thearoacespark

[thearoacespark]

LOVE BULLET 🩷🔫

[thearoacespark]

[thearoacespark]

drifting stars is such a fun au!!

kinda part 2

[thearoacespark]

i love love bullet. u should love love bullet too

[thearoacespark]

*thinks up an idea for a silly quick piece* okay haha let's whip something up real quick

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

oh no

[thearoacespark]

voting (a balanced take? hopefully)

disclaimer: I don’t usually do this. I’m still very young and learning about the world and this is all pretty surface level observation— but I wanted to try and say something anyways—it’s likely imperfect and there is probably nuance I’ve missed. Also, this is mostly geared towards my fellow USAmericans.

I have been guilty of sharing sentiment with “vote blue no matter who, VOTE VOTE” posts, and being gripped with a sense of fear and urgency like no other. I understand. Project 2025, the ideals of Trump’s platform (lots of the immigration ideas eerily close to Proposition 187…) are very scary.

But let’s slow down. Others have said if we’re voting out of fear and as if we have no other choice, then it’s no better than having no choice as all. I have to agree.

In my opinion, while emotion does push people to act and is a good motivator, I feel much better choosing on my own rather than being pressured or guilted by others.

After all, no one can truly force another to do something they don’t want to—but we can discuss, debate, and change minds.

Instead of saying it’s impossible, let’s consider a third party candidate, specifically one that is explicitly pro-Palestine. In my opinion, it’s tough, especially for these reasons:

- No matter how you look at it four months is a short period of time. We might have less than four months, some ballots are printed and solidified early, according to AOC’s Instagram Live Talk. (link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9l41vgOAGj/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)

- Many people have not heard of these third party candidates— I had not been familiar with Jill Stein or Claudia de la Cruz before today. Do many people know of the members of Congress who have already called for ceasefire? (https://workingfamilies.org/ceasefire-tracker/) Tumblr endorsements help and I appreciate the information on other platforms regardless, but what about people who are mostly offline?

- There’d need to be a robust and wide-spreading social media, news, TV and more campaign to get enough people informed in such a short time, much less get them on board and overcome the substantial opposition already faced by the pro-Palestine movement in general. Campaign managers need to be paid salaries. Transportation, advertising, food, gas… it costs a lot of money. A lot of people are already struggling financially and donating what they can— and donations to Gaza E-SIMs and evacuation funds help people right now. (By the way, plugging Operation Olive Branch: https://linktr.ee/opolivebranch)

- Even if they do get elected, it can’t be just the president— they will face extreme pushback, likely from all sides, and they need House and Congress and Court members on their side to make not only foreign policy shifts but also other systemic changes to society that are dearly needed.

For now, I’m voting blue because I think it’s our best shot at something better… but if someone has a detailed plan on how to turn a third-party candidate from improbable to possible that addresses these issues in concrete ways, then maybe the conversation can change. The time crunch, however, is extremely tough.

What now?

- Vote. Even if nothing about this post changes your opinion on the presidential election, I’d encourage you to vote, just for voter turnout and to exercise that political power! There are still nonpresedential and local elections that will directly impact your community. (https://www.usa.gov/confirm-voter-registration)

- Continue to advocate for causes you believe in and educate others, and learn about issues outside just the US.

- Being confident in the best action to take and trying to convince others to vote blue shouldn’t mean dismissing criticism of our current institutions and the current Democratic candidate, or attacking people who bring up these criticisms (of course, check for sources and records first!) These conversations should be ongoing.

- Try to fact-check everything you hear and dispel misinformation as much as possible!

- Continue to consider pushing alternative voting methods such as Ranked Choice Voting—I haven’t read into it enough to say more concrete details, but something has got to change 😭

- Share resources whenever you can, and take care of yourself and others :)

[thearoacespark]

part 1 | part 2 (here)

Here’s a link to the author’s blog if you’re interested! https://juliesondradecker.com/?page_id=1767

However, I borrowed it as an e-book from my library for free!

So yeah! I really liked the book personally. I think it’s structured so that you can only read one specific part if you want to, depending on if you are asexual wanting to learn more about themselves, are close to someone asexual, or are simply wanting an introduction to the topic the first time. I read through the whole thing!

I was super impressed and surprised to see how, even 10 years ago, these ideas were still thought about. It was affirming since I was fairly young when it came out and it goes to show that Asexuality as a concept has in fact existed for a while :) In such depth, too! Demisexuality, Aromanticism, Polyamory—and much more are mentioned here as well.

Based on the Amazon reviews, there was one part regarding acceptance of “straight-passing” asexuals seems to still be debated over, and the advice about confronting unsupportive people was a little out there for my non-confrontational heart. I hesitate to say that any resource is perfect— however, I personally thought the majority of the book had important things to say!

Under the “read more” is a bingo board from Chapter 3 on different misinterpretations/criticisms of Asexuality the author tackles, just to show an example of the wide variety of topics that are covered in the book. To be honest, I see a lot of these points and rebuttals covered in ace discourse here. (warning for examples of aphobia)

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It’s amazing how fast I got through the book thanks to its approachable tone and, of course, engaging content. I haven’t read for fun in a while (😭 I used to be such a bookworm) so it was a pleasant experience!

[thearoacespark]

happy pride month everyone <3 is the bot chaos still goin on in the ace tag?

okay originally this blog was gonna be silly and I was just gonna start ocposting right away but! Then I fell down a completely different rabbit hole.

so yeah! I found myself super curious about how the research world viewed people like me! But also, I thought it could be a nice idea to make posts documenting my journey reading through these papers, in a more accessible manner like this to share the knowledge <3 There are already some interesting and important topics I have in mind to explore! Though the most material is on asexuality, there were a few on aromanticism and even a wider spectrum, including demisexuality and others!! Was very nice to see!

FULL DISCLAIMER: I’m by no means an expert on ANYTHING here, although I have a couple beginner research experiences under my belt + I am currently studying cognitive science as my major, so some of my coursework is applicable here. Also, I won’t necessarily agree or endorse every point or conclusion that the papers make, but in my view it never hurts to see what information and data is out there!

If you wanna see more posts about this, I’ll be posting it under the the sparks-acespec-research tag. Also, this is a sideblog, so if you follow, I might not always follow back right away since it gets confusing with the main blogs and the side blogs….

If there are any topics you’re especially interested in, please drop an ask and I may or may not be inspired to look for stuff mentioning that!

[thearoacespark]

new zine about asexual history! this one's been rattling around my head for awhile