#ace nat

[nolanfa]

[image description: Natasha Romanoff braiding Bucky Barnes’ hair. She’s sitting on a couch with an ace flag shirt, and Bucky is sitting on the ground, leaning against her legs and looking up at her, smiling.] fill for @buckybarnesbingo‘s prompt: “asexuality“. fill for @lgbtqbingo‘s prompt: “flags“ (because Nat’s shirt is flag-coloured/-patterned) fill for @anyfandomgoesbingo‘s prompt “Natasha Romanoff“ (Title: Ace Nat, Pairing: Natasha & Bucky Rating: SFW Medium: digital art + 444 words)

(on AO3 here)

- Nat is ace - she and Bucky find braiding each other’s hair calming, due to Red Room shared experiences.

More words under the cut

- the best way to gather information and get close to high-profile targets is not as a high-society lady but as a high-society lady's helper. The girls in the Black Widow program were taught to kill, to dance, and to help. So they learned to clean efficiently, to choose clothes for any occasion, and they did each other's hair. As this was an activity where the result counted more than the process, it was not as tightly supervised as others. It was also one of the rare violence-free collaborative activities. So for the girls, and for Bucky who trained them and spent some time with them in-between missions and training (because freezing and unfreezing him took time so they didn't do it for too short a downtime), it meant safety and comfort, and still does now. So, sometimes, when she's feeling quiet and safe and content, and she wants to spread the quiet and the safe and the content around, Nat braids Bucky's hair, and sometimes he braids hers. - Bucky also braided his sisters' hair. Before the war, and hydra, and everything, back when the world was not just jagged edges.

- When Nat told Clint she was ace, he was overjoyed, because *purple* (also because he’s, like, supportive and shit and loves her, but he said it was because of the purple). When she needs small purple things, because she wants to wear her colours, and she already has black, gray and white in her things, he always has something to lend her (never on a mission. Ace colors are for downtime. Personal trivia is only ever shown when safe, or as a last resort in very controlled situations to get a very specific result). She could get her own, sure, but he likes accumulating purple wristbands and hairties and caps for her, and she likes using his things (it still feels so new and so precious, gifts given or services rendered, with no strings attached, freely given and freely accepted). The Ace shirt is a gift Clint gave her. She was actually surprised to learn other sex-indifferent people existed, outside of the Red Room. She had thought it was kinda like knowing how to lie: something she'd learnt. She's still unsure, sometimes, what is everybody's, what is hers, and what is the Red Room's. She knows all the children's lullabies and fairy tales, learnt to dance a hundred different dances, but never quite knows if what she feels is normal, or too much, or not enough, or just a few feet to the left.

[turnabouthellos]

the ace attorney social media manager deserves a raise

[akumastrife]

Hey all you ✨ ACE-STOUNDING 🌌 SLUTS🥵!! You know what 🕵️‍♀️TODAY 📆is?? It's Ace🖤💜🤍 VISIBILITY 👁️👁️day and I SEE👀 all you WILD FREAKS 💦❓saying👎 NO🤢 to pleasures 👉🏻👌🏻of the FLESH🍆🍑🌮!! My ANACONDA 🐍don't want NONE 🚫🙅🏻‍♀️! So put on your🎶💃 dancing shoes 👟 and get ready to go🏃‍♀️💨out to get GARLIC🤤 BRED 😏 2night. Because the only ones getting🍀🤞🏻 LUCKY 😜 are those HORNY😈 FICTIONAL 📚 HOES 📝 😩 and the best thing 🥵 STUFFED is PIZZA 🫣🍕!! Send this to all your AYYYSEXUAL 💅🏻 BADDIES 😜 to show them you're perceiving👁️👁️ and NOT🚯😒 YANKING 👄your THROBBING 🥴DEMI☔ according to their 🚦 BOUNDARIES 🚧. If you get 5️⃣ back you're a nasty🤭 little cake 🍰🧁 whore!! If you get 🔟 back 😍 you're keeping your 👖👕 pants ON and not🫡 invaded 👽🛸 for carnal experiments 👩‍🔬.🤯 If you get 2️⃣0️⃣ back you're getting tucked IN 😤 SNUG 🛌🍿📺as a MOTHAFUCKIN BUG🪲 and get to 🤩 STAB ⚔️🗡️the last BITCH🐶 who asked if 😑you're a robot🤖 or ever "tried" to "see if you're sure"!!! 🔫🔫🔫

[lesbians4lottienat]

i love you asexual nat scatorccio.

i love you asexual nat scatorccio who’s always known in the back of her mind that she’s a little different from others, ever since seventh grade health class.

i love you asexual nat scatorccio who lived in denial for so long.

i love you asexual nat scatorccio who slept with some people she shouldn’t have because she wanted desperately to feel normal.

i love you asexual nat scatorccio who finally learned that she has more to offer someone than her body.

i love you asexual nat scatorccio.

[buckymilf]

*bucky standing next to a female character*

dudebros: omg new ship 😍

*bucky almost sucking steve off on screen*

dudebros: why can't two guys be just friends

[nat-amations]

Pretty please with the biggest, fattest cherry ontop draw ace spongebob for pride month 🙏🙏

I gotchu 🫡🫡🫡🥶🥶🥶

Acebob‼️‼️‼️🥶

[tarutikkanen]

Bob's Burgers meets fine art

Fourth piece in Bob's Burgers meets fine art -series: ”Lady with a Lizard”. The original painting, ”Lady with an Ermine” by Leonardo da Vinci, belongs to the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, Poland.

[scriptlgbt]

Hi there!

I’m currently in the mid-stages of plotting out a sci-fi series with an lgbtq+ protagonist, who is specifically asexual and lesbian, so she has a female love interest but isn’t interested in sex nor does she experience sexual attraction to any gender. I’m having a few doubts about how to properly represent this character without enforcing any stereotypes about ace people.

For some background, my character is a woman in her late 20s in a sci-fi future where sexual orientations aren’t really a big deal, so people can date/marry/have sex with any gender. But I am worried that because of her personality and situation, her being asexual might come off as a very poor sterotype. She lives mostly alone and has no friends or family at first, and also does not trust other people becaue of events in her past and the grim world she lives in, where crime is very high. She’s also socially awkward due to her lack of interaction with people on a personal level, and is very closed off at first.

However, as the series progresses, she learns to trust others and work with a team, and she becomes more outgoing and less awkward, and never questions her sexuality along the way since she’s an adult and has known that she’s homoromantic/ace for a long time.

I’m worried that these traits may come off as harmful despite her positive character development, the explicit repetition of her sexuality (aka it never changes nor do other people try to change her) and my best intentions. Do you have any advice as to how to ensure she isn’t falling into this stereotype?

- thanks, <3

In general if you're ever worried about depicting one character as a stereotype, having other characters of the same or similar identities (like in this case having someone who is aro or ace who experiences attraction of some other genre besides their aro or aceness would probably work) who do not share the qualities you're worried about is a good call.

But largely I also want to point out that a stereotype becomes a problem when you divorce it from humanity. If you've researched the different ways someone can experience asexuality and written this person as a whole person, and made it clear in-text that these aren't related traits, I think you're golden.

That said: this is probably just a minor wording issue or lack of info given here, but I want to mention that lots of ace people do have interest in sex, whether academic or as a hobby or whatever else. Not having an interest in having sex is a part of many people's asexuality, but it is not a universal default experience. It's the presence of attraction or not which defines asexuality.

mod nat

[animalcrossingshowdown]

This is round 2 of determining the most popular special NPC. The one with the most votes will move on.

[ezioauditore-s]

adewale watching edward escape 5 templar ships, outrun a storm and claim himself captain of a torn up ship only to then 0.05 seconds later jump into the ocean to swim over to a tiny desert island to chase after a golden sparkle in the air

[pcktknife]

fucking up the performance check for dancing with wyll should end in you crawling off to die in solitude

[turnabouthellos]

they fucking know what they’re doing

[natdrinkstea]

WE'RE TALKING ABOUT NONTRADITIONAL FAMILY STRUCTURES AND LESSER KNOWN IDENTITIES IN MY QUEER HEALTH CLASS TODAY AND. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT QPRS THIS IS NOT A FUCKING DRILL

[beguilingcorpse]

ACE ATTORNEY INVESTIGATIONS ON SWITCH!!! INVESTIGATIONS 2 IS FINALLY GETTING AN OFFICIAL TRANSLATION!!!!!!! THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A BIGGER POG

[pluckysidekick]

I’m back with Part 2 of my playlist of Great American Songbook standards and other classic songs that embody Nace’s journey in Season 4, inspired by @emorfili’s post. Check out Part 1 here. Both posts contain Spotify links, but you can find all of these tracks on Apple Music and YouTube. DM me for a link to the entire playlist. Shall we?

1. Picking up with fan favorite Episode 408, George Benson’s 1976 slammin’ This Masquerade, written by Leon Russell, works on so many levels for this episode: Nancy and Ace having to pretend to be each other in front on Thom, acting as if everything is OK between them, with neither saying what they really feel. “We tried to talk it over but the words got in the way, We're lost inside this lonely game we play.”

2. They Can’t Take That Away from Me is so perfect for the 408 sunset scene when Ace returns Nancy’s necklace, and they seem to come to some kind of peace (for the present). They may not have been able to make it work, but they still have a deep bond that no one can take away. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s duet of the Gershwin classic is the version.

3. Witchcraft - Frank Sinatra’s definitive version works for so much of Nancy Drew, but I picked it for Episode 409 for Nancy and Ace’s twin supernatural storylines, each of them beginning to fall for someone who may not be what they seem, and of course for Bess’s day in court defending the supernatural, and exposing the real history of Horseshoe Bay with witchcraft.

4. Nancy tells Nick in 409 that she wants a relationship that’s simpler than the ‘messy’ state of things with Ace (although note the look on her face as she says it). A Sunday Kind of Love by Etta James describes so well what Nancy thinks she wants in 409 and going into 410. Meanwhile Ace is falling under the spell of his mystery ghost - you could even say he’s Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered (I would). I went with Doris Day’s classic take from 1950.

5. Speaking of 410, I had to give a nod to Tristan Glass with Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy. Poor Tristan really goes through it this season and especially in this episode as he fights for his life when his would-be date shoots him, and from which he recovers only for his parents to kidnap and attempt to sacrifice her. I hope he has a nice life!

6. Episode 411 has Nancy crashing Ace’s Seder and causing a storm inside The Claw when she tries to raise Alice to discover how she died. Harold Arlen’s Stormy Weather sung by Lena Horne really drives home Ace’s stormy emotions, Nancy’s desperation (“Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky, Stormy weather, Since my man and I ain't together, keeps raining all of the time”) and Alice’s pain that generates the storm.

7. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - The tension between Nancy and Ace that spills over from 411 to Episode 412 is all the more shocking because we’re used to them being soft with each other. But once Nancy is hot on the trail of the sin she erased, she’s not going to give up. Harold Arlen’s song, here sung by Tony Bennett in 1964, perfectly depicts that tension as Ace tries to give Nancy the runaround (and of course she isn’t having it): “I don’t want you, But I hate to lose you, You’ve got me in between, The devil and the deep blue sea”.

8. I’ve Got You Under My Skin - The venom that erupts when Ace & Nancy repeatedly confront each other in 412 couldn’t exist without the strong feelings that still run under the surface. Nancy admitting that she hasn’t moved on, and the look Ace gives her - they’ve got each other under their skin. Frank Sinatra’s 1956 gorgeous recording of the Cole Porter tune mirrors the back and forth of the star-crossed lovers throughout the season, but especially as we near the end.

9. “Oh Sinnerman, where you going to run to?” That’s the question this traditional spiritual continues to ask throughout Nina Simone’s 1965 powerhouse of a track. Nancy and Ace are both on the run in 412 — Nancy toward the truth of their sin, and Ace away from it. In Episode 413, they work together with the Crew and Tristan to lift the sin fog that’s infected the town, and discover Nancy’s soul connection to the root of the town’s sin. This legendary recording captures the frenetic energy of Nancy and Ace’s journey toward redemption and forgiveness.

10. The finale quickly moves from chaos to resolution of all of our favorite characters’ futures — and for Nancy and Ace’s relationship. Johnny Hartman’s voice on 1963’s My One and Only Love is simply beautiful, capturing Ace’s emotion as he finally comes back to Nancy, heart in hand. Swoon.

11. It Had to Be You - I had to include this one, recorded by Harry Connick, Jr. for another epic slow burn, friends to lovers romance, 1989’s When Harry Met Sally. Nancy and Ace are the soulmates that chose each other (and their friends), which this song’s lyrics capture so perfectly: “For nobody else gives me a thrill, with all your faults, I love you still, it had to be you, wonderful you, it had to be you.”

12. Cheek to Cheek - We didn't get the 6 minute director's cut of this scene that included a little dance with a dip (grr), but we did get that sense of effervescence once Ace and Nancy have broken the curse. Ella and Louis trading off verses on Irving Berlin's timeless classic is just the mood.

13. Ending on a sentimental note, At Last Nancy and Ace are together, and they and all of the Crew have the next part of their journeys mapped out. This lovely Etta James 1960 track is a perfect ending for this playlist, and for Nancy and Ace, Bess, George, and Nick as they say goodbye to The Claw.

So there you have it, my picks for Nace S4, classic style. Would love to hear what you think! Tell me your favorite pick, what I missed, or what you would have chosen instead. Hope this playlist brings a little joy this festive season - I think it’s the perfect background soundtrack for reading all of the @secretsleuthexchange fics!