#ALSO for personal reasons I’m headcanoning him as aro or aro-spec. I don’t really see him as romantically attracted to Reinir BUT if he IS | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elyvorg · 3 years

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So… I was talking about aspec V3 headcanons? Well then, let me lay down the facts.

Maki Harukawa is on the aromantic spectrum. Yes, even though she explicitly develops a crush on Kaito, and no, I’m not trying to dispute that part.

This is basically canon. Let me tell you why.

Maki is aro

For this, we need to consider the conversation Maki has with Shuichi in the first training session in chapter 4, while Kaito has temporarily disappeared to the bathroom. On one level, this conversation exists to be the only actual meaningful indication* that Maki has romantic feelings for Kaito until she goes and confesses them. Someone like Maki wouldn’t care about asking Shuichi if he “liked” Kaede (in that annoying loaded meaning of the word “like” that specifically refers to romantic attraction) unless she was trying to come to terms with the idea that she also “likes” someone else in the same way, and the only plausible candidate for that is Kaito.

But even more striking about this conversation, far more so than the general implication that Maki would only bother asking this if she happened to be crushing on a certain spiky-haired space dork, is the way Maki approaches and thinks about this whole topic in general. Take a look:

Maki: “Well… I assumed you didn’t, because that would be weird. […] Liking someone you just met… especially in a situation like this…”

Shuichi: “… Then tell me… under what circumstances is liking someone *not* weird?”

Maki: “…Huh? I… don’t know. I don’t… really understand what that is.”

I, as an aromantic person myself, fully agree with Maki that it just seems weird to start romantically liking someone you’ve only just met, especially in a life-or-death situation where surely there’s way more important things to be focusing on. But apparently, most people do not find this thought weird at all – love at first sight is supposedly a real thing that can happen, and something something dangerous situations can bring out more hormones and passion???? sounds fake but okay – and so opinions like mine and Maki’s here are very much outliers.

And not only that, not only does the thought of crushing on near-strangers bewilder Maki to the point of disbelief, but she also can’t even come up with an answer to when crushing on someone would ever not be strange and bizarre. Like the whole concept is just alien to her. She can barely even wrap her head around how “liking” someone in that way even works. The very reason she’s even asking Shuichi about this is because she doesn’t understand why she’s feeling this way about Kaito.

This is how an aromantic person would view this kind of thing. It doesn’t sound even slightly like something an alloromantic person would say in this situation. That’s not up for interpretation – that’s just the truth about these views that Maki is expressing. Again: I’m aromantic. I would know.

Even from a character who then does turn out to nonetheless have a crush on someone, these statements are pretty much as canonically confirmed arospec as you can get short of them straight up using the word "aromantic" or a variant.** And, well, obviously Maki isn't about to go calling herself that. From the way she’s questioning this, she clearly doesn’t realise that her perspective is the outlier, so she’s probably never even heard of the term. Besides, she most definitely has way bigger hurdles to be getting over first in terms of her self-acceptance before she's ever going to particularly care about figuring out labels for her orientation of all things.

Aros with trauma are still aros

Now, granted, I severely doubt that Maki being arospec is what the writers intended to convey. Haha, deliberate aro representation in mainstream Japanese media, especially something more complex than vanilla aro, that's a funny joke. What the writers probably meant by writing this conversation I just discussed is to suggest that Maki is viewing things this way a result of her trauma.

But hey, guess what? Even if it is because of her trauma - and I'm not denying that it probably is - that doesn't make Maki any less aro. Some people are arospec because of trauma, and that's equally as valid a reason to be arospec as without. Maybe Maki would have grown up alloromantic if she hadn't been scouted as an assassin, but that's irrelevant, because that's not the Maki who exists now.

In writing this conversation, the writers were presumably attempting to communicate that Maki is so messed up by having been manipulated and abused and moulded into a soulless killing machine that she can no longer comprehend the idea of how or why anybody (especially not herself) would fall in love with someone when they'd only just met, or even really in any circumstances at all. …And in doing that, the writers unintentionally wrote a character who, as a result of her trauma, is aro(-spec). This is an objective fact about the canon story that does not change just because the writers probably weren’t aware enough about aromanticism to actually realise this.

Aros who feel romantic attraction are still aros

So, of course, Maki does in fact come to romantically love Kaito despite this. That fact becomes very important to her, and me lengthily explaining here that she’s actually arospec is not remotely trying to diminish that. But it’s also very important to me that people realise that Maki’s romantic love for Kaito comes from an aromantic perspective. She eventually chooses to embrace those feelings not remotely because it just feels to her like the natural way things should go, but despite every single conscious part of her insisting that this is weird and illogical and doesn’t make any goddamn sense to even be happening at all. She is not going to suddenly fall into all the boring romantic cliches and stereotypical alloromantic approaches to love just because she does in fact happen to be experiencing romantic attraction. There’s nothing alloromantic about Maki’s crush on Kaito.***

As for the specific flavour of arospec that allowed Maki to fall in love with Kaito anyway? This part is somewhat more up for interpretation because there’s no real explicit indication of this in particular, but I personally like to go with the idea that Maki is demiromantic. It feels appropriate for Maki’s character and trauma to imagine that she can only begin to potentially feel romantic things towards a person when she has an emotional connection with them – when she trusts them and knows that they trust her. It doesn’t necessarily have to take very long – she’d only been friends with Kaito for a handful of days before that telling conversation with Shuichi – and she may not even have to have consciously admitted to herself that she trusts them, but she needs to have that bond. She’s normally so guarded and has such strong automatic barriers up during her interpersonal interactions that seeing most people in a romantic light literally isn’t even an option in her brain.

Maki’s confession of her feelings for Kaito does read as rather strongly demiromantic, I think. She makes a point that this is about who Kaito is and what he’s done for her, before even getting to the part where she admits to having fallen for him. And she says she “fell for” him, not that she was always in love with him or anything to that effect. This happened somewhere along the way during their friendship, because of their friendship, and because of Kaito being his incredible trusting supportive self towards her when she needed it most.

Maki Harukawa is demiromantic, and she’s wonderful.

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[some grumpy Amatonormativity and Aro Erasure 101 footnotes, can you tell I am bitter about this kind of thing]

(* When I say “actual meaningful indication” of romantic feelings, I mean something that isn't just the narrative infuriatingly pointing at things that are actually perfectly platonic in nature and going “ooh look how romantic~!”. Newsflash: worrying about somebody and wanting to rescue them when they're sick and injured and have been kidnapped by someone you think is an evil sadistic mastermind is not somehow proof of romantic feelings. That is a thing that friends do. And on the same note, teaching somebody how to build a crossbow is not some kind of deep metaphor for romance; it is literally just a lesson in how to build a goddamn crossbow. Maki would have done both of these things in exactly the same way if her crush on Kaito didn’t exist.)

(** It's exactly like how characters can be considered canonically confirmed same-gender-attracted when all they've done is show attraction to the same gender****, without them actually needing to explicitly refer to themselves with the word “gay”, or “lesbian”, or “bi” or whatever else. Anyone who tried to insist that was necessary in order for it to “count” would instantly be written off as homophobic. So if that’s the case, then a character explicitly saying something such as “I don’t understand what it means to like someone that way” equally constitutes them being confirmed aro, and trying to argue that it doesn’t “count” without outright hearing the word itself is, guess what…?)

(*** This also inherently means that there’s nothing straight about Maki’s crush on Kaito either, since societally-expected “straight” attraction is allo as well as hetero. I gather that some people in this fandom like to devalue and erase Maki’s crush (and potentially also Maki herself) because they feel that it’s an Obligatory Forced Straight Romance and don’t like that, or something along those lines. Well, good news! It’s literally not that, actually, because Maki isn’t straight.)

(**** …This only applies so long as it actually is very clearly romantic or sexual attraction and not just people deciding platonic affection is totally romantic thanks to the disease that is amatonormativity. Because, you know. That happens. Literally all the time. (Even from V3’s narrative itself; see footnote 1.))

#danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 spoilers #maki harukawa #aspec headcanons #character analysis #ramble #amatonormativity #i've always been hesitant to bring this kind of thing up much because i didn't want to ruffle anyone's feathers #but you know what? screw it #i'm aroace and i hate amatonormativity and it's about time i started showing that more on this blog #and if anyone has a problem with that then actually that sounds like their problem and not mine #(with thanks to the previous post's anon for unintentionally spurring this out of me!)

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raayllum · 3 years

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bi aroace rayllum, thank you for coming to my ted talk

I don’t personally see either Callum and Rayla as bi (although I don’t see them n as not being attracted to the same sex, I just don’t really think much about it when it comes to them) but aro and ace spec? Yes, absolutely.

I definitely give my aro-ness to Callum (although I see him as demiromantic while I myself am alterous, so it’s a little different) and my ace-ness to Rayla (I’m fully ace and see her as demisexual) and it’s something I almost always have in mind while writing them. I’ve also written way more extensively on why I think reading Rayllum as a aspec relationship (particularly when it comes to also shipping them together) is so important to me and is also just a really cool fandom thing in general, including but not limited to:

Why I think aspec people latched onto Rayllum as much as we did

Big list of aspec Rayllum headcanons here

The importance of Rayllum’s platonic core at the end of all things

Smaller list of headcanons

Actually Platonic (aka not qpr, but I hope to have some of those soon too) rayllum headcanons

Basically I’m an ace aro spec in a relationship with another ace aro spec and Rayllum and all their aspec vibes means a lot to both of us, and to a lot of people in this fandom for good reason, and I really, really love it a lot <3

#ace tag #aro tag #thanks for asking #rayllum #anonymous #Anonymous #asexuality

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felix-honikker-kinnie · 3 years

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hello charlotte - lgbtq+ headcanons (and also canon lgbtq+ characters)

#all art in this post is by etherane :) (note: literally every other headcanon is valid these are just mine <3) Charlotte Wiltshire

So, this is pretty widely accepted throughout the fandom - but I have to say she just seems transfem to me. There are even some possible hints that she might be transfem, and knowing etherane, I really wouldn’t be surprised.

First possible hint is young Charlotte. Not being feminine as a kid and then being very feminine later on obviously doesn’t mean you’re trans, I just thought it was something worth noting. In hc2, I believe there is a scene where Aiden encourages Charlotte to try being feminine, and you can see that she’s much more outwardly happy and expressive presenting as more feminine. Second possible hint is Seth. It was mentioned that male puppeteers are usually not assigned to female puppeteers, which could be a possible hint that she wasn’t biologically female.

Third possible hint was Charlotte’s haircut. Of course, any person would be upset if some people at school cut their hair, but some specific lines mentioned not wanting to let anyone see her and that a stranger stared back at her in the mirror - though that could have just been anxiety. All in all, none of these three things are for certain indicators that Charlotte is transfem, it’s just nice to have a little headcanon. And to be honest, the little hints aren’t even the main reason I think she’s trans, she just - Idk it just makes sense that she’d be trans and I just vibe with it.

I think this one is also pretty agreed on, but she just gives panromantic vibes. I also get like, demiromantic vibes? And asexual vibes. I don’t have explanations for any of these, these headcanons just vibe with me. Felix Honikker

Next up, my fave, Felix. So my biggest headcanon is that he’s asexual because - well, ew, people, gross. And he just seems omniromantic to me. Again, can’t explain, the headcanon just vibes. And he just - Idk I feel like he’s transmasc and neutrios. Someone also mentioned that he seemed genderfluid and that headcanon is extremely valid. And someone mentioned him being aroace which, is also very extremely valid. Bennett

AAH. MY BABY BOY. THAT SMILE. SO MUCH SEROTONIN. I’M CRYING. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. AAAAAAH. Okay, so he also gives me trans vibes (transmasc vibes). Charlotte, Felix, and Bennett just - radiate trans to me and I vibe so fucking hard with that. Also. Bennett is a disaster bi. He. Just. Radiates. Disaster bi. He also seems just...like he experiences sexual attraction but he doesn’t really want to do. Things. I believe the word for that is akoisexual? (Or lithsexual?) Correct me if I’m wrong. Idk. (Okay I had to stop making this post because I was trying to find the word for it and I just - I just found a post that was really invalidating to ace/spec people and I just. I’m sad now. After this I’m going to reblog all the acespec/arospec positivity posts I can get my hands on.) Florence

Florence also radiates disaster bi. That’s. That’s pretty much it for her, that’s my only headcanon about her orientation/identity. However. I do have many OTHER headcanons but they would not be relevant to this post, so.

Seth

Seth is pansexual, demisexual, and pangender in my mind because. Again. I have no reason. Just v i b e s

Aiden

Hm...he seems like the kind of person who wouldn’t really care about labels and just let people call it whatever they wanted to as far as orientation. (Sorry that some of these are so short-)

Henry Huxley

Huxley is definitely polyamorous, ace and gay. No, I will not explain my reasoning. Because I have none.

Q84

Q84 is definitely aroace. And I highly doubt she gives a fuck about gender and I doubt she’d put a label on her gender.

DelChar

I think we can all agree that DelChar is a disaster lesbian. At the very least, she canonically wlw, so that’s always nice to see. I also think she’s transfem because this is an alternate version of Scarlotte Charlotte I believe, so I just feel like she’d be trans as well.

V19

She’s also a disaster lesbian.

Scarlett Eyler

Scarlett, like flo and ben radiates bi. I’m thinking she’s either aromantic bisexual or biromantic asexual but I’m leaning more towards aro/bi.

Anri Warhol

Anri is canonically bi. I appreciate that, a lot.

Vincent Wordsworth

He seems like either he’s gay or he’s queer as far as orientation, and either way, definitely asexual. And he’s nonbinary as well.

Charles Eyler

What’s that? A canon genderfluid character? AND a canon asexual character? Yep, Charles is canon genderfluid and ace and I just freak out every time I think about it because there’s so little rep for those two things that whenever I see it, I just get really happy. As far as romantic orientation I feel like polyromantic.

Vincent Fennell

I’d probably put him about the same as his counterpart in hc3. I just included him specifically because. He’s so fucking pretty. And I wanted to show a picture of him.

I know C is technically Charles in a Vincent vessel, but shhh, I see him as his own kind of character. Like Charles, he’s genderfluid and asexual - and I could see him as being demiromantic and panromantic.

Umbrella Man

I just. I just feel like he’s homosexual/aromantic. I just. Do. And I can’t imagine he’s cis, but I don’t think he really has a label for his gender, idk.

Frei

Frei is canon agender! Or at the very least, he described himself as genderless. I feel like he would be asexual and omniromantic, kinda like my headcanon for Felix.

Freya

I know that Freya and Frei are both the Oracle, but each form the Oracle takes just seems like a seperate form to me. I can’t put Freya, Frei, and that other Oracle that was in Scarlett’s head into the same category. Freya is also probably agender but takes a feminine form and identifies with being female while also being genderless. I feel like she’d identify as a lesbian? And also be like, ace? Sorry if this doesn’t make any sense jafioejrpaewrojofjo.

Scarlett’s Oracle

They’re definitely agender and aroace.

Right, I almost forgot OSIRIS

Osiris seems aroace.

Okay, that’s uh. that’s pretty much it oof. Sorry if this post doesn’t make a lot of sense I just wanted to ramble. And all other headcanons are valid <3

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k-s-morgan · 4 years

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(1/5)Hi again!) Hm, I don't think that Merope could have influenced Tom that much? If we take for granted that his lack of impulse control and not-so-great-ability to fully comprehend the consequences of his own actions aren't the result of his upbringing and are the result of pre-born circumstances. (Otherwise, sure) She herself didn't really think about consequences too much, if I think about it. Could she really present a logical argument why you shouldn't hurt people? One he would listen to?

(2/5)In fact, I don't think she had that integrity in the first place, hence the whole Riddle affair... (I suppose, one could work with thought patterns to prevent needless cruelty, APD-therapy-ish, but it would be hard, just on an intellectual level - because Tom is clever enough to catch obvious bullshit.)Speaking of "asexuality being used just to justify the lack of same-sex physical intimacy", people might often forget that aro ace couples can and frequently are physically or/and emotionally

(3/5) affectionate with each other. Like, we do not just stare at each other lovingly and talk about purely platonic things. We cuddle, sleep together, explore our sexualities (kinks, rated fics, etc; a lot of aces actually are more willing to discuss sex than an average non asexual person, at least where I am), talk about relationships.. I am afraid that people just don't understand that asexuality isn't an absence of sexuality. It is a sexual orientation. Er,well, that was definitely rambling.

(4/6) I hope you don't mind. Sorry? P.S. What's your stance on "manipulative Dumbledore"? I recently 've been told an opinion that Harry wasn't "his responsibility", that he was just a Headmaster (+ a bunch of other things) and he doesn't have an obligation to be invested in the lives of his student on such a personal level so he would deal with their individual personal problems.P.P.S. Have you read The Train to Nowhere? I checked and you haven't mentioned it in any of your fic rec lists.

(5/5) It has quite an oblivious Voldemort in it - he completely doesn't read the signals as sexual, even though they'd be pretty obvious to an average observer. I absolutely loved it, partially because I nurse I headcanon of him being ace in there, even though it's 100% not gonna happen.( Well, for what we need slow burn if not for the opportunity to headcanon characters as a-spec and relationships as qpr for as long as possible (at least, a lot of aces told me it's the case with them.)) -- Alen

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Hey, Alen! Thank you for as always interesting message))

1) With Merope, I can see several ways of development. From how we see her in canon, she doesn’t seem likely to provide Tom with a healthy environment, but some people transform drastically when they give birth to a child, so maybe this could have happened to her? She could have regretted her actions and tried to raise Tom to the best of her abilities. She could seek help from magical and Muggle communities both. Or maybe she’d raise a monster still - it’s interesting to speculate about it. But I think Tom would love his mother anyway if she stayed by his side.

2) Very true about asexuals and the attitude of many of them toward sex. In fact, the guy I lost virginity to told me later that he suspected I might be ace because the topic of sex and sex itself never fazed me and I treated it like a curious puzzle :D And yes, people who know little of asexuality try to use it as an excuse while also failing to understand what it means completely. So many of them think asexual = celibate.

3) Dumbledore is very manipulative, but he’s not a villain either. He had to make some of the toughest decisions in his life, and his gray morality is the reason why I like him. All in all, he treated Harry terribly because he did raise him like a pig for slaughter, but it was for ‘greater good’ - and greater good is greater in terms of its scale. Dumbledore tried to rid Harry of the Horcrux, like with the Basilisk’s fang, but when it failed, he knew Harry would have to die to defeat Voldemort once and for all and save all other people. Granted, I think the whole existence of Voldemort is partly Dumbledore’s fault because he treated Tom unfairly and cruelly from the start. The fact that he hid his parentage from him, even though Tom was likely mocked and bullied for it for the first year or two, definitely contributed to Tom’s overall bitterness.

As for Harry not being his responsibility... of course he was - Dumbledore made it so from the moment he chose to leave him in an abusive household to raise a potential hero with no feeling of self-worth. Harry was always special. Dumbledore wasn’t just a Headmaster, he was a key player in the fight against Voldemort, and while I believe he loved Harry, he was prepared to sacrifice him to win this fight, which warranted a more personal contact and influence.

4) I did read The Train to Nowhere and I absolutely loved it! I think I spent the entire night reading it. The reason why I don’t mention it in my lists is that the pacing there is very slow, and by the chapter I read last, we clearly weren’t even half-way close to the ending. I’m a bit cautious about labelling something as my favorite work when I have no idea of where the story might still go and how the central relationship will develop. I think I’m going to catch up on all the chapters I missed, though))

#harry potter #albus dumbledore #personal

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arojenniferwalters · 5 years

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No canon straight characters; using labels needed for canonicity? and period accuracy in fanfic

These are some random thoughts I have on couple of posts I've seen on my dash lately, so I'm just randomly writing down my thoughts:

1) most characters are not actually straight on canon because they don't specifically say 'I'm straight' or 'i'm only romantically and sexually attracted to people of the so called opposite gender'.

This is very true. In fact, most character never identify as straight unless there are non-straight or trans characters in the work as a counterpoint. Grace Adler says she's straight. Jennifer Walters is not lesbian. Peter whatever from Doubt is still straight when dating a trans woman. Kenzi from Lost Girl reciprocates Bo's coming out.

I recently wrote a long meta on another sideblog about how a character never identifies as straight and how the writing and portrayal lead to credible non-straight interpretations even though I know he's supposed to be straight.

So basically, straight characters are usually explicitly straight when it's known that not everyone is. If there exists character who are trans or not straight, other characters then might also express their straightness in response.

But mostly it's cisheteronormativity that makes us accept that unless they state otherwise, they are supposed to be cis and straight.

(Of course this gets complicated when we talk about rep bcus 'they didn't say they aren't x or y' doesn't really count as proper rep. But it's complicated, but like headcanons are fair game. Like, 'you shouldn't hc this canon straight character as not straight' isn't a good argument, because few character actually *are* canon straight. Most characters just have the potential to be or are in m/f pairings but that doesn't mean that straight is the only thing they can be.)

2) Labels are great. Labels tell people without a doubt who that character is and it is incredibly validating to see characters identify the same way you do (shoutout to Aled Last!). But does a character need to use a label to properly count as having this identity, if there is strong coding and word of god?

I'm conflicted. I really am. Because you can do a decent job of making characters gay/lesbian/m-spec without necessarily using a label (although not using it can be obnoxious, especially with m-spec characters), that's not necessarily the same with a-spec characters. Because there's not enough rep for us for people to read in and accept the subtext/coding. (Canon ace, coded aro is another issue but that's semi besides the point)

Here I'm mainly thinking of Raphael Santiago in books vs TV show, and comparing 2 word of god demi characters; Rivka of Mangoverse and Julian Blackthorn of The Dark Artifices.

So, book!Raphael for a long time was barely/maybe coded aroace and after he was killed off he became a word of god aroace through twitter. Then came 2017 and the tv show and new book appearances and suddenly he got to verbally say ace (and/or aro) things without using the label. I haven't read-read the books with that canonization yet but it seems to be very clear now that he is sex and romance repulsed aroace. Great.

The tv show canonized his aceness before the books did but they did it without using labels and basically making a mess of his romantic orientation (is he still aro? Arospec? Alloromantic who just didn't feel rom attraction much? He never did pursue a romantic relationship with Izzy after the addiction mess even though they acknowledged that they cared for each other, but was it romantic from Raph? We don't know! *throws hands in the air in frustration*).

As much as I love show!Raphael, "I'm just not interested in sex." isn't necessarily the best way to establish aceness. Mostly because if you google 'not interested in sex', you get articles on libido and how to increase it, with one article talking about aceness, but not in the title. But the fact that Raphael says he's always been like this, that he's never pressured into having sex and is at peace with his orientation does, to me, make it good rep. I still kinda wish he'd used a label though.

Then the demi rep: neither Rivka nor Julian identifies as demi in text. Shira Glassman didn't at first realize she was writing Rivka in a demi way, in fact the backcover identifies her as straight (kinda as a 'there will be no romantic tension between Rivka and Shulamit' way, similar to Bo and Kenzi in section 1). But when people mentioned that she seems like a hetro demi, Shira embraced that and while the world doesn't do labels the way we do, she is still demi. I love her and I am happy she exists and she is accepted demi rep.

Now, Julian is a different thing. In TDA, he is 17, the year is 2012 and the Internet exists. After the 2nd book, people started speculating that Julian is demi based on how he thinks about never being attracted to anyone but Emma, and how he had started to feel different from his peers when he didn't start experiencing attraction like they did. Someone asked about this from Cassandra Clare and she answered the ask privately, saying that if he was a modern, non-Shadowhunter teenager and he had access to information about the identity, that he would identify as demisexual. The issue is that considering the timeframe (2012) and everything about his situation, he doesn't have access to that label so he doesn't use it.

So. Here we have a canon demi character, based on coding and word of god who has semi realistic reason for not knowing the label and thus not identifying with it, even though he would if he could. But a lot of people don't want to accept that. And that's where my issues come from: Julian says and thinks some very demi things, and to me doesn't do anything that invalidates his deminess. Why is that not enough? Like, I absolutely want him to use that label, I want to read him say it and find comfort in it. But why is his character not demi rep enough because he doesn't use the word?

Rivka has similar reasons for not having the label (not our world and the terminology doesn't exist) and while I doubt there are that much overlap between the 2 fandoms, I am curious about the difference. Neither one is not identifying as demi because they aren't demi, they don't identify as demi because they don't know the identity exists. Yet both are still demi characters.

How much does a character have to emphasize that they've only ever been attracted to one person/very few people, with the author validating that reading, before they are acceptable demi rep?

Another point is Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess. That one has at least one demi character and maybe two acearo characters but they don't use labels. I love them all, but I feel uncertain about talking about Cid as an aroace character because she hasn't been talked about in that way the way Jayla has been. And I love Quinn and I cried when I read that the (pirate) ship has characters who identify as demisexual in a creator letter, but again, no one is using a-spec labels. It's frustrating. But it doesn't invalidate the rep.

3) I think the level of knowledge characters have on queerness should be an in-character discussion. Like, I've written characters as demi without the character using the label; I've written characters discovering a label; I have one fic where there's little possibility of the character having knowledge of the identity (because it's possible the label hasn't been coined yet). I try to stay in character about whether the character would know or have use for label and keep in mind the timeframe. There's a demi pairing I can't really write because neither characters exist in 2006 and beyond. Someone once complained that a book published in 2003 didn't describe the character as demi when the label hadn't yet been created while asexual worked as an umbrella term which included demis, so it still makes sense that the character would identify as asexual.

I don't think it's wrong to have a character be very knowledgeable about queer things if that's what you want to write, whether or not that's in character or realistic within the timeframe. Fanfic is about self indulgeance after all.

Some of that relates to what I'm in the mood to write. My magnum opus is 'this character is demi in all 78 eps of the show, but he'll only figure it out towards the beginning of the last season, just because I want that' and then I have another that's 'screw it, he has a better idea about his queerness but realizes the full picture in s4'.

I do try to be period accurate and think about whether or not the character would have access to the term. But sometimes I just want to have my faves identifying the way I want them to.

4) These are some very random, semi connected thoughts and I'm not even quite sure what the point was. I just feel like writing more about these things.

I am interested in discussing these issues. How much coding does a character need to be accepted as proper rep if the label isn't used? Can rep be valid if a random person reading it doesn't realize that there is that specific coding? If the book has queer readers, is there more leeway (sp) to not using the label, assuming that people reading a book with bi and trans characters or an f/f might also pick up the demi/ace/aro coding? If the author unknowingly wrote a demi character, does it still count if they accept that reading of the character and keep writing them as demi?

Anyway that was a lot of randomness.

#idk how to tag this #my ramblessay

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anti-mistajules · 5 years

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For the aromantic asks, would you pick which ones you want, or if you could do all of them? I’ve never heard about it before but I’m really curious and would like to know more from your point of view

Well bc you’ve never heard of it before here’s a little definition I got from here (if u wanna read more about it):

An aromantic is a person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others. Where romantic people have an emotional need to be with another person in a romantic relationship, aromantics are often satisfied with friendships and other non-romantic relationships.

What arospec label(s) do you identify with?

I’m just plain ol Aromantic

Sexual orientation?

Bisexual

Are you romance-repulsed?

To a degree? I don’t usually mind seeing romance in media, I just get a little uncomfortable with seeing PDA and when people view me in a romantic way I feel like physically sick.

Do you relate to voidpunk?

Do I relate to what now?

What kinds of attraction (romantic, sexual, aesthetic, sensual, platonic, etc) do you experience?

Sexual, aesthetic, and platonic definitely! Im not too big on sensual attraction and I don’t feel romantic attraction at all.

How do you like to show people you (platonically) love them?

I’m a huge ‘acts of service’ and ‘gift’ person! I do whatever I can to make things easier for my friends and try to give them gifts they love and deserve! I also like to spend time with them when I can and talk about whatever! Basically if I can talk to you on the phone or in person past 12am, I love you friend!!

Do you want to remain single all your life or do you want to have some sort of life partner?

I wanna remain single, I really need my alone time I couldn’t imagine living with someone for an extended period of time.

If you want one, what is your dream partner?

no!

Which is your favorite of the 3 aromantic flags?

Uhhh fuck im not too flag savvy??? I like this one:

Your opinion on soulmates?

allonormative as fuck and perpetuates the idea that you need another person in your life to ‘complete’ you which is complete garbage!

Your opinion on shipping?

Shipping is fun but I don’t get too into it.

Do you ship characters in romantic/sexual relationships, or do you only ship characters in familial and platonic relationships?

Honestly all of the above but mostly platonic and sexual.

Are you out to anyone in real life?

My close friends and my immediate family. Or at least I tried to come out to them but they were just like “you won’t get married?? Ya right lol ur stupid” and I didn’t use the word ‘aromantic’ so I guess technically im not out to them?? Its not something I hide, but when explaining it to others I don’t use the word bc I don’t wanna explain or want people to think im one of those “tumblrinas’ who ‘make up orientations’ bc there’s a lot of negativity to unpack there so I just don’t bother

How did you come out?

Once I found out what aromanticism was I immediately related to it so I told my best friend first and we had a conversation about it and then Id just be like “hey I don’t get why people date people…I don’t wanna do that” to everyone else.

Do you know any aromantic people in real life?

Nope! I would love to meet some!!

How do you feel about your aromanticism?

Honestly its so freeing…I feel very validated knowing there’s a whole community of people who feel the same way I do about romance. Im pretty proud to be aro with my friends and online but irl to my family and acquaintances Im not as open with it.

What is the worst part of being aromantic?

The lack of representation and the constant erasure. I highkey hate being grouped with asexuals so much bc not every person who is aro is ace and vice versa! They’re separate orientations but they are NEVER treated like it and its so annoying. (THIS IS NOT ACE HATE!! I SUPPORT ACES WITH ALL MY ARO HEART!!! LOVE YALL!!)

Also the constant fear that you cant be friends with the opposite sex bc they’ll always want to be romantically involved and that your allo friends will leave you for their S/O lol

ALSO WHEN UR PHONE CHANGES AROMANTIC TO AROMATIC >:///

What is the best part of being aromantic?

Not being in a relationship lol people complain so much about their relationship troubles and im like ‘damn COULDN’T be me’

How did you find out about aromanticism?

I found out through either Tumblr or google I cant remember which??? Or maybe I saw it on Tumblr and googled it? Either way Tumblr was a factor

When did you know you were aromantic?

I tried dating my best friend and ended it in like 3 days bc I felt so fucking weird about the whole thing like very uncomfortable??? Like I felt like I couldn’t talk to him about certain stuff anymore and just being called someone’s “girlfriend” makes my skin crawl. I always had some weirdness around romance but I thought it was just bc I haven’t “found the right person yet” but if anyone was the “right person” it was my best friend and I couldn’t do it. So I did some research and found out about aromanticism, related so hard, and have been very happy with the label ever since.

Do you have any aromantic headcanons?

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG AND BRUCE BATMAN WAYNE ARE AROMANTIC AND YOU WILL PRY THOSE HEADCANONS OUT OF MY COLD, DEAD HANDS YOU COWARDS

What would be your dream representation of an aromantic/aro-spec character?

An aromantic character who is allosexual (preferably bi) who loves their friends and family and would do anything for them! Doesn’t go “EW!!! GROSS!!” At romance but is just like “nah ill pass, loving my friends is all I need!” and isn’t super oblivious to romantic gestures or infantilized/made into a joke for not being interested in romance. Also if they call out allonomativity that’d be tight

Who is your aromantic icon/idol?

NOBODY BC THERE ARE NO AROMANTICS IN MEDIA

What is your favorite song that relates to aromanticism, or is simply not about romantic love?

Analysis Paralysis by Awake at Last (At least I don’t get a romance vibe off of it??) and Sonic Youth by Crush 40 for all you Sonic fans out there. (And honestly most sonic songs are aromantic BANGERS)

What is your favorite movie that is not focused on romance?

BATMAN V SUPERMAN !!!

What is your favorite tv show that is not focused on romance?

POKEMON !! Im gonna be honest with y’all I think the reason Im aro is bc I watched nothing but Pokemon until I was like 10 (I didn’t stop I just also watched other things) and it is the least romance oriented show ever like….while y’all where out watching Disney princesses ‘fall in love’ or whatever I was crying over Pikachu’s Goodbye so don’t talk to me about heartbreak. Also Ash and Pikachu’s friendship (and of course his friendship with all his traveling partners) really fucking resonated with me and I think thats why I hold my friends above all else.

What popular romantic pairing do you see as only platonic?

SONAMY

Do you experience squishes?

I think I’ve had maybe one or two but they went away quick once I realized that I just like this person bc I think we’d be good friends and I get excited at the thought of making longterm friends.

Do you own any aromantic pride merch or outfits? What are they? If not, what would you like to own?

I do not but id love to own a flag or two

Do you have any advice for anyone who may be questioning if they are aromantic or on the aromantic spectrum?

Just own it. I’m actually actively trying to take my own advice bc like I said I don’t use the word irl but like,,,if you think you’re aro or somewhere on the spectrum, find a label that speaks to you and just own it. Being Aromantic isn’t cringey, its a valid orientation just like any other and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Ive spent too much time pretending to be alloromantic just to fit in, I’ve embarrassed myself too many times by pretending to be allo, Ive gone too far into my life pretending to be something im not just because its easier for others to understand. Ive gone through too much to discover my orientation to have some fucking losers on the internet tell me that its ‘not a real orientation’. Im aromantic. I feel comfortable in that label and no one can take that away from me.

#ask anti #Anonymous

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aroworlds · 6 years

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Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Nate

Our next aro-spec creator is Nate, better known on Tumblr as @astriiformes!

Nate is an asexual, aromantic, neurodivergent and mentally ill trans guy/person continuing the tradition of aro-spec creators demonstrating an impressive diversity of talent. He writes, cosplays, creates filk music and produces visual art--and that’s when he’s not playing D&D and attending conventions!

You can find him on Twitter as planar_ranger and on 8tracks as azhdarchidaen. He’s also found on AO3 as azhdarchidaen, with a prolific selection of works for the Gravity Falls, Doctor Who, Critical Role and Pacific Rim fandoms! If you have a dollar or two you’re wanting to invest in worthy aro-spec talent, please take a look at Nate’s Ko-Fi!

With us Nate talks about expressing emotions through creativity, the intersection of aromanticism and perfectionism, the importance of storytelling as self-expression and his passion for D&D as a way of giving voice to his aromantic experience. His love for fandom, creativity and storytelling shines through every word, so please let’s give him all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

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

While I didn’t know the word “aromantic” until I was 15 or 16, and took a while to embrace it even then, when I look back on my childhood I can definitely see some of the earliest signs. Perhaps the most prominent was my mild disappointment at age 12 or 13 in discovering the Star Wars EU novels only to learn that Luke Skywalker, one of my most pervasively favorite characters since I first watched the movies and likely my earliest aro headcanon, ended up getting married! I ended up writing what was technically my first fanfiction after that discovery, an alternate take on the post-Return of the Jedi universe in which he didn’t.

But I didn’t really start to realize I was aro, or even know it was an identity at all, until two things happened. First, I joined an LGBTQA+ group on a writer’s forum I used to frequent and started to not only learn the vocabulary but also that identifying as something other than straight or cis was even allowed. Second, I entered what was essentially the closest thing to a romantic relationship I’ve ever experienced. By some measures it probably was one, but there really wasn’t much romance involved – because I wasn’t pushing it (for reasons that are now obvious to me), and the guy I was sort-of-dating was pretty respectful of my boundaries and was probably waiting for me to make some of those moves before trying himself. The relationship eventually broke off several months after he moved to Europe. He messaged me to say he felt bad about the fact that our long-distance “relationship” was probably holding me back from finding someone I could be happier with, and he would be more comfortable breaking it off. The fact that I felt no real sadness over that was a fairly big bit of evidence for my aromanticism, second only to the fact that I had actually become more comfortable with our situation when he moved across the Atlantic Ocean.

Clues like those eventually lead me to adopt the label and really begin to understand myself, I think around age 16 or 17. I went through a slow process of accepting all my queer identities one-by-one and kind of see them all as pretty interconnected. The aro one was in the middle.

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

I really like making things. For all the frustration I experience trying to write something I’m happy with, or panicked near all-nighters trying to finish props before a convention, I really am at my happiest when I have projects to engage in. I take a lot of pride in my identity as a content creator as a result, though it also means I can set discouragingly high standards for myself. That being said, there’s nothing that makes me happier that someone enjoying something I put time and effort into and being able to go “I made this.”

Writing was definitely my earliest outlet (I did draw things when I was younger, but I didn’t show my art to anyone until this time last year). I was posting fics (under a different username, fortunately; I don’t want my early teenage writing unearthed ten years later) on ff.net by early high school, a narrative I’m sure I share with plenty of other creators. I’ve done more interesting things with my writing since migrating over to AO3 though, and I continue to feel like my writing is growing (even if, sometimes, I worry it’s going too slowly).

Getting into cosplay was something I picked up only a year or so later, though again, comparing my current work to those first few attempts feels almost silly. My first cosplay was a patched-together Eighth Doctor mostly made out of thrift store finds that looked only debatably like the real deal. Since then, I’ve gotten better at sewing my own things and have realized one of my true strengths lies in elaborate props. My two most recent cosplays were Stanford Pines from Gravity Falls, with a fully-illustrated and screen-accurate copy of the third journal, complete with blacklight effects, and Taako, from The Adventure Zone, with an Umbra Staff that I had re-covered in fabric and had fully-functional LED “stars” built into it, stars I could make twinkle via a secret remote. I’m attempting two characters that are even more ambitious for conventions this year, but we’ll have to see how that actually goes…

My filk contributions aren’t massive, but the community aspect (and that it connected me to someone who is now one of my closest friends, who made me go from enjoying the genre to contributing to it) and some of the things I’ve done as a result of it make me feel it has a place as part of my creative identity. You haven’t lived until you’ve performed decades-old songs about space travel with your friends, in cosplay, in a crowded convention center! (Okay, a debatable statement. But a truly wild experience.) It’s also been a good outlet for me in some ways, because music is a powerful way to get across emotions. I play viola and piano, and have for years, so I knew that to some degree before I started writing my own lyrics to things. But personalizing songs by making them be about things you have really strong feelings for is another level entirely.

And then, art. Like I said, I never really shared it with anyone (or drew much at all) until about a year ago. Part of that was due to wanting to try my hand at digital art but not really having an understanding of what programs to use or how to get started with it, and part of it was the inertia of feeling like “if I’m not good at something immediately, I shouldn’t try at all!” The thing that really got the ball rolling for me is the long D&D campaign I’m currently in. When I was excited about other stories, chances were someone else had drawn art of it that I could enjoy and reblog. That’s not really the case with one you’re telling with only 5-6 other people. I had a sort of epiphany moment a couple months into the campaign, as the story really started picking up, that if I wanted to see the kind of art I appreciate for this new story I was falling in love with, I would probably have to do it myself. I’m still not incredibly happy with my work, since I’m surrounded by friends who are incredible artists and my style is fairly simplistic and oddly stylized, but I have gotten to a point where I draw fairly regularly, and generally put up what I create on our shared campaign blog. The same D&D game has wrenched over 15k words of original writing from me, which is pretty astonishing. Most of that isn’t anywhere to be found on Tumblr just yet, though – it’s largely still-top secret character backstory.

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

The most obvious way is that I write fics about characters being aromantic and dealing with their aromanticism. All headcanons, unfortunately (I’m yet to find a canon aro in anything I love that I didn’t help create myself), but there are several stories on my AO3 about characters from Pacific Rim, Star Wars or Gravity Falls realizing they’re aromantic. And the fics that don’t deal with that are still all gen – I’m too romance-repulsed to write anything else, and I feel the world needs a lot more genfic anyways.

One other way, though I feel a bit silly calling it “art”, is that I am intentionally playing an aromantic character of my own creation in my current D&D campaign. I’ve been playing for several years now, and did have another character back in high school who I also imagined as aromantic. (Partially because of an awkward flirting mishap – an enemy tried to get my character off her guard with romance and it all backfired because she didn’t know how to respond. All my own fault – I don’t even know how to roleplay that!) But none of the campaigns I’ve played in until this one were particularly intent on exploring characters and their feelings all that deeply, or really making them a part of the story.

With my current character, it’s become incredibly validating to view him as aromantic and asexual, like myself. It’s that same impulse that got me started doing more art – if the fiction I like isn’t going to provide me with aromantic characters, I’ll have to make one myself! And it’s slowly leading to some very interesting explorations of aro identity and the normalising of it in our world. We’ve established that identifying that way isn’t particularly unusual for elves and talked about what that means for worldbuilding. Do they hold platonic relationships in the same regard as romantic ones? Is there a special kind of relationship that signifies that? What if we put friendship under the banner of the goddess of romantic love too? Though at the same time, I’m exploring some of the same feelings I experience with him – he’s a particularly lonely person, who worries about people actually wanting to stay with him, both of which are prominent features of my own aromantic experience.

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

Like many of us, I do worry that my genfics will be less enjoyed or circulated as a result of choosing not to include ships. And whenever I post a fic about a character actually being aro, I definitely get that little stab of “Someone is going to have a problem with this” fear.

I also feel that my experience with aromanticism has shaped a lot of my perfectionistic tendencies. Because I worry so much about trying to remain important in my allo friends’ lives, and because I think of so much of my identity as associated with creativity, I tend to get really wrapped up in my work needing to seem amazing somehow, to make people think I’m worth their time. It’s a silly thing to get preoccupied over, but it has had an impact on me. In some ways wanting my work to be really good is not a bad thing – it encourages me to do my very best whenever I can – but the motivation is really all wrong.

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

I’m honestly pretty disconnected from them. I might be less-inclined to be if this website wasn’t suddenly experiencing such backlash against a-spec identities, but as is I’m almost afraid to engage with anything that might make me a target. Which is really unfortunate. That being said, whenever I do make any aro content and I see it circulated to other aromantic people, I get a lot of joy from it. The comments on my multiple aromantic-focused fics are some of my favorite ones I’ve ever received. If I can channel my experiences into something that elicits that kind of a reaction from our community, I consider my work well done.

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

When I’m able to talk to other aromantic people about headcanons (or even some of my very understanding allo friends who absorb them from me, too), pretty well! Unfortunately, that’s a pretty tiny fraction of my fandom experience. Even some of my interests where you’d think I wouldn’t run into problems have been difficult at times. I once had someone dressed as a character often (non-canonically) shipped with the one I was cosplaying, and they assumed that I would be interested in hearing that they shipped our character. Instead, they just made me very uncomfortable, particularly with the way they chose to do so.

In general, the expectation that as a member of fandom, producing fandom works, I will be interested in creating and consuming romantic content is hard to deal with. I’ve had people ask me to put ships in my fics, the aforementioned convention incident, and been heckled over having aromantic headcanons at all. That being said, aromantic headcanons were how I met at least a few of my good friends. Finding each other may be hard, but since we all feel so isolated I think that finding other aro creators inhabiting the same or similar spaces can lead to pretty quick bonding, or at least an appreciation of each others’ works. I do like that.

I’ve also, as I have mentioned a couple times now, realized the worth of telling my own stories, particularly if I have other people to share them with who will respond positively. Right now, most of my D&D group is not aro, but they are a group that respects my and my character’s identities, and being able to tell an aro narrative that means a lot to me and get a positive response is a breath of fresh air. I count them as fellow content creators and they’ve really encouraged the story I want to tell. I hope that someday the inspiration I’ve gained from that will lead me to publishing my own original fiction (with aro characters, of course), but it’s been due to this small start that I’ve decided that’s something I could realistically pursue.

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

Comments on my fics are one of the biggest things that keep me writing, so they’ll always be a boon to me. Even old ones. It makes me happy to see people still reading and enjoying them. Same goes for reblogs of any of my stuff – art, writing, filk, cosplay photos, anything else I might post. The biggest thing that keeps me wanting to create and share more creative works is knowing that other people are enjoying them, so if you do enjoy them, any way you can let me know that is wonderful.

I do hope that in some point in the future I’ll have original fiction available and a science writing blog (I consider non-fiction to be creative expression, as long as you’re putting your spark into it!), but neither exists quite yet. If you follow me on either of my main platforms though, those might pop up someday. Seeing either be circulated when the time comes would be massive. I also intend to, perhaps in the much nearer future, start publishing D&D content (likely homebrew 5e subclasses, but who knows) on the DMsGuild, starting with a pay-what-you-want model for downloading my content. If that goes up and I make something you’re interested in, and you want to pay something for it at all, I would be massively grateful.

Can you share with us something about your current project?

I’ve been working on a Critical Role Modern AU story since January or so that places heavy emphasis on the platonic relationships in the show (Percy and Keyleth’s is particularly dear to me, so they’re likely to get a fair bit of the spotlight) that’s my most current fandom fic.

I’m also tackling two ambitious cosplays at the moment, though the timeframe is making me wonder if I’ll actually pull either off. Especially given what I need to get done. One involves sewing pseudo-historical menswear, and I’m going to have to learn how to make armor for the other one. If I can figure it all out though, I’m really excited about them both!

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

Hopefully the next chapter of the CR fic, if I get hit with the inspiration (and motivation) to work on it soon. I also have another aromantic Luke Skywalker fic I really want to get down on paper at some point, though thus far it’s proven a little elusive.

My two big cosplay projects are Percy de Rolo (from Critical Role), which I intend to take to a local convention, and Erwyn, my own D&D character. I hope to do a photoshoot with the rest of the players as their own characters sometime late this summer.

As for art, I fully intend to keep drawing major or touching moments from my ongoing campaign, likely with much more frequency than any of the things above. It may not be as engaging for people to interact with as my fandom-focused projects are, but I still really do love sharing it.

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artswaps · 6 years

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Voltron Survey Meme

I was tagged by @justheretobreakthings, thank you!! :0

How did you discover the show?

I’d seen a few stray posts about it on my dashboard, but didn’t really know what it was or take any notice. I’m laughing sm because the person who tagged me here had p much the same story, but eventually I stumbled across this video with Bob’s Burgers audio and for some reason it was what finally pushed me to go and find out what the show was. That was a month or so after season 2 had just dropped and here we are!!

Oddly enough, I’d actually binged all of Voltron Force quite a few years back when I was younger, but it wasn’t until a good while after I’d caught up on VLD and started dabbling in the fandom that I remembered that show and made the connection that it was the same franchise.

Was it love at first sight or did it take you a while to get into the show?

It was “Intrigued enough by certain elements that I’m willing to keep watching, but not totally hooked on the story,” at first sight. I really did love the characters from the get-go, and it was that and the humour + snappy dialogue that kept me around to give it a chance.

As far as the story went and the fact that it was about giant transforming robots, it wasn’t really my thing. It was when it started getting into Pidge’s character arc- Fall of the Castle of Lions, with the flashbacks to her at the Garrison and meeting Lance and Hunk- that I became truly invested.

Do you have a favorite Paladin?

Keeeeith!!! My son.

Do you have a favorite Lion? (If it’s different from your fav paladin, why?)

Not really? I guess Blue, because she’s the first one they found and the one that knocked off the entire adventure. Green and Red are pretty cool, too.

Do you have a favorite Villain?

Haggar! Wonderfully creepy and sinister, and the added depth they’ve been giving her in the past few seasons- what with the OG Paladin backstory and her rediscovering her memories of being Honerva etc. etc.- have just made her so much more interesting. I’m excited to see where they take her character!!

Do you have a favorite Alien Race? (recurring and/or minor)

I actually wanna know so much about the Galra, I’m curious! The Balmerans were pretty cool guys, too.

Favorite side / other character(s)- Rebels, General, Blade of Mamora, Garrison, etc?

Kolivan is awesome and I’m sad he wasn’t in s6 and I want to know everything about his past. I also love Shay a lot!! And Matt, of course. Gotta love Matt.

How/Why did you join the fandom?

I wish I’d known beforehand about the absolute chaos that is the VLD fandom because it’s just an automatic thing for me to seek out fandom content after I decide I like something lol. Still- I’m hyperfixated now so there’s no going back. I’m here already, so I ain’t going anywhere >8)

It’s also pretty much a given that if I’m fixated enough on something and love the characters as much as I do VLD’s, then I’m gonna end up making stuff. Gotta have people to share it with when I do, right?

Care to share a favorite headcanon?

Aro-spec Keith, hell yeah!! Unfortunately for me, his character tends to end up the centre of a lot of shipping content as we all know- so it’s an unpopular hc :(

I also really like bi Keith so I’m just great at picking all the unpopular ones I guess lmao

What do you think is the best part of the show?

The characters, hands-down. They’re just so charming, they gel together so well. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t even be watching this show- it was when Pidge’s character arc came into focus that I became invested, and all of the character-driven moments are the ones I look forward to the most and remember more fondly.

Also the humour. It’s snappy, witty, and charming when they do it right. A lot of that is once again down to how lovable the characters are and the chemistry they all share.

Any hopes and wishes for future episodes / seasons?

As much as I’ve enjoyed the past 2 seasons and all that delicious drama/intense battle scenes, I really do miss the more easygoing atmosphere a lot of the first 2 seasons had. The kinds of scenes where the gang can just... stand around and argue over what a laser gun sounds like. I’ve loved what the show has given us, but I need a damn breather now lol.

I really hope the gang gets a chance to regroup in the next season; just go back to a more casual feel, just for a bit, just a few scenes sprinkled between the plot. A chance for them to relearn how they all fit together, now everyone’s in one place again. A change of pace would be good for the show, I think.

Tying into that, I’ve seen a few people make this point already, but I would really, really love to see them start pushing that “found family” vibe the showrunners keep trying to sell. Things have been hectic with how fast the plot’s been moving, and I’m not at all unhappy with what the show’s given us, but I really do just want to see everyone.... being friends, getting to know each other, growing closer, being the family that they keep claiming they are. Maybe I’m feeling a bit salty because Keith has been left out of the mix for so long- I don’t wanna see him jump back into play, only for them to go back to their old dynamic where it was Keith & Shiro vs Everyone Else. There was always a distance there that I wanna see bridged, now that they’ve all grown a little.

The massive Keith stan in me also just wants everyone to love and appreciate Keith for the incredible person he is and make it clear to him on no uncertain terms that they all care about him. The massive Allura stan in me just wants her to stop being so hard on herself and take a damn break.

The part of me that’s falling more and more in love with Shiro is feeling strangely at peace after s6...... but please for the love of god let him dye his grandpa hair back to black dsfjgkhjhkhd

Do you think you’ll stick it out until the end of the show?

Well I’m kinda hyperfixated on it and that’s no easy thing to shake, so yeah. Besides, I love the characters too much to just pack it in halfway. Keith is just too special to me.

Tag your friends or someone you want to get to know better

uuh sorry if any of y’all have done this already

@sebayard, @fractalabomination, @kcgane, @starryeyedkeith, @haleykim84, @princessstaryknight, @a-sp4ce-g4y, @turtleduckfantasy

#post #vld s6 #i don't remember if i mentioned any spoilers but jic #voltron

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contranymss · 7 years

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RP: Dean, Tracy, Ryan, Fabien, Tom, Chet, Charlie, Tony

dean;;

sexuality headcanon: gavinsexual bi as heck

otp: gavin 5ever (also anna)

brotp: gavin. (and tracy. and anna.)

notp: Ty. People that aren’t Gavin or Anna.

first headcanon that pops into my head: He and Gavin went to Prom, and elected to go without dates and just be cool good lookin’ bros together. Dean lowkey pretended it was a date in his head the whole time.

one way in which I relate to this character: i love being in denial

thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: so many things. he’s an awkward bean sometimes.

tracy;;

sexuality headcanon: yes

otp: I don’t really.....ship her.....romantically......with people........no romo. (though for .5 seconds i was super into the idea of tracy/amy and both of them leaving their respective menfolk, and maybe amy sort of......growing up because of tracy’s influence. and maybe both of them still goin’ out bangin’ dudes because they both really love dick.......idk.)

brotp: gavin, dean, chuck

notp: tommy. also war. also monogamy in general.

first headcanon that pops into my head: She acted out when she was young - hanging out with a MacLeod, sleeping around, throwing lavish over the top parties, drinking, etc. - to set herself apart. She didn’t want to be the girl with the dead older brother, or or just one of a set of twins.

one way in which I relate to this character: occasional crippling self doubt, don’t always have the best taste in people

thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: she....married...........tommy...........and dated...........war.............

ryan;;

sexuality headcanon: gay. v gay.

otp: i almost want to say bradley.......because there’s a history there and, in their own way, love. also lowkey fabien but who knows if that’ll ever happen bc now i need to talk to erin about it.

brotp: sage, chuck, lowkey potentially fabien (also there’s a part of me that’s really attached to gavin and ryan’s relationship even though we have done nothing with them since tracy found out that ryan isn’t dead)

notp: also bradley. and balthazar but he’s dead now. so.

first headcanon that pops into my head: he never expected to.......make........friends..........when he came back, so the fact that he’s become so close with sage really surprises him, but he wouldn’t trade that friendship for anything.

one way in which I relate to this character: anxiety and problems with....being........social..........

thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: he’s just generally awkward

fabien;;

sexuality headcanon: tbh he doesn’t even know. brainwashed fabien is straight as heck, but the actual fabien? he’s actually not all that interested in women. also not totally interested in sex in general. he doesn’t dislike it or anything, and it definitely feels nice, but in the beginning, he was, in large part, doing it because that’s what everyone else was doing it. i mean, his first several times having sex, he wasn’t anywhere near sober either. he was drunk or high or both, and people suggested things and he just.........did them. for some of them, he was closer to sober than with others, but like........his sex life was mainly due to social obligation (maybe obligation is the wrong word idk) and anyone who looked at a list of all the people he’d had sex with, it would come off like he was bi or pan. and also part of him sleeping with women when he was younger was because of it being ingrained in his mind that he was supposed to be interested in women. that it was normal and healthy and what he was supposed to do. (this is all so jumbled and rambly wowzers.)

otp: honestly........bradley..........even if it’s not entirely healthy, and, well, they’re bros. but like. it’s the most intense interpersonal relationship he has, and bradley knows him better than anyone, and bradley is the only person he has ever broken down in front of. he trusts bradley in a way he doesn’t trust anyone else. as much as he tries to hide a lot of the bad stuff from bradley, because he wants to protect him - and all of his brothers - bradley still knows more about him than most. he knows about thierry’s abuse, he knows about his abusive ex, and after the whole situation with Balthazar, he probably would have been able to, eventually open up to bradley about what happened when he got kidnapped (because right now war is the only one that knows even part of that) had the whole rehab thing not happened.but david is a close second. and probably would have less of a fucked up relationship with him. they can relate on a lot of fronts, and sure, they’re both fucked up individuals who do a lot of drugs and drink a lot. but like....the thing they have is new for both of them, and it’s so important that they both have someone like that, even if it’s been put on hold because fabien’s all brainwashed.

brotp: david because tbh david is kind of his first actual friend? also bradley. also kind of war??? maybe not lately but like...war is the brother that he doesn’t always feel like he needs to protect. and yeah, he hates that he’s the kind of person that’s always like rawr, protect bros at all costs but it’s not like he’s doing it on purpose, and the universe kind of just......keeps giving him more reasons to feel like he should be protecting bradley. and.........idk. i had more thoughts but words are hard.

notp: part of me wants to say ariane, because had he not been brainwashed, he wouldn’t really have any interest in her. but the way he makes her feel right now, outside of the huge gross awfullness of the whole situation......like........With her, he feels loved. Feels like he deserves to be loved. Like he’s a good person, or has the potential to be a good person. He genuinely does feel happy right now, with her. Feels like he has a future that’s actually worth something. But like......it’s all a lie. It’s all fake. She doesn’t necessarily like him. She likes this version of him, the one that’s been molded to be what Josiah wants. What his father wants. And the whole situation is just so fucked up, and it’s doubtful he would come out of this and still feel the same way about her.

first headcanon that pops into my head: he still has the tiniest crush on Gavin. Like, it’s not really romantic, or sexual even. It’s just....Gavin was the first guy he was with, and sure, he wasn’t sweet and loving or anything, but he was respectful and attentive. And, sure, he fits his public persona in certain ways, and can be a bit of a stereotype, but he’s not totally awful. He’s a much better person than he ever would have expected, and Fabien is glad that Gavin was his first experience with a man. He wishes more of his experiences would have been like that.

one way in which i relate to this character: self loathing and dislike of people in general?

thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: brainwashed famine is just...........yep.

tom;;

sexuality headcanon: i don’t know which term he prefers (i think it’s been stated as polysexual in headcanons in the past) but he’s def into multiple genders

otp: obvs gavin. also charlie, which makes me sad because they haven’t........been talking much.........lately.........also chuck >.>

brotp: chuck, charlie, can i say willa? i’m gonna say willa. also lissy.

notp: sarah.............

first headcanon that pops into my head: he feels a lot of guilt over the fact that he waited so long to get chuck out of washington. but even then.....sometimes he wonders if he did the right thing by taking him and bringing him across the country. he doesn’t think he should have left him, but he wonders if he should have done things differently. or if chuck staying with tom, and growing up in fort macleod was really a good thing.

one way in which i relate to this character: i hate all of the people

thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: tbh he’s such an awkward bean sometimes. like.....sure, he’s this surly badass cop guy, but like.......he’s the awkwardest bean.

chet;;

sexuality headcanon: it’s chet!!! who the heck knows!!! does he even know??? we don’t know!!! (but def aro spec)

otp: okay...........so..........i lowkey really ship him with charlie.........also would really............be into...........him and fabien............also anna

brotp: mark, even though we haven’t done anything there yet. you know why. siobahn. lilith. charlie again. also anna. fight me.

notp: lowkey amy. and in most cases just anything actually romantic? idk.

first headcanon that pops into my head: clearly he did tap when he was a youngster. don’t take this away from me.

one way in which i relate to this character: honestly, we all have a little chet inside us, don’t we?

thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: he thought chuck was a sex worker and didn’t mention this until after he fucked him

charlie;;

sexuality heacanon: she’s pretty much straight. it’s unfortunate, because men are unfortunate, but she’s not really interested in ladies.

otp: tom. lowkey ed.

brotp: tom, eph, chet, tony, ed and harry.

notp: ansen. but. well. we haven’t gotten to that yet.

first headcanon that pops into my head: she’s always wanted children and she would make a fantastic mother. but she found out when she was a teenager that it’s highly unlikely she’ll ever be able to have children of her own. tbh it’s part of why she’s so bitter towards amy, because that bitch is fertile as hell

one way in which i relate to this character: people are just......nah.

thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: i’m not sure there actually is anything????

tony;;

sexuality headcanon: he........huh. def not straight. but like.....i’m not sure he’s really labelled himself? he hasn’t exactly had much of an opportunity to explore what his sexuality means to him as a person. i personally see him as bi, but //shrug.

otp: i mean...........charlie tbh........not even sexually or romantically but like.......that is the one true tony pairing, my brethren.

brotp: also charlie. and eph. and potentially mark in the future.

notp: neil. fucking gretchen.

first headcanon that pops into my head: he has totally thought about neil while having sex with amy, oops. and he totally bought a bottle of the cologne that neil used to wear. god, he misses him so much.

oen way in which i relate to this character: i too think that charlie is rad and that her mother and their other brothers should have let her be herself more when she was younger.

thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: he thought it was a good idea to be friends with neil?????

#queries #ohtveit #ask games for ts

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raayllum · 3 years

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but, doesnt hc'ing amaya or janai as bi or pan somehow invalidates the fact that they are lesbian and dont feel attraction to men?

there’s a few things to unpack here

1) not all bi or pan women (or femme aligned people) even feel attraction to men. each just mean attraction to more than one gender, and there’s loads of genders out there

2) up until the 1970s, a hard distinction between bi and lesbian as sexualities didn’t exist. women with an attraction to women were all cloistered under a similar umbrella term until the late 1880s, earliest. a lot of ace, aro, bi, and pan people also fell under the term of lesbian by extension during those periods bc they were living their lives in a non cis-heterosexual manner. it’s because a lot of those experiences have a lot in common. bi, pan, and lesbian, ace, and aro spec women can all know what it’s like to like women. but to act like only lesbians know what it’s like to live being “unavailable” to men with zero attraction to them... is incorrect (hi ace and aro people and bi/pan women in committed relationships with other women).

it is also not surprising that an emphasis on lesbian identity as separate from these other experiences / identities arose during the 1970s as well during the lesbian sex wars up through the 1990s that also led to a rise of lesbian sanctioned transphobia (hi terfs).

3) janai and amaya are only lesbians if you follow the twitter account of tdp’s head writer who’s name is only in the credits of the show and if you happened to see that tweet and if you choose to accept a word of god twitter statement (not even in an interview) as canon fact. i’ve seen word of god statements be the most disingenuous shit on occasion, so as a general rule i don’t really take them into account. someone else can, of course - but you can’t force anyone else to.

4) the tumblr obsession with exact labelled identities to project on characters or to have confirmed contributes to “you have one (1) identity and cannot change it” which is a very toxic mindset to have. people’s identities change all the time as we grow to understand ourselves better.

like every popularly HC’d fanon bi could also be HC’d as pan and could not have a queer identity read onto them by fans often for the express purpose of shipping them with a same sex only / as their Best Possible endgame bc bi characters in m/f relationships aren’t “as good,” obviously (sarcasm), and yet...

someone could headcanon amaya as thinking she’s bi and later realizing she’s a lesbian or vice versa. someone could headcanon gren as being a trans woman later in life who still uses he/him pronouns. fandom is an inherently transformative space.

5) lesbians are the most represented queer group after gay men. biphobia and bi erasure is one of the most prevalent experiences in fandom and in real life based on visibility politics.

6) speaking of visibility: there are four ‘mainstream’ ace characters in fiction right now. raphael from shadowhunters tv show, todd chavez from bojack horseman, a girl from sex education, and jughead jones from the archie comics who’s also aromantic. jughead’s asexuality was erased in the riverdale tv show in the mainstream content people consume. and even then, i’m not shitting all over the writers, people who like riverdale, people who ship jughead with characters, or the canon ships with him in the show.

if someone watches TDP, all they’re gonna see that is janai and amaya like women and are with each other. i cannot understate how few people actually read fanfiction. 90% of tdp’s audience are not going to see the what, 20 fics of people like gren/amaya or gren/amaya/janai. unless a person doesn’t ship what you ship specifically because it’s gay, it’s not homophobic - get over yourself.

7) making shipping or a ship an identity piece related to your sexuality is the fastest way to fuck yourself over. don’t do it.

8) shipping is still never a reason to harass people. ever. i don’t care what you think a ship invalidates or perpetuates. block and move on. that’s what the block button is there for.

more on varying levels of canonicity here and how sexual orientations are ascribed to characters that reinforce gold star gay hierarchy here

#thanks for asking #anonymous #dragons gets salty #y'all are gonna turn me into a queer elder sooner rather than later i swear

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