Don't mind me getting on my soapbox for a moment... a lot of this musing is admittedly for the sake of my own processing of this topic, re: aroaceness. Read at your own peril! <3
I'm generally a very "ship and let ship" kind of person, but I think I would definitely append a little caveat of, like, "As long as you're not being actively invalidating and detrimental to others" to that. Which is a delightfully vague statement that can be interpreted practically any way, I know, hahaha.
In the case of this particular post I've just been thinking about how, like... seeing an aroace character like Alastor get written into dozens upon dozens of PWPs (including ones that don't even touch on the subject of his aceness at all) is really not something that I personally find to be hurtful or offensive. It's just smut for the sake of smut, of a character people want to see awful, sexy things done to (or doing). Valid! I vibe with you! More people should just write the PWPs they want to see in the world!
But on the other hand, I've several times seen this very particular type of art (usually it's a comic, but admittedly I haven't been reading very many Hazbin Hotel fics so maybe it's there, too) where Alastor is slotted into the "methinks the lady doth protest too much" trope. As in, he's expressing strong feelings about a character (usually Vox or Lucifer, sometimes Angel Dust) to someone, probably Rosie, and the person he's confiding to is some variant of, "Oh, silly Alastor, you're obviously in love!" And then he denies it, says that the very idea disgusts him, and the character titters to themselves about how he's so naive in the matters of romance or whatever.
And it's, like.
The "strong feelings" in question are almost always frustration/annoyance/disgust, and him being like, "Nnnno, I just hate his person" is treated like a silly and naive misunderstanding of his own feelings because obviously he's in love. Please imagine that Alastor was a female character who was established to be a lesbian. Now examine how that suddenly makes this scene feel.
(Also, Rosie being the go-to for this is a little frustrating when she's the one who, in canon, explicitly says that she wouldn't make that assumption of him.)
There's such a chasm of difference between how I see people wanting to ship Alastor for reasons of "I just want to!" vs folks who engage with him being aroace in ways that are infantilizing and invalidating. There are so many people out there - not just aro/ace people, but anyone who's not exclusively into the standard type of person they should be into at the time society deems they should be into them, which is most queer people and even many cishet folks - that have been told that exact kind of thing in real life. It reads like something out of a compulsory heterosexuality guidebook, and it actively makes it harder to leave the closet or even realize that you're in one at all.
So I guess it just feels frustrating to see it get made into a punchline, especially by folks who are shipping queer ships. I genuinely can't wait until fandom society advances to the point of consistently treating aro/acespec folks as queer instead of Queer Lite (TM), because let me tell you, ime the comphet experience and the amato/allonormativity experience are in fact nigh-identical except for how they're treated within online communities. There's a reason the pan -> gay -> ace pipeline is a thing.
But, hey! We're already doing way better than we were in 2012!
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y’know I respect a fan’s choice about how they want to view mizu but tiny ramble about it here. this isn’t any sort of discussion or ‘matter of fact’ essay, just a simple rant about headcannons about her being TRANS and her SEXUALITY.
Warning: extremely long.
Given the numerous limitations that would arise from traveling as a woman, I find it very difficult to understand why some people believe Mizu is transgender when it's obvious that she is hiding this information in order to survive. This was particularly true during the Edo period, when women were dehumanized and treated like objects because we only ever see them as a slave or working in a brothel (majority of the show at least). They were also seen having to depend on men for nearly everything, as demonstrated in the episode where the mother and daughter were left outside to freeze to death since her husband was not present to accompany them. Along with that subtle hints were presented to us that show how comfortable she is when in touch with her femininity like a few moments in the episode where she came back to Swords-father Eiji’s hut. Though, I can definitely see why people would label her as transmasc with the theory that she must’ve grown so accustomed to this sort of lifestyle, she’d perhaps just become transmasc in the later episodes. We’ll never know!
Next, not gonna lie, I’m insanely guilty of viewing Mizu as a bisexual women despite feeling that she is leaning more toward heterosexuality in terms of her sexuality. I have the biggest fattest crush on her so I have no problem stating how much I'm crying and wailing over this. Like c’mon, let's be real, I guarantee that 98% of simps are female, and I’m sure every single one of us has mentioned once that we can all treat her better than Mikio and Taigen. Speaking of Taigen, I HAVE to admit that him and Mizu do have the best chemistry compared to everyone in the show. It’s clear in the way she pulls him away from those shooting arrows, knocks him out becahse she fears for his safety if he follows, saving him from Fowler's castle even though she could have easily just left him to die and slain Fowler, etc. At first, I would’ve assumed she’d have trauma with men especially after Mikio’s betrayal which might’ve led her to stray away from any romantic attraction with men—or anybody in general. Honestly, I have dedicated my time to search for ANY hint (ok not rlly) that she might be attracted to women, but the only time I ever see her become flustered by one is when she appears to be taken aback by the prostitues she tried to ask for directions to the Shindo Dojo. Plus, there were only two occasions where she interacted with Akemi that people use to automatically ship them which is when she saw Akemi in her carriage (not sure of the specific name) and pinned her down in Madame Kaji's brothel. I can’t imagine them as a couple in later episodes, something I’m been dying to see. Though, it’s hard to determine what was running in her mind during the scene where they both stole glances at each other, especially since there was no sort of indication in her inner thoughts or emotions, so it’s normal to assume the above as well. (Despite that, I’m still rooting for AT LEAST bisexual Mizu because for the love of god and for the sake of all of the gay women here, PLEASE. /j)
I may make jokes about these headcannons like playfully hating on the TaiMizu ships. All in all, I’m sure the fans are mature enough to understand that these are meant to be lighthearted jokes and that people interpret a character and show in various ways and it’s normal! Even if I can’t comprehend the theory or feel as though it is a little too complicated/really negotiable, remember to support what you want, ship what you want, make whatever headcannons, nobody’s stopping you! Don’t be too afraid to just announce what you feel about the show. All I ask is to avoid SERIOUSLY cancelling someone just because of their own feelings and opinions. In the end, they’re stilll fictional characters (😞😞) who have no sort of physical form of any sort so do whatever, as long as it isn’t really THAT problematic in a sense (e.g. romanticising rape), go for it.
(Sorry for bringing her sexuality into this, I’m aware of how the show is definitely not centering on this and not every single thing has to be LGBTQ-related but I noice it’s something constantly brought up in the fandom. As someone whose phrasing and essay writing skills suck, I’m still learning bit by bit about how the world works in terms of differing views on things. I may not support your idea of a character but I RESPECT it! If I came off as rude, I’m sorry, remember it’s just my random midnight thoughts🙏)
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The more I get back into liking, loving and lusting on people, the more I'm reminded what a sanitized, segregated lie queers have been built into.
I've met the sweetest, prettiest queens who tell me "Well, I'm a transsexual. Sometimes I call myself a transman because both my trans self and my manhood are me."
New friends tell me about the sexcapades their closed polycule gets up to that they just watch because they're a kinky ace.
There's staunch lesbians who helped the love of their life transition as a transmasc, gay men begging to be topped by trans men with the fattest tits.
Older queers don't hesitate to shout "oh, like Prince!" when I tell them I'm androgyne. Vanilla questioning men will text me day after day before shyly confessing I'm their dream guy. Closeted trans women ask to kiss me because I'm their dream girl. Doms and subs who melt when they realize I'm both and neither, and they didn't know somebody like me existed.
There's vanilla lesbians on Grindr and acearos who have shown me love deeper than I thought possible and guydykes kissing girlfags and MtFtMtX elders and throuples that have so much affection that they just collectively parent babygays who got disowned.
Everybody is so beautiful! There is so much love! It is no wonder a cruel world has a vested interest in suppressing queerness when humanity is so expansive to us.
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Imagine being so old-school you don’t even know your own sexuality. You’re just like “Lover? Never had one. Sex? I’d rather die.”
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people need to realize that dissolving the lines between gender also means dissolving the lines between sexuality. you cannot say gender is fake and then say sexuality is strict and rigid.
there are multigender/genderfluid people who are lesbians and gay men at the same time. there are mspec lesbians/gays/straights who have a complex relationship with gender and their sexuality. there are gay men who are women and lesbians who are men because male isn't the opposite of female.
"conflicting" labels are a part of many people's queer experience, because the human experience isnt simple enough to be put into neat perfect categories. if you truly support trans/genderqueer people, you need to accept the fact that gender and sexuality is complex and there will be people whose identities you don't understand
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alt text:
Four hands are shown, each holding the wrist of another to create a square. The hands are labelled ‘trans people’, ‘fat people’, ‘disabled people’, and ‘POC’ (counter-clockwise from upper left.). The text in the space bwteen the hands reads ‘Any attraction felt towards us or by us is labelled as a fetish by people outside our communities who claim to be allies but in actuality just see us as somehow lesser and therefor undeserving of our own bodily and sexual autonomy’.
end image description.
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In June, I was watching a YouTube video about asexuality when someone mentioned that asexual people aren't subjected to conversion therapy. This didn't sit right with me at all. A quick fact-check Google search quickly sent me down a rabbit hole about how a lack of sexual attraction is often treated as a medical problem to be fixed.
Many interviews and 6 months later, I covered science and medicine's changing attitudes toward asexuality it in a feature article in Scientific American's January 2024 issue! I'm so grateful to everyone who lent their expertise to the article 💜
"... Over the past two decades psychological studies have shown that asexuality should be classified not as a disorder but as a stable sexual orientation akin to homosexuality or heterosexuality. Both cultural awareness and clinical medicine have been slow to catch on. It's only recently that academic researchers have begun to look at asexuality not as an indicator of health problems but as a legitimate, underexplored way of being human."
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Would you fuck me like this?
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Are LGBTQ labels confusing? Do you ever see a collection of words and think "aren't some of those antithetical or mutually exclusive?" Congratulations! You've run into a very interesting phenomenon that I'm about to break down to the best of my ability.
There's two major philosophies when it comes to labels, they don't have names to my knowledge so I'm gonna call them Reflective and Telegraph.
The Telegraph Label philosophy states that labels primarily function as a means of conveying useful information about one's self to others. It's telling others what pronouns, what parts and what genders that person has or is attracted to. This is usually pretty straightforward, the stuff someone interested in dating you would check before asking you out to avoid embarrassment.
The Reflective Label philosophy states that labels are primarily a tool for describing an internal experience. Putting words to feelings for the benefit of the self. This is how we get lables like stargender or autismgender. These aren't meaningfully useful labels that tell others what to expect physically or what pronouns to use. But that doesn’t mean they're useless. In the case of someone using autismgender, that label probably describes the internal experience of the ways a person's autism impacts their views on and performance of gender. Stargender likely explains not that they literally see themselves as a star but rather that their internal experience of their prefered gender performance makes them feel a way that reminds them of stars or stargazing.
And this applies to sexuality too. Boy lesbian might seem antithetical but ultimately that label isn't there to tell others anything. It's merely a comfort to have words to describe a mess of feelings and social dynamics.
And for clarification, anyone calling themselves a boy-lesbian probably isn't the cis male boogieman forcing lesbians who aren't interested in cis men to date them or else be labeled a bigot. That boogieman doesn't exist. A more likely explanation is that a nonbinary or trans person has a complex relationship with their changing gender that doesn't trigger a change in the way they see themselves in relationships and attraction thus causing them to keep or adopt the lesbian label despite the gender weirdness going on.
I see a lot of infighting about what people call themselves and whether or not certain combinations can even physically exist. And Y'know what? I don't think that's terribly productive. Neither philosophy is wrong. People are just using labels to address different root problems.
As aggravating as it might be for Telegraphers, you don't have to understand everything. Not everyone feels that they owe you the list of information you find useful, and their labels reflect that. And that's okay.
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never have i ever seen a better description of my sexuality
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ok so i totally like JUST figured out that i am a sex/romance-favorable aroace person from this random-ass chart i found on reddit omg
i'm definitely more romance-favorable than sex-favorable tbh tho. i probably lay somewhere between sex-favorable and sex-indifferent if we wanna get specific with it
but like!!!! i have never seen anything that described my particular experience with romance/sex so accurately before i feel so seen lmao
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