#aspec challenge

[aintgonnatakethis]

Skirting The Vague Outline Of A Boundary

SGA • 2.8k • Sheppard/McKay • Asexual John Sheppard

Sheppard has always had trouble connecting with people, for one reason or another. It usually comes down to them needing something from him he's incapable of providing, so for a long time he's avoided letting anyone get close enough where they feel able to ask in the first place. Of course then along comes Doctor Rodney McKay, who always manages to disrupt even the most carefully constructed of Sheppard's plans... It was a Saturday evening when Rodney kissed Sheppard for the first time. My entry for both this month's Aspec Year challenge and Gateathon challenge. February prompt: Cuddling.

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis

Category: M/M

Relationship: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard

Additional Tags: Sheppard POV, Angst, Coming Out, Asexual John Sheppard, Hopeful Ending, Internalized Acephobia, Sex-Repulsed, Touch-Positive, Romance-Positive, Cuddling, Worldbuilding, Rodney's Rambles

Collections: The Aspec Year 2025, GATEathon Works 2025 @theaspecyear @aroaceineveryplace @gateathonworks

[remidyal]

Love Potion Number Whatever - FH oneshot

Wrote this for the Aspec Year challenge, with the January prompt of Love Potions and what they might do for an aspec character.

We're three episodes in and my aropan Aelwyn headcanon is still intact for the moment! This isn't really junior year compliant, though.

[judgeverse]

When a strange alien chemical affects the entire Icarus Base crew like a love potion, only Rush and Telford have an inexplicable immunity to the effects. (wordcount: 3541, rating: T. Written for the Aspec Year challenge)

The Icarus base crew seems to be completely affected by the love potion. It’s turned them all into drooling imbeciles about each other, in ways that I’d find personally amusing if it weren’t so bloody juvenile. The only other one with enough of a cool head to maintain order is Colonel Telford. TJ wanted to help us develop an antidote, but she’s rather incapacitated by mooning over Colonel Young. And so, it’s just David and I, the only sane men amid the madness. Relatively speaking. We’re proceeding based on David’s theory that his own immunity could be transferred to the others to neutralize the love potion effects, rather like that one offworld incident with Scott and Chloe. I haven’t a clue where he got that idea -- and altruism is not a renowned David Telford trait -- but we’re trying. 

[cassiopeiasflowers]

amatonormativity: a romantic partner should be the most important person in EVERYONE'S life

NOT amatonormativity: MY romantic partner is the most important person in MY life, but i understand this is not the same for other people

allosexnormativity: EVERYONE should have sex and sex is something EVERYONE needs/wants/should want

NOT allosexnormativity: I PERSONALLY enjoy sex and love having sex because it makes ME feel good, but other people dont feel the same and that's okay

platonormativity: having friends is important for EVERYONE and EVERYONE needs/has/should have friends

NOT platonormativity: having friends is important to ME and I PERSONALLY love having friends, but there are people who dont and theres nothing wrong with that

faminormativity (is that the word?): family is important for EVERYONE and EVERYONE needs to have their family

NOT faminormativity: family is important to ME and I PERSONALLY need my family with me, but other people dont feel the same and i understand that

lovenormativity (again, not sure if this is a word): EVERYBODY feels love and there's something wrong wiith you if you dont

NOT lovenormativity: I PERSONALLY feel love and love people, but not everyone does and that's completely okay!

NOT amatonormativity: i dont have friends/have any desire to have friends, i am happy with other relationships/no relationships at all

NOT platonormativity: i dont have any desire to be in a romantic relationships, and i am happy with my platonic relationships

NOT allosexnormativity: i like hooking up with people and having one night stands or friends with benefits

NOT faminormativity: i care about my family deeply and am close with family members

NOT lovenormativity: i feel love for people i care about

it's not normative to personally enjoy something, so long as you respect that other people simply arent like you and aren't going to like the same things as you. taking down normativity is a two way street, allos and aspecs need to do it. support your local aros, aces, apls, afams and other aspecs today! remember to challange all normativities, and to not enforce other normativity by saying how bullshit other normativities are!

nothing is universal. romance is not universal. sex is not universal. friendship is not universal. family is not universal. love is not universal. nothing is universal.

[sadisthetic]

happy pride month! love must die

[1mnobodywhoareyou]

one of my favourite things about being aroace is going to my allo friends and asking them questions about how they experience attraction that break their brains

[livvylives]

Simon and Clary relationship development throughout tmi is so Aromantic to me. which probably doesn't actually make any sense outside of my head 😭

[mitamicah]

My primary offer for pride this year will be a six series showing all members of Joker Out plus Käärijä portraying with jewelry inspired by specific flags.

Starting off the challenge here's Nace with an earring (and nailart) inspired by the demisexual flag ^V^

[sortingmyideas]

I love how whenever I see someone trying to "debunk" a character being aro/ace, their reasons boil down to:

"It wasn't explicitly said on screen."

Not considered mandatory for most other sexualities, but apparently it is for this one. I wonder why. What could the reason for this double standard possibly be?

"The writer and/or character didn't/don't know about the term aro/ace."

And that makes it impossible for said character to fit it?? I (and plenty of others) didn't know about the term asexual until I was almost an adult, does that mean we weren't ace?? C'mon. If the creator somehow didn't know about the term "gay", but they wrote their male characters liking like men, there'd be no argument.

"The character looks/acts attractive."

Because appearance dictates sexuality, right? Because a character dressing or looking or acting a certain way can't be for any other reason, right? That makes sense.

"The way they interacted with x was flirty."

Most of the time the "flirting" that is being referred to is just casual interaction. Hugging, comforting, holding hands. All things that are not inherently romantic or sexual.

"Even if the creator outright says it, if it's not explicitly stated onscreen, it's not canon."

Again, this is not a requirement for any other sexuality. A creator says one of their male characters is gay? No debate. He's gay. You're terrible if you ship him with a woman. Creator says they're aro/ace? The character didn't specifically say it on screen, so it's up for interpretation.

"Even if they are aro/ace, if they're sex/romance repulsed/adverse, it's a stereotype."

If you genuinely believe that a character disliking sex and/or romance makes them a harmful stereotype, fuck you. Repulsed aro/ace are not stereotypes and you need to stop acting like we are. You do not care about the aro/ace community. Fuck off.

I'm sure there's plenty more, the amount of excuses people will pull to ignore aro/aces is almost impressive, but I can't be bothered to write them right now.

If the idea of a character being canonically aro/ace really bothers you so much, you need to figure out why that is and deal with it. Yes, it's fiction, but a lot of you are making your stance on our community very clear.

If you can't see how any of these quotes (and yes, these are actual things I've seen people say, plenty of them being quite common) are problematic, imagine if they were being said about a trans/gay/lesbian/bi character. Is it a problem now?

Quit trying to pretend you give a fuck about us if seeing a character that might be aro/ace makes you immediately jump to find a way to ignore or debunk it.

Oh, and for the record, another aro/ace (on any part of the spectrum) saying it's okay to act like this doesn't mean it is or that you should.

[pomo-positive]

Hello everyone! I had a new idea for a februari challenge 🌟

Within fandom, there’s a big focus on romantic and sexual relationships, in my opinion sometimes to the detriment of other types of relations. Friendships, familiar bonds, queer platonic characters and aspec characters more often than not get the short end of the stick in these kind of spaces. I fear this notion reinforces amatonormativity and makes fandom spaces less comfortable for aspec folks.

In fanfiction spaces, gen fics are a good way to filter out romantic content! I love ao3’s tagging and filtering system in particular, as you can look up fanfics that explore non romantic relationships easily. I appreciate the ampersand and slash differentiation.

I would like to take the idea of gen fics further, and develop the presence of non romantic or sexual relationships in fandom spaces more. For example, I want to coin the term “gen art”! This would be fanart, that much like gen fics, explores characters and character bonds that aren’t focused on romance. I think it would also be great to develop a tagging system for platonic bonds. Creating this type of language within fandom is the first step to changing the relationship hierarchy we so often see there.

For this challenge, the idea is that for every day you create a gen fan work inspired by the prompt of that day. This can be art as the name suggests, but any type of media is welcome! Fanfics, art, edits, poems, moodboards, photography, the sky’s the limit. Don’t worry about skipping any days or changing up the prompts! This is all in good fun ✨💕

You are very welcome to join in! Please tag your posts with #genartfebruari so I can find them and reblog them 💖 I will be reblogging all entries! I'm of course joining myself too 😊

Even if you don’t plan to join, I would very much appreciate reblogs as it would help spread the word 🙏

It would be really nice if we could make this into a solid thing together. We could have fun creating together, but also try our hand at changing fandom spaces to be more safe and comfortable for everyone ✨

The prompt list (text version):

1. Hug

2. Goodbye

3. Pets

4. Garden

5. D&D Party

6. Birthday

7. Plushies

8. Pride

9. Cosplay

10. Comfort

11. Stars

12. Childhood friends

13. Dancing

14. Love

15. Reading

16. Snuggle

17. Karaoke

18. Picknick

19. Texting

20. Rain

21. Road trip

22. Silly

23. Found family

24. Movie night

25. Missing

26. Gifts

27. Reunion

28. Sleeping

[aintgonnatakethis]

Chivalry Isn't Dead (it's just at the dentist)

SGU • 3.5k • Rush/Telford • Found Family

Telford was the first one to admit the 'leadership meetings' could get dull at times, full of arguments about stone-time allocation and ideas for recreational activities for the crew. It was the small day-to-day details that could really bog you down in command, though he had to say Everett kept admirably soldiering on regardless of how boring the topic or how infuriating the relaying complaints were. Booking dentist visits for the crew was, however, a new low for him, both personally and professionally. Can be read as a stand-alone.

Fandom: Stargate Universe

Category: M/M

Relationships: Nicholas Rush/David Telford, David Telford & Everett Young, David Telford & Camile Wray

Additional Tags: Telford POV, Established Relationship, Aromantic David Telford, romance-repulsed, Found Family, Friendship, Cuddling, casual touching, Protectiveness, Toxic Masculinity, Worldbuilding, Everett Young Backstory

Collections: The Aspec Year 2025, GATEathon Works 2025 @theaspecyear @aroaceineveryplace @gateathonworks

[confusedgoldenflower]

[Text] Ace Visibility Week 2024 event, coming October 20-26!

[Text] Ace Visibility Week 2024 AO3 collection.

Prompts:

Tattoos

Picnic

Night out

A break

It seems so long ago...

What have we done?

On that day-

Feels so good when you hold me

Buggaboo

A favor

Secret

Gardens

Sickness

Monsters in the dark

Gift of heart

Clash

Ears

Unnatural limbs

Link to the collection (with a FAQ): https://archiveofourown.org/collections/AceVisibilityWeek2024. Crashcourse FAQ: indeed includes aro stuff; can include sex as long as a-spec is respected; NO pwp/smut for the sake of it; and consent is a MUST.

My first event, I hope y’all will join in the a-spec loving! 🖤🤍💜 🖤🤍💚

Please use tags #acevisibilityweek2024, #aceweek2024 and #aceweekao3. Feeling a bit spicy, use #teachthealloshowtoact.

It’ll be easiest—I think—to keep track on AO3 because of the way it’s set-up, but I will definitely be trolling Tumblr as well (I don’t have Twitter, it scares me). Of course, art and pod fics, etc are welcome.

I know I don’t have a following or a Twitter, but regardless, I hope other aces and allies will join me in this, and we can have it as an annual event sorta like MerMay and AUgust!

[a-walking-fandom-reference]

sorry i’m gonna be even MORE obnoxious about ace eddie it’s my right and my duty

[lokiiied]

aromantic coded characters will literally say “what makes you think i want someone to be in love with me?” “did i ever say i was in love with him?” and never say i love you back and people will still be like omg but they love so and so!!!! or believe that saying these things means they are evil and manipulative and/or a player

[nerdiwolverine]

I was talking with my mom about my aunt and she mentioned how my aunt hasn't had/doesn't have any romantic or sexual attraction to anyone and I was just like "👀 what"

Guys I think my aunt is aro ace

[mari--lace]

I’ve been thinking of this story for a while now, it felt good getting it off my chest.

I present to you: demirose Morgana!

(But the story focuses on Arthur&Morgana’s relationship and is mostly fron Arthur’s pov, honestly, not on Morgana’s orientations.)

This fills (tries to?) december’s prompt of The Aspec Year: cuddling. 💜