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the summoning

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demisexuality can be so hard to explain because it’s misconstrued as you just wanting to trust the other person before you have sex with them. and I get why the misconception happens. But demisexuality differs in that there isn’t sexual attraction at all before that bond forms.

I think what people have difficulty with is the idea that there are people out there who aren’t experiencing sexual attraction at all until a certain point, if ever, because we’re taught that sex, libido, and sexual attraction are all the same, both in and out of queer spaces.

And when you’re learning about asexuality and demisexuality, you may learn that people have romantic and aesthetic attraction separately from sexual attraction, and that sexual and romantic attraction aren’t necessarily intertwined, and that may challenge your worldview on sex.

But “I trust you enough to have sex with you” isn’t the same as “I’m not sexually attracted to anyone but you, and the reason I’m sexually attracted to you now after we’ve established this close bond is literally because of the bond of trust we’ve been able to form”.

It’s easy to see how those can get conflated. On the surface, if you’re unfamiliar with asexuality, they may sound the same. But it’s important to acknowledge the difference between “no sex until I trust you” and “no sexual attraction unless I trust you and maybe not even then”.

Demisexuality is housed under the asexuality spectrum. It’s part of the gray area between being allosexual and asexual. It’s part of why the definition for asexuality includes “little to no sexual attraction”. It’s a mostly asexual experience with an asterisk.

While being demisexual may have impacts on a persons sexual activity, even demisexuals have a varied relationship to the act of participating in sex. Libido and sexual attraction are not always intertwined either, which can make telling the difference tricky.

I think of sexual attraction as libido that has a compass. Since I rarely ever experience sexual attraction, but do have libido, it’s noticeable for me when that libido actually has a direction to go, rather than being a floating, nebulous, independent thing.

Remember, not everyone is demisexual. There’s a difference between waiting to have sex and not having sexual attraction at all until a certain point. This also inherently ties demisexuality to romantic attraction and relationships, and not all demisexuals are alloromantic.

But if you read what demisexuality is and think “everyone is like that” or “that’s just being a woman”, you either 1) are demisexual 2) don’t understand what it is or 3) both. And it’s okay to not know. Just as long as you’re willing to try to learn.

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"I don't believe Tarot is real, but it does work"

Expand on that, king (genuinely curious)

I feel like…

okay, so it’s a lot like conceptual art, or like introspective meditation, at the risk of sounding pretentious

Like. It’s not so much about “the cards are a portal to a higher wisdom that knows more than me” thing- it’s more of a, “given the symbols drawn, could I interpret them posing a question or possibility or suggestion?” Followed by, “is this applicable to my current context? COULD it be?”

Like.

I don’t lay out á tarot hand and say “ah yes, the devil and the tower, I am about to be betrayed”

But I MAY lay out a hand and say, “okay, devil and the tower. Something treacherous and danger. Am I approaching a treacherous or risky situation in my life? What might be a tipping factor? Am I being deliberately reckless? Maybe I should spend some more time working on X project I’ e been thinking of before spending money on it” or “you know what, I HAVE been kind of uncomfortable with X thing, I should say something” or “yeah okay I KNOW Tom from work sucks to work with, I KNOW, yeah maybe I should consider ways of handling that”

Less of a magic oracle, more of a tool for doing literary analysis on real life. Like simplifying everything and laying it out flat so I can gain some distance to untangle my problems without in-your-head crap like projected feelings and social obligation getting in the way and muddying the waters.

So like. I don’t think tarot cards can legit tell the future, but I DO think that self-reflection, mindfulness, and consideration sometimes allow us to predict and calculate our own circumstances.

So, IMO- It’s not real. But it works

If that makes sense

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I've been guilty of this in the past, but I'm old now, and tired of seeing a bunch of little shits on every author's post going "okay so you mention the representation and some tropes, but what is it ABOUT???" Gee, if only there was some way for us to figure out what the book is about beyond the author-provided trope map? Mayhaps the author-provided link to where the book is being sold, which also contains the blurb? Maybe we do an ounce of work instead of filling ops replies with the same comment?

Maybe we can also acknowledge that trope map/rep-based book advertising gets more attention, and far too many people will see a promo post with full blurb and go "hmmm that's too many words." Maybe we can acknowledge that self-pubbed authors are working with a very different beast in the publishing industry and might need to promo their books in ways you don't prefer, and you yourself can help by clinking a single link? I promise, in the time it takes for you to bitch about a struggling author marketing via a trope map, you could have already read the blurb.

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Okay, I'm not gonna repost your tags because I feel that message was pretty personal, but I just want to say thank you for sharing this with me <3 I haven't been on Tumblr much lately, and then I ended up here by muscle memory just to find your message, and it's not only SO heartwarming and lovely to hear, but it also came at the perfect time. I just released another book in the same world as CCL yesterday, and it's been... kind of weird? Dropping something new after all these years haha. But it's also nice to know that people are still connecting with the book even now, and it's a helpful reminder of why I write even when all the ~business~ stuff sucks. I'm really glad that you related to and understood Theo & Gabi. I haven't talked much about this, but Gabi's flaws stem from his fear of failing to amount to what other people want him to be, and Theo's stem from rebelling so hard against what other people want him to be. I designed them to be opposites so they would balance each other out, but at their core, they're the same--two people who feel like they aren't enough and worry about that a little too much haha. I'm a rebel at heart, so I've always related more to Theo's struggle and the way he leans into pushing people away out of self-preservation, and I think that's something a lot of people, especially in the YA reader base, find "unsympathetic", but that's also why it means so much more to me when I connect with readers who *do* understand. I don't write to continue to deliver the things that most people want and have grown to expect. I write to reach the people who've never had anyone else care to reach them before. So, yeah, very long-winded response to say, thank you for reading and engaging with my characters! It means a lot and I'm glad they were able to reach you <3

It's always nice when you write a thing and someone goes "Wow, I really needed this! Thanks!"

Like I don't think people realize how rare the "this was great!" comments are compared to the "you're everything wrong with the world for having said something I didn't like" comments are. Especially now that some people consider me a "big name author", the number of positive comments I get is about the same as when I used to self pub, but the mean ones are a lot more frequent a lot meaner. Even just a "this made me happy :)" comment can really lift my spirits when I get them!

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Diversity win! The horniest person you know is on the asexual spectrum

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otherwise interesting post ruined by the bold insistence that you can never accidentally abuse someone & that all abusive people are self-aware evil masterminds

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when I say I have a trauma background everyone assumes I was abused or some shit. and to be fair I was. but mostly I am referring to the time a pelican put me in its mouth when I was three years old. my entire head was in there. the pelican seemed unbothered by the entire thing. and now I’m here

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I'm not like the other shrimp

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me: care about people

half the notes: youre the real oppressor for telling me what to do.

the other half: cut out this useless liberal proselatizing. you are an invertebrate and you will perish in the revolution.

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a lot of stories treat romance like it makes the relationship between two characters self explanatory and to be honest it doesn’t

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Bro absolutely COOKED with this.

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people might think creating OC lore involves a lot of thinking & planning, but in my personal experience, OC development is more like a divine vision from a god slamming you over the head with a mallet while ur doing the fuckin dishes or folding laundry

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i love divorce i love when people realize that they aren't a good fit for each other and get divorced about it. more people should get divorced

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not all ships are For wanting them to be in a happy healthy relationship together. sometimes shipping two characters means you want them to be erotically obsessed with each other and become entwined in a mutually toxic love affair for a few months and then horrifically break each other's hearts and never speak again. sometimes you want them to be codependent best friends with enough repression to explode a submarine who only make out/have sex when they're at their worst. sometimes you want them to pine after each other for years, never say anything, and then die. sometimes you want them to kill each other. this, too, is shipping

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Why is it referred to as coming out of the closet?