#if anyone comes to my inbox to try and tell me aces aren't queer i will fly to your house and dump cat shit in your bed

[thesherrinfordfacility]

https://thesherrinfordfacility.tumblr.com/post/727753998120140800

I was generally asking/ranting. Your ramble made perfect sense and I do agree with pretty much all of it. I have more I must rant about though and I hope you don't mind me throwing this all in your inbox. It's not aimed at you specifically, don't worry.

Why did this fandom decide Neil suddenly thinks Aziraphale and Crowley are not in love just because he said two scenes were not sexual? The oxribs could be taken that way if you want, but it wasn't written to be. The kiss had nothing at all to do with sex and everything to do with a desperate being trying to make the person he loves understand. Neil saying neither of those situations were sexual does not mean Crowley and Aziraphale are not in love. He's said the opposite, along with both Michael and David, far too many times for years now for anyone to believe that. And yet here we are.

Just a few weeks ago we were praising the kiss as smashing the queerbaiting allegations and now half the fandom is right back to saying he's never really thought they were a romance. Insisting that because he thought the idea was odd several years ago it must mean he's lying about it now. That he and Terry didn't plan it this way since at least 2006. Or, even worse, that he thinks gay sex is gross and would never put anything like that in without being manipulated into it.

Because he said sometimes an oxrib is just an oxrib and a desperate attempt at communication wasn't at all sexual.

It's been giving off very strong feelings of "this queer romance doesn't count unless they have sex" goalpost shifting. We've already had more than enough proof that Aziracrow are completely in love, but unless they have sex then Neil's just a queerbaiting liar? Do people not realize how alienating that is to read as an ace fan, even one who wouldn't mind a fun sex scene?

It's also spitting in the face of a man who's been an ardent ally for longer than most of this fandom's been alive.

This rant is about people telling me I'm wrong for supporting this beautiful queer love story because two male-presenting characters aren't having sex and so it doesn't actually count as a queer romance. This is about people telling me I'm wrong for supporting the man who gave us this incredible story because he said two scenes aren't sexual in nature and so he is nothing but a manipulative liar. This rant isn't about defending Neil. He doesn't need me or anyone else to do that.

(for anyone that wants it, a direct link to the previous ask anon has copied above)

hi again anon!!!✨ personal thanks from me - im always humbled (and never have any objection to) when someone feels they can come to my askbox with these kind of commentaries, it really does make me so happy that they feel they can!

i just do occasionally worry if sometimes what im reading as an upset/angry tone (not saying yours was, it was just how i read it!) is a direct result of something ive said/done. so again, thanks for calming my anxiety surrounding that, and popping back to clarify!!!

now idk, by nature of this being a rant, if you wanted to get any answers from me or my opinion, but you're on my boat and im the captain, so it's a bit tough-titties im afraid💕 and once again, will probably repeat a few things you've put more succinctly than i have, but fuck it.

honestly? i cant even begin to give you a basic answer, anon, because i just... don't get it. i think from the tweet exchange that (kinda?) blew up, people took neil saying, "Why did you see it as sexual?" a little bit out of context. to my mind, the op of that tweet literally referenced "The very end of season 2", and that's what neil was responding to (and later confirmed in an ask); the kiss was never intended as sexual, exactly as you've said.

i think possibly some have read it as him being shitty about the concept of sex and specifically in reference to aziraphale and crowley, cross-referenced this with other things he has said (again, more than likely never meant in the context they're being interpreted), and arrived at the above conclusion. it's strange to me, because he has categorically stated that their relationship is intended by him as the co-author as a romantic one. at the very least.

now, he (and sir terry) may not have personally intended them to be romantic at the beginning. but a) neil has been very representative of queer culture and identifications in his other work; the queer element in GO is not exactly strange to be coming from him (ie it's not a bolt out of the blue, and therefore would be potentially performative or queerbaity). and b) as i said in the previous ask, there is a lot of queer representation in GO, of all different types, including gay/lesbian rep. it's not just aziraphale and crowley that are queer in the story, and therefore easily deniable - that's literally not the case. so i do not understand, on this basis, where people can draw the inference that he is homophobic. i just can't - that's a pretty hefty con to have played for so long and so diligently.

i think, from what ive seen, that one of the things that people take issue with is neil's assertion that as supernatural beings, any label as to their sexuality or gender (and how one informs the other) is not applicable to them. i think this has been seen as dismissive of aziraphale and crowley being gay and/or potentially having a sexual relationship. in my opinion, this assertion is narratively clever. first of all - no, they are not human, so on a very base level, sexuality and gender as constructs do not apply to them. they are originally gender/sexless. but this i think only serves to show that aziraphale and crowley are multiple things, and none of those things, all at once. they can be anything you want or interpret them to be, until expressly told otherwise in canon.

on screen, their faces and physiques and chosen presentation however, to my mind, present as human males. but, being crass, we do not know what genitalia or body parts they may or may not have at any given time. they have never described their sexualities (although, in aziraphale's case, assumptions have been made by others). so if you want to interpret them as cis, or intersex, or trans, or non-binary (including non-binary, genderfluid, agender, or bigender), arguably all of those are correct! the only confirmations we have had, iirc, are that, between them, they have used "he/him" pronouns, used the title "Mr", crowley has confirmed he is not a 'lad', and he has previously presented as female. no, human constructs do not technically apply to them, but that leaves their gender and sexuality open to interpretation. i personally hc aziraphale as a cisgender, gay male, and crowley as a non-binary, but usually male-presenting, bisexual person. others may agree, others may not. that the beauty of it!

narratively, these are two supernatural creatures that are, however, going more and more native - they have assimilated to and absorbed a lot of how humans present themselves and interact with each other, on multiple levels. as supernatural beings, they are practically alpha centauri itself (genderless, non-human things that are in a constant orbit and relationship with each other - and then throw in the fact that they love each other deeply). as supernatural-beings-that-have-been-on-earth-for-millennia, however, they are arguably becoming more like what i mentioned above - human. this to me, personally, means that they may identify as male and nb respectively, and may identify as gay and bisexual respectively, and (again, imo) i think would - at this stage - be open-minded to the act of sex. but as i said, once again, in my previous ask - it's perfectly valid if others do not interpret their journey this way.

This rant is about people telling me I'm wrong for supporting this beautiful queer love story because two male-presenting characters aren't having sex and so it doesn't actually count as a queer romance. This is about people telling me I'm wrong for supporting the man who gave us this incredible story because he said two scenes aren't sexual in nature and so he is nothing but a manipulative liar. This rant isn't about defending Neil. He doesn't need me or anyone else to do that.

about the above specifically? im really sorry that you're being faced with this, anon. that is grossly and completely unfair. i don't think you necessarily need me to tell you this, but in case you do - imo, you are completely reasonable and justified for reading them as a queer romantic couple that, canonically, have not had sex (and that this has no bearing on their love story). romance and sex are not the same thing, one can and does exist without the other, and the concept of that separation is not deserving of being pathologised. whilst neil certainly doesn't need anyone to defend him, i think it is always still nice to support the author that has written a story this beautiful, symbolic, and illustrative - and imo, not deliberately misunderstand what he has or hasn't said✨

[thegeminisage]

I'm curious: in your personal reading of Cas as ace, do you also consider him another orientation (romantic or sexual)? For me personally, I consider him gay and ace, or sometimes gay-oriented aroace.

this is a good question actually lol. most of me wants to say that cas is gay and ace because he did canonically fall in love w/ another man and it means a lot to people to call him the gay angel even though i think he’s the ace angel so like gay ace is a v good compromise i think. ace angel handshake emoji gay angel you know!

however (unpopular opinion warning) i do have a little trouble with meg. with every other woman cas is around he either doesn’t have any chemistry (hannah, daphne), it’s CLEARLY a platonic relationship (kelly), or it’s clearly some kind of comphet weirdness (the orgies in 5.04, the reaper in s9 which also counts as rape in my book). w/ meg though his affection seemed both genuine and...i know but... ??? borderline romantic ??? hard to say. it definitely doesn’t negate or cancel out the obvious and canonical feelings he had for dean, but he liked her! he was dtf! in a way that was very different from his thing with the reaper in cursed season 9.

so like: ??? ace and gay and willing to bang a lady anyway maybe? like because when you’re ace you’re not physically attracted to ANYBODY, so it’s impossible to be physically attracted to whoever you’re banging - ace people have sex for other reasons - emotional intimacy, because it feels good, w/e. so he could have been ace and gay and still willing to nonromantically bang his lady friend just as a form of affection. “biromantic” def feels like the wrong label for cas, even if you slap a “demi-” in front of it - if anything, i’d call him unoriented. 

by unoriented i mean: i myself don’t use the split attraction model bc i don’t like it. that doesn’t mean i think it’s bad in general or bad for other people, it’s just not what i like. so when i say i’m asexual that’s the whole label. my romantic orientation isn’t “aro” or “gay” or “bi” or whatever it’s that i just don’t have one. subtle but distinct difference. so i could see something like that for cas, bc what is he there for if not to project on. he fell in love w/ dean because dean is dean (and in “like” w/ meg because meg is meg) and his orientation or lack thereof had nothing to do with it, you know?

this is NOT EVEN GETTING INTO the secret essay i have on how angel sexuality is totally different than human sexuality - because the taboo is to be attracted to humans, and gender has nothing to do with it - this is ALSO because angel gender is probably totally different than human gender, and human gender is totally fucking made up anyway - male seahorses have the babies, you know? it’s not that defining sexuality and gender is bad (labels are good because they help people be comfortable with themselves and find other people with similar experiences!) but we put the label on the experience, we don’t try to make the experience fit the label.

anyway, the point of all this to say that sexuality is weird and complicated (even moreso when you’re talking about the aro and ace spectrum, even MORE SO when you remember that the way we classify it seems to be somewhat arbitrarily based on gender, which again is kind of a fake concept that we made up), and it seems a liiiittle pointless to try and like, qualify cas’s romantic orientation when the sum total of his romantic feelings (except for MAYBE the .1% of genuine connection he had w/ meg) are just wholly devoted to and laser-focused on dean. like, CANONICALLY, castiel loves dean winchester to the total exclusion of other people. what else really matters, yk

that said, dean happens to be male and cas happens to be in a male vessel, so yes, technically the factual thing to say is that he’s gay and ace because that fits canon, it makes the people who him being gay has meaning for happy, and it also keeps exclusionists on tumblr from calling you homophobic. (apparently headcanoning a gay character as being aspec is homophobic even though the two are not at all mutually exclusive and being aspec isn’t code for being straight because aces ARE queer?? bro don’t even get me started lol)

sorry anon this answer got way longer than intended! but yeah i do think cas is queer like twice over - firstly because he loves a human (angel queer), and secondly because he loves one of his own gender (human queer). you might also say he’s some kind of genderqueer too based on your interpretation of angel genders (???) vs the gender cas became when he decided to stick around in jimmy (male, ostensibly, but many other headcanons work for that too). he’s like queer squared. and i love him. my rainbow angel <3

[spn masterpost]