they are presenting marginalized labels, like the fray labels.

[ID: Six pixel hearts of various flags in order being, fraysexual, frayromantic, mspec, zombofloric, inviveila and komorebic. End ID]

[dhampiravidi]

hot take: it should’ve been Izzy/Jace & Clary/Simon! Spoilers thru The Dark Artifices…

am I the only 1 who read City of Bones & City of Ashes & thought that Clary would be better w/Simon, while Izzy should be w/Jace?

hear me out!

I should start by admitting that from the 2nd chapter of COB, I disliked Clary. Throughout the series, there are SO many times where her refusal to listen to her allies makes things harder. She yells at Jace a lot in the beginning, despite the fact that he kinda saved her life. But then, all of a sudden, we’re told that her take-no-shit attitude breaks through his façade of arrogance & she’s the 1st girl he’s ever truly loved—as if that’s not dramatic. & then in COHF they fuck (while in an equivalent to Hell), since y’know, all couples have to fuck at least once before they die. & don’t get me started on how they proposed to each other.

Basically, their whole relationship is just a lot of over-the-top shit. Felt like they were both the “saviors” of the Clave, so they were pushed together (mind you, the 1st series takes place in a matter of MONTHS). It’s supercharged puppy love.

ANYWAY…

I guess my main thing is, Clary & Simon knew each other for a long time. Yeah, she somehow didn’t notice his crush on her. But she didn’t have to date him just because she wanted to ignore her feelings for Jace. (Tbh it seems like she was using Simon in that way, but whatever.) I’m a fan of friends-to-lovers, because I think your endgame should also be 1 of your best friends. & weirdly, Clary finally seems to find Simon attractive once he grows out his hair & other girls (Izzy & Maia) show an interest in him. Also, there were numerous occasions where Simon felt intimidated by Izzy, even when she treated him as a part of their group.

I’m sure that the biggest issue people have w/the idea of Izzy/Jace is the fact that they were raised together. Yeah, well, Alec had loved Jace practically since they 1st met, but we focused on Alec’s struggle as a gay young person in a partly homophobic atmosphere (+ the unrequited nature of it all). That parabatai curse from The Dark Artifices wasn’t mentioned (or *cough* created) until that series.

Back to Izzy/Jace. She’s said to be the only 1 who can keep up w/him & unless the popular theory that she’s Valentine’s other child-slash-experiment proves true…that’s fucking awesome. Whips are extremely hard & dangerous to wield, especially when you’re running in heels. So she keeps up w/him in a fight. She also keeps up w/him verbally—Jace is known to be well-read & sassy, but she always has a witty retort prepared for him. & again, for those who focus on them being raised together…1) there were lots of unrelated Shadowhunters living under 1 roof & 2) Jace thought he was related to Clary, but aside from some guilt, they still got all hot & bothered about each other. Lastly, everyone seems to forget that Simon lowkey cheated on Izzy & Maia by secretly dating them both AT THE SAME TIME. Considering Izzy’s relationship w/her dad in TMI, you’d think that’d cross Simon off of her list. Jace, on the other hand, is ridiculously loyal. The only time he ever does anything to hurt his love interest is when he’d rather hurt their feelings than watch them die.

So yeah…

[seeyouguyslater]

Man idk man i dont want to argue about linux and windows being shit

Call me a luddite if thats your priority

[flip-flopping-frede]

This again, is a reflection of how much awareness these labels get, NOT how many people exist who use these labels.

Poll Two:

ive included the arospec identities that i see used most frequently, unfortunately i am limited by the number of poll options

reblog for sample size!! (and yes, I <2 sampling bias)

[the-physicality]

…

[spohkh]

.

[flip-flopping-frede]

This is another example of how this is a missed opportunity to raise awareness. Although the comments were turned on, so people could help anyone who asked, at least 1k people saw this poll, since there are 1k votes. There is also not a results/other option for people who are not on the asexual spectrum and still saw this, so this post was probably seen quite a bit more than 1k, not to mention all the questioning people who didn’t vote.

To show what would have made an impact in terms of acespec awareness, especially fraysexual awareness, this is a link to a post https://www.tumblr.com/cristi-makes-userboxes/767050421599617024/acespec-userboxes that takes the time to define the labels they mention in their post. Assuming everyone knows what these labels mean, even if you have seen them defined before, frequently, is a privileged perspective. Especially if you are asexual, there is starting to be more noticeable awareness, education, acceptance, representation, and pride in being asexual. In most social media spaces, you can find an ace community as well. All labels on the asexual spectrum do not have this same level of awareness, education, pride, community-establishment, etc. Especially the asexual label. Let this poll be an example that acespec awareness matters. Not everyone’s label gets education when polls like this are reblogged and contain no education within the post. Not everyone’s label gets raised awareness for by relabeling Asexual Spectrum Awareness Week to “ace week” and only focusing on ace celebration, memes, and pride, and neglecting acespec awareness altogether.

reblog for a bigger portion size

[flip-flopping-frede]

How do you advocate for something that doesn’t even exist, lol. How do you advocate for awareness of an identity that gets no awareness? I have no statistics, oppression, or evidence of erasure because there is no awareness in the first place. So far, I have believed I need community organization and community support/community unity to accomplish anything, but…how do you organize and foster support for a community that hates itself?

Lithros, frayros, and fraysexuals, you have to want awareness too.

Self-pity, hating yourself, hating being lithro/fray is not going to result in change. It is ok to not like being lithro/fray. It is ok if you can find 0 good things about being this way. However, please understand that we are misunderstood and lack community because people with platforms who can raise awareness for us choose not to. They blatantly exclude lithros/frayros from awareness, which hurts us. Awareness is essential for education on our label (people discovering themselves) and acceptance (which is seems our community desperately needs—to be ok with being lithro/fray).

Please care about this.

[io-iota]

ok so basically my point earlier about made in abyss was that trying to defend something on the basis of "no its not actually lolisho i swear" is fucking stupid and a losing battle because. no it is lolisho. lolisho exists and can be something you've watched and enjoyed. maybe conceding that pedo content is inherently bad and defending it on the basis of whether or not you can prove it is or isnt that is a shit place to be arguing from. maybe you should just leave lolicons alone instead of trying to bring them into your stupid argument about what is and isnt morally pure

[beetledrink]

i don’t wanna be a discourse poster i wanna post about old man ass and gratuitous boobs and goth girls and horror movies but i keep getting dragged back into the fray

[flip-flopping-frede]

There are many things I want to address in this post. However, first and foremost:

This poll is not representative of how many people who use this labels exist. This poll is an accurate representation of how much awareness these labels get.

Now that that is out of the way, I want everyone to note how this post originated from an aromantic account, not an asexual account. Again, it was an aromantic account that was interested in something community and awareness related.

However, because this post originated from an aro platform, I believe that had an impact on the amount of visibility this poll got. Not a major impact, but an impact nonetheless. If this poll originated from an ace platform, that might have helped the chances of this poll having more awareness. Another thing to note is how the replies were turned off. A lot of these terms may have been the first time people had ever seen them. If there is no awareness, education, acceptance, or pride for the fraysexual label, and instead, you see the ace community being hyper-inclusive and dismissive of fraysexual awareness, by saying things like “fraysexual is included under asexual!” And “fraysexual is a microlabel”, then obviously, 1. People who feel they are fraysexual will just use the asexual label and 2. Who wants to raise awareness for a microlabel? Even though fraysexual and demisexual are opposites of each other, selectively calling fraysexual a microlabel, and not demisexual, hurts fraysexual awareness, fraysexual pride, and fraysexual. Who is going to be proud of their label if they believe it is a microlabel?

There’s discrimination against microlabels—we openly see it; aspecs say “I don’t want to use a microlabel 😣” or “I don’t want to have to explain my microlabel 😣”. Someone who doesn’t care about your identity (as someone on the asexual spectrum) in the first place is not going to give a shit what you identify as; they will continue to remain as willfully ignorant for as long as possible. We saw it in the 2024 election; people don’t care about other people, they only care about themselves. They will only start to care when things affect them personally.

💆🏽‍♀️

Moving on: Again, comments being turned off seemed like a…harmful choice by this author. For many of these labels, this may have been the first time they were being seen/being raised awareness for. If the author “didn’t feel like” putting the definitions on this post, at least turning on comments, so other people could define these terms, would have been helpful. This is a link to a bill acespec post: https://www.tumblr.com/cristi-makes-userboxes/767050421599617024/acespec-userboxes where the author made an effort to define these terms in the caption.

The author of this poll, who I believe had also created at least one arospec poll like this, NOT defining these terms in their caption, AND turning off comments, seemed irresponsible at best and lacking empathy/understanding, or creating this post with more selfish/self-centored intentions (dopamine) at worst. It kind of shows the privilege of this author—as someone who appears to use the aromantic label, they probably were under the assumption that “everyone knows what aromantic means” or they didn’t need to define it. To be fair, I absolutely support self-education, or people educating themselves. However, aspec awareness, arospec awareness, and acespec awareness is not something to be petty or “underachieving” or fuck around with.

People who discriminate against "microlabels”, and people who lack empathy and want to continue to remain ignorant and uneducated, are going to weaponize polls like this to justify not giving fraysexuals awareness. I’ve seen people create polls like this involving fraysexuals in bad faith with the intention to negatively judge the fraysexual community/ use it to justify their discrimination/ choosing to exclude fraysexuals from awareness.

Regarding the fraysexuals themselves who see this post—I can’t imagine how difficult it is to avoid internalizing shit like this, especially if you are not taking into account 1) the author preventing education of all of these labels by not providing the definitions in the captions and turning off comments 2) the lack of awareness for fraysexuals that already exists, making the results biased because awareness of acespec identities is not equal 3) this poll was most likely reposted by those who had high numbers in this poll, skewing the results. If this post was reposted by all discovered fraysexuals, those results again probably would have been skewed.

Pretty sure that's everything I had to say on this. i wish I could say that this poll: https://www.tumblr.com/aces-and-anime/708810540140691456/aces-of-tumblr having 2k+ reblogs, and this post I am reblogging having 200+ reblogs really shows where the ace community’s priorities are (and what they value—which does not seem to acespec awareness), but I’m trying to be mindful of how this post originated from an aro-presenting account and not an ace one.

[helaemonds]

i saw some things on the hellsite of twitter that i’ll just rant about here because god knows i don’t have the strength to deal with swtwt.

i feel like there’s kinda a misconception around qimir kidnapping osha being something that stans gloss over. like yeah, it is kidnapping, and more problematically in his head it’s justified, but people forget that’s how so many ships/especially enemy ships happen. how i take it is that qimir took osha not only because he was interested in her power but because he also knew mae was gone/the jedi were too.

in his head, he sees that they left osha for dead or were gonna kill her anyways because she’s dressed like mae. and so what, he’s just supposed to leave her there to be murdered for a misinterpretation or worse, killed because they don’t want anything to do with her (in his mind)? not saying that was SOLELY his intention, because he’s got warped perspectives left and right, but like even if he was on the light side would anyone do any different than this? and was he supposed to just tend to her wounds on the goddamn battleground of fallen jedi awaiting to be slaughtered by jedi and have osha get slaughtered with him (in his mind)? he basically HAD to take her even if he didn’t want anything directly from her. his own personal mantra was that he strikes down jedi, but others, so even if it wasn’t osha i believe he would’ve done the same thing for a person who had been abandoned and left to die by the people he considers his own oppressors.

once again, i am not saying he doesn’t also not want something from her, but i do think he’s just a low that while he does want something from her, he doesn’t necessarily expect her to believe or join him. he is vulnerable, feeling a little hurt from mae, and now has to reorganize his plan to strike down jedi because his cover was blown. they could find him easily now if they wanted, ESPECIALLY since he is with osha. remember him saying that her place in the force is what drew people near to her? he’s basically in a position he could quite literally not gaf if he was killed, just a frayed wire with no intention right away of having himself reconnected and at the height of his power.

even leslye said that qimir was ready to die if osha wanted to ignite the saber, genuinely. so many vibes i picked up from him this episode were depressed and defeated. he’s vulnerable with all these emotions and while he’s interested in osha, at the moment of the episode he’s just ready for whatever happens, even if that meant death.

manipulation/inherent toxicity is present in *just* about every star wars ship that starts off on enemy frontlines. but what everyone means when they say there’s no manipulation they mean the kind of manipulation that leslye is referring to: twisting the truth to make osha submissive to him, wholeheartedly knowing what he’s saying is just a power play to get her to become his toy. leslye admitted that he’s being honest, as much as he thinks his version of honesty is, so even in his own honesty he could be using that to “enlighten” her, but not in the way where he knows he’s being disingenuous and purposely trying to create an unequal dynamic with him in the lead.

this is the kind of manipulation that so many have thrown at the ship as a reason against it, which is why so many stans talk about it and celebrate that leslye had our back because the idea of a more equal, non-manipulative (in that above sense) etl relationship being confirmed allows us to shrug off discourse like that without feeling the weight of its dogpilling.