#being aro To Me means i sort differently

[blackwaves]

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[doctorwhoisadhd]

hmm thinking about the idea of love songs. i think the idea of what a love song is that we have in our culture is inherently a little bit flawed because we have the idea that any song written about romantic feelings is a love song and im thinking thats not exactly true because there is a difference between "romance" and "love". what i'm saying is not that love is a broader category and applies to things that are not romantic in nature. this is in fact true, but it's not what makes the important distinction here. the true distinction between "romance" and "love" is that romance is a societally defined type of interest in another person, whereas love is, essentially, a promise that you make when you build a relationship.

as such, what i call "love" here might be better defined as "care", as that implies more time and effort, but that's a different suitcase to unpack and largely unimportant to my point here, which is more about the societal conventions of what we call love songs. the point is, relationships can be built with other people, yes, but also animals, places, organizations, ideas, so on and so on, whereas romance requires another person, hence the difference between the ideas of "romance" and "love".

with that in mind, there are two types of songs we in western, english speaking, society call "love songs":

1) songs that are about a person's romantic interest in someone that is either definitively known to be unrequited (existing monogamous relationship, sexuality that doesn't align, etc) or simply not requited (aka romantic interest being unknown); and

2) songs about an existing relationship (keeping in mind my points about relationships not just being with people, but also places, things, etcetera) as is.

(some examples of the latter category: mountaintop by relient k, which defines the relationship in question as non-romantic; or i miss my mum by cavetown, which is - as the title implies - a song about the singer missing their mother.)

now, the thing that makes distinguishing these two difficult is the fact that songs about an existing relationship CAN be about wanting certain aspects of that relationship to change. in these cases, determining that a song is one or the other will hinge either on a) authorial intent or b) whether the song is more about what the singer wants (thereby implying #1) or the lack thereof in that relationship (which would imply #2).

to get back to the subject at hand: the term "love song", as we think of it, is an umbrella term that include both of these two categories, and i think that perhaps it is reductive to do so. with that in mind, i think perhaps it would be more appropriate for "love song" to mean only the latter, whereas the former is a category of its own. WHICH is not to say that the two can't overlap — just that if a song is about a person with whom the singer has no relationship, it cannot be considered a love song due to the fact that it is a song about infatuation, not love.

(another interesting wrinkle this provides is the fact that a song might start out in the first category and, as the writer develops a relationship with a person, might move into the second category as they write more.)

[celtrist]

This was a planned thing I had around the time I had this little rant (appreciate everyone who's bothered reading that thank you!)

Seeing as we have three canonically Asexual characters, I thought each of them having a different romantic orientation (and varying asexuality on the scale) would be fun and neat to show the variations to the orientations! But I was really stumped on Mammon since I was pretty set on Alastor and Octavia, but Mammon not being any form of aromantic didn't feel right, not terribly ooc, just definitely felt a bit more like "he's the leftovers" sort of thing when divvying up the romantic orientations. But lo and behold, the new episode of Helluva came out and helped solved that little quandrie. So here are my thoughts below on each!

Alastor (Loveless Aromantic) If you've seen my rant, you probably have a good idea why I labeled him as a "loveless aromantic" (meaning in this sense I'm talking about, he just wouldn't have any form of romantic affections or go into something like a QPR or the like). And I do genuinely think he would be! But I know there's A LOT of bias for Alastor NOT being aromantic (or at least open to some sort of relationship), and I will admit I might've been a bit biased here too! I've just seen a lot of love for only specific parts of the aro spectrum that "allows" Alastor to get with someone, and I wanted to give some love to the aro spectrum that gets little to no appreciation (plus I do just genuinely think he'd be this). If you don't agree, all is fair ദ്ദി（• ˕ •マ.ᐟ The point is, I realize I'm probably in the minority here. Plus, it's all a guessing game more or less until something is officially stated, which probably will never happen for any of these three.

Anyway, like I said, I just don't see Alastor really getting as close to anyone even as a QPR. At the VERY LEAST, not in a QPR that has a lot of romantic parts to it (kissing on the lips, cuddling, etc.). My man wouldn't have any interest in marriage or anything romantic, he's very happy on his own and probably gossips about OTHER people's love lives. Then again, he seemed pretty close to cracking when he heard Charlie ranting about her own love life... With that said, I do think he DOES like the company of others, he's VERY social after all. But actually, getting intimate with someone? Mmm, that doesn't feel right for him to me. A kiss on the cheek or PERHAPS a cuddle here and there at most, but nothing like bathing with someone or kissing with tongue. He's also a man of the roaring twenties, so you KNOW how he thinks about intimacies that might have no romantic/sexual connotations by themselves (like bathing with someone) are romantic on their own just because being that close to someone was seen that way in his time. Plus again, I just don't think he'd be interested in that stuff as is (potentially he could be both touch-starved and touch-aversed. And oh boy, wouldn't that be a conundrum!) On one hand, I like and can see Alastor being sex-repulsed, on the other I can also see him just feeling nothing towards it. Considering Angel's "advances" in both the first episode and the pilot, he does have a bit of a strong reaction towards sex, but nothing crazy either. I can see him being lukewarm to the subject (so he could read a book or read a script out loud with sex in it), but he could be repulsed when it actually INVOLVES HIM. I can definitely see him somewhat annoyed with the subject for how everywhere it is though.

Octavia (QPR Aromantic) It's a little hard to pinpoint, but I can personally see Octavia getting into a close QPR sooner than Alastor, but maaayybe only be a hair. Octavia could possibly get into a platonic relationship with someone that would have remnants of seeming romantic. I do think she's probably the most sex-repulsed of the three, if in part because of her father's inclinations that he doesn't seem to hide even when she's around. Honestly, I feel like we still haven't seen enough of her to get a good grasp on this aspect of her character in if she would be interested in getting as close as to a QPR with someone. But I'd certainly like to think so, because damn does our girl need it. Her falling into some sort of relationship would probably be hard seeing as how her parents' relationship was so awful. So she could be hesitant about doing something like that.

Mammon He was the big toughy! And while his advances on Leviathan might have been meant in a more platonic way or just for show to go against Ozzy's and Bee's romantic relations, I'm going with what's there! So Mammon seems like he could be straight or bi/pan. But I don't have a hard grasp on which so I'm tossing that in the air. I don't think he'd be sex-repulsed just because of how "sex makes money". Like, there's no question that sex appeal is a big part of business even if something isn't even that sexual. So while I think he's not largely interested in doing anything sexual, I can see him being okay or even lukewarm to the subject, maybe just not getting the appeal entirely. Maaaayybe he's sex-favorable? Of the three I would imagine he would be the most likely to be sex-favorable, but I dunno.

I like the idea of Octavia being the only one aware as to what her orientations are. Alastor is... well he's Alastor, and Mammon doesn't seem like he'd be too interested in the details of things. Just that "there's straight, gay, and the between area".

[a-minke-whales-tale]

The Insidiousness of Human Kindness

There is something particularly insidious and cruel about human kindness. It is not all kindness of course but there is a certain type of "kindness" humans do in which they try to imagine what they would want if they were you and then do that. It is in a way sort of an expansion of that "golden rule" to treat others how you want to be treated. That rule works fine for general social interaction and teaching children to not hurt others. However it is often mechanically applied where it is not applicable. It does start from the base assumption that we all have the same needs and wants and understanding. Unfortunately some very cruel things can be done in the name of that kindness.

This did originally come up in the context of animal welfare and animal rights particularly in regards to cetaceans. Many animal rights activists will appeal to this idea putting yourself in that animal's shoes so to speak and what you would want in that situation. The problem ultimately is you are not them. You come in with your own biases, your own vision of what a good life looks like, either for yourself or for that animal. The irony is that humans will watch some animals being cared for quite well and respond with outrage and revulsion, and watch others being abused or mistreated or displaying a stress response and respond positively of how adorable the interaction or behaviour is.

Humans do not do this only to other species though, but really any group they find different even their own species. Most creatures lack the ability to directly communicate their wants and desires, but most humans can (or could if they were given the space and means to). It is quite common for Ace and Aro people to be told how sex or romance are a normal human desire that they should want and them not wanting it means they should go on certain medicines. Humans will say how they would want X or Y in their position and so the other should to. But there is not something wrong with that person (and even if there was), they simply have a different set of wants and needs. It can also be as simple as pushing someone into a crowd to interact with others because you think they just need a push to open up and you would want that, but that person simply has different social needs and wants. It is a big part in psychiatric treatment in how many non-psychotics think that they would want the treatment and the medicine and think that we should want it as well to the point they will happily force treatment to us for "our own good". It can in some cases go as far as the beginnings of genocide and mercy killing in the belief our lives are simply too miserable to suffer through.

Arguably a lot of the "empath" or "empathic" behaviour is like this though. It can be hard to really know what someone is experiencing. So instead those cues are run through your own biases and your own understandings of the world to create what you think that person is experiencing. In a lot of cases for a lot of interactions this can be good enough for at least a surface level understanding and to carry out interaction. But when those understandings do not align people can do terrible things to others believing themselves in the right, not out of morality or superiourity, but that they are being kind and helping.

Some of the worst experiences I have had in my life have been a result of this sort of human kindness. I spent years in and out of hospitals on so many antipsychotic medicines. I used to transform fully and frequently. The process was at times scary, but it was still something I treasured. But the humans did not understand and they could not understand. They took that away, they forced me onto medicines, any resistance or argument was punished, I was chemically and physically restrained, locked into hospitals. In their mind everything they did to me was to help me and for my benefit. I learned quickly to obey, to say and do whatever it was they wanted so they would not hurt me more. I do not live in hospital anymore, but still obedience and fear dominate my life to show the humans I am doing what they want, what they feel I should want, so they do not hurt me further.

What is particularly insidious about human "kindness" regarding those experiences, and even those ongoing, is that I cannot express them to people close to me, people who as I am spiralling in the night want to help me and tell for me how much they care. But if I explain to them these terrible experiences and I explain to them the spirals they tell me instead how those were good and it was very kind of the humans to do those thing to me because they were helping me. That without it I could not have the life I have now, a life I never wanted but have to play so the humans do not hurt me. There was one point I expressed some of what happened in the hospital to my current doctor and she did not understand that those experiences for me are ones of fear, dread, and nightmare, believing instead that I was thankful for the hospitals and the doctors. Even when I discuss struggles in my life (after a lot of coaxing), my doctor has an entirely different vision of what I should want from my life and how it should be. It is far different than what I actually want, but I have to act according to their vision of what they think I should want.

That "kindness" though is something I fear very much. I do have radically different desires in life compared to the humans who watch over me. For myself I desire to return to the water, to be a whale again, to swim forever. For many humans, even other therians, the idea to turn myself back into a whale is unimaginable. I know that returning to the water I would have to go to a tank and live a captive life, I simply could not survive in the wild, and likely could not survive even in a sea pen. But even those who can understand my desire to return to the water, with the exception of a few podmates, it is hard to imagine for them that captive life is something I would want. They simply live differently and understand the world around them differently from me. We have different wants and needs. At the very least compared to other captive cetaceans I can actively express my desire to live in captivity. But will the humans actually listen, or will they use my desire as proof I am not well enough to know what I want?

I know my hopes to return to the water and to live again as a whale are very difficult. It will depend very much on genuine human kindness and understanding. It will depend on their curiousity of me and my experiences and to see a creature hurting and wish to help it. It will depend on them wanting to help and understand my genuine needs and desires. I fear though that at some point the humans will instead act in "my best interest" of how they think I should want to live out of their own belief in their kindness and rip me again from the water and again into a hospital until I can obey them as they want. It did not kill me last time, though it nearly did and I left permanently damaged and I am not the same whale who went in. I fear though that someday as the humans imagine themselves in my position of what they would want if they were me, they will surely kill me as they have so many other cetaceans before in their act of "kindness"

I would be curious to hear others experiences on the receiving end of this sort of "kindness".

~ Kala

[aidensinternetdiary]

Just saw a aspec be a pick me in the aro tag. "Erm actually, we shouldn't care that an aroace character is being sexualised" "the character isnt real" "asexual doesnt mean sex repulsed" literally look at this stupid shit;

So this person thinks that people who don't want to see ace characters be sexualised cuz duh, majority of them won't be into that, they think it's 'infantilizing' them? So what does that mean, does that mean being sex repulsed and not wanting to see or be seen as sexual is childish? Sex is maturity, is that what I'm getting? Hmmm, I wonder where I heard that before.

Also this person is clearly arophobic as fuck because they only talk about sexualisation which has nothing to do with us aros because surprise; not all of us are aces, a lot of us as allosexual! Why tf include us when we don't fit into what your even talking about? Clearly this person thinks aromantic is just a subset for asexuality and they got the gall to call other aspecs out for wanting to see their identities be respected in fandoms. "Not all aces are sex repulsed" but all the ace characters they have are so stfu.

The allos will never pick you. Allos never even pick us aroallos so what makes you think your any different lmao. Just cuz what, you feel some sort of romantic and sexual attraction? You think you'll still not be mocked like the rest of us? Jesus christ.

[drdemonprince]

(aromantic anon) i actually can relate to the "bestie who stops answering your calls as much when they have a boyfriend" too! which is also one of the reasons it took a while for me to start id'ing as aro. the difference for me is that it isnt a boyfriend/partner (although, i thought it was at first), i just really like making new friends, and often getting a new friend (or just, randomly with old friends) i get a sort of mini "honey moon phase", usually for abt a month-ish, where i get a little obsessed w that one friend and accidentally put my other friendships to the side. it got a lot easier to manage once i realized that it passes, and that it didnt mean i had to date the person, bcz if i did they almost certainly would've been disappointed when they become someone who i end up not actually wanting to spend any more time with than i do with my other friends. someone else described it as "having a person as a special interest", which i also relate to! i dont tend to call most of my interest special interests just bcz very few of them tend to last years, its just short bursts of obsessions. but the exact same thing happens when i get a new interest, or have random bouts of intensity with an older interest that usually also last abt a month where i just completely forget to socialize w anyone for a while bcz im too busy being obsessed with something. the new friend/new interest also often coincide, as ill get into a new interest or get re-into an old interest, and meet someone also into that and dont want to talk to anyone else or about anything else for that month, before i inevitably and often really suddenly move onto to something/someone else. feelings of infatuation/love and even arousal are very often built into how i feel about the person and the interest during this time, which is why it was pretty easy for me to mistake for romance bcz it took a while for me to realize that it would level out into regular friendship pretty much every single time, and i would suddenly feel upset and suffocated abt being in that position where this person wanted to continue spending the same amnt of time with me that we were spending before.

this is all super interesting! And it tracks with the thesis many ppl have that "favorite persons" in BPD/Autism/etc are really special interests applied to individuals. I think it's also an attachment-regulation thing, and a way of managing close relationships when those things are difficult for us, but like, yeah! it's neat!

[elexuscal]

Bi-Ace Laurence and Aro Roland

Okay so a few weeks ago I made a comment about viewing Jane Roland/Laurence as queer, and @sere-allwehaveisnowasked me to dig into it. This is a slightly cleaned up version of the ramble I gave on the Temeraire discord, just on the off-chance folks from the broader fandom might find it interesting!

So I can see how that description of Laurence/Roland might seem surprising at a first glance! They're an M/F pair, and obviously that lends itself to a very traditional heterosexual reading. But that's not the only possible reading, at all!

"Queer" is a catchall term and an umbrella term, which means there has been a lot of quibbling over what exactly 'counts' is queer. "Is X queer?" is a Discourse repeated ad nauseam; replace X with 'ace people', 'aro people', 'polyamorous people', 'kinksters', 'furries', etc.... It gets really hard to draw firm lines. Which is why I generally subscribe to te definition of queer as "anything which transgresses the social norms in the broadly overlapping space of sexuality, romance, and gender" So on a base level, you have the fact that in the time and setting of the Temeraire series, Jane Roland is breaking So Many gender norms. She's a soldier, masculine, heavier set and with facial scarring. Under some more flexible definitions of queer, almost any sexual and/or romantic relationship she entered into would be inherently queer due to how she transgresses the boundaries. That said, while I do find something compelling there, that alone isn't really why I see Jane/Will as queer, since while Roland might be transgression within the text, to the average 21st century reader, she's not nearly so shocking.

For me, it's much more about how Laurence/Roland fits much much more into broader queer readings of both their characters, notably the bi (and to a lesser extent, ace) experience for Laurence, and the aromantic reading for Roland.

I very much do read Laurence as a bisexual guy who never really realised he was bisexual, partly because his attraction genders were fairly equal, and both fairly low. In book one, he doesn't really seem personally that attracted to the idea of a traditional marriage-- it's just sort of What One Does, and he does like the idea of the companionship a marriage with offer. He's friends with Edith, their engagement makes sense, and he doesn't have any other option that's more appealing, so... Why not? But equally, while he's disappointing to lose that future, he's not heartbroken either.

Specifically, I think what attracts Laurence is military competence. (Or maybe not quite military per say, but certainly something adjacent. Being in the field, getting your hands dirty). And he'd never really twigged to that because... All the women he had met until then were Society Ladies(tm). They were divorced from that entire sphere. And sure, Laurence saw it in men, but he didn't read it as sexual attraction, he just read it as admiration. (It can be hard to untangle the difference!)

But then he meets Jane. Who is feminine while also masculine. A woman who displays all these elements of military competence that Laurence is foremost drawn to. And I really do think that's the Rosetta stone for realising his attraction to men.

I also think there's a really great ace reading of him getting back together with Jane for LoD? Not just that he apparently hadn't had any sex for the previous 3.5 books; that could equally be attributed to his depression and social isolation. But it's the way that encounter has less to do with him craving sex specifically, or craving romance, as him feeling the joy and relief of having regained Jane's trust.

As for Roland... Man I read her as aro, so bad. I can absolutely see the reading where she isn't inherently/naturally disinclined to romance, but basically taught herself to repress her desire for the sake of her career. And that's definitely compelling. But I see so much of someone who just doesn't really care about romance, doesn't really get what everyone else sees in it, and is just going to carry on without it.

And I just love that Roland/Laurence continues throughout the entire series, but doesn't end with them getting married and having kids or anything like that. They have this great fiends with benefits situation which is genuinely SO refreshing.

All of this I think dovetails deeper into my feelings about queerness in the Temeraire series as a whole. These books were published in a time where there was a huge push for greater gay representation (one we're still living through now), and I believe that was a big part of the analysis. And indeed, I think it's fair to examine and ask why there wasn't more of an explicit M/M representation in the story. But at the same time, a question I often grapple with as an a-spec person, is how do you depict the more 'subtle' queer identities? Especially ones like asexuality and aromanticism, which are defined by a lack of something? Especially in historical fiction, where it would be deeply weird to have the characters use modern terminology and bust out some pride flags. And I don't know if any of this was Novik's intentions or not; to a large extent, I don't care. But I do think there's a lot of stuff in this narrative that resonates with a lot of bi, asexual, and aromantic experiences, and that's really interesting to analyse.

[syn4k]

Okay I'm done reblogging stuff now but like. As an aroace autistic person with clinically diagnosed anxiety and depression who relates pretty heavily to nonhuman and "outsider" characters, I think that The Murderbot Diaries is one of if not the best instances of representation I've ever seen in professionally written and produced media.

i know that for years now, us aro/ace and autistic folks have raised awareness and rallied against our only representation in media being through nonhuman and robot characters. which makes total and complete sense, because historically, our identities and experiences tend to only be shown in stories and narratives as proof of just how different and nonhuman the characters who are them are, or as comedic relief, or even as both

however, there is a huge and incredibly important difference between how aro/ace and autistic identities are usually presented in media versus the groundbreaking way that they're presented in the murderbot diaries.

The narrative does not treat MB's existence and personality and the way it percieves the world as something novel, unusual, strange, or funny. The majority of the humor in the novels come from MB's own dry wit and deadpan sarcasm. Since the story is told from its perspective, the narrative doesn't question its complete and utter disinterest in and aversion to sex, the fact that the word "romance" doesn't show up in the books once as far as I'm aware, or the highly detailed, calculating, and analytical way in which it interacts with the world around it. This is all presented without question and treated as if it's entirely normal, which it is, especially to Murderbot itself.

The difference between the way the Murderbot Diaries handle differences in identity and personality versus how a lot of other media handles the same topics isn't that the characters in them are any less aro/ace, or any less autistic. That part remains unchanged. The difference is how much TMBD respects and accepts these differences, especially because it doesn't go out of its way to highlight them. The characters simply are how they are.

most of the time when fans of certain shows and media have problems with the representation in it, esp with robotic aro/ace/autistic characters, the issues they have aren't actually that the characters are robots, because TMBD has shown that one can write a robot AAA character and do it well and respectfully, but that their nonhuman identities are used as an excuse to justify the dehumanization of AAA identities in the show, just like as they often are in real life.

i don't really have any coherent thoughts on this beyond that. this topic has been on my mind recently since I reread the first book of the Hunger Games and it stood out to me just how arocoded Katniss Everdeen is.

it just means the world to me that martha wells intentionally wrote MB as aro/ace and did it in a respectful, humanizing manner that doesn't turn that facet of its identity into the central focus point of its personality like some other books and series have done, instead simply bringing it up when it's relevant and not making a big deal out of it. it's incredibly authentic and is an accurate depiction of how being aroace affects my own life, because i myself also don't think about this sort of thing unless the situation requires it.

i wonder if mrs. wells accepts fan mail. i'd like to write her a letter or send her an email expressing just how grateful i am to her for writing these books, and writing them in this way specifically

[northlight14]

Since it’s the first day of Pride, thought I’d share something that I’m very passionate and opinionated about, that being

What Makes for “Good” Aromantic and/or Asexual Representation

Essentially I’m just sharing my own personal standards for when it comes to aro and/or ace rep. And you’ll notice a lot of this is the bare minimum. You’ll also notice how very few pieces of media actually do any of these. This isn’t to attack any particular creators (though some will be mentioned as being bad at this sort of rep not as an attack but as an example). Think of this as more for any aspiring writers or creators who want to include aro or ace rep in their work. Because idk about y’all but I’m kinda tired of just settling for the sort of rep we do get

And of course I don’t speak for all aro/ace people and some may disagree with me and that’s ok! These are just my personal opinions based on experience

1. Say it, don’t code it

A lot of asexual and especially aromantic “representation” is just coded but never explicitly stated. Characters will show disinterest in dating or even repulsion in some cases (see Saiki from Saiki K or Senkuu from Dr Stone). And while that’s all well and good, I barely even count that as representation

Showing a character is aromantic and/or asexual is fundamentally different from showing a character is gay or bisexual. And that’s because it’s a LACK of attraction, not the presence of it. You can have a character show interest in the same sex and nothing more really needs to be said because that’s you telling your audience what that characters preferences are. But you can’t have a character just reject another character and expect that to have the same effect because it’s not as if allosexuals/alloromantics are attracted to every person they meet

Now in the cases of Saiki or Senkuu where they say repeatedly that they’re not interested in sex or romance without actually using the words, I’ll concede that that’s slightly better than Viktor from Arcane just rejecting Skye and then the creator trying to claim he’s asexual after the fact. However, I still don’t think this is necessarily good representation even if it is better. That being because there is a long history of characters who start off saying they’re “not interested in dating” and then changing their mind. Or fans interpreting them as being gay instead or their close friendships actually being romantic. The easiest way to avoid this is just to use the words “aromantic” and/or “asexual”

This doesn’t mean you have to write a whole coming out scene either. It can be as simple as a casual mention or a pride flag hung up somewhere. But it should be said

2. State it in the piece of media

One of my biggest pet peeves about aro/ace rep is that it will be confirmed but only outside of the media itself and rarely in canon. Frankly I think more characters are confirmed outside than they are inside. Let’s go over two of main ways this just doesn’t work

It’s easy to miss. I didn’t find out about Viktor apparently being asexual several months after confirmation. And I’m pretty sure a lot of fans still don’t know

It creates discourse. A lot of fans simply won’t accept it because it was confirmed post canon or outside of canon. Or there will be accusations of it being fake or people trying to make excuses as to why they should be allowed to ignore it and so on

The only exception to this rule I have is that if your setting is maybe a fantasy world or historical setting where those words don’t exist then yes, it makes sense for it to not be stated in canon and instead confirmed elsewhere. But please for the love of god don’t just confirm it after the fact or else it just looks like a JK Rowling “Dumbledore is actually gay!” thing

3. Learn what it means to be asexual or aromantic

This might be one of the biggest “the bar is on the floor” things said in this post and it’s honestly depressing how many creators I’ve seen that have made me feel the need to say this. If you’re going to have a character be asexual or aromantic, you should know what those words mean. Like I’m literally asking for the bare minimum of research here

Do you know that asexual and aromantic are different things?

Do you know what either of those words even mean?

If your answer is no, for the love of God Google that shit before writing it. I’m so tired of creators saying shit like “this character doesn’t want to date because they’re asexual”

4. Let our representation be diverse

Some aces/aro’s are POC. Some are disabled. Some are trans. Some are asexual but not aromantic. Some are aromantic but not asexual. Some are not fully aro/ace but on the spectrum somewhere like demisexual, greyasexual, librasexual, aceflux, and so on. Some are sex/romance repulsed and some are sex/romance favourable or indifferent

We’re as diverse as any other community with a wide range of experiences. And yet a lot of the rep we get is very white, usually just sex repulsed asexual or aro/ace, and able bodied. Now as a white aro/ace able bodied person myself I can’t exactly speak a lot on this but I do encourage any writers to seek out and learn about the experiences of others in my community that don’t look like me

While on this subject, remember it’s not unrealistic to have multiple aspec characters in your media. I’m only 20 years old and so far in my life I’ve met a total of 10 others who also identify as somewhere on the ace or aro spectrum. I promise we’re more common than you think and having multiple characters be somewhere on the spectrum would absolutely help in not just depicting the community as a monolith. Great example of this is Bojack Horseman who didn’t want to make Todd’s childishness seem like a byproduct of his asexuality and so added Yolanda who is also asexual but the opposite of Todd personality wise

5. Let your aromantic characters not be asexual

You wanna know how many non-ace aromantic characters I can name?

None.

Literally non. Zilch. Zero.

And I can make a pretty good guess as to why that is as well. Because sexual attraction without romantic attraction is so heavily demonised or made to be “promiscuous”. And this is something that needs to change. Aromantic people, for starters, didn’t choose to be aromantic. They aren’t “players” trying to get with as many people as possible, or lead people on, or break peoples hearts or whatever the fuck. They’re straight up just living their lives. Some might have a QPR and some might not. Some might engage in casual sex and some might not. Some might still date and some might not. And non of these things are bad

Aromantic people deserve representation just as much as asexual people, I cannot understate this enough

6. Let your aromantic characters be loveless

I’m not a loveless/aplatonic aromantic so again I can’t speak too much on this. However, I do see a lot of the time people trying to make being aromantic more palatable by saying “they can still feel love!” And “they can still have close bonds with their friends”. And look, that’s true for a lot of us. But it also alienates a lot of peoples experiences. Being an aplatonic aromantic shouldn’t be villainised. They aren’t cold or heartless. They just experience things differently and that’s ok. They deserve positive representation just as much as the rest of the community

7. Try to avoid stereotypes

This one is pretty simple. Don’t make your only ace or aro character the robot or the villain or the super childish side character. Some aces are super outgoing. Some aromantics are really emotional

Another part of this is let your aromantic characters be romantic and let your asexual characters be sexy. As I’ve stated before, these identities are on a spectrum and some ace people might still wear revealing clothing or even have sex. Some aromantics might love romantic media or even still choose to date. Non of this takes away from their identity and if you go this route just make sure you’re doing your research

Like, I’m speaking from experience here. I’m fully aro/ace but I still love shipping and romance in media. I’ve also listened to my friends about their sex lives. Like guys, sex is weird to me regardless of its missionary or hardcore BDSM. Not every ace is gonna be comfortable hearing about that but again, we’re not a monolith

—

I do have more I could say on this but I’m gonna end it here. If there’s anything I missed lemme know and also I’m willing to answer questions as long as they’re genuine, polite and respectful. Aphobia will be deleted

And of course, Happy Pride y’all🏳️‍🌈💚💜🤍🩶🖤

[skekthesilly]

yaknow. im gonna be so fr for a second because im thinking a shit ton

i thought being gay would feel different in a way? like i thought it would feel foreign and just. different. strange. significant enough for me to be able to feel like i could hold the feeling in my hands and it would feel like some large blocky dark grey polygon. why that specifically?? iunno this is how my brain works. this is how i thought the revelation of queerness being fit into my brain would feel like

i thought it would especially feel weirder cause i had basically forced myself to be aro/ace for multiple years to spite my parents. like i didnt even realize i was doing it to spite my parents until now. right as im writing this by the way. are you proud of me for realizing something all by myself. anyways shoutout to aro/ace people you guys are awesome. manifesting you guys garlic bread

anyways. i thought it would be weirder. i thought it would feel as foreign to me as to someone who is openly homophobic. not saying i am (obviously im Not) just saying that i thought it just. would feel different. like i could tell it was trying to fit in my brain and it couldnt really so it had to find Some way to fit with duct tape and glue. i thought id just be able to sense when i "turned" gay in some way yaknow. i cant really explain this properly my bad

but like. then one day some dam just breaks and im like "holy shit. i need to go confess my feelings. i Have to i dont think i can physically keep it in my body" and its funny because i had no idea i even felt those feelings. and i absolutely Did Not confess my feelings with an intense dramatic declaration of love. im pretty sure i just went "i think im metaphorically sick" and then chernobyl pastry system decided to test something (saying i love you to me) and then my brain broke. and now i have a wonderful partner whom i love very much (two wonderful partners?? i mean theres charlotte and chernobyl was the one to say rot loved me the first time so id think so. right. i should probably talk to chernobyl about that im scratching my chin here. cause like i was still deeply confused about what me and charlotte were so i guess i gotta do that whole confusion tango again with chernobyl. huzzah!!! /silly)

and like. it just felt natural to like girls. it just worked. there was no "i like GIRLS????" or "this is gay this is weird" or anything of the sort. it was just "i like girls" and that was that. it just worked. it fit. it felt like it was always there so no wonder it fit. it was just. natural for me. yeah i like girls. yeah end of story. no questioning or "i cant be gay my parents will make fun of me" or any mental conversion therapies of the sort. it just worked. it felt like nothing changed. it was as natural and Right to me as breathing. which is pretty cool 👍👍

so yeah. anyways thats it. yurp. back to hiding from the Impending Doom 😊😊😊

[fujobritta]

1am braddavid rant

i feel like brad doesnt really have any romantic attraction to people . hes always been kind of aro to me so with david its a Fascination . a proclivity . hes deeply attached to him in a way that is purely out of just . interest . not romantic or even always something sexual its just that david is His person, idk how to explain it . brads attachment to david just isnt really ever romantic to me . maybe like mildly sexual but its mostly kind of just ... obsession ? david is so boring and basic yet still so interesting and wholly unlike anyone hes ever met and he wants to have that with him at all times

i suppose that translates into love in some form but brads love is definitely very, very different from david's . something more visceral and instinctual and harder to comprehend than pure romantic attraction to the point where it kind of ties back into being romantic but also not really ? david's love is kind of just like Yay i love kissing my darling boyfriend ^_^ and brad's love is like You are a weird little prey animal that has crawled its way into the confines of my mind and i am going to lock you in there forever and ever and i dont especially like you all that much but i find you odd in a way that enraptures me deeply and i would choose you over anyone else.

well . davids is still more complex than that but its definitely a different tune ... its romantic and sort of . dog-like . he likes having someone to hold his leash and being married is essentially a leash between you and another person and he Craves for that to come back to him . which is also why i think baksbee is kind of perfect for the both of them because brad needs ownership and david needs to be owned . which makes it seem kind of like some sort type of weird bdsm nonsense that frankly brad is probably into but its really just kind of sweet to me

because they kind of fill a hole in eachother ? not like that . well kind of like that sometimes LOL but they fit so perfectly together like theyre so perfect for one another :( frankly theyre exactly what the other wants . someone loyal who will always be there to direct x an ownable predictable commodity

and about david its like . how do i explain it . i had a david piece titled Reject Humanity where he was just on like four different leashes held by brad, his ex wife & jane, montreal, and ian . and like . thats what hes like to me . he Needs to be held on a leash by everyone else because he doesnt want to think for himself . and i think its because he spent so much of his childhood being told very specifically how to think or feel or act and hes gotten to a point where he cannot function without instructions . he needs people to tell him what to do because he doesnt know how to act otherwise

in a way brad parallels that similarly except he manages that struggle by telling other people how to behave or taking control over them as a means to cope with being controlled so deeply in his childhood in a fairly similar way to david

which . and this might seem like a drastic turn but frankly i never really see it as anything especially pornographic i just think it speaks to their characters in a very specific way . but its why i cant really comprehend top david . like whatever top doesnt equal dominant but the concept still makes me sick because it just doesnt feel Right for brad to allow that level of control over him and i dont think it would feel right to david either, to have any amount of control over his situations . which i mean frankly i think hed enjoy having some amount of control in his life but id rather that manifest as power bottom david because brad still needs some leverage in his desire to have control in any possible situation

but idk . i feel like in a way he definitely Is in love with david but its not . something comprehendible to anyone . including brad . its not quite romantic in the conventional sense . its just a fascination . an unwittingly formed attachment to someone who on the surface seems like the blandest most uninteresting person hes ever met . and honestly i just want the show to let them be friends again because theyre so wonderful even without the romance because brads love for david will always be there regardless of anything because hes always gonna be weird and obsessed with him for no reason and i think it really showed in s2 when they were being friends-ish . whatever its late and im tired and i probably sound delusional and no ones gonna read this but i dont care i miss them so so so so so bad :(

[beatcroc]

Can you elaborate further on ena selfcest hatesex please

teehee.

honestly the plan was to just drop it once i got to it and provide 0 explanation but i should know by now im bad at being sneaky and keeping my mouth shut so this post is now about how we got here and what im trying to accomplish.

so first off i feel it is necessary context to say i have developed something of a conceptual fascination with ena nsfw. not an actual interest; i have no desire to actually see or search any out, but...the idea of it. like. i know there is A Metric Shitton of it out there, so what's going on with all that? what are the appeals? how are people taking this, by all measures rather mystifying sort of being, and making it something they can fuck? are people trying to downplay it, or are they having fun exploring the bizzare nature of ena both as a character and series in this context? these are not questions i especially care about the answers to, but they are fun to ponder and discuss as theoreticals. i have been doing a lot of this also in addition to the regular game analysis, so i suppose i was bound to get the wires crossed eventually.

that being said @ real analysis it's honestly kind of hard to explain if you have not played dream bbq, and really even if you haven't been in on ena since earlier on? but most of it is just that coming out of the webseries, the dynamic for how the salesperson/meanie sides on dbbq ena work feels very drastically different than how the happy/sad sides did on og ena. the split for og ena was pretty straightforward in that they were just two emotions she just tended to wildly oscillate between on the regular, but game ena..... she simultaneously is much more put together and yet feels far more in contention with herself and how she presents. despite being the more mellow side of her presentation, salesperson is an extremely dominant personality; whereas happy/sad feel very balanced in their oscillations, meanie ena feels like she only ever comes out to get some words in edgewise in decisive moments when it Means Something.

it's probably not a stretch to say ena sides are meant to be 'opposites' in some way [as opposed to just any pair of personalities]. happy/sad again are straightforward and manifest more just as conflicting reactions/perspectives, but despite her capriciousness, og ena still always feels Genuine in her displays. salesperson/meanie are unified both in goal and in the path to it, but the opposites aspect comes up in her approach. the best way i can define them is in terms of "how altruistic is she willing to pretend to be today?", to which the ends are "all bullshit" and "no bullshit". salesperson just feels disingenuous when put against anything meanie says, and ena is in fact most consistently called "dishonest" or "a cheater" when being insulted by other characters. all of this to say: when meanie is out it is very clearly her Actual Real Feelings on a situation, but again, it is so rare for meanie to be out under normal circumstances. there is literally only one character she does not approach as salesperson, and i Have to infer it's because he's the only one who is immediately aggressive towards her. og ena is certainly more unstable, but despite one of those primary emotions being labelled as "sad", game ena still feels far more unhappy.

there also appears to be some weirdness between them when it comes to addressing her past and how much she does or does not regret doing whatever the hell she did but i think im staring to get off-topic. you get the point im making by now. there is tangible friction between salsperson and meanie. is she deliberately suppressing meanie? is salesperson deliberately suppressing meanie? it is all very strange and alarming and it almost makes me want to question how the sides of an ena even work.

but anyway to bring it all around: no there is not actually any "real" "logical" "narrative" place for horny business with ena stuff, i'm just fucking around. but approaching it from the angle of "what would be the most character-intensive way to do nsfw here?", i think it would be simply be making her confront herself; exploring the dynamic and the tension between her sides and how she uses them. i went on a lot about unspoken contention between her sides, but there's also a bit of it that is, for spoilers' sake, let's just say Very Bluntly Spelled Out. ergo: hatesex. and then also of course whole fuckin point of the design and character of ena is its two guys who are one guy... or two halves of a whole, more accurately. the halves are also pretty substantial on their own, so this makes it very natural to just make them two separate guys while still technically being the same guy. ergo: selfcest.

also i get to make this stupid joke

so there u go

[sonic-takeover]

Happy pride!!! 🌈

Let's hear some of y'all's coming out stories!!

He-Heyyy, happy pride!! This is my first one actually. But uh... You guys already know my story, eheheh~

It was because of me.

Yep~ Shads is the one who made me realize I'm not just into the ladies. In case there's anyone new here who doesn't know, though, I'm bi!

I'm gay. I have never been attracted to women, so I knew pretty early. As a child, I liked Elvis very much. It wasn't until I became familiar with the current time, however, that I had a word for it.

Elvis?? Oh my chaos~

Yes. Shut up.

Hey, happy pride!! Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's already here! So I'm bi, and I found out when I was a kid, maybe around 12? I had this friend growing up who I had a really big crush on, and she was a girl. But it wasn't until I met Sonic that I realized my feelings for her felt the same as my feelings for him. It took me some time to understand and accept myself, but now I'm out and proud, hehe!

I have not considered these things. But I am in support of Amy and her friends. From my understanding, that makes me an ally.

Mhm~! My favorite ally in the world~ *She kisses his cheek*

I have had what I thought were brief crushes on men before, but I have since discovered that feeling to be admiration, not attraction. I am solely attracted to women. As for my story... I did not seek romance for most of my life. I was too busy. I did, however have a lady's maid I would sneak off with to kiss. I did not understand at the time what that meant. When I met Silver, I believed myself to have feelings for him at first, but when I compared that to how I felt for her and for Amy, I understood the difference. Silver is merely an admirable teammate and good friend. It also takes me some time to realize my feelings, so perhaps... Demiromantic lesbian?

Omnisexual~ For me, attraction is attraction, regardless of gender. I do prefer women, though~ Men are more fun to flirt with, but women have my heart, hehe~ Especially one woman~

Aww, haha! I'm a lesbian. I've known since I was a kid. It's just always been girls for me. But I've never found a girl I liked as much as Rouge here~

*Rouge giggles and kisses her cheek* My story, dear, is a fun one. I discovered my skills in flirtation when I was starting off being a thief, and eventually realized I found every kind of subject cute, no matter what their gender was. I thought I was pan for a very long time, but eventually I realized I preferred women. It was when I dated Topaz that I accepted it.

I'm pan!!! I'm into all sorts of people, and it all feels basically the same as far as attraction! I found out when I moved into the bigass house and started thinking about love! Now I know myself and have a bunch of flags all over my room, hehe~!

Oh, uh.. I don't really know! I just kinda like who I like, I guess. Back in my old timeline, we didn't use labels like this, so it feels really foreign to me. It wasn't something people cared about, I guess? They just accepted it. But I do know I like Espio! That's all I need :)

I am homosexual. I found out by accident when I was a teenager. I was dared by someone I knew to kiss a boy as a prank, but I found I enjoyed it. A few crises later, I realized I had only ever had real crushes on guys. I'm still very private about my sexuality, but I do not believe I hide it well. I have sometimes met people who somehow automatically knew. Perhaps I give off a "vibe," as Silver would call it.

I do not see the purpose of this. My life is that of a warrior. I am the guardian of the Master Emerald, I do not seek distractions such as these! I have never felt these feelings as my companions describe. Amy has told me that means I am the "aro of ace."

((Hi! I realized Shadow was a kid before Prince was a thing, so I changed his childhood crush to Elvis. Happy Pride!! -Mod))

[gutterclan-after-dark]

‼️‼️I am gay and transgender ‼️‼️ I am not criticizing anyone just mentioning some stuff I've noticed in a literary analysis sort of way I am not trying to start discourse‼️‼️

Anyway. One of my clangen cats just rolled as trans (yay) & it's got me thinking like.

What is it to write cats with gender variance in a world that is essentially post-gender (to the extent that any of us, having been raised from birth saturated in the unconscious stew of gendered thinking, can write something that is 'post-gender').

I've noticed that the vast majority of work in the warrior cats space does seem to strive to have complete equality between the sexes- and not just equality, but complete indistinguishably. I've even seen audiences routinely forget what gender a character even IS (which is kind of delightful). Toms raise litters, mollies become leaders, there is no friction, commentary, noticeable difference.

And that's fine- I'm more or less going that route with Gutterclan- but in a world where this is no social or material difference between the sexes- what does gender variance mean? How does it function? Where does it come from? What does being transgender mean in a world where gender identity does not really exist (or at least is not differentiated- there is One gender, and it is warrior cat*), and physical transition is not possible? Is it just a matter of pronouns?

What need for gender neutral pronouns in a world where essentially all things are already gender neutral? Is it just dysphoria? Do trans tortoiseshell toms hate their orange patches, or do trans mollies feel self conscious about their stud jowls? That's sort of miserable, if the only thing that being trans is, is having a problem with yourself that can't be solved.

And what does sexuality mean, when gender barely exists, and sex essentially doesn't? There is romance in warrior cats, for sure, but sex doesn't really... exist in most warrior cats works, and it definitely doesn't exist in the canon books. Which is absurd to say, because people are always having kittens, and accidental litters are a constant plot tangle, but there is never a sense of how these things occur. Being mates means you sit together at mealtimes and rub cheeks and get sad when the other person dies, and sometimes kittens appear after a timeskip.

This is of course due to the age range of the books, and because the main characters are animals. And I don't think it's a problem in need of changing, but it does make trying to conceive of sexuality strange in this world.

What does being asexual mean when no cats ever really display a sexual desire? What does being a lesbian mean where there functionally is no difference between mollies and toms? (Aros get to stay, the WC conception of romance ports more or less 1:1 from our world).

I do believe that sexuality and gender are to a certain extent innate, but they are also deeply, deeply shaped by our society's conceptions. Which is to say, eg, only desiring relationships with other women is perhaps innate, but the identity of Lesbian is constructed (which is not to say it isn't real- like, currency is a social construct, and we wouldn't say it's fake, or that it lacks power over us, etc). So what does it mean to have those labels in a world that- ostensibly- lacks much of the very human, very 21st century, very western, social baggage that creates them? And the answer is basically one of two things:

you do a lot of baroque gender worldbuilding. For your warrior cats fan work (which! Honestly kind of bangs and I would like to see).

People like to see themselves reflected in fiction, and the reason that we have pansexual cats and grey-ace cats and demi-boy cats is more or less because we have those things in real life, and we say the cats are those things and so they are, even if their history & context of gender and sexuality are completely different from ours, and likely wouldn't have created the same labels.

And there's nothing wrong with either of those approaches! I'm more or less going to go with approach 2 in Gutterclan, which just small switches in terminology, but I find it sort of... unsatisfying, the more I turn it over

*I put this question to my buddy Goose & he posited that the space that gender roles serve for us are, in warrior cats, essentially occupied by narrative roles. Leader, warrior, med cat, even things like villain or loner. I am nodding at this proposal very vigorously. In a world without gender, is the angst of a medicine cat apprentice longing to be a warrior not a sort of transgender longing to fit a different societal role than the one you are coercively assigned?

Anyway. I still don't know how to make my cat trans.

[stupidlittlespirit]

I totally dig the whole ford aroace hc, but at the end of the speech alex gave, he said "but you know, when we were doing gravity falls, gay marriage had only like, just been legalized" wouldnt this kind of imply ford was trying to ignore something a little different? i dont know, what do you think? could you try to explain what alex said in your own words so i can understand better? i think im def reading it wrong... and you're the smartest person i know when it comes to writing and ford LOL. i like hearing your rambles about aroace topics. bc im on that spectrum myself, you unknowingly explained a lot of things to me I didnt know about myself, like, multiple times 🤣 you dont have to reply to this if u dont want to btw, just ignore it. i wont be offended

I think first and foremost, the most important thing to pay attention to is that Alex states in that interview that if you identify with Ford as a queer person, that's great, he wants you to be able to see yourself reflected in his characters. No matter what your queer identity is! So, you can see him as gay or bi or ace or aro or trans or whatever you like, because that's the beauty of interpretation! No one is singularly right.

I believe Alex made reference to the gay marriage thing just because of the topic of queerness in Disney shows in general. At the time, it had only just been legalised so it was unlikely you'd be able to push a big network as far as getting a major character to show ANY sign of queer identity. Not one specific one. I think he was just kind of saying it in general as a reference point for how unlikely it was to have queer characters in things (and aces ARE queer, no matter their romantic attraction preference. Aros are also queer despite having no attraction.)

In reference to Ford's attraction and his lack thereof, Alex says that quote: "for all people on all sides of the gender and sexuality equation, the idea of '...I'm not sure what this part of myself is, so I'm going to fixate on something I can understand..... as long as I'm doing this, then I don't have to focus on that'."

and I think that's something that rings true for ALL queer people.

The reason I (tongue in cheek sort of) said that about him being canon ace is because Alex compares Ford to Tesla, who was infamously 'celibate' and was outspoken about his distaste for romance/sex across the board. Tesla is known as being ace. Alex describes Ford as having a similar reaction to Tesla when it comes to attraction: 'I really thought of Ford kind of like Tesla in that realm. He is distant.'

I know Alex uses women as a specific descriptor in that passage, but I think that's because Tesla spoke about women most often because heteronormativity (and was very sexist about it at times, but considering the time period, whatever). Tesla does state that he fell 'in love' with one girl, but I don't think it's ever been expanded on for what type of love.

Tesla is never described as having had relationships with men OR women. There's a chance he was gay ace, bi ace, or just aroace. We'll never know, and there's not really any reason to try and sus out someone else's sexuality, but it reads to me that he was someone who was just aroace and Not Interested. He had his science and that was all he wanted.

That sounds exactly like canon Ford.

So the comparison to Ford rings strongly of him being Asexual first and foremost. Then, when you align it with the other clues in Journal 3, it really speaks very strongly to me that Ford is ace. I mean, he keeps a fucking photo of Tesla on his desk! And he outright says that he has this picture whereas Fidds has one of his wife and child, and that's confusing to Ford. He doesn't understand it.

He doesn't want to 'settle down' or 'start a family' as Fidds suggests. He never has crushes on people. He never expresses sexual or romantic attraction to anyone. He loves, but never in a romantic capacity. He admires, but in an educational context.

Also, in TBoB, Bill teases Ford for dreaming of a sexuality quiz that asks him 'what are you most attracted to?'. Ford answers: Logic and planning........ And Bill again teases him with the Plansexual line. If that doesn't scream Ace, I don't know what does.

I think for me personally too, I have been (and am in) Ford's position. I spent so long burying my head in the sand about being asexual because I truly believed there was something wrong with me. I was told there was. I've even sought out conversion therapy (never went through with it, but felt like I should at the time).

Ford's running from his true feelings in that sense is very much a mirror to my own. And I think that mirrors many queer people's experiences. So, to go back to what I opened with: if you want to see him as gay specifically, you can! I want to see him as ace, so I will! He isn't a real person, so you can project yourself onto him. That's okay to do :)

And I'm glad that my answers have helped you, by the way! That's a really sweet thing to know and I'm really glad some of the stupid stuff I yap about has helped you haha <3

[lordofthesoups]

looking directly at you. i am opening this can of worms. tell me

Ok, i needed to warn you beforehand though. For some reason i had to warn you in a cryptic and convoluted method, i think i was possessed.

Noel/kayne aka divine punishment bc in typical malev ship fashion it needs a strange over dramatic ship name. 

This is a relatively small ship, i got into it in October and refused to shut up about it because i got brainworms (my greatest achievement is that there are now 13 fics on ao3 from the 3 that were there in October, 3 of these are my doing- anyway thats my showing off done).

I also would like to specify that when i say ship i mean it more as the pair of them as dynamic, i often forget that people usually use ship to refer to romance. My interpretation of them is definitely a more weird take on it , ship is used as shorthand for the pair of them interacting (personally i think Noel is slightly ace-spec and Kayne as an outer god has no understanding of anything like the human concept of love ..due to not being human — yes i did shove my aro-ness at kayne because i love him and no one can stop me). 

OK now onto the fun bit. Theres lots of “versions” of them which each lead to slightly different scenarios and interactions between them. Everything i list will include my own interpretations of the start point, there are more interpretations and ideas than the ones here but these two are the main ones.

The most common (at least the one that the first fic of them was based off of and then became a slight baseline for them) version of them is based off the idea that it was Kayne who got Charlie out of the prison pits, either by breaking him out himself or sending Lorick. This means that more of part 40 is orchestrated, Kayne being the one who told him to look for Jarthur. It also means that Charlie was not alone for those 2 years after the dreamlands. This both gives and takes away some of his stability since he has a constant figure in his regrowth back into a person but that figure is kayne who is not a constant person at all and wildly unpredictable. It also gives them a rather close relationship, with both the typical power imbalance that comes with Kayne but also potentially Noels gratitude for being freed from the king. A constant throughout a lot of this is the idea that noel belives himself safe with kayne bc of both his power and the fact hes certain the king could not play kayne due to kaynes kayneness. Often this situation is alongside some sort of deal that Noel made with Kayne (usually for vengeance against the king) 

The second most common one is that Kayne talked to Noel after part 40 and the two of them made a deal then. This makes the two of them a newer situation where neither of them but especially noel knows where the line is. Its exploratory prodding at Noel and Noel in turn biting back at Kayne (let me tell you how excited i was/an about the insolent detective line). Noel is much less likely to go along with Kayne than he would be where hes known kayne for a long time. A common idea alongside this is that Noel was kept as a backup if Jarthur failed to get the blackstone, he has much of the same criteria as Jarthur (has seen but not touched the greystone, is a detective with knowledge of the eldritch and specifically the king). 

A subsection of both of these that can fit in with but is not nessesary is the idea that the pyramid with the greystone was that of the black pharaoh aka a nyarlathotep avatar and that Kayne or at least a Nyarlathotep was there when Noel stole the stone. It depends on the story as to how much of an interaction this was. 

Dynamic wise its not love. There is no love here theres not hate either. It isnt a romance. I imagine Kayne is more forthcoming with Noel than he is with Arthur, not about anything that might be useful to kayne but when around arthur the god is blinded by obsession, this is not a problem when around Noel. He’s interested in him and Noel passes the time but hes no arthur, noel also knows this. He also knows that whatever kayne has about arthur is different to what the god has about him, it doesnt stop it hurting slightly, the hurt also hurts, why should he care? I like to hc that kayne is the only person who can get Noel out of his spiralling without having to resort to shaking him out of it, simply talking at him until he returns to himself (occasionally they can be sweet), plus noel couldnt hurt him unless he wants him to even if it did go wrong. It can also work as a way of noel working through his memories of the king, my favourite things with them is the idea of kayne reopening old scars and “taking them for himself” setting the memory in a better light, plus kayne is a god who he can hurt as well as plot with against the king. Theres a lot of noels hatred for the king at the surface here, which kayne probably keeps up to both keep him in his past and therefore around and wanting him as a reminder of his life without the king. Creating this idea that noels life is either with the king or with kayne (this works better in a situation of the first). Its also fun when Noel gets the better of kayne and the fact kayne does actually want the detective around even though he tries to hide it. Basically theyre fucked up and fun to work through the layers of lies and manipulation to this core of caring about the other even if that method is weird and abnormal (we all know that noel’s idea of of a normal way of showing affection is also gonna be fucked up bc of the king, and kayne also is a healthy outlet for any part of him he deems inhuman/a consequence of the king) 

I have not re-read all of this but i hope it makes sense. Would you believe me if i said i tried to keep it brief?