#mainly romantic/qpr based!!!!

[takescrackseriously]

Can aromantic people please explain what it's like for an aromantic person to romatically date and be in romantic relationships?

Like, how do they differ from those from allos? Do they still do gestures considered romantic? Is it mainly based off of alterous attraction or can it be from romantic attraction? How would an aro dating an allo work?

One of the aro characters I'm writing might be in a romantic realtionship, therefore I want to correctly represent what an aro dating would look like.

(If this questions are considered rude, please let me know)

(not referring to qpr, specifically romantic)

Thank you to everyone who answered. It genuinely helped give me a better perspective on this type of thing :D

[pickastitch]

Hai i want to listen to you talk about gem again. Any thoughts on empires s1 gem ? (If u already told me then tell me again plz n thank u <3 )

confession time, the s1 e!gem that is always brainrotting is pretty different from canon s1 e!gem (from what i can remember) so i'm going to talk about my pantheon au version of gem

i like to think gem would say, "it's free to be a hater" after sausage or fwhip does some stupid shit. on a more serious note, i feel there has to be some genuine resentment towards them two for dragging her into their bs, even if it's not a lot it is there. gem killing sausage in that one important lore bit was so cathartic to her

gem really admires katherine mainly because of how non involved she is with everything. she always feels the need to help everyone (see my gem character analysis post), and the fact that katherine just steps back is enviable to her

in my head, gem also uses a lot more fire magic than she does in the series; this contracts nicely with katherine's nature magic. gandalf, her cat, will decide if they like a person or not, and that will be gem's first impression of a person. it's quite hard to break from it too

now i'm going to dip in to some hc s8 territory, but it will come back to esmp s1. at the start of the series, gem has no clue she is bi and false is actually her gay awakening. gem looks up to her a lot, and she watches her run away and leave her friends behind. this leads to her reaction during the rapture (season ending), where she only takes fwhip because he directly asked, instead of helping out everybody. like come on, they both fly away on their base defining organic

fwhip and gem were royalty, but because gender roles, their parents were forcing gem to be king (trans roseblings tust), gem felt like her only option was to run away. when she finds out about the crown made by fwhip, she is a little uncomfortable with the concept but doesn't say anything. though when others try to convince her she should get it gem is beyond pissed

before she ran away, pearl showed her all about rifts (it has something to do with amethyst shards, but that's a whole different post) and offers to take her to hermitcraft, which she refuses. until she wants to run away and then goes to the place she wants to set up her village and then goes to another world while everyone is searching for her

gem's relationship with shrub is very unique because she so wants to just yell at them for bringing xornoth to the overworld and then spreading it across her place. on the other hand, she sees herself in them as someone who also ran away from home. but then that gets ruined when she is infected with xornoth via shrub

when she still lived with her family, pearl and sausage lived in neighboring empires, and they all grew up together. gem and sausage dated a bit when they were really young, so they are exs on technicality. most of her romantic feelings have gone away, but whenever sausage firts with her, a crush appears for a day and then goes away. she hates this more than anything else. then they grow up, and gem realizes she likes women and then realize she likes pearl specifically. and then pearl and sausage get together (actually qpr, but gem doesn't know that), and she swears off of romance

and the connection to the void and the end and all that stuff is a pretty important part of this au but ehhhh y'know

[teecupangel]

Have you ever read the Vox Populi series on AO3 by Aelwyn? (The author lets other writer's use the original characters they created in this series for their own assassin's creed fics, so long as give the Aelwyn credit in the A/N's.)

I find Desmond relationship dynamic with Charlie in this series very interesting. Their relationship gives me queer platonic life partners (QPR)/platonic soulmate vibes. It wouldn't surprise me if people mistake Charlie and Desmond close friendship for a romantic relationship.

So now I can't help but wonder if their friendship could of turned into a romantic relationship in a universe where event's played out differently. How to you think events of assassin's creed would have play out in a world where Desmond had someone to care about and lean on before he got taken by Abstergo?

How would Charlie's and Desmond's ancestors react to their descendents being in a romantic relationship together? (Maybe this AU happens in a world similar to the Visitorverse series by Riona, Salanaland and VampireBadger?)

Here’s the Vox Populi series by Aelwyn. It should be noted that all works are only visible to logged in AO3 users. 

I have read Vox Populi but I haven’t caught up yet because of, well, stuff. But I do remember Charlie (mainly because his ancestor is based on the Prince from Prince of Persia and because he was the one who saved Desmond). 

Here’s Visitorverse by Riona, salanaland, and VampireBadger and you said similar so I’m going to assume we’re not making a crossover between the two series.

For this one, you mentioned that you’re wondering what a world where Desmond had someone before everything happened with Abstergo would be like so this meant that he started his relationship with Charlie before he came into Abstergo’s radar.

Now, we can go two ways with this:

Route One: Abstergo doesn’t really care about their employees and Charlie and Desmond’s relationship was kept ‘a secret’ until Abstergo started checking Desmond Miles’ background. In this setup, Charlie would be put in the ‘Might not be an Assassin but must be cautious about’ pile and he’d most probably won’t be part of the recovery team to be sent to the Grand Temple. This has the highest chance of a bad end because Desmond lived in Vox Populi’s ‘verse because of Charlie. Without him, we’ll end up in Black Flag territory with Charlie being torn with thinking that Desmond left him or Desmond is really missing. 

The other route would be:

Abstegro most probably had a regular employee check up and it’s not the annual medical one. This one is more invasive and secretive as they’re doing background checks on people who are close or becoming close to their employees. Depending on how paranoid they are, this could go as far as checking the people close to those close to their employees. Regardless of how paranoid we’re making Abstergo is, Desmond will enter their database the moment he and Charlie start to go steady.

From there, Desmond’s kidnapping is inevitable and this route will converge with the ending of the first route.

That’s where a setup similar to the Visitorverse would come into play.

For this one, we’ll keep it simple. Desmond’s visitors are his Bleeds (including Haytham). If you wish to add more, go ahead but, if you do, you risk the chance of muddling the central plot which is either rewriting Desmond’s storyline or Desmond and Charlie’s relationship.

Anyway, Desmond’s visitors would be the reason why he didn’t die. Maybe, in this setup, those who visits him will have certain POEs or be in certain locations the same time they’re visiting Desmond as he activates the device. Their connection is what saves Desmond and he lives (up to you if Desmond loses his visitors in the process or not). 

In this one, either we let Desmond leave the Grand Temple unscathed or we go for the opening of Vox Populi and Abstergo’s Recovery Team finds him, only to be surprised when he ‘wakes’ up and they take him to an Abstergo facility of your choosing. This is where the route can get very close to Vox Populi as Desmond can go to Sofia Rikkin’s facility and the only one missing is Charlie in that setup. If you don’t want to go down that route, Philadelphia facility is still up and running during that time and Dr Sung could be the one in charge of Desmond’s Animus session (this route will also give a chance for Desmond to save Dr Sung although their relationship would be rocky since he did kill Daniel Cross).  

Regardless, Desmond escapes the facility sooner or later and we can go down two routes once more:

Route 1: Desmond either thinks Charlie knew about him or not (or Abstergo had briefed him about Desmond). Either way, Desmond doesn’t contact Charlie for both of their safety. This could be the (downer) ending or Charlie would start looking for Desmond, asking the hard questions that leads him in hot waters. In this one, Charlie would be contacted by the Assassins who would tell him Desmond is dead and he becomes an Assassin to ‘avenge’ Desmond (while Desmond does his own thing).

Route 2: Abstergo kidnaps Charlie and uses him as bait for Desmond. Desmond saves him but he wasn’t fast enough.

In both routes, Charlie starts his Animus sessions (voluntarily in route 1, forced in route 2) and he’s already suffering from the Bleeding Effect by the time Desmond saved him.

And from there, you can have hurt/comfort and maybe fluff if you want to go down that route.

(If you removed the visitors earlier, this is the part where they returned and Charlie gets visited by his ancestors as well as something triggered when Desmond and Charlie reunited, either through an unknown POE that Desmond stole while he was saving Charlie or the power of love, take your pick. From there, we can get Altaïr and Malik being teased because of their descendants while they just take it in strides as they’re at that point in their life that they’ve become close friends. Desmond would be a little shit and call Malik ‘uncle’ but Charlie is a bit intimidated by Altaïr… in the beginning anyway)

[r0b0-writes]

One thing I recently talked about was my headcanon for SCC in a qpr. Ik I write a ton of poly content rn. Once MN is finished I plan on writing a 15 chapter fic w/ qpp!scc, less romance leaning. Mainly cuz… I love poly!scc, I do. But I wanna write other interpretations, too, ya know?

That said, I do plan on queering their platonic so bad.

I just think that SCC would be blissfully unaware of how many Cyber denizens would be speculating on if they’re dating or just friends. And it’d kinda be like… both.

They’re best friends who are dating but not in the tradition romantic way BUT ALSO not in a strictly platonic way. It’s both. It can be both.

Anywho, I’m excited to start working on the new fic eventually. I’ve been trying to work on the notes and world-building aspects mainly cuz the fic is more based in my canon interpretations.

[ask-trans-mmj]

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial RP blog, unaffiliated with the general PJSK RP lore.

[PT: Disclaimer: This is an unofficial RP blog, unaffiliated with the general PJSK RP lore. /end PT]

🧡💙🩷🩵

Hiya, folks!!! Airi Momoi here to help introduce our newest venture: "Ask Trans MMJ!" -💝

This is an ask blog where we can communicate with you all directly, as well as talk about our idol experience. In particular, three out of the four of us have a lot to say about how being transgender has impacted our endeavors. -🐧

Yeah yeah!! I thought this would be a good site to do it, since a lotta kids my age are on here!! I figure that branching out is always a good thing... -🪽

Still, I was surprised to see Minori choose this site of all places! I've never used it before, so please bear with me as I adjust! -🍵

Please look forward to more from More More Jump! -🪽🐧💝���

🧡💙🩷🩵

Welcome to the blog rule page! Please read this carefully before proceeding.

You can call me the manager/producer/whatever variant works for you! My pronouns are he/him, and my main is @femboy-luigi

This blog functions based off of the current EN story canon, with some minor divergences. Mainly, three quarters of them are trans!

Minori is deminonbinary (they/he) and transitioned at some point during his peak ASRUN fandom

Haruka is bigender (she/him; equal usage of both preferred) and transitioned after leaving ASRUN, with the most notable change being his hair getting cut short to its current style

Airi is cis (any pronouns; she/her preferred) but very, VERY gay for Shizuku. I know cis Airi isn't as popular, so I encourage you to click off of this block if my HCs will make you uncomfortable

Shizuku is transfem (she/her) and transitioned just before her big break with Cheerful*Days

MinoHaru are in a committed QPR, and ShizuAi are in a romantic relationship

Feel free to ask personal questions about their relationships and stuff, but please refrain from outright "anon hate." Magic anons are not permitted as well

Relevant VS are free to interact. Canon unit shuffles (April Fool's, etc.) and AU characters may also interact, but no other shuffle AU's, please

No sexual content, gore, or heavy swearing. While I'm an adult, the members of MMJ are not. Please exercise good judgement

Feel free to remind me if I haven't replied to a thread within a week. I'm a college student, so I can be quite busy, but please don't think I'm avoiding you!

Lastly, time for tags!

minorinrin!! 🪽 = Minori tag

braving the distance 🐧 = Haruka tag

special delivery! 💝 = Airi tag

bursting with joy 🍵 = Shizuku tag

collaborative effort ☘️ = more than one member

producing the magic 📋 = OOC tag

Thanks for sticking around, folks! Have a great day!

[aro-culture-is]

Hi! So I think I might be aro? It's...honestly very confusing as I've also recently found out I'm ace

I've been in a romantic relationship before but it was a very bad one and as such I cannot tell if my general dislike, so to speak, of romance is simply a phase caused by my ex. However this was two years ago now.

I'm someone who heavily craves attention and love in general due to my bad childhood, making it even more difficult to tell if it's romance or it's my constant need to be *with* someone.

When it comes to media, I will mainly refuse to watch/read/listen to anything that focuses on romance. If it's a side-plot that's well written (I write myself so as such I'm biased) I will accept it. The Magnus Archives is, as such an example of this.

For songs I do the same except in specific situations where I can either relate to them (the anger and hatred for someone you once loved in some way hurting you), if it's meant to be read as romance but you can clearly see something else or the instrumental absolutely slaps.

I feel like it's important to mention that I'm currently in a qpr, but am seemingly crushing on a girl I know that isn't my partner. Seemingly because I don't think it's romantic crush, perhaps a squish or even alterous attraction. All I know is that I want to get close to her.

Back to media and the fact I write: I like writing romance myself, presumably because it's people being close, I'm not sure.

All these factors cause me to go back and forth, and the worst part is that saying I'm on the aro spectrum does feel right, in some way. Perhaps a micro label, maybe greyromantic, demiaro, idk

For the record I've always struggled to understand my romantic and sexual attraction, I've gone through a massive amount of labels in a few years time and every time I'm scared it's just for attention.

honestly, a lot of this relates to attitudes towards romance. while aromantic people are more likely than alloromantic people to have negative attitudes towards romance, it's like how a square is a type of rectangle, but a rectangle isn't a type of square.

i know it isn't super helpful but - if you think you've never, or infrequently compared to your peers, had romantic attraction to others... you're probably aro (or at least aro-spec). how you define romantic attraction is unfortunately a personal experience - your cultural background and personal ideas of an 'ideal' romantic partner aren't something i'm comfortable guessing and comparing to mine.

i will note, however - people who really struggle to identify attraction seem, from personal experience, to be more likely than average to later identify as a-spec. it's easy to feel confused about what a turtle is if you have no personal experience with it, and have to guess based on what others describe them as (replace turtles with attraction for the metaphor, for those who may struggle with metaphorical language).

I hope this helps at least somewhat.

[aquadestinyswriting]

Worldbuilding Wednesday- Cridhe-dàime

Note: I thought I’d expand on the concept of cridhe-dàime because it’s such a fundamental part of the relationship between Meredith and Elowyn that it was probably a good idea to explain more fully what it means and its importance in dwarven cultural norms. Under a readmore because it's quite long.

tags: @druidx, @odysseywritings, @homesteadchronicles, @mariahwritesstuff, @asher-orion-writes

Cridhe-dàime, or ‘heart-kin’ in common, is a kind of deeply respectful, platonic relationship characterised by a closeness not seen in more ordinary friendships. Dwarves, despite their tough outer demeanour, are actually quite passionate about their relationships, their friendships included. Since dwarves have a culture that is steeped in tradition and notions of honour and kinship, it is perhaps not surprising that this passion bleeds over to friendships with other peoples.

While all dwarves will basically adopt their travelling companions into their families if they spend more than a few weeks together, few will choose to name anyone as their cridhe-dàime due to its associations with the cultural roots of oathkeeping, loyalty and honour found in dwarven society. This can be confusing to outsiders as dwarves are often very quick to name others as blood and/or battle brothers and sisters, which are based on the same cultural norms. It does not help that cridhe-dàime is often mis-translated to ‘soulmate’, a word which has so many romantic connotations attached to it, that it completely misses the point of the concept to begin with. Nor is cridhe-dàime to be confused with the kind of love one has for one’s family, chosen or otherwise. 

So what is cridhe-dàime if it is none of the above things? The closest real-life parallel I think I can equate it to is the idea of the Queer-Platonic-Relationship, or QPR; the definition of which is as follows:

Queerplatonic relationships (QPR) and queerplatonic partnerships (QPP) are committed intimate relationships which are not romantic in nature. They may differ from usual close friendships by having more explicit commitment, validation, status, structure, and norms, similar to a conventional romantic relationship.

However, in-universe, while other cultures have similar concepts for this kind of relationship, none are so deeply tied to their cultural heritage or taken nearly as seriously. This is probably why publicly naming someone as such, aside from other dwarves, is still so rare.  

In dwarven culture, naming someone as cridhe-dàime in front of others is taken as seriously as telling them that you’re engaged or married. That this relationship, despite its platonic nature, is significant enough to one both parties that, even if they’re unspoken, there are oaths and vows of loyalty involved. While there are no official ceremonies involved in naming someone cridhe-dàime, there is very often a religious element to doing so. This is mainly because dwarven culture is so steeped in tradition deriving from their faith in either Moradin or Kherillim (usually both for the dwarves of Fangthane) that oaths and vows taken even by individuals are done in their Names. The only bureaucracy involved in this kind of relationship is if the dwarf, or dwarves, in question want to officially add their cridhe-dàime to their family or clan. This is relatively common when the relationship is between two dwarves, it is almost unheard of for those of other races or cultures to be added to a family or clan in this way. The most common way this is done is by asking the cridhe-dàime to become a child’s Faddri (which translates roughly to ‘Gods’ Parent’ in common), though it is by no means the only way.

For the most part, the cridhe-dàime relationship is generally a private one between the individuals involved, and quite often one-sided should one of them be of any culture that is not dwarven. This is usually because it’s hard enough to explain what the word even means, never mind its significance to someone who isn’t from that culture. For those that publicly declare such a relationship, it is a thing to be celebrated and cherished, especially if the cridhe-dàime is from another race/heritage because dwarves keep enough to themselves as it is. 

Ending note: Please feel free to send me any questions if you want further expansion on the concept, because I could go on for hours about it, but this post covers the basics at least. Do feel free to use the concept in your own work too; expand on it or mess around with it to fit into the setting(s) you prefer. We need more of this kind of thing in fantasy fiction. The relationship between Elowyn and Meredith is a very special one to me and many, many thanks go to @druidx for her encouragement and for playing and writing Elowyn in a way that allowed the relationship between our characters to flourish as it has post-campaign.

[showstopper35]

LOTR LGBTQ+/MOGAI HEADCANONS!

Disclaimer! This is just my personal opinion based off mainly the movies and the books, and from things the cast/Tolkien has said. Definitely not canon and just for fun!!

Frodo Baggins: He/they pronouns, graysexual aromantic. He and Sam are in a queer platonic romance. When he does feel sexual attractions, they lean towards guys.

Samwise Gamgee: He/him pronouns, pansexual panromantic. He’s a hopeless romantic who longs for a domestic life, which includes Rosie and Frodo.

Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck: Look at me and tell me that is not the most transmasc haircut you’ve ever seen. They/he transmac. Bisexual demiromantic.

Peregrin “Pippin” Took: The other half of the bisexual disaster duo. Both bisexual and biromantic, and gets a new crush every week. Has never been on a date in their life. They/them pronouns. Aragorn: He/him pronouns, omnisexual omniromantic. He doesn’t get crushes that often, but he does find a lot of people attractive. He thought Legolas was attractive for a while, which made him realise he has a soft spot for elves.

Legolas Greenleaf: Genderfluid and uses any pronouns. He’s free, like nature. Their sexuality is unlabelled, though he tends to lean towards more masculine-presenting people.

Gimli: He/him, bisexual panromantic. Gets almost as many crushes as Pippin. He and Legolas have an on-again, off-again relationship.

Gandalf: Wizards have no gender, he is a triple A battery: Agender, Asexual spectrum, and Aromantic spectrum. He’s also gay. He doesn’t care what pronouns people use for him. He hasn’t cared about sex or relationships for decades.

Boromir: He/him but he wouldn’t care really if you used they/them. Gay disaster, has women bffs and a major crush on Aragorn. This is true and you know it.

Éowyn: She/they/he non-binary ace for the win. I’m thinking her romantic orientation is unlabelled. She and Faramir started as a QPR and then actually fell in love.

Faramir: Demisexual Demiromantic, he/they. His love for Éowyn is so sweet and pure, the kind of love that only comes with an emotional connection. Best LOTR relationship, FIGHT ME.

Éomer: They/he pronouns, asexual gay? I feel like he hasn’t really figured out yet because they’re just preoccupied with other things. He loves shipping Éowyn with Faramir though, and he ships some of the other riders.

Arwen: She/they, bisexual icon. Powerful and she knows it. A literal badass and only Aragorn is worthy of her. Wants a mix of domestic life and adventure.

[arowitharrows]

https://arowitharrows.tumblr.com/post/684253346480193536/i-think-its-important-to-understand-that

in that same vein of logic, it would be just as okay to value friendship over romance though? like, I get what you're trying to say, but if you're going to apply this sort of logic to romance, then it applies to friendship just as much. I just don't get the point of you trying to invalidate aromantics who value friendship over romance, as I do, especially since romance holds absolutely zero significance in my life, not one zilch.

I honestly don't understand how you read that post as me invalidating aromantics who chose to value friendships more. What I said was

Every individual person has to figure out for themselves which types of relationships they desire or don't desire and how much importance they want to give them. Amatonormativity criticizes the fact that that's not a question you are normally asked in the first place, because the answer is always assumed.

Of course it applies to friendship, and qprs and family relationships, and any other type of relationship, including romantic ones. I am saying that everyone should be given the chance to actively consider what relationships they want, and that each choice should be treated as equally valid.

That post was directed mainly at alloromantic people who dismiss any discussion about amatonormativity based on the fact that they believe the message behind it is "romance is bad and should be valued less" rather than "the overwhelming focus society puts on romance while dismissing any other types of relationships can be damaging". I am saying that alloromantics can still work on dismantling amatonormativity while continuing to value their romantic relationships.

I also have zero interest in romance, or any relationships for that matter. It definitely wasn't my intention to invalidate that.

[indomephistopheles]

Thank u for showing interest in this guys /gen @agendercryptidlev @doublebubbletriplethreat @evilsciencedotcom

ok its a little. long so i'll put it in a read more

Evidence #1: The series literally starts off with him mocking a romantic couple and not taking them that seriously as his clients and also he was constantly just making fun of their aesthetic appeal (their. their looks). It's clear that he doesn't see their relationship seriously.

Evidence #2: Although not all aromantic people are aplatonic, Reigen seems to be aplatonic in a way that he doesn't actively seek for platonic relationships and bonds with others out of genuine "wanting to know someone else more and be friends with them" and instead is more focused on his own work. Even his mentor-student relationship with Mob started out with Mob being the one to actively seek someone to help him with controlling his powers better. Reigen doesn't go around looking for people to befriend, but instead he just kind of knows Mob's friends Through Mob. Even Serizawa who he recruited was mainly cuz Serizawa protected him first. This is literally a big part of the Seperation Arc, Reigen was always way too focused on becoming someone great that he rarely paid attention to other people as potential friends unless the relationship has some kind of potential benefit for him. This doesn't mean he doesn't care about his relationships with others of course, he /really/ does, but his genuine kindness is usually still at least partially motivated by wanting to be somebody (who can help and inspire others).

Tl;dr: I don't think he's a loser for all his friends technically being middle schoolers it's just easier to have some kind of friendship with others if you have a mutual close friend to help it all work out ( a.k.a Mob) Also like its. Okay to not have friends. Sometimes you just wanna vibe with all these teenagers that you can be a mentor figure/good adult figure for them. Just some weird bastard uncle or older sibling / dad whatever

Evidence #3: His lack of experience in navigating romantic relationships. He's pretty sure the last time he dated was like, way back in high school or something right? (im not sure on this either tbh) And he really didn't seem interested when his mom talked abt setting him up with someone (which is not always a sign that someone is aromantic but really I don't think Reigen has thought about marriage, like, ever. Unless it's for tax benefits.)

Evidence #4: His go to relationship/confessing advice being something simple like "just communicate your feelings well" or "play hard to get" like he's not even trying to sound like an expert 😭😭 also when Mob was asking his advice on this matter he literally just read off of google and if that isn't one of the biggest aro moods I don't know what is.

Evidence #5: He has never been shown really "flirting" with anyone. If he has to play up his charisma when talking to clients well then so be it. He's really casual and professional about it too (by it I'm saying sensual massages or whatever the fuck he does....)

Evidence #6: Too busy thinking about how to get money to think about spending them all on dates with women or men or something

Evidence #7: This one is also what started the ace Reigen headcanons but the line "Is having a crush always related to sex? I don't really wanna talk to you about it." (Based Reigen btw)

Evidence #8: Honestly most of these "evidence" is just my own read of him and like. my own interpretation of course but. theres just something so Aro about a generally popular guy in his 30s not having a partner or a romantic relationship and he seems fulfilled and like, satisfied with that. I'm sure he really doesn't care about getting married. He's got Mob, Serizawa, Dimple, Tome, Teru, Ritsu (albeit reluctantly), he's got his emotional support friends/co-workers/people who genuinely care about him and look up to him because of his genuine kindness and pretty solid advice. He's got it all. Just some normal guy surrounded by espers and one evil spirit and also someone very similar to him personality wise (as some kind of daughter figure). It's neat.

Also I thought abt Ekuserirei QPR but at the same time I have a hard time visualizing Reigen in like. an Actual committed relationship with other people. I'm just kinda here man. But also Ekuserirei is genuinely such a fun dynamic so. yeah

Anyway thats my big brain thoughts on Reigen Aromanticism. all hcs are valid and if you disagree with me you can just, do whatever you want just not argue on my post thats just basic human decency ok thats all <3 💚💚 thank u for reading this far and have a good day everyone!! :]

[mcrmadness]

I'm again making myself to ponder things when I should sleep. I have made a couple of posts where I say I might be aplatonic (as I'm already aroace) but the more I google it, the less I understand. The meaning seems to change based on who you're asking from. Tumblr is full of posts that say a) aplatonic is when you don't desire a queerplatonic relationship or so OR b) when you don't want to have friends.

Then I'm finding terms platonic love and platonic attraction. Some sources say there's no such thing as platonic ATTRACTION, then some sources say it's when you just see someone (random) and want to be their friend. Most sources say you define the whole difference between platonic and everything else yourself and that no one can give a simple answer to it because it's different and individual for everyone.

And then there's "squishes" aka platonic crushes. I don't understand this either. I think somewhere it was explained as wanting to be just the most important person in someone's life and that the feeling is mutual with said person. Somewhere it was the person you want to be in a QPR with. Somewhere it was called as a "friend crush" ans I've used this word only about when I see a new interesting looking person and think to myself "oh I wonder how would it be like their friend???" and apparently it's not what a squish is..? And I don't understand what is it, then.

So I'm here just like ???????????? because I just wanted to read how do people experience platonic love so that I could compare my feelings or lack of them to theirs to know if I'm even capable of it. For a moment I thought maybe I'm demiplatonic but if it's not an attraction but more like a very strong type of a friendship... I just don't know anything anymore.

I really dislike the word "love" anyway. The Finnish version is even stronger and I think I stopped using it when I was less than 10 years old, as I started to understand more about things. I don't understand the concept nor what it feels like. Which is why it's so hard for me to figure out if I'm capable of platonic love or not. Because I don't have anything to compare it to. I use "love" only when I talk about things or animals, or human made things like bands, but I never use it about humans and never say it to anyone, not even to animals (I don't even e.g. kiss animals ever despite really loving animals). Even when I say I love a band, I mean I love the band that just happens to be made by humans but I don't say I'd love the humans in that band. I love the concept and the concept only, and what the people behind it do.

I do enjoy deep friendships and emotional intimacy and some friendships are deeper than others and it's very rare to find such deeper ones. Which is why I started wondering if it's "demiplatonic" in action here since I don't get too sentimental with people too easily, and even then if I do, it's very rare and afterwards I might still start regretting and feeling like I let out too much and wish I had a way to push all those words back in. As when I'm not feeling sentimental, they make me embarrassed and weirded out, but if I do feel sentimental, it makes me feel really good if I for chance also say something instead of being my normal "cold-hearted" self. I'm actually sensitive and sensitive, I just hide it very well. Partially it's also my adhd, me getting excited and not being able to contain myself plus I tend to mirror people. Deeper friendships are usually a result of the friend doing or saying something that makes it deeper for maybe both because I am a coward and socially awkward and don't know how to do that or sometimes might do so accidentally without realizing it and then I worry if I was too much and if I went too far just because I don't always get social cues and hidden rules.

But also - me not knowing what platonic love feels like might just be lack of experience. I don't really have friends to meet and I've never been too close with those friends who are not blood-relatives; and with online friends it's possible to form really deep friendships too but you still can't know how would it be to hang out for longe periods of time together. I have had online friends who were basically some of ny best friends until I met them in person and it didn't click as much as it did online. Online friends are important but the fantasy in your head is pure fantasy based on interaction over internet but it might be totally different from the reality because you don't know the other person's quirks and other habits that are present only when you are physically in the same space.

***

Talking of those attraction things and whatnot, I kinda divided these all into a few categories for myself, for my personal use, to help myself understand the concepts better. Here's what I think of them and if it's an attraction, do I experience it?

Sexual attraction: I'm asexual and can't fully even understand what it's supposed to feel like so nope, I don't feel this. I'm also sex-repulsed.

Romantic attraction: I'm aromantic too, look at previous answer.

Sensual attraction: I'm touch-repulsed, and also have never felt this kind of attraction ever either.

Aesthetic attraction: I do feel this one! I just wanna observe and watch from afar because they please my eye. I don't necessarily desire to even befriend them, they just look nice.

Platonic attraction: If it exists, I think this is my type of a "friend crush" where I just see interesting looking person and feel like I wanna get to know them and be their friend.

Platonic love: I don't know. If it's possible to use same terms of this, then I think it might be possible to be demiplatonic. Meaning that it needs a strong emotional bond before anything.

Then there's all these other relationships things mentioned and I don't desire any kind of relationship, not even a queerplatonic one. I do kinda like the idea of "the mutual best-of-the-best friend" but mainly because of my fear of abandonment and how I always feel I'm left alone when allo(romantic)s find spouses and I'm not looking for a partner. I don't want wvwna commune, I want to live alone in my own space without sharing anything with anyone else. I'm also touch repulsed like I said there so any kind of even friendly physical intimacy is (most likely) out of question. I let people hug me if they want to and if they make it short, but I'm never gonna be the one to place a finger on anyone at first, in fact I have never answered hugs, they confuse me too much and touching is either too overwhelming because of sensory issues or maybe I have social anxiety related traumas from school, I don't know.

I still don't know what a squish is. I do hyperfixate on people but it's hard to say if it's just ADHD or an actual "squish", since it's mostly that I just can't stop thinking about someone and talking with them makes my day always but that's all. Sometimes it makes me feel bad because I don't like hyperfixating on people. I mean, literally I DO like it because dopamine~ but I just have a bad conscience because I don't want my brain to think people are just free sources of dopamine. And it's kinda annoying because can't talk with a person 24/7 because THEY'RE A LIVING ORGANISM WITH A WILL OF THEIR OWN and hyperfixating on something like a video game makes much more sense and is less frustrating because people always leave and I'm left with hyperfixation/hyperfocus I can't fill but a video game will never say they have to go and I can play it for 12h in a row if I really desire to.

But yeah, let's see if this cleared up any thoughts for me...

[aromagni]

My Experiences Feeling Demiplatonic (Carnival of Aros, December 2019, Part 1)

(The majority of this is about my experiences with demiplatonic, which is only kinda tangentially related to this month’s prompt, but I was wanting to write about it anyways and there is some overlap; I’m made another post (Part 2) with something I wrote more directly responding to the prompt.)

My perception of the concept of “love” is influenced by many aspects of my identity, including not only my aromanticism but also my neurodivergency and my relation to the aplatonic-spectrum, specifically the term demiplatonic.  I dislike “love” and the societal expectation of it as a universal human experience even outside of its ties to romance, because non-romantic relationships are not universal either.  There’s this narrative that people can only find happiness through love and I find this harmful.  There shouldn’t be a societal expectation for any type of love or relationships, because not everyone feels or wants these things.

When I was younger, I wanted to have friends in general but I never really wanted to be friends with people specifically.  I didn’t like being alone so I would alternate between trying and failing to socialize with people before retreating to read my books, or on rare occasions would find someone who had a common interest and would tolerate me so I would latch onto them as a “friend”.  In middle school, I kept a running tally of how many people I could consider “friends” along with mentally ranking them in tiers…..after my brother mocked me for not being able to name 5 friends.  Making friends never came naturally to me.

In high school, I’d managed to acquire a group of friends…..who would at least spend time with me if brought in proximity by other things, though we rarely made actual plans to hang out.  In sophomore year, I figured out that I am aroace and first became exposed to much terminology, including aplatonic.  I was rarely in convenient proximity with my friend group and thus I felt alone��. so I spent a lot of time overthinking friendships.  

At one point I realized that I did not feel comfortable receiving affection such as hugs from most people, including people I considered friends but was less close with.  In comparison, I felt comfortable receiving hugs from 1-2 of my closest friends.  Since I was only comfortable doing platonic affection things with people I felt a strong emotional connection with, that was when I initially resonated with the term demiplatonic.  That perhaps wasn’t a great reasoning and showed poor understanding of the term, but feelings are confusing and actions are easier.  Similarly, around that time what first helped me conclude that I was aro is that I didn’t find the idea of doing “romantic” things like kissing appealing.  Naturally, my understanding of terms has grown with time.

***

In college, I experienced what I would consider my first proper squish on a friend I felt close to.  I considered this attraction to be a mix of queerplatonic, platonic, alterous, and sensual attractions, though referring to it as platonic/a squish was simplest.  I wanted to spend a lot of time with this person and also I wanted to be affectionate with them (Hugging/cuddling).  This was a notably different feeling than what I felt towards other friends, whom I enjoyed spending time with because I like having friends but I didn’t seek to spend time with them specifically.  Thus, I felt more strongly that the label demiplatonic was applicable to me.  With the mix of attractions, perhaps demi-queerplatonic or demi-sensual was technically more accurate, or aplatonic and demi-queerplatonic, but demiplatonic was easiest.  So I considered myself demiplatonic and thus apl-spec, while also wanting a queerplatonic relationship and not considering myself nonamorous. ***

Making friends never came naturally to me, and maintaining friendships even less so.  It seems like when I do have strong feelings for someone then it’s emotionally volatile and inevitably collapses…...whereas if I don’t feel as strongly about them and mainly appreciate their presence as my friend then it’s more stable, though often times that dissipates as they don’t prioritize me enough to ever have time for me.  As always, once no longer brought into convenient proximity by outside forces, we drift apart despite my efforts to prevent it.  

I increasingly feel like I am inherently bad at friendships, especially now as I look around and find I have few to no actual friends.  It’s been about a year now since I lost most all my social connections from two back-to-back incidences around winter break.  Nothing particularly dramatic or objectively bad happened…..and yet I feel almost traumatized by past relationships and the overwhelmingly negative emotions built on top of it by many smaller things over time.  I used to seek affection and platonic partnership, but now I’m inclined to be non-partnering and am more touch repulsed than ever before.  I try to seek out at least casual socialization because I know feeling socially isolated is bad for me, but I feel like I’m bad at socializing at all.

I am neurodivergent, which definitely contributes to my difficulties with social stuff.  I know I have ADHD, and I feel that the RSD and emotional dysregulation which comes with it has contributed greatly to the extent to which I feel negatively affected by past friendships.  I increasingly ponder whether I am also autistic, because while there is overlap with ADHD, I don’t think it alone explains my inherent difficulties with socializing.  I think I used to be better at socializing somewhat ���normally”, but at some point I became comfortable enough with existing friendships that I forgot how to filter myself when interacting with people and now that they’re gone, making friends is even harder than ever before; so I feel anxious that everyone just finds me annoying ... while not being confident in my ability to interpret social cues to determine whether or not that anxiety is justified.

I now relate more to the original context of aplatonic, with difficulties making friends being associated with trauma or neurodivergency.  I seek friendships to combat loneliness, but I doubt my own capacity of emotions for people and feel guilty that I’m being selfish and don’t care the way I think I’m supposed to.  I identify more closely with the term aplatonic and apl-spec as a whole, though I know I feel demi-something so demiplatonic still feels accurate to use.  I don’t consider myself nonamorous, because I find it hard to be content or fulfilled without strong emotionally intimate relationships of some sort.  I do consider myself non-partnering, at least for now, because the idea of a QPR feels ruined to me now and seeking partnership of any sort hurts too much to be desirable.  People tend to conflate these terms, aplatonic, nonamorous, and non-partnering, as if they are approximately the same, but they feel different to me and each are useful.  I also think that while it is important to acknowledge the context of aplatonic as being based in neurodivergent aros and trauma, I think trying to isolate it to a single definition or context of acceptable use is not ideal as it can be a very useful and dynamic term.  Feelings are confusing, and relationships even moreso, so sometimes it’s not easy to separate out emotions that are platonic or queerplatonic and which are or are not felt.  

I consider myself demiplatonic; the experiences, reasons, and definitions with which I identify with it have changed over time, but the descriptor remains the same and continues to be useful to me.

[scriptlgbt]

My story is about pirates. The MC is a trans guy and the captain is a lesbian who is some sort of big sister/mother figure to him. It's quite violent. I was wondering if it could be problematic? I know it's problematic to show trans woman being overly violent in fiction but what about cis lesbians and straight trans guys? Also, do you know about real any queer pirates i could read about? And what did pirates think about homosexuality/transness?) How was it being queer in the pirate world?

A conversation that I had, that is relevant:

ME: [PARTNER], do you know anything about queer pirates?

PARTNER: I know that there were many, and they’d sometimes be like -

ME: Sea husbands kind of thing?

PARTNER: Yeah, and one would inherit from the other’s booty, and when it was divided up, they’d share their share of the booty.

ME: [mischievous grinning face]

PARTNER: [nodding] And they might share each other’s booty.

Disclaimer: This whole thing is going to largely focus on what is known as the Golden Age Of Piracy. I’m also not a historian, I just hardcore, love pirates with my heart and soul. This is going to be a long post.

So, this is super generalized, but pirates, and even sea-faring folks in general (see: - or sea, hahahahaha - the LGBT+ history of Brighton in the UK), have tended to have a much higher rate of LGBT+ folks and minoritized people in general, throughout history. As far as most research I’ve done goes. Being in a travelling situation and having the anonymity of being able to move around with chosen family generally has great appeal to folks whose existences are filled with oppression and a sense of not belongingness. This has also applied for racialized people, women in general, impoverished folks in general, a lot of different people who wanted to reclaim a place in the world that ostracized them.

Another fun fact, the use of the term “Friend of Dorothy” as a euphemism for gay folks was investigated by the US Navy. They misunderstood it as meaning that there actually was a woman named Dorothy who could be routed down and coerced into outing her “friends” to the military. Cruise ships and others have also used this phrase to covertly advertise that there were meetings for these folks. (Source: Wikipedia | “Friend of Dorothy”) 

But to get to the pirates, specifically.

Most pirate ships largely had their own code that everyone on their ship had to agree to. Some had things like, “you’ll be marooned with one knife, and no food if you are caught not reporting loot to be divvied up by the crew fairly” and things like that. But generally, whoever ran the ship, the Captain, would get to pick the rules. And with the partial-democracy that comes with the idea of mutiny, and the more notable reliance on the labour of it all, in general, things were able to be slightly more consensus-based than the on-land governments.

There are numerous women who became pirates to take ownership of their lives in ways that weren’t permitted on-land. Anne Bonny and Mary Read are historical figures that might be worth looking into. The two of them shared lovers, sailed together, had intense care for one and other and with their dressing up in masculine-coded attire and the like, there’s a lot to go off of in assuming they may have been romantically involved with each other. If not, at least they had some iteration of what a lot of contemporary folks might find comparable to a QPR.

The concept of “sea husbands” was also called matelotage (or bunkmate) depending on your crew. It was kind of the buddy system, but gayer. With little need to consistently explain it to outsiders, folks at sea were freer to explore the different ways a relationship with another person can be, without so much worrying about how it looks to others at a passing glance. And as pirates, there’s less concern that you’ll get shit from the law for gay stuff Of All Things. 

Buccaneer Alexander Exquemelin wrote: ‘It is the general and solemn custom amongst them all to seek out… a comrade or companion, whom we may call partner… with whom they join the whole stock of what they possess.’  (Source)

It was just normal. They also had a version of health insurance where someone was compensated if they ended up disabled from battle. The compensation of death of your partner also works into this.

As for transness, these kinds of things have had fickle definitions and historically, it’s hard to be able to pinpoint specific people as fitting cleanly into contemporary cultural definitions of transness, because frankly, the past had different culture to now. When it comes to writing canonically trans characters in contexts where the language might have been different, it’s important to focus on making sure that a trans reader can identify the personal connection with that character’s experiences and feelings, just as much as it is to use language to name folks as trans. 

Representation can go deeper than surface terminology and the like, and in cases where the terminology doesn’t necessarily match, it has to. Language like, “I never really felt like a [assigned gender] - I see myself more like [desciption of actual gender identity or name for it].” - is as good as just saying the character is trans in my opinion.

Depending on where the character is from, they also may have just outright had a word in their language for their identity. 

Gender presentation was significantly freer with pirates than it was for folks on land. Things like earrings, frilled sleeves, varied hair length and similar, were not uncommon, although the gendered coding associated with these aspects of appearance had different implications than they do now. Gold earrings on seafarers were there to fund a proper burial if someone’s body washed ashore. Gendered clothing was also coded in more binary ways on land. Folks who wanted to be coded as men could do so by wearing pants and folks who wanted to be coded as women could do so with skirts and dresses. (Tangential but fun fact yet again: dressing in those big poofy skirts usually included massive pockets. They were generally not physically attached to the skirts, but if you wore it all properly you would easily be able to reach into them.) 

Pirates and other seafarers also had clothing referred to as ‘slops’ for cleaning (if they were of the rank that cleaned anyway) which were pretty wide-legged pants that could almost pass for a skirt. 

Material that pirates used for clothing was largely what they stole, but it was cut and sewn into the same shapes a lot of other seafarers wore. At the time, it was largely illegal (under English rules anyway) for people who weren’t the bourgeoisie to wear anything made with nice fabric. Rich people saw this as deceitful, and these laws enabled richer people to not mingle on an equal level with those of a lower socioeconomic status.

As pirates, if you’re already shunning the law, may as well wear full calico suits. (Like Calico Jack Rackham.)

There’s more info on pirate and privateer clothing here. (The link is to a free book in HTML format, complete with illustrations and talk of materials, and how the clothes worn at sea varied from clothes they wore when they came into shore and towns.)

I could write a book on this and still not have covered enough. But the gist is that pirates were a big counterculture of outsiders living their lives. LGBT+ people and racialized people got thrown into the mix (and jumped right in) and experienced much more liberated lives than they might otherwise. That isn’t to say they were flawlessly inclusive - there still definitely were a lot of things people thought of in congruence with colonial beliefs. There was racism and homophobia - but it looked a lot different, and was a lot lighter than you’d think. And there were some ships which banned women, but mainly I think that was because they typically didn’t have the background to hold their ground on the ships, and were considered more of a plus one to certain crew members (who brought them - the rules were specifically about bringing them onto the ship rather than them being there of their own accord) than part of the crew. Sometimes women were part of the crew.

Notably, Anne Bonny and Mary Read were in a polyamorous triad with Calico Jack Rackham. (I think a cis + het historian might argue about this but that would seem like denial to me tbh. There is much, MUCH more evidence pointing in this direction than against it, and it would be extraordinarily hard to argue otherwise.) I would definitely do some research on them!

I also recommend this book (link is the free text on WikiSource), A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates. It is perhaps the most famous contemporary record of the lives of a number of pirates from the time, including Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

As for the sensitivity aspect of this ask, I’d say that what you are describing is completely fine. As long as the violence isn’t used to dehumanize or completely demonize, I would even say that I don’t have any warnings for you about it, or precautions to advise on.

Thank you for this opportunity to infodump about LGBT+ pirates. I hope this is not overwhelming, but I’m also happy to parse out segments of this better upon request. (Our ask will be open eventually, I promise.)

- mod nat

[aroworlds]

Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Signe

Today’s awesome aro-spec creator is Signe, better known to aro-spec Tumblr as @fluffyllamacorn!

Signe is a busy aroace writer, visual and textile artist! She writes for the Young Avengers, The Shadowhunter Chronicles/Shadowhunters, Hawkeye Comics and New X-Men: Academy fandoms in addition to developing diverse original fiction. You can find her growing collection of fanworks on AO3 under the name FluffyLlamacorn and her gorgeous art at @llamacorn-productions.

She also posts and reblogs fashion and accessories at @clothing-inspiration, and some of her cosplays can be seen throughout this post!

With us Signe talks about her passion for textile arts and how they allowed her to reclaim her femininity, the importance of non-romantic relationships in creative media, the difficulty of writing kissing scenes, and the need for works and discussions that celebrate our aromanticism. Her love of making, crafting and designing just shines through this post, so please let’s give her all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

I just sort of … never cared? I’ve never wanted to get married and have children, and I never really had crushes growing up. I partly figured that was because I was surrounded by assholes who weren’t worth crushing on, but even when I graduated and moved to better schools where I actually had friends, I still didn’t care. I’ve always had a lot of confidence, so I’ve never bothered feeling insecure about not dating. I spent a while identifying as a straight person “who doesn’t care about romance” before eventually identifying with the ace and then aroace identifiers after having known them for a while, but there was never any big moments in the journey that really stand out.

Currently, I see my aromanticism as more important to my identity than my asexuality – being aro is what I do, while being ace is what my body does – but I also don’t really see them as separate. It’s hard to put into words because it requires cementing some stuff that I don’t mind leaving fluid, but while my lack of attraction is a package deal, it’s the lack of romantic attraction that defines my lifestyle the most. I know which I would choose if I had to, but I prefer not having to. That’s the only good thing about the ace discourse: It’s made me very protective of my ace identity again after having let somewhat go of it after I came to identify as aro.

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

I’m the type of person who has a thousand different hobbies and therefore doesn’t have time to actually do any of them. The three I care most about are writing, drawing and textile work.

I’ve always told myself a lot of stories. Walking home from school, I would develop my stories, acting out scenes in my mind and developing huge universes. When I decided to share them with the world, it was initially as comics. I drew a lot, so I had developed the characters’ visual identities along with their personalities. While I’ve switched to planning my stories as books, drawing and writing is still pretty linked in my mind and I can’t imagine creating a character that I don’t know how to draw.

I got into textile work through cosplay, but have spread out into knitting, sewing, embroidery, cross stitch, weaving, crocheting, bobbin lace… Pretty much everything I can get my hands on, which is why I give it such a broad name. (This is part of my too many hobbies deal!) I love everything about textiles, from the look and feel of it, to how many different things can be created out of one simple material. Looking at clothes and knowing not just how it’s been sewn, but also how the fabric was made, is so cool. Creating things from scratch can make me feel like something akin to a god, recreating this corner of the universe as I see fit. A big part of my love for textile work is also reclaiming my femininity in a way that’s so different from the girly girl image I was taught to look down on as a girl. This is a way to enjoy being feminine that doesn’t force me to embrace things I don’t enjoy.

One thing I’ve realized recently is that I love the freedom to design my own work. My cosplays have moved further and further away from canon, from human versions to characters without a firm design or completely redesigning a canon design. On the other hand, I rarely feel the need to sew completely original things, and without the built in deadline of a con, I’m not very likely to get it done. I tend to rarely do the things I can just do whenever, but I’m getting better at that.

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

It’s easy to spot in my stories. I have a lot of a-spec characters. The two main characters who were specifically designed to get most of my heart – Shizuka, the shy girl who didn’t know how to make friends, and Diana, the confident girl who’s never cared what anyone thinks of her – both ended up being a-spec even though I created them long before I started identifying as aroace. Shizuka is demi and I don’t know whether it’s sexually and/or romantically or if it even matters. Diana ended up being aroace because I was thinking about her future and my mind nope’d out of the possibility of her ever dating. I also made a conscious choice not to include much romance until I got interested in queer love stories and that sorta fell by the way side. Even then, I try to keep the love stories from being the only defining feature of the stories and the characters involved in them and never to devalue other types of relationship. You will never hear the term “just friends” in my work unless I’m trying to make a point about the person who uses it.

(This is not to pass a value judgement on anyone who uses that expression, but to help normalize language that doesn’t devalue platonic relationships.)

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

The recent anti-a-spec discourse has made me worried about posting about aromantic things too publicly, as aphobic comments and opinions seem way to commonly accepted these days.

Also, writing kissing scenes. What the hell. “And then their mouths squished together for a little while, which apparently made fireworks go off in their brains.” Like. What? Why does society think this is the epitome of every relationship?

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

Building communities about a lack of something is always hard. Once you’ve written the first story about being aro, it can be hard to write the next one, unless you consciously try to write about a different way of being aro-spec. It’s also a hard orientation to include quickly as being single isn’t as clear an indicator as having a romantic partner of the same gender. While I follow a bunch of aro-blogs and I have a bunch of a-spec friends, I wouldn’t say I’m strongly integrated in the a-spec communities on Tumblr.

Part of it is that most content I see is validations that every sort of aro is alright. I see a lot of content aimed at people who feel bad. That’s important, definitely, but I don’t need it. I’ve always known I’m amazing, both independently of and intersecting with my aromantic identity. I’m interested in work that celebrates being aro, work that doesn’t say I’ll be happy “even though” I’m aro, but “while” I’m aro, maybe even “because” I’m aro and don’t need to waste my life on amatonormativity. At the very least, work that spends more than a sentence on reassuring me. I see a lot of content that implies the basic state of an aro-spec person is sad, and I object to that idea.

I have also recently seen a whole lot of posts about QPRs and that’s really cool! I’m happy to see they’re becoming more and more accepted, at least in some circles. I’m less happy to see them become so prominent and so expected that they start feeling like a new shape of amatonormativity. It’s not that bad right now, but I definitely got allo aces saying “at least we can still feel love” vibes from some QPR posts earlier this year. Because here’s the thing: I’m aroace. I won the lottery. I don’t need to define myself by relationships to other people.* I refuse to take another label that sounds like I don’t want friends because of people pushing QPRs to be the new norm. Again, I’m super happy QPRs seem to have become more accepted, just please don’t present them as something every aro-spec person is interested in unless we specifically opt out.

There’s also the question of what kind of aro stories should be told. I mean, as many as possible, obviously, but that’s going to take a while. But the whole deal with being aro-spec is to have less interest in romance, so too many stories that focus on the lack of it become … counterproductive? I think the Jughead comics are pretty perfect in that regard. The main character is aroace and there are several stories that’s hella important to, but mainly it’s just about him going on adventures with his friends.

(P.S. I hate Riverdale. I’ve seen two different Jughead cosplays these last two weekends, but I didn’t dare fangirl, because what if they were based on the wrong version?)

Honestly, my main way of interacting with the a-spec community is befriending people at random and later finding out they’re a-spec. It’s … almost a superpower? It’s pretty great.

* No one needs to define themselves by relationships to other people, but I imagine it’s much easier when you don’t feel the desire to.

How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?

I don’t feel very connected to creative communities, but that’s more because I’m not very good at reaching out and promoting myself unless I know I have exactly what’s being asked for. I mainly stick to one or two people I can bounce ideas off of for my different projects before I post it and hope it finds an audience. It might also be because I’m juggling so many things and don’t spend enough time on the social connections needed to connect with a community.

How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?

Feedback, feedback, feedback! I love it! I live on it! Telling me you like X or Y part of my work can keep me floating for days and makes me so much more motivated to keep arting! So please, check out my art and leave a comment and/or share it with your friends/followers, if you like it.

(Also, if anyone has good tips on how to reach a larger audience, let me know.)

Can you share with us something about your current project?

I just finished my newest cosplay, which is Lup from The Adventure Zone in her lich form! I had a lot of fun designing her – the podcast doesn’t have very specific descriptions and the creators encourage fans to come up with their own designs – and got a lot of positive reactions at the con last weekend. I went for a very non-human design, including hiding my face, and added a bunch of fire details to reflect her evocation magic. I would have added more, but then my sewing machine broke in the last second, and I had to finish everything by hand, so I just aimed for the basic version. I’ll be updating her for the next con and will have much more fire with me then. I have yet to finish editing the pictures, but they should be up soon.

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

My next project, one I’ve alluded to a couple of times in this profile already, in fact combines all three of my passions. I was considering cosplaying Pixie, one of the underrated students from X-Men, relegated to the background since their series ended, but I kept bumping up against the problem that her uniform was just too … generic to be fun. Besides, what’s the point of cosplaying the pink girl, and then not getting to work with pink fabric?

So I just redesigned her and gave her an individual outfit. And then I decided to redesign all of her teammates. I wanted them all to go together, but still keep an individual feeling, and I achieved that by giving them a rainbow theme when they’re together. Obviously, the next stop was figuring out a story for that to take place in, of which I’ve posted the first chapter. The idea is that they get out in their bright colors and visibly help everyday people with everyday problems to stop people from hating and fearing mutants and maybe actually making a positive change, unlike all of the superhero battles that don’t get anyone anywhere.

The project has three parts: Individual drawings for every member where I develop their outfits further, chapters of fic describing their adventures and a cosplay that I aim to finish for Genki in August, the next big con in Denmark.

[echodarkly]

1. We’re a system of walk-in afterlifers! We don’t have like, portals or anything, but people just show up / leave in one way or another rather than splitting / combining. We don’t care about why our system formed in the slightest!

2. That got a little tricky to answer recently, haha. At base we have about 11 or so permanent residents, but then a bunch of “temps” who come and go. Some temps front daily, others only show up internally every couple months. Where it gets particularly difficult is the ShLA SubSys, which due to some semantics either only counts as one headmate or counts as theoretically infinite due to its nature of being an entire dimension. We usually put the count at about 18 total.

3. Nearly two years now (Anniversary is in February), though we had suspicions a while longer

5. We thought that DID was the only way to be plural for a while so went “hmm if headmate=DID and Us=Headmate, then DID=Us” which was Not Fun for the whole thinking we’re faking thing lemme tell ya

6. Yes, half of us all it headspace half of us call it mindscape. Its based on a minecraft world Its a large mansion and a lake in the middle of a clearing surrounded by forrest then mountains. A while ago the headspace decided it wanted to be evil and introjected(??) the Darkwood (yk from the game) to replace 3/4 of the forest, which was also Not Fun for a while.

7. Headmates, people (with context), others, friend (usually referring to a newbie), just calling them by name

8. We do use the word system but have an insatiable need to have multiple names for everything so we also use “house” and “collective”

9. Elemental resistance (Only slightly a joke, some of us (shaela) just dont get cold the way the rest of us do), hugs (/int), company, all the basic stuff like always having someone with you

10. Accidentally cutting yourself off from the system :( the first couple months were rough bc of the whole “faking” thing

11. We largely dont use a psychological view of it anymore, but i wouldnt really call it spiritual either. The closest we’d get is the fact that our headspace is technically the afterlife, but usually we justa say it like it is (to us).

12. We usually say switching. At first we didnt really notice when we did, but as we get more stressed its gotten consistently more noticeable rather than just having the odd jarring switch. We dont usually have much control, but going through doorways/transitions usually causes one. Recently we’ve been better at getting specific people

13. The majority of us are one big polycule, itself containing several types of relationships. Mae is all of our child, Tick has some kind of romantic relationship with nearly everyone applicable (ie right age, allo, not - yk - related), darkly and tick are twins, cal and tick are brothers, shaela and lausey have a qpr (as do several others), and thats not even mentioning our partner system

14. We were out to exactly one(1) person IRL and they turned out to be plural as well, so they went from our partner to our partner system

15. We dont take intentional forms, but the majority of us are humanoid. Our System Admin does age slide a little (from young adult to teen), and Lausey is uhhhh amorphous

16. We all share hyperfixations, so minecraft mainly, but we have a wide variety of individual interests that we share to some degree, like analogue horror, the occult, crochet, Doom, biology, etc

17. Pretty good!

18. Just everything. All. Every genre of music. We have a few collective favourites though, like our favourite animal is the hyena and colour is garnet red. Rowans favourite song is PYRO, Tick’s is Internet Ruined Me, Shaela’s is Oak and Ash and Thorn (or Ship in a Bottle, which is a Very System song)

19. We no longer have an original, and we don’t like the term host. We have a “most frequent fronter” which is usually Tick but is more based on who fronted for the longest time the past week so can change for a short while.

20. Our partner system!!!! We have several members who mirror each others archetypes, so Tick and Bones get along really well.

21. Its so much better now. Before we’d get the idea that somethings up but’d brush it off for next year every time. Now we can also get people who like what we’re doing to front rather than relying on it happening automatically.

22. We didnt, but we did accidentally-on-purpose make Miette (no we didnt choose the name) who really really helps by being completely immune to executive dysfunction, even if getting her to front takes continuous conscious effort

23. a lot of things dont really matter. why we formed doesnt affect the fact that we’re here now. how many fictives we do or dont have doesnt affect the fact we exist.

24. Man, if youre confused just ask. like. systems are people, and a lot of them would rather you ask them if youre confused rather than avoid interacting with them.

Sysmeds should not get to write the narrative about us on this platform!

Scrolling through the tags, it seems like a great deal of what's said about us on tumblr is either sysmeds trying to make us look bad or all-encompassing plural blogs that just say everyone is valid (which is great! and these blogs should keep doing what they're doing! but it would be nice to have some more frequent endo (and other) representation on here too!)

Either my tumblr algorithm just sucks major balls, or most endos, tulpas, spiritual systems and other non-sysmed-approved systems get scared off of this platform because of how many loud hateful voices there are compared to how few people there are who we can relate to. (like most of the cool-looking accounts i can relate to that i find are dead and so is my blog for the same reason lol).

SO! Let's do a thing. If you are endogenic, parogenic, a tulpamancy system, a spiritual system, a daemien, or any other kind of system that sysmeds try to silence, reblog this post with answers to these questions to tell tumblr what our lived experiences as plurals are REALLY like!

(Feel free to pick and choose which questions you want to answer, or just come up with your own and tag them under #endovoices or substitute endo for whatever kind of system you are! Also, feel free to just reblog with one answer at a time, or to just answer the questions in a standalone post; no need to credit me, I just want more systems sharing their experiences!)

1. What kind of system are you? (Describe this in any way you like. No need to use -genic or popular terms if you don't want to)

2. How many of you are there?

3. How long have you known about your plurality?

4. What kind of spaces/communities do you/did you hang out in? (Both plural-relevant and non-plural-relevant spaces are valid answers, past and present)

5. Had you heard of DID/OSDD/DDNOS before you became plural/discovered your plurality?

6. Do you have a wonderland/innerworld? If so, what do you call it, and what are some things that you and your system members do there?

7. What do you call your system members?

8. If you're plural but don't use the word "system" to describe you&, what word do you use?

9. What are some of the best things about being plural?

10. What are some of the not-so-great things about being plural? (Any answer is valid- nothing is too minor or too major to be an answer to this question.)

11. Do you have a spiritual or psychological view of your plurality?

12. Do you ever experience "switching" or "posession" or any sort of change in who controls the body? If so, what do you call it, how easy/difficult is it, and what is it like? Were you always able to do this, or did you have to learn how over time?

13. How do you and your system mates relate to each other? (Are you friends, family, romantically involved, caretakers, etc.)

14. Have you come out to anybody in real life/in a singlet space about your plurality? How did it go?

15. What kinds of forms and appearances do your system members take on?

16. What are you and your system members interested in?

17. What is your life like in the meatworld?

18. What are your music tastes? Movies? Favorite colors? Animals? List any other favorites as well

19. Does your system have a host/original? If so, what do you call them? Explain what role they play in your system

20. Do any system members have notable relationships outside of the system? Explain them!

21. If you haven't been plural for your entire life/haven't known about your plurality until later in life: what was life like before plurality compared to life now?

22. If you chose to become plural: why? What has changed since then?

23. Is there anything you'd like to say to the plural community at large?

24. Is there anything you'd like to say to any singlets reading this post?

That is all I've got for now, but feel free to add any more you want to share! Please remember to be respectful to all system types if you post, I do not support bashing or invalidating of any system types. I will also reblog with my own answers soon.

(Note: these questions are not in order of priority or importance, I just wrote them down as I came up with them. Feel free to answer out of order and skip or add whatever you want!)

Also this should go without saying but making any rude sysmeddy responses to this will just result in being blocked and totally ignored, so don't even start, there's no point. The block button is right there.

Have fun everyone!