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decolonize-the-left · 1 year

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Ive seen an influx in posts asking the LGBT community to hold itself accountable for ace/aro bigotry and they're fucking right.

How are we supposed to hold homophobes and transphobes accountable and demand they do better when we won't even do that for each other?

We're a community right? A family who's supposed to look out for each other? What happened to everyone being valid? Is a sibling saying "you hurt me, please correct it somehow" not valid?

For my part I'll admit I was part of this.

I was on the side of the asexual exclus back in the late 00's/early 10's. I was deep in the belief that oppression had to be systematic in order to count and at the time I didn't see any systematic oppression faced by aces. I even identified as ace and I didn't consider myself oppressed for being asexual. I saw the hostility and vitriol directed at aces everyday...but I didn't see it as wrong. I didn't see it as bigotry. I saw it as righteous anger.

I know how awful things were because I was one of the people making them that way. There is Real trauma that was experienced. There's no fucking way that a normal person could be invalidated that much and take the vitriolic bigotry aces/aros did everyday and have it not leave a lasting impact.

I fucked up. That was wrong and awful of me and I'm genuinely so fucking sorry.

I see the broken trust and promises between us now in 2023 and I see how shattered the community is and it's partly my fault. That gap is there because of me and people like me.

We should have loved and supported and welcomed you. We should have saw the way you were being treated and said something. You deserved to be protected and loved and supported from people who treated you that way.

And you weren't. We didn't. And it was normalized.

We absolutely fucking failed you as a community and as human beings. I need to own that. And I need to be one of the first people to trying to repair that.

And I know an apology is barely even a first step and I know it's just a drop in a giant bucket but I am sorry. For everything it's worth to you, I'm sorry.

Because of me and people like me you experienced the kind of identity trauma that typically only homophobes are capable of. And you experienced it at the hands of the community that's supposed to be fighting specifically that sort of ignorance against a-typical sexualities.

We fucked up

And it'd just be hypocritical salt in the wound if 10+ years later we ignored your asks for accountability and didn't do anything about it when it's resurfacing.

So yeah.

I was a bigot. I hurt people. I hurt my own community. I thought I was right and I wasn't. I was wrong. And so is everyone who insists on continuing that today.

There is no excuse or justification for it. I thought there was too but I was wrong and I'm gonna spend the rest of my life making up for it.

Whatever justification you find for treating people with a-typical sexualities and genders is shit. It has no leg to stand on and it sure as hell isn't being done for the sake of the community.

The LGBT community was founded not by people with checklists on how to be a Good Gay or Acceptable trans woman but by people being treated like shit for who they were choosing to love or not love. It was founded by people who's gender didn't fit in cishet boxes. It was founded by people who just wanted to be free to exist as themselves.

You can't treat asexuals or aros or bisexuals or pansexuals like shit and say that it's in the name of the LGBT community.

It's not.

It spits in the face of everything our community is supposed to be and it's time someone besides aces and aros said it.

None of us should be okay with how they're treated and all of us should be part of stopping it

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isabellascarlett1 · 5 months

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Queerplatonic Polyamory is great 💗

Queerplatonic LDRs are great 💗

Queerplatonic Throuples are great 💗

Queerplatonic ships are great 💗

Queerplatonic relationships are great 💗

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viejospellejos · 1 month

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#delfin #aros

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cowboylikeghost · 10 months

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fuck society. I want to live alone.

#aroace #asexual #ace #aromantic #aro #asexuality #aromantism #queer #lgbt #lgbtqia #aros #aces

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autumngracy · 6 days

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Hi, just a random question from a fan of AROS (for which I have no coherent words to decribe my admiration)- I'm sure you've been asked this a million times already, but I'm quite new to this fandom, so forgive me and feel free to ignore the question, of course- who did you base your Javert on, appearance-wise?

Actually I don't think anyone directly asked this before!

To be honest I didn't actually base him on anything or anyone in particular ... I think the reason for this is because I read the brick before ever seeing any adaptations of Les Mis, so the first Javert I pictured was just my own interpretation of him from the brick ...

And what's funny is I can't remember if I originally pictured him with short hair or long hair. I read the 1938 Heritage Press edition of the brick, which is the Wraxall translation + about 1500 Lynd Ward illustrations, and in those illustrations he has short hair. But, oddly, I didn't remember it as being short in those illustrations? I had to go back and look years layer to confirm. (Alas, my beautiful Heritage Press copy is lost somewhere now!)

So I don't know if the long hair thing was me originally picturing it that way despite the illustrations being otherwise (possibly because the illustrative style made it somewhat vague at first?), or if it was from me later getting brainrot from looking at all the post Terrance Mann Javert designs ...

Best I can say about the hair issue is, well ... I just really happen to like male characters with long hair ... idk why lol. I have a lot of male OCs with long hair and every time I make one, part of my brain goes "Another one? For real? Do we not have enough of these little bitches already? If you don't stop putting long hair on all these characters people are gonna start to think you have some kind of kink."

Which. Well. I'm actually asexual so idk lol I think it's just an aesthetic preference

ANYWAY

For his wardrobe, that's just the brick descriptions plus factual research into 1830's era menswear. The only anachronistic element of his appearance really is his hair, but I do get around that by pointing out that he could have simply picked the (older and naval oriented) style up while he was at the Bagne (which did in fact have a dress mandate for keeping long hair tied up, suggesting it was a common enough hairstyle among the guards) and just never dropped it even after it became unfashionable—because A) he doesn't seem to give two shits about being fashionable, B) keeping short hair means either spending money to keep it short or having an intimate enough relationship with someone that they will do it for you free—neither of which I can see him wanting to do—and also C) he appears to be a creature of habit, so keeping the same, easily self-maintained hairstyle over the years fits my understanding of him.

Also, I'm not even exaggerating his tools of the trade because there really is a line in the brick about him having some kind of sword, which I had to go back and reread several times because it surprised even me (but it's 3am and I'm too assed to look it up rn). And we already know he has 2 pistols and a bludgeon (which the brick says he holds tucked up invisibly in his sleeve, Assassin's Creed style, lmao).

On another subject—

Given his stiff and distanced way of interacting with the world, questionable of social skills (see him bluescreening when Fantine is pleading with him in the mairie by way of what may be thinly veiled sexual advances), as well as his black and white thinking, penchant for being distracted by his thoughts to the point of complete obliviouness, propensity to either give extremely short responses or to go into ranting monologues, with little in between—plus the idea that he hates reading but makes himself do it for self improvement reasons, and how he seems to start stimming when lost in thought—I could definitely see him possibly being Autistic or having ADHD.

Now then, about his race ...

I know originally I actually pictured him differently than the Javert I wrote for my fic—as more white, at least—the way he appeared in the Lynd Ward until I read people discussing how he was probably supposed to be part Romani. And when it came to me having to pick conclusive character designs for my fic, I thought it would be much more interesting if it was a Javert who was visibly Romani instead of white passing, which he seems to be in most everything that bothers to mention his background.

I do find it weird that he's seemingly been played by nothing but white guys except for Norm Lewis and David Oyelowo (that I can find). So there's never really been a Romani Javert in stage or screen adaptations ... However, there's still a decent amount of fanart that shows him as darker skinned/Romani, so at least there's that.

Anyway I find that a visibly non white Javert just adds a lot more nuance and depth to his character, even compared to a still Romani but white passing version of him. Because then it changes how he interacts with and views the world (and vice versa), and it changes or adds to his motivations for doing what he does. It brings his (very canon!) struggle with internal racism to the forefront, which a lot of adaptations downplay or completely ignore.

I think part of why this appeals to me is that in modern times we are very used to the idea of the shitty oppressive white cop who is approaching everything from a position of absolute privilege and authority (which is a very shallow and uninteresting archetype, character-wise) ... and brick canon Javert, regardless of whether or not he is white passing, is not coming from a position of privilege—and not just because he is poor. He is coming from a position of social insecurity and vulnerability, which (at least it seems to me) he is trying desperately to escape/overcome.

And this makes his motivations for choosing his specific job far more interesting than "shitty white cop that enforces the status quo because he gets off on exerting power over other people". It suggests a sort of willful mental dissonance and denial that also make a lot of sense in hindsight when we consider the effects of his derailment.

The idea of him snapping and realizing for the first time that most everything he was doing was morally corrupt (or at least highly questionable) is one thing (and a level of obliviousness/ignorance that is somewhat hard to believe, imo) ...

But the idea that he knew how morally reprehensible his actions were all along, and was repressing it on purpose? To gain the only foothold he could see on the ladder of a world he was born on the lowest rung of? And after decades, is forced by external factors to finally, finally look his decisions in the eye and confront himself about them?

Well, shit. That hits a lot harder, doesn't it?

And it certainly hits him pretty hard. Obviously (as I pointed out in the the fic) he did mentally store away notes of things he found morally questionable about/during his career over the years—he just didn't let himself act on them. But it implies he was aware of the injustices, even if he only relegated that awareness to his subconscious.

The brick talks about how he felt he existed outside of society and had only two choices in life—black and white thinking; criminal vs protector, etc.—and it spells out how this is pretty much the direct result of his internalized rascism—so, I mean ... I don't think it's unlikely that canon Javert knew from the beginning that he was sacrificing his his heritage, culture, and moral compass in pursuit of respect and recognition from society (and thereby, social safety).

And in a Post-Seine world, he's forced to reconcile with all of that.

I may have just spoiled a major upcoming plot point for AROS tbh but oh well I was dropping breadcrumbs of foreshadowing about it the entire goddamn time lmao

#A Reflection of Starlight #AROS #Les Mis #Les Misérables #Javert #Tell me why I just spent 2 hours writing an essay in response to a *checks notes* single sentence ask

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caramelcove · 27 days

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draw more aros pls !!!!!!!!! love, the unknown

Here you go 😊❤️

#he's my friend's oc #Aros #gods gambit #caramelcove

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slapdashboard · 3 months

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The aroace(???) dilemma of wondering whether you’re actually aro or just wary of romantic relationships because they are advertised and sold with sex as a package deal