#what a fine day to be gay because I'm a person who is attracted to the same gender as me and that's (the most widespread) definition of gay

[marzipanandminutiae]

Stay out of the gay tag woman

I. Am gay? Posting gay content? And tagging the gay content made by a gay woman, "gay?"

...real question: do you think the term Gay is just for men?

[orionremastered]

Anon here! I just saw that your requests are open for Batfam? If you’re still taking requests can you do a regency era Damian Wayne x reader. If you don’t want to do Damian I wouldn’t mind any of the batboys!

xxx

I am always taking requests (they're for my sanity) except for the next three days because I'm on a plane, busy, or sleeping :/

(for this fic, they are Bruce's biological kids) (not completely historically accurate. like at all. but i tried)

Masterlist

Jason Todd x (probably fem due to the law back then unless you want to dream that being gay was allowed in 1817 (some sources also state that lesbianism was never illegal, but I don't know for sure. Just found it interesting))!Reader

Regency Era AU

The poor man is being swarmed by potential— and in all honesty, very desirable— women and their family members who are desperate to introduce the most suitable option for his wife from their family line. Constantly ignoring beginnings of phrases such as "this is the honourable—" and "perhaps you would like to be introduced to my lovely daughter—", and with each one his jaw ticked.

You hide your smile behind your fan, gazing at him from across the ballroom. It is the marriage season and your childhood friend clearly hated it. But that was expected of him as the second son of Bruce Wayne, Duke of York and member of the royal family. Especially since the duke's eldest, Marquess Richard, had recently married a young woman, Marchioness Barbara.

Locking eyes with the green you have known for so long, you tap the top of your open fan. I wish to talk to you.

With abundant relief, he shoos off one particularly frustrating Earl and almost rushes to be by your side. "Thank you," he says sincerely, a smile stretching his face.

"Why do you not wish to talk to them?" you inquire, Jason's smile dropping subsequently. "They are fine young women, after all."

"They're boring," he sighs, "I do not wish to be married to someone who's personality is dull."

"They're not dull," you chide, and he raises a brow. "They are just taught to be agreeable and respectful, my Lord."

"If I asked them about my theory of a novel I am reading, they would simply say, 'Well if you think so, it must be true' and not..."

"Something like I'd say?"

"Exactly."

You suspect it's a common theme with the Waynes; they're seemingly more inclined to look for a spouse that challenges their opinions and joins them in their love of science— the recently wedded Wayne couple bonded over their love of physics, in fact. A quality like that in a women was usually seen as undesirable.

When you were younger and your father made you visit the Waynes, you learned about sciences that your father would've frowned upon; even the daughters, though there were only two, enjoyed the conversations like you did. With Jason and the youngest son, Damian, you would have lengthy conversations about the novels you were reading altogether; these conversations happened so often that their father was tired of having three copies of every novel he owned.

"I have an idea," Jason says, straightening to his full height beside you— tall enough for you to need to tilt your head up if you wanted to look him in the eyes (you always did— something that beautiful was designed to be looked at). "What if you and I get married?"

"You can't be serious."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

You consider him for a moment— you really do— and see no sign of a lie or joke behind his offer. And now that you think about it, it wouldn't be terrible. It was better than your father marrying you off to some old man you didn't know.

Or weren't attracted to.

"Usually there's a dance or two before the proposal," you point out almost teasingly, "And then courtship. For at least a few months. Don't forget, a man should dance with multiple women before deciding who he wishes to wed—"

"Fine," he sighs, rolling his eyes. Yet a small grin remains on his face. "Would you like to dance, then?"

"Hmm, let me think—"

Jason pointedly fake-yawns while playfully glaring your way.

"I would appreciate a dance, yes." And with that, he leads you to the centre of the ballroom, passing his father who watches the two of you with confusion as you begin to dance.

"Are they—"

"Relax, dear," his wife Selina interrupts while lightly leaning against him, also watching the two of you dance, a smile on both of your faces as you whisper quiet yet teasing words to each other. "Don't tell me you couldn't see it before?"

Her husband's silence answers for him.

[arsenal-womens-1]

Im gay

It has been a week since I kissed a girl for the first time. I couldn't get it out of my head. 

 

I only did it for a dare, if I'm being honest. I have wanted to kiss a girl for a long time now. 

 

I don't get what I'm feeling. I have had multiple boyfriends, but I've never felt in love. They have felt more like friends than a boyfriend, but when it comes to girls, I feel more attracted to them, and it's kind of scary to me because I can't be...

 

"Y/n!"" I snap out of my daydream and see a few of the team members at the door saying, "Come on, or we are going to be late to training." 

 

I get up and walk out. The few that were waiting at the door run out to the pitch to not get the wrong form. Emma I walk,

 

I know I probably should run , but my head is so loud and busy trying to figure shit out that I don't give a shit if I get shouted at, "y/n hurry up." I jog to the pitch, where everyone is sent off to do the stuff they have to do. 

 

But Emma asks to speak with me, "Lilly, are you okay? You normally are one of the first to be here, and you have been zoning out a lot." looking down at the ground, then pass Emma. "I'm good, all good, nothing to worry about." 

 

She looks at me a bit worried. "You can tell me anything if you want to; you know where to find me or one of the others." I nod my head and join the rest of the players. 

 

We have been out here for a bit now. We are in 4s and are passing the ball. I'm not really listening to them. I'm thinking about my life. I think no. I know I like women and not men. 

 

But I'm scared to say it out loud. I know I can trust the girls. I mean, I know they won't have anything to say because some of them are in relationships with each other.

 

I think it's because if I say it out loud, it makes it real. I don't know if I want it to be. 

 

 

3 days later 

 

We are on the bus to Manchester. We are playing at Old Trafford. I'm sitting in a seat next to Guro Magdalena Pernille, and to my left is Sam. Lauren Millie and Fran 

 

I have decided I was going to tell one of my teammates, but I was scared. What if my mom and dad fined out? 

 

They would kick me out of the family. I knew they would because they said if any of their kids were gay, they would 

 

I'm snapped out of my thoughts by Guro snapping her fingers in my face. "Y/n, you ok?" 

 

I look at her, then out the window, . "Yeah, I'm good. I was just thinking about something, that's all." 

 

She looks at Pernille and Magda says, "What were you thinking about?" I lean my head back on the chair and look at them .

 

"Nothing interesting." looking out the window, putting my headphones on, and listen to music . 

 

We get to the place we are staying at. And go to our rooms. We were lucky to get one each.

I decided I'm going to tell somebody. Now I don't know who I am going to tell . I get up and go out of my room. walking to room 125. It was the room Magda and Pernille were staying in. Standing out there for about 5 minutes, then knocking on the door. 

 

I hear moving from inside as the door opens. Magda is standing in front of me. I must have looked sick. "Y/n, are you ok? You look sick." staying quiet for a minute. "Hey, err, can I come inside please? I need to tell you something." 

 

She looks worried and opens the door fully. going in and see Pernille sitting on the bed on her phone. She looks up and sees me. She must have got the feeling that I was here to say something. 

 

Magda sits next to her. I pace back and forth. letting a few tears fall. I hear one of them get up. "Y/n, what's wrong? What do you need to tell us?" 

 

The person who now I know is Magda. Sits me down on the bed. "All of this just because I went to a party.

 

There was silence for a minute. "What happened because of a party?" looking at them then I lay back on the bed

 

"I went to a party where we were playing truth or dare, and I picked dare, and I was dared to kiss someone. The person got to pick who I have had boyfriends in the past, and I've not felt anything from them; they felt more like a friend than a person I was meant to love. The person dared me to kiss a girl, so I did, but when I did, it hit me that the reason I didn't feel in love with the boys I dated was because I liked girls, but I don't want to because I will lose my family if I tell them or anyone else." 

 

I was having a full-blown panic attack. I can't believe I had just said that. Omg, I had actually told someone. No, I had told two people. I felt their arms wrap around me I just brack down. I knew my life would never truly be the same now. I know that I will be kicked out of the family. I know that new people were going to look at me differently. 

But I know I was definitely going to be happy. For the first time in my life .

[nevertheless-moving]

“The other day,” Skar added, “he was talking about what he’s doing there. It sounded an awful lot like he was learning how to read.” The men shifted uncomfortably. “So?” Kaladin asked. “What’s the problem? Sigzil can read his own language. Storms, I can read glyphs.” “It’s not the same,” Skar said. “It’s feminine,” Drehy added. “Drehy,” Kaladin said, “you are literally courting a man.” “So?” Drehy said. “Yeah, what are you saying, Kal?” Skar snapped. “Nothing! I just thought Drehy might empathize.…” “That’s hardly fair,” Drehy said. “Yeah,” Lopen added. “Drehy likes other guys. That’s like … he wants to be even less around women than the rest of us. It’s the opposite of feminine. He is, you could say, extra manly.”

Different possible explanations for this scene, to be taken up depending on which headcanon would be the funniest for a given fic:

While being gay is more broadly acceptable than being unmanly, conflating gender roles with sexuality is not uncommon; the other guys have just gotten more than one drunken lecture from Drehy about how he hates being treated womanly just because he likes dick. Kaladin was obviously working those nights.

Under Vorinism, Gender roles are rigid, but a range of sexualities are perfectly fine. The ardent who visited Kaladin's hometown was just a freak who hated gay people so much it was unreal, and took great pains to explain to the boys of this isolated rural town the unhinged idea that marrying a man was OBVIOUSLY womanly and therefore Bad. He mostly unlearned that shit after joining the army but is a bit confused. It doesn't come up often.

There was one (1) elderly queer couple in heartstone growing up, and one of the men was super gnc, which made people uncomfortable but his parents always told him that you shouldn't shame people for harmless joy. so, yeah, Kaladin just sort of figured that in a relationship between guys, one of them is the woman. He assumes Renarin is gay and I mean. He's not wrong. Part of the reason he never accepted friendly offers of soldier companionship. Not that there's anything wrong with it. He never asked Drehy who was who, because its none of his business and he didn't want to know.

the only times Kaladin has personally ever noticed being attracted to another man is when the guy was doing something womanly. Is it a kink? Is it an extremely dense man needing someone to stand on top of clearly marked social signposts and wave their arms for him to even register them as a sexual being? who knows! not Kaladin! he doesn't have time to unpack any of that. anyway he assumed that all same sex attraction worked the same way and obviously never actually talked about it with a living person. actually I'm expanding this to cover all of Kaladin's sexuality just to make him extra stupid. first time he noticed Tarah was when she punched a dude.

[meraki-yao]

Ok I got four asks in my inbox about the new Nick interview and I'm actually mad. I'm actually livid and exasperated because I've been getting and answering similar asks over and over again, and yet people still come to me with the same statement and the same conviction EVEN AFTER I POINTED OUT EVERY FUCKING FACT THAT CONTRADICTS IT.

Do you really need a 19-year-old to teach you reading comprehension and media literacy?

Ok, fine.

Statement One: Nick doesn't appreciate RWRB, he's brushing it aside, which is why it wasn't mentioned in the New York Times

One: Editorials don't always portray the actual thoughts or agenda of the interviewee.

Unlike a video interview or a podcast interview where we can hear the whole conversation directly from Nick with his voice, and even if there are cuts and edits we can pick it up via visual or audio continuity, in a written editorial the only thing we can rely on is the writer's words, or in other words, the writer's paraphrase or quotation of what Nick said to him. This gives much bigger room for any changes or manipulation in content because we have nothing else to reference.

It is clear that in the past three editorials, the writer or the magazine itself has deliberately demeaning and devaluing RWRB. In NY Magazine, it was only mentioned in one line and degraded to "a queer take on a common straight trope" (see the choice of word "president's daughter"), with the implication being at its core, it's a straight story/ reliant on past straight stories to be interesting; Hunger Magazine calls it fujoshi-pleasing (fujoshi: Japanese slang, denoting how a straight woman who enjoys fictional gay content is "rotten", too ruined to be married, an insult to both the audience/fans and the movie itself ); and this time New York Magazine didn't even mention RWRB, when let's be honest, it's Nick's biggest breakout role.

"Once Is Chance, Twice is Coincidence, Third Time's A Pattern" this is deliberate. I can't say what the agenda is, my guess is some extent of latent homophobia, but it's clear that this is a fucking pattern. In fact, besides the hidden agenda of devaluing RWRB, these editorials show another hidden agenda, but that's something for a later day. PM me id you want to now, I won't discuss that one on my public platform yet.

Again, there is so much more room for twisting and hiding words in a written editorial. In all the video interviews Nick did, especially in the UK, when has he ever avoided a question about RWRB? When has he ever not shown gratitude towards the project?

Two: In all video evidence that can't be manipulated, that clearly shows Nick's own thoughts which not influenced by any other party, he has made it clear that he adores RWRB.

Why else would he sign books during the M&G London premiere, going as far as to stay behind after the event just to sign books? Same with the LA M&G premiere and TIOY premiere: those were promotions for other projects, he had a valid reason to refuse to sign the RWRB books and posters, but he didn't, always signing with a big smile on his face, even playfully signing on Taylor's face. He said it himself in his Instagram post, and I quote: "The love that Henry has received has been one of the most heartwarming things to watch. It's been difficult to not talk about him. So thank you for seeing him for all he is. He was a joy to bring to life." There's your proof, directly from the man himself.

Statement Two: Nick's not interested in doing a sequel, he said he's done playing princes and he's done playing romantic leads

One: "Done playing princes" doesn't mean literally done playing princes, it means he wants to try more roles and not be stuck with only being known as the "prince" guy. (even though he's literally a prince lol)

Plus, he said that after Robert, but then Henry came along and he was attracted to Henry as a character with his scared but loving heart. He doesn't just view Henry as a prince, he views Henry as a complex, delicate person who so happens to be a prince. Him saying he's done playing princes means in the future, he doesn't really want another royal on his filmography, but this doesn't mean he doesn't want to continue Henry's story. With the given context, namely asking him about future projects he wants to take up, "he's done playing princes" and "he doesn't want to play Henry anymore" are not mutually inclusive.

Two: "Done playing romantic leads" means he wants to try new things and take up new projects that aren't romance films.

This doesn't include the continuation of already established characters i.e. sequels, this just means if he were to take up brand new projects, he wants to try something else. Sequels are inherently different from new projects because again, sequels are based on already established characters.

Three: He said several times ON VIDEO that he'd be in for a sequel

In this one, when asked if he'd be up for a sequel, he said, and I quote "Look, I think with any opportunity of doing a sequel, I think, you know, the script has to be right. But obviously, it was so lovely to see how many people it touched and having that resonance is incredibly important to me, so, yeah. Of course."

In this one, when asked if they have had conservation on a potential sequel, he said, and again I quote: "Yeah, I mean definitely had conversations. I think we're all on the same page in the sense that, you know, the script needs to be right, and sort of all the different components need to be right because we made something that has such a positive effect and I think the last thing you'd wanna do is ruin that or take that in a way, so, you know, the conversations are definitely being had."

And there are more videos from red carpet interviews that I can't be bothered to find right now but he says more or less the same thing.

(look I even transcribed it)

Not only is he on board with a sequel, he's also being careful about it to make sure once they do get to making it, it's something good. He's on board, and he values it. And again, that's directly from him.

We have a phrase in Chinese: 斷章取義, meaning "breaking off a small part of an article and deriving the meaning from that single part" That's what so many of you, in particular, the people who come to my inbox with the sentiments of the above-mentioned statement are doing. Please, use critical thinking and look at the whole picture. Stop making judgments from the surface of one source.

Tagging my friends @alittlefrenchtree and @myteavsricochet because it looks like they've been getting the same things I got

[onesidedradiostatic]

I'd like to know your full opinion on shipping Alastor, despite him being AroAce. I've seen conflicting opinions on it from AroAce People. I've seen some AroAce people say that shipping is taking away rep(and point out that people would be pissed if this was done to, say, Angel Dust), but I've seen other AroAce people saying it's fine and it's a spectrum. (A friend of mine who I believe is aroace takes it into consideration and makes it part of the shipping and story) Personally I'm on the spectrum(gray-ace and demiromantic), but I'm not AroAce in the way people usually think so I'm not sure I have a right to comment on it. I can also see both sides of the conversation.

(I had this in my drafts for a bit now so this ask is old)

I've mentioned time and time again, I personally do not like reciprocated romantic alastor ships. and as someone who possibly falls more under greyro (idfk man), I do not believe alastor falls under that either CANONICALLY, it's just pretty clear to me from the rosie dialogue that alastor is specifically an aroace who is not into dating

but I will not police people for what they ship and I do not think harassment is okay, there's definitely better things to spend your energy on anyways. if it were up to me, the only thing that would exist are one-sided and qpr alastor ships, but it's not up to me, so it is what it is.

it's whatever really, what I care most about is that people don't try to insist he's not aroace in canon to try to give themselves hope that their ship will happen. I care more about our canonical rep (*cough* just fucking solidly confirm it vivzie *cough*) than what people do in fanon even if I don't like it. ultimately, I stay in my own space and don't bother those people as long as they don't bother me.

the main issue with like all of this, why these constant arguments over what type of aroace alastor is exist, is that alastor is our ONLY aspec rep. the aspec community is so varied, favourable, neutral, repulsed, aroallo, alloace, aroace, demi, grey. one singular character cannot possibly singlehandedly encompass ALL our different experiences. he is only ever going to represent one type of aroace, one type of aspec. because he is a singular character. I genuinely think the worst thing to come out of alastor shipping discourse is the amount of aspec infighting I've seen. at the end of the day, we're all starving and we're all fighting over a character who will only ever represent one specific type of aroace.

it's like if every mlm/wlw person only got ONE mlm/wlw character, you may see gay people/lesbians and mspecs fighting over that character because they want the character to represent them, arguing over how mspecs should be allowed to use that character to represent their mspec attraction or gay people/lesbians arguing that the character should firmly remain exclusively attracted to men/women to represent them.

it's a case of people desperately wanting to be represented and aspecs are so underrepresented we never get to see everyone fully represented in a single piece of media.

[queermania]

Ok so I have a real question not trying to start discourse or any thing. If Dean knew how he felt about Cas slash knew he liked men why was he always so weird about gay people. I can see a reading where Dean knew how he felt about Cas but not one where he knew he was bi

this is totally a fair question and i don't think there's any one True reading or interpretation of the show/characters so it really just depends on what version of events resonates the most with you. the way the picture makes the most sense to me is that dean is a guy who was raised in the 80s-90s in a hyper-masculine environment with zero stability. i think all of those puzzle pieces slotted into place in his brain in a way that said "sex with men is okay, feelings are not." a furtive hookup with a dude in a seedy bar bathroom is fine. going on a date with a guy is prohibited.

and the thing is that this is kind of true for dean when it comes to women as well. a one night stand is a-okay. falling in love and settling down is not. so, you take that sort of mentality and then apply all the homophobia of growing up in the eighties and the nineties and a life lived out of a car bouncing between truck stops and, well, you get a dean who is absolutely flabbergasted when confronted with the fact that not only are you allowed to want something romantic with a man, you're allowed to say it out loud to other people. you're allowed to have it.

dean wasn't weird about gay people, necessarily. he was weird about people who were able to just be themselves. he didn't know that was an option. also, i don't know about y'all but as a queer person who doesn't necessarily read as queer at a glance, i too get Very Awkward when confronted with another queer person in the wild and it's not because i'm homophobic. it's because oh! new friend! must send telepathic signals that me queer too! my behavior around other queer people in queer spaces does not match my behavior around other queer people in random public spaces. i'm embarrassing and i see that part of myself in dean lol.

and dean being weird about other people making comments about his perceived queerness, to me, is a very normal reaction for a closeted person (or even someone who is selectively and/or quietly out). you can be perfectly at peace with who you are and still not want to be clocked. like???? homophobia is not a thing of the past. dean grew up during the AIDS crisis. he was, what? nineteen years old when matthew sheppard was killed? his reactions to people insinuating he might be anything even close to queer make perfect sense for someone his age, living the life that he did.

also, like, here's the thing: i realized i was queer when i was about eleven and i freaked out about it for about a day and then promptly suppressed the whole thing because of a deeply traumatizing childhood. being queer was the least of my worries and there was never any time to unpack it and deal with it so i just didn't. and then when i was about nineteen i started to have queer sexual/romantic relationships but continued to suppress the fact that EYE was in fact queer because, again, i didn't really have the space to unpack it. it wasn't until i was about twenty-three and surrounded by other queer people (in a platonic way) that i finally felt safe to fully admit to myself and to other people that i was in fact queer. and then i never really did a whole coming out thing. i just... lived my life openly as a queer person and let other people figure it out.

my point in all this is that i feel like my general experience/trajectory lines up really well with how i view dean's. he had a very traumatic upbringing so while he knew he was attracted to men, he had no time or space to deal with it. that didn't stop him from having sex with men, but he never really unpacked what it actually meant. it wasn't until he was older and had openly queer friends that he felt safe enough to fully acknowledge that part of himself. and then.. that was it. he just lived his life as a queer man. like, i feel like we actually watched that happen over the course of the show???

most importantly, i cannot handle any reading where everyone else knows dean is queer but dean does not know himself. i especially loathe the idea that sam Knows and has to explain dean's own sexuality to himself. that is so ugly. dean is a very self-aware person. you could even argue he is perhaps too self-aware at times.

anyway, this is all obviously just a watsonian explanation of dean's relationship to his queerness. it doesn't even touch on the doylist stuff but that's a whole can of worms i'm not really interested in opening on tumblr dot edu right now.

so, yeah. that's my personal reading.

[antimony-medusa]

Okay so, there is a thing twitter does and you sometimes see it here, when people are professing that a certain block man relationship is platonic, and/or that anything else is boundary breaking. The stance is that you love the platonic relationship so much, and anything else is "weird". So you're defending from the weirdos.

And the thing is, I am not intending to say that you personally have to be comfortable with romantic or sexual relationships when it comes to the block men. If you go "y'know this is not for me", that is 100% fair. That's why I do think that appropriate tags are so important, so that you can curate your space. However. This specific interaction has been sitting in my head for days.

First of all like slimarina has repeatedly rped gay sex on stream, artists drawing them kissing should not be getting death threats on twitter. Second of all— why is it weird. Why are you saying specifically that a relationship between two men is weird or bad or unclear inappropriate? Do you know what you sound like when you say that?

Cause it isn't just "keep the nsfw away from the minors", which is fair and based. Tag that shit. People also acted like this with beeduo when all we were talking about was handholding and kissing, which a) they were making jokes about lap dances on stream, I don't think a kiss is too far, b) handholding your beloved is a behaviour that shows up in humanity in *middle school*. Like this was the type of romance that would show up in disney movies, and people would be like "I am protecting the streamers from the weirdos" by saying that this is abhorent and you're a degenerate if you think about it!

Cause the thing is, when you are saying that queer romance is somehow inappropriate for minors, or saying that a "gay couple" is incompatible with the concept of nsfw without being weird, this is indistinguishable from homophobia. It is literally a homophobic talking point, that gay romance is inherently sexual and inappropriate, and that gay sex is inherently weird and bad. This is a thing politicians are using to push regressive political agendas.

A lot of people are not comfortable with nsfw and that is fine, but when you are making broad statements about sex and romance In General, you start to fall into some traps where like, literally I have heard these talking points from evangelical christians telling me that sex would make me inherently unclean and broken. I am begging people to draw a distinction between "i don't want to see that" and "all of that is bad/weird/inappropriate/should never be talked about in public".

Uncomfortable with slimarina nsfw? Fine. I don't necessarily want to see slime physics sex either. Saying that all engagement with nsfw between two adults who are enthustically consenting and having fun with it and specifically asking for tiktok edits of the sex scenes but happen to be guys is weird and needs to be defended against? FOLKS. You literally sound like a conservative politician.

Like something like 98% of the population is sexually attracted to other people, at a low estimate. And that is FINE. That is how humanity works. We have social rules about how to navigate that, but it's not inherently weird or dirty or inappropriate to be attracted to people, or to think or talk about sex, or to have sex! Average age of having sex for the first time in north america is 16! People are having sex and that's FINE. I'm not but like, sure I'll read stories that include that as an element, because I'm an adult and it's part of the human experience. I also read stories that don't have sex. Neither is morally superior or less weird than the other just by virtue of if there's sex in it or not.

So like, man. We have GOT to stop assigning anything sexual as bad and wrong. It's just a thing that adults do.

[lu-lus-dicks]

rant about shipping asexuals

I can't with the discussion around shipping asexual characters anymore. You know what? As an asexual (or someone on the spectrum, haven't figured that part out yet) I give you permission to draw/write/create all shipping things you want to. Next time someone tells you "you can't do that, it's disrespectful to the asexuals" tell them lu-lus-duckies is ace and gave me permission to draw all the asexuals as sexy people doing hot gay sex.

Actually, tell them lu-lus-duckies told me to make this art, because I want you to. As an asexual who's not repulsed by sexual topics, give me all of your art! I want to scroll through my feed everyday and find the most beautiful, jaw-dropping, toe-curling pieces of art you can make.

I honestly don't see a problem as long as in canon, they remain asexual and don't go the whole "they found the right person" route because fan content will always be fan content and that shouldn't discourage people from making art. I love art. I love every kind of art. You don't even want to see my rule34 folder, the shit I have on there would make the kinkiest of you do a double take.

It's honestly more annoying seeing mischaracterization of asexuals than the actual shipping. My man alastor wouldn't be all head over heels, he'd be an ass, enemies to enemies with benifits, a "I'm going to be in a relationship with you because it benifits me and maybe you too".

Just please be mindful to who you send those to. I am perfectly fine with all of this, but someone might not be. As long as you aren't actively sending them things they are uncomfortable with, there is no problem. If your art that ships asexual characters shows up on their feed that's not your fault. The people who find that disturbing or uncomfortable can easily ignore/block that content and that'll be the best solution for everyone. Sure it's not perfect, but forcing people to stop making something they're passionate about isn't something I'd like to see at all.

I respect other aces wishes to not see aces depicted in ship art and i also expect that other asexuals respect my wish to want as much fan content of this asexual character, including ship art, as possible. At the end of the day, it won't happen in canon and people just like seeing their favourite ace character interract with another, so they make their own shit and that's badass.

And of course, it's all okay as long as it's fictional. Please don't go around telling ace people in real life they should go have sex with someone because they'd be cute together or something stupid like that.

Edit: this goes for the aromantic bit too. (I'm also definitely demiromantic, that I've figured out. so I'm not sure how much I have a say in this considering i do feel some form of romantic attraction, but i think the same can be said with aromantics.)

[sephirthoughts]

Sephiroth for 3, 8, 25, 26 (cait sith)

YES MY BEST homicidally insane VERY GOOD BOY 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

3. Obscure headcanon 

Sephiroth's eyes don't just look like a cat's, they function more like a cat's than a person's.

he's extremely sensitive to any horizontal movement, but has a harder time with vertical movement

he's not colorblind, per se, but his rods/cones ratio means he sees less color than other people do, literally making his world more grey and drab

however, that also means he has spectacular night vision. To the point where he will not think to turn the lights on in a dark room. Him sitting alone in his office in the dark is not (just) him being dramatic and edgy, it's because he can see just fine and forgot to turn on the lights. ironically, he does play it off like he was dramatically brooding, anyway, because he's deeply embarrassed by foibles that mark him out as specifically unlike other humans. He would much rather be thought of as dark and edgy than as a forgetful cat.

8. Unpopular opinion about them

I don't think this is unpopular with this crowd, but it's wildly unpopular elsewhere:

Sephiroth is gay. Gay gay homosexual gay. No interest in or attraction to women whatsoever. He's also mostly asexual, anyway, but it is decided homo-asexuality. Not aromantic though. He'd be a long walks on the beach, candle-lit dinners, sharing a single milkshake, chocolates and flowers guy. And a cuddler.

25. 3 things they’d want to take with them if they were dropped off in the middle of nowhere 

masamune

cloud

hojo's dismembered body which they are out in the middle of nowhere to dispose of

26. What they would do if stuck in an elevator with [Cait Sith]

sephiroth: a child must've dropped this toy. i'll return it to the lost and found immediately.

cait sith: i'm not a toy ye numbskulled giant!

sephiroth: oh! you can talk. that's delightful.

cait sith (jokingly pointing at his cat ears): yep! and i'm great listener too!

sephiroth (jamming the emergency stop button behind his back): how strange. the elevator seems to be stuck. it looks as if we'll be here a while.

sephiroth (sits down cross-legged): i suppose it all began when i was brought to shinra manor, and abandoned there, by the man who had raised me as his foster son, up to that point. the first day, professor hojo allowed me to nearly drown in a mako tank, to demonstrate to me that terror and excruciating pain wouldn't actually kill me. it's kind of a funny story, actually...

cait sith: reeve! reeve pull the plug! i cannae take it anymore!

thank you for the asks!!!! 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

[our-aroace-experience]

ok so here's my ace/arospec story

ace:

i learned about being ace

oh i don't know

12 years old maybe

i searched it up after reading about it online

"aroace definition"

it went something like

"being both aromantic and asexual"

i searched up

"aromantic"

"asexual"

at first i thought it was a bit strange

i hadn't learned yet

to distinguish

between romantic attraction and sexual attraction

because i didn't know

people actually wanted sex

people actually saw someone and went

"wow"

"i want to fuck them"

i had a crush on a childhood friend of mine

at the time

(a guy. i am a girl.)

i'd always assumed i was cishet

grew up in a conservative christian household

slightly offtopic but honestly my parents were great

not stereotypical conservative christians

both allies

they had friends who were trans and gay

i'd checked out queer media from the library

and they were fine with it

anyway

back to the story

so since i had a crush on the opposite gender

i assumed ofc

i was cishet

well ofc i wasn't into sex, i was just a kid

but at age 13

almost 14

i was alone

in a hotel room, no parents, on instagram

that's the only time i could get that

late night phone time

when i didn't have parents around

i found @i.put.the.ace.in.disgrace on instagram

scrolled through every fucking post

on their account

and on the #asexual tag

i related to those posts

like

a lot

a suspicious amount for someone supposedly allo

even though i was just a kid

yeah maybe i'd grow into it

maybe i'd feel attraction one day

but not now

and who the hell was going to tell me

what i could or couldn't identify as

so i tried out the ace label

spent hours and hours

wondering if it was right

if i was really ace

if i wasn't too young

but going back to being allo felt wrong

so i decided to keep the label

the first person i came out to

was an online friend

they were so amazing and supportive of it

i love them so much for that

they said i'd been on their gaydar for a while

(a message i still think about

when wondering if i'm really ace)

felt sick the next day

i'd always been an ally

supported my queer friends

arospec aspec trans homosexual i supported them all

but it made me sick

to think about me

myself

being queer

it was sort of rough

but i got through it

later

came out to my friend and her mom

they were cool about it

i knew i'd be safe

they weren't ecstatic or super happy

but they accepted me

"cool"

that's what they said i remember it

i was a hot mess that day too

stuttered over all my words when trying to come out

and they still accepted me

i love them

later

i decided to hint at my identity to my mom

talked about not liking sex

i checked out a few ace books

from the library

my mom took me aside

i don't remember her exact words

it went something like

"it's natural to be curious

but you can't be ace at 14

you're not trying to be

are you?"

ofc

i managed to convince her i was allo

had to be more careful then

arospec:

i'd only had one crush.

one crush who i'd liked as a friend first.

you see where this is going, don't you?

well

i didn't

i'd heard that aces had not very many crushes

so i assumed i was just Really Really Asexual

and i couldn't be aro hahahaha

i'd been in love before!

aros cannot be in love!

oh by golly i was wrong

i started questioning

(only one crush?

my friends are all over their crushes

plural

and i've only had one??

maybe i'm not as allo as i thought)

i debated over gray-aro and demi-aro

picked demi

it described my experience more accurately

came out to aforementioned friend

then aforementioned online friend

they were chill about it

(fucking love them)

then i 3d printed a black ring

and a white ring

ace

and aro

and this is maybe the best part of the whole experience

i had friends who were stereotypical conservative christian

queerphobic

they complimented my aro and ace rings

and so did my mom

and that made me really happy for some reason

shit that was a long ask im sorry

thank you for sharing! i hope your mum comes around to you being aroace one day

also side note: this reads like a poem it’s so well written!

[officialgleamstar]

Personal DnDads Pride Headcanons

some of these are simple but most are paragraphs long because of who I am as a person (incapable of saying things concisely), so they're going under a readmore. vaguely organized by age group.

one quick note: feel free to cheer on or rag on any of these that you please, variety in opinion is the spice of fandom life! everyone's headcanons are so real and valid to me, i am a strong believer in having as many contradicting fandom opinions as you want. for this list, i just went with everything that is "default" to my fan content. others' transfem sparrow is shaking hands with my gnc sparrow and yes, i'm listing that one on purpose, because if you make fun of transfem sparrow, you are getting hit by my bat. be fucking nice.

please enjoy!

Season 1 Dads and Spouses

Carol is a lesbian. This is simply canon to me. It’s important that this is first and visible to everyone.

Bi/pan polyamorous Henry and Mercedes is also simply canon to me. Honestly that one might be fully canon based on some of the things that happen in Odyssey

Henry is unlabeled but in the sense that he calls himself ‘queer’, ‘bisexual’, ‘gay’, or ‘pansexual’, fully depending on his mood and the conversation happening

Ron is also unlabeled but in the sense that he has never thought about it in his life and isn’t intending to now

Glenn is bisexual but never talks about it unless someone else mentions it first, and he tries really really hard to never think about his gender once in his life. The queer angst I give Glenn could be a whole post of its own but just know he has issues. He does fuck men though

Darryl still isn’t really sure on his sexuality and probably never will be, but he’s actually explored it a bit, so that’s better than whatever the fuck was going on with him before the show started. Henry likes giving him subtle bear pride flag accessories because Darryl actually wears them a lot. His favorite color is brown, after all.

Jodie, Nicky, and Taylor all are bisexual with a preference for women. Sexuality isn’t genetic but it is for them specifically.

Morgan is also bisexual. Literally none of the season 1 parents are straight except maybe Samantha and even with her, my opinion fully matters on the day and how I’m feeling.

Henry and Lark have definitely had an exchange at some point where Lark asked him how it was to ‘experience twink death’, to which Henry just went ‘get back to me in a few years on that, kid.’ and Lark spent the rest of the week furiously moping because clearly, he’s a twunk, Father- (words of a man who did not take care of himself well enough from the ages of 18-25 to ever be a twunk)

This is my little shipper brain but Jodie only realized he liked men after being stuffed into the Odyssey and being around Ron 24/7 for months on end (and the demon stuff, but he didn’t know that yet for obvious reasons). In his timeline, he had a whole arc about it and now he’s persistently attracted to strange men who don’t make sense as well as women light-years out of his league. He’s still a little miffed that Henry doesn’t remember the very long conversations they had about it, but him and Nicky get to wear matching bi pride bracelets now, so he guesses it’s fine.

Kiddads and Spouses

Lark is bisexual. He has known this since kindergarten when his parents explained what the flag all over their house was and has never thought about it since.

Lark also helped Rebecca realize she was bisexual because she would ask him about it in a class they shared in high school

This is utterly unrelated to LGBT headcanons but I think Veronica and Rebecca grew up in San Dimas with the kiddads, and were friends with them in high school. It just makes sense to me

Unlabeled Terry Junior is something that can be so personal to me. In a general sense, he likes everyone romantically, and identifies enough with the asexual spectrum to wear an ace ring, but he doesn’t really see the point in putting a name on it. He’s just Terry Junior and he’s happy with that.

Him, Lark, and Nicky did have a group chat called ‘bisexuals with an agenda’ in high school though, where they would make plans for pranking or otherwise harassing their fathers during group outings. Terry loves Ron but that does not mean he is above ruining his day. It’s done with affection.

My thoughts on Sparrow could be a full fanfiction but gonna try to keep it simple (retroactive edit: did not keep it simple). Sparrow is the token cishet of the kiddads, but in the queerest way possible. He’s an Oak-Garcia, of course he’s explored himself very thoroughly. At current, he identifies as gender non-confirming cis man, but he has had periods of his life where he transitioned and then detransitioned. In early high school, he identified as non-binary. From senior year up until just before Hero was born, he lived as a trans lesbian. He doesn’t see these periods as phases, just as his identity changing over time. Currently he’s perfectly happy identifying as a man, but wouldn’t be wholly shocked if he transitioned again. Calls himself “cis but gender is obviously, massively, a social construct and so it feels unfair to expect myself to fit into these boxes when identity can be so fluid and-”

Rebecca still calls him her wife, and also a granola lesbian or MILF from time to time because it makes him laugh, and while Nicky was still in his life, he would send Sparrow trans memes a lot. Sparrow also has always liked being seen as non-binary, he sees it as ‘winning at being androgynous’. Competitive to the sense of nonsensical Sparrow my beloved

Sparrow always wears women’s clothing but that’s for autistic reasons. They just fit nicer for his brain. It helps the gender(tm) thing though, he near exclusively wore hand-me-downs from Mercedes throughout all of high school

Sorry for talking so much about Sparrow. He’s my favorite character so he is the focus of many of my thoughts. Anyways

Never been a huge fan of the ‘Grant was outed by his crush in the Forgotten Realms’ headcanon, I think Grant came out about a year beforehand. Long enough where everything about it has settled but it’s still new enough that Darryl forgot for a split second and thought Grant might have a crush on Killa during the Four Knight arc. He’d known he liked boys a while before that, and also his parents kind of figured he was gay most of his life since he had 95% girl friends

Marco is pansexual! He met Grant in college because he worked the front desk of their dorm building and would always wear a bunch of pride pins

Nicky was Grant’s first good friend who was a boy, I like to think that they were childhood friends. Grant announced this to his dad at the age of 10 by going “Nick Close is transgender now, so that means you don’t have to worry about me only talking to girls because he’s a boy.” and Darryl went “…Alright?” and then googled what ‘transgender’ means

Speaking of, Nicky realized he was trans because of Mulan. Both Glenn and Jodie, in their respective timelines, googled ‘How do I know if my daughter is a lesbian’ before he came out because Nicky would rewatch the reflection song so often and also the tomboy-isms. Everyone felt very stupid for being surprised when he cut all of his hair off, cried, and asked to change his name

T4T Nicky and Cassandra is canon and they rubbed it into everyone's faces when they were together, Anthony is just afraid of the truth

Cassandra is trans het. I love trans het people more than anything and I love her so this makes sense to me.

Veronica is non-binary, in the sense of “girl but to the left”. They/she pronouns, calls themself a girlie and a mom but not a woman, dresses in a kickass pantsuit at formal events. I’m also in love with her

Season 2 Teens and Friends

Hero and Normal are both trans. When Hero came out, Sparrow sat Normal down to explain why Hero was now a sister instead of a brother and Normal responded with “Well, that’s not fair. How come Hero can be a girl but I can’t be a boy?!” and Sparrow just stared at him for a really long time before going “You can be a boy, honey.” and they went thrift shopping as a family for new clothes the next day

Normal is stealth trans, mostly because Hero is the same way and he copies her, but also because it doesn’t really occur to him that he passes. He just figures that people knows even though he is on testosterone and binds and presents masculine. It helps that his family presents pretty gender-neutral as a whole, so most people assume he had long hair as a kid because his parents are hippies. They had a son and daughter, both with long hair. They now have a daughter and a son, both with short hair. To the general populace, nothing has changed, they just misremembered which kid was older.

Taylor is a demi-boy and spends every year growing more and more feminine. Definitely calls their gender something like ‘boy with a dash of girl on the side’ with their friends. Growing out his hair was a newer thing and he regrets cutting it, even if it was a super cool sequence and he looked like an anime protagonist, because he liked how it framed his face.

Cassandra has always maintained an openness about her trans identity, so Taylor’s the same way. He’s always got the he/they pronoun pin on (I figure this is normalized by the time of season 2, but he’s just very pleased about it), he has a variety of trans and non-binary pride pins that he cycles through, and they like painting their nails because it’s an easy way for them to feel a little more feminine.

Cassandra’s living room is decorated with a massive trans pride flag and LED lights. The first time the teens walk into Taylor’s home, Scary says “it looks like a Twitch stream in here” at the same time that Normal says “it looks like my sister’s room in here” and they high-five while Taylor yells at them to be nice.

Hermie is genderfluid and uses any pronouns. This is real to me. He has my own teenage trait of gender shifting every three hours and never knowing what to do about it and he will be suffering with this until he exits puberty, at which point he gives up and just sees what gender other people choose for him.

Hermie is also pan/ace! No further thoughts here. She just is.

Erica just goes by queer because she doesn’t think the common passerby deserves to know her rich inner life and she’s right, they don’t

I tend to say a lot that all of the S2 kids are bisexual, and I represent them as such, but I truly believe that Lincoln and Normal both have no idea what’s going on with their sexualities. They say they’re bisexual for bisexual teen squad reasons but Normal is going through a constant crisis of “Am I gay or bisexual?” and Lincoln looks up the definition of aro/ace on a weekly basis. Neither of them will ever express this until Scary goes “maybe I’m not bisexual, actually.”

On that note, Scary is a lesbian but she’s not going to realize that until college. For now, she’s rocking with the bisexuality and pretends it’s not weird that her ‘crushes’ on boys feel wildly different than her crushes on girls. Yes I am projecting. This is not a secret. We project onto Scary here.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Okay so this is my first time actually doing an ask in Tumblr, so apologies if I'm doing something wrong/breaking any conventions but

What if an AU version of Edward who has the same backstory of how he turned a Vampire and the Cullens and and still has an infatuation with Carlisle, but is aware of his interests accepts the fact? Like what change in his personality would cause this, and how exactly would this different Edward act? Would the Cullen family implode any sooner?

The ask is perfectly fine, there's no real set format to these things. Just that if you want to answer please, for the love of god, do not repeat something I've already answered.

That said, you say it yourself anon, this would be a completely different person. If Edward was different he would be different.

This is where we start wandering into write the fic territory because for Edward to do what you say he has to be extremely different in fundamental ways that make it hard for me to extrapolate what happens from there.

(gif credit @franzias-cave)

If Edward is accepting does he accept it as unrequited or does he work to gain Carlisle's interest? Does he still accept Esme into the fold or does he now reject her as competition? If he's accepting is he also open with the fact, the family now knowing and reacting, or has he kept it hidden and how would that inform him and his decisions.

If we do manage to, somehow, get to canon all the way unscathed and Edward's basically the same except "secretly gay and cool with it" then probably we get to this picture.

As remember there are only two doors for Bella Swan where Edward is concerned: he will either eat her or he will turn her into a vampire. He only did the latter in canon because he both had little choice and believed himself to have romantic feelings for her.

The thing about Edward, is even if Bella acts the same canonically to draw in his interest, is he likes the idea of true love and having only one true love. He's very enamored with the idea that Bella alone is the love of his life, he's been waiting for her all this time, and that when she dies there will never be another person for him. Part of this is just being a dramatic teenager having feelings but another part is that he wants to be a person who is very true to his feelings and unfaltering. Those he respects in his family he sees as having only ever loved each other in their lives and never, ever, falling apart for any reasons. His coven is different because they feel love in a way no other vampires can without partaking in the Cullen diet.

Edward doesn't want to be a person who can have feelings, even attraction, to more than one person in his life.

The trouble is here if he's attracted to Carlisle, let alone in love with him, and knows this and admits it to himself...

Then he can't be in love with or attracted to Bella without despising himself for being untrue to his own feelings. Which means... he can't choose the door where Bella becomes the bride of Dracula at the end of the day, can he?

[triflesandparsnips]

I've spent a couple days now trying to find the right words for this, and I still don't know if it's quite right, but-- well, fuck it. I need to tell it in three parts, because I'm not sure it breaks down more easily than that, so let's start with:

Stede knew.

...that is to say: The more I think about it, and in light of what we're seeing so far in season 2 (though hey, the new episode drops tonight, who knows, who knows, but--)

--but the more I think about it, the more sure I am that Stede has always known that he's attracted to men-- and he definitely knew, all along, that he was attracted to Ed in particular.

It's been a popular (and very entertaining) theory that maybe he didn't know. There was certainly a lot of static on the line whenever the topic came up in season 1. He seemed to need help identifying "love"; he didn't respond to Ed's flirting or half-attempted moonlight kiss; he didn't, in fact, try anything that wasn't obscured behind ten thousand layers of plausible deniability to the degree that it was reasonable to interpret him as naive or innocent or completely unaware of his own queerness.

But I think... I think that's what it was. Obfuscation. Hiding behind the relative safety of a presumed ignorance.

Because it all comes back, over and traumatically-over, to that queer need for the language of safety.

Listen: Stede Bonnet grew up keenly aware that being the kind of person he was-- being soft, being gay, being different, being queer-- was reason enough for the world to beat the shit out of him even when he was just a socially unacceptable level of queer (picking flowers as a boy, staying unmarried as a man). In Stede's time period, being any more obviously queer than that, and being subsequently found out, could lead to literal death.

So Stede would have been aware that that sort of attraction wasn't safe-- or, at least, that acting on it wasn't safe in any but the most plausibly deniable of ways... unless, and until, he could be absolutely sure.

And that's the thing, that right there, that's the next part of this:

Stede knew, but that doesn't mean he trusted himself-- or Ed.

It's like this:

When you're somebody who's been punished before (socially and physically) for just the appearance of queerness-- god forbid the acceptance or celebration of it-- then you're going to develop a whole lot of ways to protect yourself from anyone getting proof that you're as queer as they suspect.

So if you're caught looking-- no, no, you were just thinking about a book you wanted to read, silly Stede Bonnet, head in the clouds--

--and if your hand is caught lingering too long-- no, no, that can't be right, because you don't touch anyone at all, see? Oh that Stede Bonnet, awkward as anything, barely knows where his tea cup is--

--and no, absolutely not, you can't be fooled into believing a friend might be something more, no matter how flirtatious his body, no matter how much he seems to cherish your regard-- because either he's lying to you (and you learned that one well enough as a child, didn't you), or... or worse, that's just how some men feel friendship, and you're the one making it strange, making it queer, and he wouldn't be like that anymore if you just stopped bothering him quite so much, toddle on back to your wife, Stede Bonnet, and it'll all be fine again...

The tragedy of the first season might really be, out of all that happened, that a man could kiss Stede Bonnet on the mouth and say he made him happy and ask that they plan a life together--

And Stede still doubted that Ed really meant it.

Stede knew, and he doubted Ed... but he was on the road to trusting himself.

I think Stede went to sea to come out.

I think becoming a pirate was a deliberate queering of his previous life, the first step in him trying to actually allow himself an intentional queer identity in a world where the rules, boundaries, and kinds relationships that were expected and acceptable were broad enough for him to finally exist.

And he was right! Because, like-- jfc, of all the reasons the crew wanted to mutiny, it wasn't because Stede was kinda swish. Of all the reasons Spanish Jackie was going to de-nose him, it wasn't because he was swanning around camp af. Calico Jack did some damage, sure, but he dropped it once his overall aim was achieved-- making it less about social punishment and more another way to needle Stede into responding. Hell, even Izzy's initial interactions with him (regardless of what extra ammo he brought to bear later, which tbh may need separate examination entirely once we get more of season 2) were bound up in Stede interfering in his business and somehow succeeding rather than anything having to do with Stede's queerness.

And when you consider it from that angle... my god, the man was a one-man pride parade and his love of Edward Teach was the float at the front.

He used coded language with Ed in the first five minutes he was conscious enough to fuckin do so ("Do you fancy a fine fabric?" --christ, watch Stede's eyes before he asks that question, the way he clocks Ed turning away to test the cashmere, and when Ed gives a safe response that's when Stede shares more, just watch him)--

He took Ed's silk, touched Ed's chest, complimented his looks-- and even if you trust Stede's memory of it over Ed's, where there was no half-gasp, no aborted kiss-- Stede did all that, and Ed didn't punish him for it. My god, when they went their separate ways, Stede turned back to look-- and so did Ed--

He draped his lace cuffs over Ed's bare wrists as they stood together at tea. He let himself believe Ed was committing to a life together when they agreed to co-captaincy. When he thought Ed had left permanently with Calico Jack he was explicit with Lucius about what it meant ("I think it's over")--

Look: Stede has, in comparison and in opposition to his previous life, been a reckless bolt of rainbow glory almost the entire time we've see him in season 1. It just doesn't look like it from the outside because... he's really good at the language of safety.

So all this to say:

It makes sense, Stede having no concern for telling everybody in the entire pirate world apparently about his love for Ed.

It makes sense for Stede to say "I should have told him how I feel"-- because he knew, even then, he was just afraid he was wrong.

And so it would make sense, to me, if Stede, back in proximity with Ed and with definitive proof that Ed felt the same way as Stede (or had, at least, at one point), proceeds to get absolutely weird with how much gooey queer LOVE he throws at Ed from the moment they're both coherent enough to form words.

BECAUSE:

Stede couldn't trust the straight world to be safe? Well now he's dead there, time to be queer af

AND

Stede couldn't trust that Ed wanted him the same way? Well babe just went around making the world burn and then promptly died trying because he got his heart broken by Stede, so Stede is going to be 100% insufferable about showing this very special boy just how much he is absolutely adored.

And I cannot wait to see what bullshit he comes up now that he finally feels safe.

[transtanium]

KILLER ROBOT SEEKS COMPANY

I'm not like most other women

And not just because I'm gay

I've got two fine tits,

and a hidden death ray

But nobody seems to understand

That I've got a grand and evil plan

To find someone just like me.

A dead dude's guts, some hydraulic struts 

and cams

Make me what I am.

In my skull, a pretty little box

That makes me walk and talk

My nerves made of wire, my heart atomic fire

These panel lines in my skin,

Showing my original sin

Of pretending to be a person

Maybe some day I'll be a real girl.

My creator must have failed math

Or thought I was worthless trash

Because he never bothered to build my other half

(beat.)

He was only human, after all.

My electronic brain has fusses and fits

Restless data, jagged bits

trying to conceive of happiness

I just wish someone could understand these digital emotions

That leave me feeling like a ramshackle raft on the organic ocean.

Monsters, mutants and minions are fine

But what I really, really wouldn't mind

Is a metal lover with a body like mine.

How am I supposed to mesh

With someone made of flesh

When they don't even have neural ports?

Sometimes I just feel like a mess of spare parts and simulated feelings

Walking among people, always reeling

from the sensation that I'm just different.

Nobody's first choice, this robot freak

"You could be more attractive with a few tweaks,"

But DAMN YOU ALL, I want to be me!

So I'm seeking a cybernetic partner in villainy and crime

A badbot with which I can spend my time

And to whom I can bare my poor atomic heart.

(Not literally. That would probably kill you.)

Someone who doesn't mind my occasional chainsaw hands

Someone to participate in my dastardly plans

Both small and grand.

So if you really want to apply

And you think my love could be worth a try

Let's make a connection, we'll make some sparks fly.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi sex witch, i realise that this is not an actual sex ed related question and I hope this isn't overstepping any bounds.

I'm sort of in a weird spot right now a la my sexuality and am trying to figure out if I actually want a relationship and if what I feel is romantic attraction or Friendship levelled up. I've known for a long time that I'm Demisexual or Ace, and I thought I knew that I still felt romantic attraction but now I'm less sure.

How did you come to realise that you were aromantic? In that discovery did you ever wonder if it was a sort of 'mental block' or something similar that would be better off working through? (I ask because I'm sort of stuck in that state of mind right now, and I'm just curious to see if it's a common experience or not)

I realise that this is a fairly sensitive topic, and I really don't mean offense by asking.

I also realise that no two people's experiences will be the same but I was interested in hearing about it from another person's perspective.

I hope you have a great day whether or not you give this ask the time of day.

I've asked you other things in the past and it's always been brilliantly helpful. Thanks a lot for everything you do.

hi anon,

no worries about overstepping boundaries :) this is a pretty reasonable thing to ask of someone, and I'm happy to talk about it!

there's a funny story that I tell about the moment I probably should have known, but didn't yet have the language. in sixth grade my class had an assignment that involved making a collage timeline of the rest of our lives (a proto-vision board of sorts) and I think I was the only kid in the class who didn't put getting married on my timeline. everyone else did, as far as I can remember, and most of them also included having kids. being a pedantic little fuck I pointed out to several of my friends that it was really unreasonable to assume they would find someone they liked enough to marry who liked them back, to which everyone told me (paraphrasing) to shut the fuck up and stop being a little bastard.

but it still seemed very strange to me, because even when I was very young - back when I barely had the language to conceptualize being gay, let alone aromantic - I never imagined my life with a romantic partner. romantic pairings were interesting in stories, sure, I ate that shit up from a very young age! the star-crossed lovers shit going on in American Dragon: Jake Long did a number on my developing brain, and my Barbies and Littlest Pet Shops got up to INSANE relationship drama, but for myself it never really felt, like, relevant? not unpleasant, just uninteresting.

but I still had crushes on people as I grew up, and more importantly I had crushes on people of various genders, so during my teen years I was WAY more preoccupied with repressing my burgeoning bisexuality than drawing any conclusions about my romantic orientation

spoilers: the bisexuality won.

in college I had a friend who identified as asexual at the time, who spent maybe a year trying to convince me that I was aromantic. and I didn't want to hear it! I don't know why, honestly; maybe some part of me, despite loving the community I had found coming into my queerness, was still subconsciously afraid of being too different and grappling with the consequences.

so instead I did this uuuuh real dirtbag thing where instead of just acknowledging to myself that I was pretty fundamentally uninterested in romantic relationships and that that's fine, I spent the first half of college leaning hard on self-deprecation to explain my single status. oh, me? why aren't I dating? well, I'd probably be a really bad partner. yeah, I suck. I mean, I'm so busy all the time! and I'm weird.

(at the time I know I definitely had friends who assumed I was Like That because my parents were divorced, which is hilarious old-fashioned and also categorically untrue. I was Like This way before my parents got divorced!)

it actually took a relationship ending pretty badly to make peace with the idea that maybe I didn't want a relationship at all. I won't get into the details on that, because it involves another person and we were both very young and accidentally hurt each other a lot in ways we didn't mean and I don't think anyone was the villain, but I don't want it to come across like I had one bad breakup and then swore off romance, a thing I'd previously been interested in, forever. it was more like I found myself in a really heightened situation - they really desperately needed a good and attentive romantic partner after getting out of a bad relationship, I wanted our friendship to stay exactly the same but with a sexual component - that made very, very obvious what I was actually looking for in non-platonic relationships. which was, I guess, actually pretty platonic relationships, but with genitals involved.

haha just kidding, I actually didn't get that part through my skull until I spent an entire summer crying constantly, dissociating frequently, and spending way too much time on BAD dates having even worse sex that made me feel gross! but we got there eventually.

that part probably isn't super relatable to you if you're somewhere in the ace realm, sorry about that.

anyway, once the dust settled and I felt halfway human again I was feeling vulnerable and open to change - finally willing to see myself in a new way and reckon with parts of myself that I hadn't been before. I remembered what my buddy had always said about me seeming Really Aromantic, and I let it settle on me. how would I feel, if I actually was aromantic? how would it change my life, how I thought about myself?

and if I can use a cliche with you? it felt like a weight rolling off my shoulders. I suddenly had a whole sturdy base to build a better understanding of myself on, an easy way to justify the way I lived that didn't require throwing myself under a bus.

thinking of myself through the lens of aromanticism felt like a huge, HUGE relief, and frankly I think that, more than anything, is the best way for anyone to decide if they should be applying any identity label to themselves. which brings us back to you! I actually don't believe in the model of sexuality and gender that posits a secret innate Right Answer buried in each person that they'll discover if the just find the right terminology. all of the words we use are the result of our time and place, right? people like us existed all through history with different words for themselves, and they'll exist way after us calling themselves things we can't imagine.

so basically: I came to realize I was aromantic because calling myself aromantic felt like loving myself, and if that's the case for you than I strongly recommend you do it, too.

happy pride xoxo