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viviennevermillion · 1 year

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With an asexual s/o

notes: just some self-indulgent headcanons. i don't think this is going to get a lot of notes but the ace community deserves more content.

contains: character x gn!reader, qpr in alhaithams part, the plot twist here is that the characters in question are also on the ace-spectrum

characters included: alhaitham, diluc, pantalone

warnings: mentions of sex in the context of being asexual, hints at harassment and a bit of violence in pantalone's part (not towards the reader)

aphobes, dc creators and consumers dni

Alhaitham

Let's be real here, Alhaitham as a kid took one look at romance and sexual relations and decided that he'd have a better time with a good book and a research trip to the desert. "You'll change your mind when you get older", they said to him. And then he didn't. And everytime someone brings that up he's kinda smug about it, in a told you so kinda way. Alhaitham always knew what he wanted and didn't want and people thinking they knew better was a hassle for him he'd rather not bother with.

Alhaitham is aware of the term asexual and that he falls under it by definition but he doesn't really care for putting labels on himself as he sees no necessity to find ways to explain and define himself to people. The only time he actively labels himself as asexual is when you come out to him to make things easier for you.

Alhaitham would be considered quoiromantic; he's not sure if what he feels is romantic attraction but the concept of romantic attraction also doesn't have much significance to him.

You don't get together with Alhaitham by asking him out and going on dates with him. Your bond just kinda happens. You spend a significant amount of time in each other's presence and Alhaitham finds that he quite enjoys your company. As you become closer, he notices he looks forward to talking to you everyday; to even engage in some playful banter with you. He can talk to you about all sorts of topics and your relationship just has this feel of mutual comfort to it. You can just idly sit next to each other and exchange a couple of words and somehow people can always tell you two are close. He's clearly looking out for you and you're very considerate of his habits and preferences. You're always each other's first choice for anything, whether it's spending your freetime together, seeking advice or working on something together. Alhaitham seems more at peace and happier when he's with you and so do you.

Several people had asked you whether you two were dating or just friends and feeling unsure of where you stood with him, you decided to talk to him about it. "And why would we need to put a label on it, hmm?", he asks and wraps an arm around you affectionately, "so people can put us into categories to ease their own confusion because they struggle to clearly define our bond?"

Alhaitham thought you might have romantic feelings for him and he was half-prepared for holding you a lecture on alterous attraction and how he doesn't experience attraction and relationships the same way most people do. When you come out to him as asexual he's like "god you're making this so much easier for me."

Alhaitham reassures you that he cares deeply about you and he'd like to keep you close to him as you already were. From that moment on, Alhaitham calls you his partner and you call him that too. What that entails? No one's business.

Alhaitham doesn't often initiate physical affection but he does a lot of idle motions like putting an arm around you when you sit down next to him or leaning his head against your shoulder when he's laying next to you and reading his book. He doesn't mind if you want to kiss or cuddle though.

It's clear as day to anyone who knows you that you two love each other even if they can't exactly define what you have as either friendship or romance.

Diluc

Lisa was the one person who started off teasing Diluc a little about having so many admirers and asking him "aren't you interested in any of them?" but she also was the first to notice Diluc was probably ace before Diluc himself even noticed he worked differently than most people around him.

But oh Diluc noticed, even if he didn't have a label to put on it before he met you. He always felt a little uneasy when the topic came up because he just knew it'd result in people asking questions and him not having an answer nor particularly wanting to answer them.

By the time he met you Diluc had become quite the expert in turning people down but the more time he spent with you, the more he noticed that he didn't want to turn you down. And that this time would probably result in you turning him down. Oh how wrong he was.

He could tell you liked him as time went on but he was hesitant about taking the next step because he feared you might, by convention, expect things from him he couldn't give you. And you felt the same way. So the two of you grew gradually closer, even flirting with each other on rare occasion, all while actively dancing around the confrontation because neither of you had an idea how to address the subject

You're the one who eventually tells him how you feel and comes out to him. Diluc asks a couple of questions and listens attentively as you explain asexuality to him. Then goes: "Oh, so there is a word for it.."

You felt really relieved to hear that Diluc felt the same as you did and that you helped him make sense of his experiences. He confessed to you that for a while he was worried that there might just be something wrong with him and that he's happy that's not the case and that he gets to be with you, someone who understands him and can relate.

He has a long conversation with you about your shared experiences because this is the first time he could talk with someone else about this without being at least partially dismissed. He also talks about your boundaries with you and his as well to make sure neither of you makes the other uncomfortable with something.

After the talk Diluc feels a little exhausted because even though it was relieving and enlightening, it was also stressful and made him feel a little anxious, given that you were talking about something he mostly kept to himself up to this point.

He asks if he can kiss you and if you say yes, he leans over and kisses you softly, letting you bury your fingers in his hair. His kiss is hesitant at first but he gets more passionate with time, smiling into the kiss when he notices this is actually happening. That you accept him the way he is and love him and are kissing him.

He lets you stay with him for the night, holding you protectively against his chest.

Pantalone

Painfully aware of the fact that he's on the ace-spectrum because the rich people he scams for his plans tend to get really good at oversharing about their sexual preferences after enough wine at the banquets. The alcohol is a double-edged sword because it sometimes works in his favor since he can find out people's weak points but it's also an easy spiral into "too much information, didn't need to know this"

Several of his business partners have tried to pressure him to join them in their endeavors because they "know a club in some fairly unknown alley" or have encouraged him to "hit someone up", which he always refused. Which is what bred the joke in those circles that the only thing that man is attracted to is cold hard cash.

He had many people who tried to make advances towards him, some because they were after his money and some because he was conventionally attractive. Quite a few entitled nobles had a tendency to mistake his mischievous and suave demeanor as him being flirty when really he was just scheming how to bleed them dry of all the money they have 💀

Some of them just wouldn't take "no thank you I'm not interested" as an answer, insisting they could change that. Most of them he just shooed away. Two or three ended up with some broken bones because they took it a step too far.

Pantalone has seen some shit and been through a lot and he hasn't been given physical affection in over a literal decade so he's actually fairly hesitant and receiving affection from you and he needs to warm up a bit to the idea of being kissed and held.

When you tell him you're asexual he's like "oh thank god, me too."

He always asks before he initiates any new physical contact or kisses you in a place he hasn't before to make sure to not overstep any of your boundaries. After all, he's receiving the patience from you he craved but most people wouldn't have given him.

He's pretty sex-repulsed because he spent too much time around the worst kind of people for the sake of harbinger business.

He's clingy and extremely gentle with you in private and will love you with all his heart but if anyone dares to give you shit over your asexuality or bothers you they'll receive the iciest death glare that banker is capable of. The one more step and you're a dead man kinda expression.

He'll smile and go "My, my, it sounds like you had quite the exciting day, my friend" at some rich, slightly intoxicated merchant making small talk with him at a gathering and telling Pantalone about all his pursuits of women and his affairs in detail but the second that person is out of sight, Pantalone's face falls and he looks at you with an "I'm done" expression. "I don't want to be here", he says dryly and you suggest to get another mousse au chocolat from the buffet and share it with him. "Yeah, let's", he takes your hand and glances at the guy who talked to him just now, "once I have his cash I'll buy you something nice from it." "Not this again, Pantalone." He gently kisses your lips. "See it as compensation for the emotional damage this conversation gave us."

Over the course of your relationship Pantalone finds out he's actually demisexual but that doesn't change anything between the two of you either. He adapts to you with ease, no matter what your boundaries are.

author's note: tagging @k-zu because he wanted to be tagged! ✨

#alhaitham x reader #pantalone x reader #diluc x reader #al haitham x reader #diluc ragnvindr x reader #genshin impact #pantalone headcanons #pantalone x you #diluc x you #alhaitham x you #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact headcanons

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ladyloveandjustice · 7 months

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Otherside Picnic Volume 8 Review that Devolves into a Bunch of Quotes and Gushing

I’ve been wanting to do a review of Otherside Picnic Vol 8 because I loved it so much, but haven’t been in the right mindspace to properly convey my enthusiasm. But I’m about to get busy so it’s now or never. Here are my thoughts that are inevitably going to devolve into a bunch of quotes and gushing. Let's just go through it all!

-I loved this so much, first off. It literally inspired me to have an honest discussion with my partner about my own intimacy and relationship quirks and what we want from each other. It made me feel a little better about myself and my own weirdness, that’s how much it affected me. It really got across the relief of just communicating in a relationship, of having frank conversations with your partner, and accepting your differences from the mainstream as okay.

-The conversation about romance, love, and sex being different actually made me tear up, which is how I knew this book would murder me from the beginning. It’s just so nice to see one of my favorite yuri and favorite romantic stories ever acknowledge asexuality and the full spectrum of experiences in such an understanding and thoughtful way.

-I love that this book really recontextualizes the oblivious-to-love protagonist, slow-burn and often stalled development that aren’t uncommon in animanga adjacent media romances and made it into something incredibly interesting. This was already hinted at in previous volumes, but Sorawo’s disconnect with her own feelings and slowness in responding to Toriko wasn’t just to tease the audience, but because her view of romance and her understanding of her own feelings conflicted with societal ideas of romance and it left her lost and confused. It makes everything that came before it so much more meaningful. This is also extremely relatable, and I love that Sorawo was frustrated with the idea of her relationship fitting into a socially acceptable box, when she felt what she had with Toriko was a lot more complicated and far reaching and didn’t want to define it so neatly.

-Honestly reading about Sorawo not being all that into kissing and basically being like "I don't hate it but it doesn't do anything for me" made me feel a little bit less alone and little more confident in talking about this aspect of my experience. ME TOO. GIRL.

-Every single yuri should have a line like “sounds to me like you’re a raging lesbian” from now on. How can anything ever live up to this.

-Toriko looking into sexual abuse gave me a heart attack because at first I thought she was trying to understand what happened with her and Satsuki. But she was researching Sorawo, because the stuff with the Red Person made her realize Sorawo has trauma and I felt so vindicated about my article. Then we have the hilarity of Sorawo, who literally has a “cult mode” when she’s made to relive where she had to deal with abuses from cults, where she becomes like a different person and talks to herself like she’s a separate person and is disconnected from her normal self…claiming she doesn’t have lingering cult trauma and doesn’t dissociate.

And then Toriko going “uhhhh what about the Red Person?”

“Huh oh that didn’t count. Cuz your love saved me.”

THE most un-self aware person, I love her.

(And EVERYONE knows it, especially Toriko, loved this exchange:

“Don’t try to force something I’m not aware of onto me.”

“Sorawo, there aren’t many things about you that you actually display self-awareness of.”

“Wow, insulting much?!” )

-The fact Toriko noticed how thirsty Sorawo was for her the second they met is so funny and makes that scene 100 times better in hindsight.

“It took me by surprise. Here I am, holding you in my arms, and you go and stare at my face, then your eyes start working their way down. I was like, ‘Girl sure has a lot of energy for someone who almost drowned.’”

“So, what? When you were talking about me ogling you before, you meant—”

“Yeah, right from the get-go. From the moment you saw me for the first time.”

Sorawo didn’t realize she was doing it…the entire exchange is hilarious. SO much of this book was hilarious honestly, here are some other choice quotes:

Who would’ve known there could be such a touching scene right next to a shelf stuffed full of erotic manga with titles so incredible that I couldn’t possibly name them...?

And this, the best love confession ever:

“I love you! I love you!”

“For real?”

“Apparently!”

-I really liked that Toriko was genuinely worried Sorawo might not have consented to the previous kisses and might be bothered by them. It built on the ongoing theme of Toriko struggling with emotional and physical boundaries, giving her such good character growth, and It shows a concern and care most stories gloss over.

…Which is kind of a stark contrast to the lack of concern she shows about that time she hit Sorawo in volume 6, despite Sorawo bringing it up as a problem. This has been an ongoing issue that’s bothered me, and it’s been mentioned often enough I hope Miyazawa is going to actually do something to address it. He DID address the questionable consent of the earlier kisses, going beyond my expectations, so I actually have my fingers crossed this is something we’re going to explore and confront. It’s really jarring compared to the rest of how well everything else has been handled, and is the only mark against the story, so I’m hoping this is intentional. The Toriko who worries Sorawo might have been sexually abused and goes above and beyond to try to be sensitive and understand her and the Toriko who is dismissive of the time she hit her (now) partner seem so in opposition to each other, and I there could be some interesting exploration and resolution of that.

(Miyazawa does mention something about having to treat serious issues casually because of Sorawo's detached, cynical POV and hoping readers will understand; and I think it's likely he was referring to that, which gives me more confidence).

-Sorawo understands Toriko’s moms are lesbians now I’m so proud of her.

-the fact that Toriko wanted to fuck in her dead parents bedroom …she has so many problems, I cherish her.

-I loved getting more Toriko backstory and her moms. Love Sorawo being like “wow I probably should have asked about this but…” YES YOU SHOULD HAVE, FOR MY SAKE. But Sorawo’s focus on living in the here and now, and being content with the Toriko in the here and now, is such an interesting aspect of her.

-EVERYthing about the final scene was so good. Like how can I even talk about it? Toriko fucking Sorawo with her weirdass interdimensionally-corrupted hand while getting jazzed by Sorawo's magic eye is just PEAK lesbian fantasy, no other series had delivered this exact weirdness that I want, thank you for being there for all of us bizarre sapphics.

“I...might make you go crazy.”

“That’s okay.”

Toriko’s hand drew closer. It meant something different now than it had before. If Toriko touched me now, I’d be the one to go insane. She snuggled up to me, so close our noses could touch, and with a voice full of heated passion, she whispered, “Let’s go crazy. Together.”

“Girl hit me with your evil eye, let’s get real fucked up” I love them, they’re such freaks and I am here for it. THE PASSION. THE METAPHOR. THE PURE CHUUNI WISH FUFILLMENT.

-Honestly I just highlighted the entire final scene because it hit me right in my weird gay little soul the way few other things have and I want to be able to whip these out the next time some loser says wlw media doesn’t have poetic declarations of love and passion so I’m just going to go through them.

Here’s one:

But that’s not what happened. Toriko looked beautiful, opening before me like a flower in bloom, and I was aware of every minute branch of the tree, down to their very tips…[]

Toriko became rude, polite, lewd, or embarrassed. I didn’t have the composure to focus or think as I watched, so Toriko changed from one thing to another as my gaze wandered. Laughing, getting angry, crying, fearing, moaning—feeling as if she were flowing from one state to the next, in constant flux, and yet in all of them simultaneously.

Sorawo accepting all sides of Toriko, all her complexity, how she’s everything all at once! And the fact they have such amazing sex they basically GO TO THE OTHERSIDE? Dimension transcending lesbian sex? Showstopping, incredible.

The way her hand moved, tracing the outline of my body—its true outline—was as gentle as could be, sensitive yet bold, overflowing with care, incredibly unreserved, and audacious. It felt like it was packed full of all the experiences of being touched by another person. In another way, different from mine, Toriko was unraveling the person that I was too. I was being decomposed, broken apart. The things that had been pressed into a human form were decompressed, and expanded outwards without limit.

This is how you do a sex scene. If your partner doesn’t unravel you and make you see all the shattered pieces of yourself, is it even worth it? I love the motif of falling apart but becoming more whole at the same time- isn’t that just every human experience all wrapped up into one?

I had been afraid to look at Toriko. Toriko had been afraid to touch me. Now, as we were looking at, or touching, our partner directly, tossed about on the waves of madness, we began to gradually find a way to take control of the situation.

The idea of how maybe you can’t help losing your minds when you look and feel all the other person is…but maybe if you lose your minds together it will be okay. Romance.

These two beasts with all these bodies converged through their desire for one another and were bound together. We were blending together at the interfaces where we connected. The different ‘us’s melted together, without ever becoming a perfect whole, but without fully separating either. Like a chimera made from two types of living being. Or two galaxies colliding.

“We became a chimera” is the absolute nerdiest way to describe making love and thus perfect for them (also lol the beast with two backs).

That’s too long, so how about shortening it to Soratori?” I burst out laughing as I remembered the time she’d tried to use the name Soratori Road for what we now called Route 1 in the other world. “

That’s like one of those ship names,” I told her.

“What’re those?”

“You’re a mangaka’s daughter and you don’t know that?!”

“Nope, not a clue. Is it something dirty?”

“Well, maybe?”

“Hmm.”

Okay, so Sorawo is clearly in some fandom and ships something. Place your bet on what it is. Probably she ships creepypasta monsters.

Do you know what the ‘nue’ is?”

“It’s a Japanese monster, right? Made up of a bunch of different animals mixed together.” “Yeah, that’s the one. As an extension of that, the word can also refer to something that doesn’t have a discernible form.”

[...]

While we were there, the two of us got all mixed up together, right? Intertwined, melting into one, like animals... Depending on how you look at it, you might say we were like a nue.”

“So, basically, if you wanted a word to represent our relationship, we wouldn’t be ‘lovers,’ or ‘accomplices’...but a ‘nue’?”

Okay forget what I said this is ACTUALLY the nerdiest way to describe your relationship. And speaking of nerds, I love this stupid conversation:

“It’s cute. Nue. I like the sound of it. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo of the kanji.”

“You’d take it that far?”

“You’re not gonna get a matching one?”

“They might not let us in the hot springs in Japan anymore. You sure?

” “Huh?! I wouldn’t like that... You think it’d be okay if we put them somewhere no one will see?”

“Where would no one see? This is sounding painful, and I’m not really on board with it.”

“Wha?”

Anyway, yeah, this section was everything I wanted, no notes. Toriko and Sorawo have the most demented, fantastical sex possible, having a threesome with the otherside because they all are strange and wonderful, being the nerdiest dorks it’s possible to be, their relationship is now a chimera because that’s even better and more all encompassing that something boring like lovers, Miyazawa really gave us it all, love wins, gays win. What more can I say? I adore this series.

#otherside picnic #otherside picnic 8 spoilers #my reviews #books #yuri #sorawo kamikoshi #toriko nishina #soratori

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musingsofanaroace · 1 month

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Realizing I was AroAce

When did I realize I was AroAce?

It was in 1995, when I was eleven going on twelve. During that time, boys started liking girls (or boys), and girls started liking boys (or girls). And the conversations evolved to include discussions about crushes, dating, kissing, and gossip. And I was totally lost. Never had I experienced this thing called a crush, nor did I have any interest in dating or kissing anyone. For a little while, I thought everyone had lost their minds.

So I did what I always did when in a situation incomprehensible to me: I analyzed it to death. I wrote down all the incongruities between me and my peers. I never had a crush and had no desire to French kiss anyone. In fact, it sounded quite gross. Swapping spit with someone seemed unsanitary and unnecessary. But having their first kiss seemed to be the only thing the girls in my year wanted to talk about. And when they got older, the obsession turned to sex, which I really didn’t understand. Why would anyone want to engage in that activity other than for reproductive purposes? With these facts, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t desire sexual stuff. Since I didn't know about the existence of the word asexual, I invented my own: nonsexual.

I defined nonsexual as someone who doesn’t experience crushes or desire sex. I know that this definition is quite limited and only describes asexuals who are sex averse or sex repulsed. But at the time, I didn't know that asexuals could be either sex neutral or sex favorable.

Once I figured out what to call my lack of sexual attraction, I moved on to romance. I knew I felt no desire to go on dates, hold hands, or get married. The whole process seemed like a waste of time and effort. In the time it would take to go on a date with someone, I could have spent that time doing something more productive. Like washing my clothes or reading a book or playing a board game with a friend. And watching couples get romantic in front of me, whether in the movies or in real life, always gave me the ick. In all honesty, this entire romance thing truly baffled me. Since I didn’t know the term aromantic, I dubbed it nonromantic.

At the time, I defined nonromantic as someone who doesn’t experience romantic feelings toward other people. And surprisingly, this definition aligns pretty well with that of aromantic.

What was my reaction to being AroAce?

I just accepted it. Never did I feel a desire to fit in, and peer pressure never impacted me. I had a fiercely independent and strong-willed personality. Also, I always stuck out like an odd duck, and I just embraced this identity. What else could I do? I definitely didn’t know at the time that I had AuDHD.

And another factor, I had just started puberty and with that came gender dysphoria. I didn’t have the time or energy to freak out about both my sexuality and gender. And since gender had confused me the longest, that’s the one I continued to obsess over.

When did I discover the term AroAce?

While doing my undergraduate degree, I discovered AVEN and the term asexual. I also learned that sexual drive differs from sexuality and that the term “sex averse” described me the best. (Note: A sex averse individual doesn’t mind if others have sex; it’s just not for them.)

While doing my graduate degree, I discovered the term aromantic. I also learned about the different types of attraction one can experience. Shortly after that, I found the term that resonated with me the most: AroAce!

What was my coming out experience?

I don’t really have a pivotal “coming out” moment. When I realized that I was AroAce (nonsexual and nonromantic), I simply talked to my madre about it. She just accepted it. Then I talked to my padre. He didn’t understand it, but at the the same time, he didn’t make a big deal out of it. To be honest, I didn’t even know at the time I was doing a thing called “coming out”. I was simply sharing a discovery I made about myself, and I felt comfortable telling them about it.

Do I feel apart of the lgbtqia+ community?

When I first came out as AroAce (nonsexual and nonromantic), the initials were lgbt, and I didn’t realize that I belonged to the community. I didn’t realize this until I discovered AVEN. At uni, I tried to join a rainbow alliance, but the members didn’t consider me “queer enough”, so after attending one meeting, I didn’t return.

Now, I do consider myself apart of the community, but I still don’t feel comfortable entering queer spaces. I know that I shouldn’t allow my one negative experience to hold me back, but I do find it hard to get over past rejections because I have rejection sensitive dysphoria (ADHD). I’m working on it and one day, I may attend my first Pride. Who knows?

Do I want a queer platonic partner?

I don’t really know. Perhaps? But in my forty years, I haven’t met (in real life) another “out” person on the A-spectrum. So right now, it doesn’t seem likely. Mayhap in the future? I guess only time will tell.

And this concludes how I realized I was AroAce. If you have anything to add, please leave it in the comments. Until next time, take care and stay curious.

#aroace #asexual #aromantic #personal essay #lgbtqia

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hushpuppy5-blog · 1 year

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I found this document called "The Asexual Manifesto" and thought it was interesting in how it addressed asexuality amongst women in some 1970s feminist groups:

The Asexual Manifesto (1972) was recently found by Caoimhe Harlock on Twitter. It is available as a pdf. I have transcribed it below for better accessibility. The format mimics the original, except for the placement of the footnote on the first page. The Asexual Manifesto was also excerpted in Shere Hite’s book, Sexual Honesty (1974); I have separately transcribed the excerpt and noted what was left out. Feel free to use this in any way.

--Siggy, 6/22/2019

I wrote an article explaining some of the context of the Manifesto. --Siggy, 8/9/2019

The Asexual Manifesto

Lisa Orlando, Asexual Caucus, NYRF *

* In September 1972, the Co-ordinating Council of New York Radical Feminists formed caucuses based on similarity of sexual orientation. Each caucus was to explore its members' personal and political attitudes about their sexuality and communicate these views to the larger group. Barbie Hunter Getz and I realized that we would not feel comfortable in any of the proposed caucuses (heterosexual, Lesbian, bisexual) and formed our own. Out of this caucus came a paper of which the “Asexual Manifesto” is a revision. That the paper’s plural form has been retained does not imply that all the views expressed in this final version necessarily reflect the views of both the original co-authors.

I. Origin and Definition.

Our experiences with sexuality have not been congruent with our feminist values. As our consciousness became raised on this issue we began to see how sex had permeated our lives and the lives of others. We categorized our relationships in terms of sex ----- either friends or lovers. We engaged in a "sizing up" process, however subtle or subconscious, with each new person, accepting or rejecting her/him as a possible sexual partner even if we never intended to become sexually involved. We arbitrarily rejected whole groups of people as unsuitable for intimate relationships because we assumed that such relationships, by definition, necessarily included sex. Often we chose to spend time with people simply on the basis of their sexual availability (the “bar scene”). As we became aware of this in ourselves, we became painfully aware of how we were being objectified by others.

Asexuality is an outgrowth of this consciousness. It is a concept we have come to employ out of the wish to communicate ----- not merely through being but also through language ----- our struggle to rid ourselves of sexism in our personal lives.

In this paper we have used the terms “sex” and “sexual” to describe any activity one goal of which is genital excitation or orgasm. Physical affection and sensuality (including kissing) are not, by this definition, sexual unless they are directed towards the goal of genital excitation.

We chose the term “asexual” to describe ourselves because both “celibate” and “anti-sexual” have connotations we wished to avoid: the first implies that one has sacrificed sexuality for some higher good, the second that sexuality is degrading or somehow inherently bad. “Asexual”, as we use it, does not mean “without sex” but “relating sexually to no one”. This does not, of course, exclude masturbation but implies that if one has sexual feelings they do not require another person for their expression. Asexuality is, simply, self-contained sexuality.

II. Philosophy

Our philosophy of asexuality grew out of our personal ethics, which have been reshaped by our feminist consciousness. To us, as to many other women, feminism means more than the fight against sexism. It means "sisterhood" ----- a new way of relating, perhaps a new way of life. Feminist morality, at this stage in history, can only be defined as antithetical to the oppressive values of our society (e.g., competition, objectification). On a personal level, it is reflected in our beliefs that: we should attempt to relate to others in their totality as much as possible and not view them as objects existing for the gratification of our needs; we must not exploit others ----- that is, use them “unjustly or improperly” ----- nor allow ourselves to be exploited; we must not be dishonest with ourselves or those we respect. In addition, we believe that we each have the responsibility for examining our behavior, determining how it has been affected by sexist conditioning, and changing it if it does not meet our standards.

As feminists we had decried the sexual exploitation of women by men without seeing that we too had used others “unjustly and improperly”. Interpersonal sex is not an instinctive behavior pattern; it is behavior we have learned to use for the satisfaction of a need (for orgasm) which we can easily satisfy for ourselves. We came to see this use of others as exploitative and realized that in allowing others to use us in this way we were acquiesing in our own exploitation.

In our attempt to be honest with ourselves, we tried to determine what our real needs are. We saw that we have needs for affection, warmth, skin contact, which we had been taught to satisfy through interpersonal sex. As we began to satisfy these needs in our "friendships," our need for and interest in sex diminished. We also realized that we had a need for intimacy, a state we had always seen as "completed" by sex. In retrospect, we realized that we, and others, had used sex as a means of self-deception, as a way of avoiding real closeness rather than achieving it.

We had struggled against our conditioning in many ways, especially in terms of roles, but we had avoided examining the basic conditioning which had shaped our sexuality. It is difficult even to speculate on the nature of "ideal sexuality" (uninfluenced by sexism) but we are certain that it would not occupy as much of our lives as it does in this society. We live in a culture of "fetish-worshippers" who regard sex with an extreme and irrational amount of attention. Just as many of us were conditioned to direct our energy into the preparation of lavish meals, creating a fetish out of a simple need to avoid confrontation with the emptiness of our lives as women, so we were conditioned to seek sexual satisfaction in convoluted and circuitous ways. Since our involvement with feminism, our lives have been increasingly meaningful and we no longer feel the need for fetishes.

In examining our experiences relative to our values, we have come to asexuality as a stand and a state of being concurrently. Interpersonal sex is no longer important to us, no longer worth the distorted and often destructive role it has played in relationships. It no longer defines our relationships or in any way constitutes our identities. As asexual women, we do not (1) seek, initiate, or continue relationships in order to experience interpersonal sex, (2)use others for the satisfaction of our sexual needs or allow ourselves to be so used, (3) attempt to satisfy other needs (e.g. for affection, warmth, intimacy) through interpersonal sex, or (4) perceive others according to their potential, or lack of it, as sex partners. In essence then, our asexuality reflects a rejection of interpersonal sex as long as it cannot meet our conditions: that it be both congruent with our values and totally incidental and unimportant to our relationship.

III Politics

Basic to the liberation of women is the destruction of sexism, one manifestation of which is the sexual exploitation of women by men. Asexuality is a step towards achieving this goal at the personal level, as it eliminates one means by which men oppress us. Through our asexuality, we have excluded sex as a goal and, essentially, even as a possibility in any relationships we may happen to have with men.

Because of the patriarchal culture which has resulted from institutionalized sexism, the exploitative behavior, standard in such a culture, has made it extremely difficult for women to realize their own independent, more humane style of relating. Most women consequently reflect, in their relationships with each other, some of the exploitative behavior patterns characteristic of our male oppressors. One area where the oppression of women by women may occur is, again, the sexual; this oppression too must end before we can be truly free. Through asexuality, we have rejected sex as a goal in our relationships with women, thus avoiding the sexual objectification, exploitation, and oppression of our sisters. Here too, we reject any possibility of sex unless our conditions are met, and we thereby prevent ourselves from being sexually exploited and oppressed.

To destroy a particular culture’s basic myths is to undermine its very foundations. Patriarchal culture, based as it is on sex differentiation, has constructed some of its strongest myths around sexuality. We believe it is of prime importance that feminism direct itself to the exposure and destruction of the current patriarchal mythology which, through deception, reinforces our oppression. Those myths most responsible for the distorted role sex plays in women's lives are:

Interpersonal sex is essential since the sex drive is a powerful force in human life and, if unsatisfied (through interpersonal sex), tends to produce unhappiness or possibly illness,

It is important that any sexual excitation always and/or immediately be satisfied,

Sex is essential for closeness in a relationship, no relationship being complete without it,

The ultimate closeness in a relationship occurs during sex and/or orgasm,

The needs for physical affection and sex are basically the same,

It is almost impossible satisfactorily to express affection physically without sexual excitation also occurring,

Women who have little interest in interpersonal sex, or who rarely if ever reach orgasm, are somehow inadequate.

While all these myths may not be credible to all women, some women believe some of them some of the time.

Finally, we see a conflict between, on the one hand, the time and energy necessary to our struggle as feminists, and, on the other hand, the time and energy necessary to develop and maintain relationships in which sex is a goal. If we would use our energy efficiently, a choice seems indicated: to struggle against sexism or to struggle for satisfactory sex. Although it may be said that to turn one’s back on a problem is not to solve it, we think the truth of this statement is relative to the importance one places on the problem. If we saw interpersonal sex as important, asexuality would be a cop-out; since we do not, it is instead a means of withdrawing our energy from an area in which we feel it is being wasted.

We see asexuality as an efficient "alternative life-style" for revolutionary women but we do not claim that “asexuality is revolution.” We call ourselves “self-identified women” but we do not demand that all feminists adopt this title. Our statement is simply this: as a result of examining the nature of our sexuality and reclaiming it from the sexist misconceptions surrounding it, we are able to form and maintain relationships in a way which both reflects our values and is effective in our liberation struggle. For us, asexuality is a committment to defy and ultimately to destroy the baseless concepts, surrounding both sex and relationships, which support and perpetuate the patriarchy.

#asexuality #feminism #1970s #the asexual manifesto #female friendship #exploitation #sexualization

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fionacreates · 10 months

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Would you mind giving us a rundown of the symbolism in the Queen E rainbow portrait? I love hearing artists ramble about their work and I LOVE symbolism.

This particular recreation I themed around parts of the history of Theatre and performance, either literal on stage performance or just a performance of who we are every day, to fit in, or to stand out.

Queen Elizabeth here is represented by a Drag Queen, which both connects to contemporary queer culture and the history of theatre itself (also a history nod to how in the 1600s women could not be on stage so the women characters were played by men, to the victorian music halls, to panto.) I loosely based the queen's design on Ru Paul, regardless of my own personal feelings towards that particular celebrity it is undeniable the impact they have had on international drag culture.

The robes and crown represent asexuality, the purple, grey, white and black from the flag. Because this piece was for a book where plenty of other identities would be represented, quite often with romantic pieces, I wanted to allow a prominent piece to represent that you're queer enough even if you are asexual (or aromantic, or grey/demi or single, your partner does not define you). As Queen Elizabeth I herself never married, though we cannot use contemporary queer terminology to define what little we know of her inner feelings, it felt like an appropriate fit.

On her sleeve the original had a glittering snake and apple, and I chose to draw a rainbow sparkling Chameleon, representing a reality in which sometimes we have to just blend in to be safe, but in our own spaces, such as a drag show, or on stage, or simply with friends we can be free to be ourselves.

I chose to keep a lot of the white pearl details from the original piece, which symbolised purity and virginity, but for me this means that it is not the physical act of having sex with someone that defines your identity, who you love, or your gender expression. You don't have to be actively having sex to know you're gay, or trans or even figure out you're not interested. While it can be emotional, meaningful or just fun, it doesn't have to be a major part of your identity if you don't want it to be, or aren't ready. (Though I definately didn't leave them there to make a statement about being "pure and virginal" that's all nonsense as we know.)

There's some of the more usual queer symbols, transgender on her necklace, lambadas and back to back moons for lesbians round the gauzey drape and the violets (again for lesbians) embroidered into the gown. There's a moon on her crown, which is often used to symbolise the feminine, and the Ace of Spades symbol across her hair and headdress, again for the asexuality.

THEN there's a few theatre references... on the original she has a gauntlet hanging from her ruff, but here I have a red sparkly boot from Kinky Boots and ruby slipper earrings for a "friend of Dorothy". And again on the original, the queen's robe has eyes and ears painted onto it, so here I used the lips from Rocky Horror, a dramatically painted drag eye, and an allusion to the Instagram logo for photographic performance/influencer culture. (I didn't fancy tangling with insta lawyers by using the exact logo.)

Lastly, there's the overlayed text.

Ego Sum Qui Sum.

I am what I am.

#i'm sure i missed something #i cram these pieces as full of symbols as the originals

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cocksuki2 · 1 year

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breasts and eggs by mieko kawakami is so uniquely woman. not in a feminine sense, or a gender-identity sense, but in the sense that i can feel the soul of womanhood in it, which i have rarely ever felt in other books.

it captures the experience of being labelled “woman” so precisely that it’s startling and there were several times in the novel i had to put it down and take really deep breaths.

natsuko, a 30 year old and unmarried woman living in tokyo, experiences the challenges of female bodily autonomy and questions what it means to be a woman and what it means to have children. the novel raises questions about family, sexuality, child-rearing, and womanhood through the eyes of its protagonist who, 10 years later and at the age of 40, grapples with wanting to have a child of her own without a partner.

in the novel, natsuko, while working on her book, begins to question what it means to raise children, as well as the possibility that she would like to have a child of her own. however, she faces roadblocks on account of strict social norms in japan and the lack of bodily autonomy of women.

the novel, deftly and beautifully, traverses across women’s reproductive rights while posing questions about not only the ethics of anonymous artificial insemination, but of having children in the first place. posing it as both delight and misery, natsuko navigates her way through conflicting ideas about life, death, and birth as a single woman.

the story deals a lot with natsuko’s own ideas of romance, sex, and loneliness, as well as her own image of herself. she questions her own family and history, reminiscing often on the time she spent with her mother, grandmother, and sister in her childhood, as well as what it meant for her to grow up poor. she considers cycles of poverty, as well as the cycles of mother and daughter, through the lens of a woman with no desire for a longterm partner or sex.

natsuko, is asexual and sex repulsed. it’s a large part of the story, though it’s not a defining trait in who natsuko is as a person. still, she experiences the desire to have a child. she calls her own womanhood into perspective, doubting it on account of her lack of sexual attraction, detailing it as it “being as if the sexual part of her never grew up”. she states often that she has breasts, that she gets her period, that she is as woman as any other woman, yet still feels that some part of her womahood is missing because of her lack of sexual attraction.

the novel raises challenging questions of self discovery, as well as details the frustration in being labelled “woman” in society. it beautifully captures the thoughts and burdens that come with womanhood, as well as gender identity and bodily autonomy.

there are so many aspects of this book i could go into. i truly could not get enough of it while reading. not just because i found the protagonist to be both relatable and interesting, but because kawakami’s voice as an author is so gripping and emotionally real. reading the book, it felt as if natsuko’s thoughts mirrored my own and often, after finishing reading, i questioned whether i had actually read lines in the book or if i had thought of them myself as part of my own inner dialogue.

it’s so beautifully layered, to the point that i think it would take me multiple posts just to cover what i’ve picked up on the first read-through, and reads like you’re looking back on a life i could have lived at some point. it’s delightfully human but also, uniquely woman. it touches on many of the unspoken (and often unaddressed) trials of being a woman that otherwise would go unheard about.

i don’t think i’ve ever read anything like it. it touched me in a way no other novel has and detailed an account of womanhood that i felt in a very deep part of my being. this may sound cheesy, but in a way, i felt a large kinship with a lot of the women in the story. whether it was their experiences with men, their experiences with children, or their experiences simply moving through the world, i found connection in all of them.

#breasts and eggs #mieko kawakami #i could go on for a while summarizing and giving my opinions on my favorite parts about this #it's so beautifully written #and such a fantastic glimpse into the mind of a woman who feels the burden of societal pressure but has no desire to participate in what's-#considered 'the norm'#natsuko is FIERCELY independent but experiences a very human loneliness that's both relatable and slightly frightening #ALL OF IT is deeply emotional in a way that is difficult to describe #i wish i had a better way to put this in words #and i may come back to talk about and break down certain aspects of it #but here is my review <3 #gonna make a new tag for book reviews #review.breasts and eggs #cal.gen #book.breasts and eggs #author.mieko kawakami

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ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her · 11 months

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The past couple of weeks I've been reading a bunch of Django Wexler books, and the thing that caught me by surprise was how many of his main characters came across as fairly nuanced aspec rep, and I'm not entirely sure whether it was on purpose or not.

The first book I noticed this in was Ashes of the Sun. It and its sequels are queernorm, and textually acknowledge asexuality and aromanticism as things that are known and accepted within the setting. There are two protagonists, Maya and Gyre, and Gyre's experience of sexual and romantic attraction is deeply interesting in its absence. He has sex on multiple occasions, and seems to enjoy it somewhat, but nothing about his narration ever indicates that he has any interest in seeking it out. He never expresses a specific sexual attraction to either of his partners (or anyone else for that matter), never initiates sex, and never even seems to be thinking about sex as a possibility until someone else points it out to him. His feelings for his partners don't necessarily read as romantic, either. That part is more complicated and more open to interpretation - one of his partners is a fling, and the other deliberately avoids defining their relationship beyond "we are friends and sometimes sleep together", but he clearly feels awkward about the possibility of getting involved with other people in any capacity in spite of their explicit lack of exclusivity. However, his primary partner doesn't receive emotional priority in his narration. He treats her and thinks of her like all of his other close friends, without prioritizing her either higher or lower than anyone else.

However, neither his narration nor anyone else comments on this apparent lack of sexual or romantic interest, which is what makes the authorial intent seem ambiguous to me. In a queernorm setting where aspec people are textually a known and unremarkable part of society, it feels odd that neither Gyre nor anyone else describes himself in those terms. Given that his only partners are women, I'd normally be inclined to say that the author intended for him to allo and straight and just didn't really focus on writing sex and romance if not for our other viewpoint character, Maya. Maya's narration is chock full of visceral romantic and sexual attraction. The force of her attraction regularly hits her like a punch to the gut. At first she has to psych herself up to look her crush in the eye because every time she does her brain functions are replaced with "hnnnnnng girl pretty😳😳😳". It's such a dramatic contrast that it feels like it almost has to be deliberate. It's also worth noting that Maya's eventual partner, Beq, describes herself as having never been interested in someone before and that she hadn't ever expected to be, and as being kind of overwhelmed by the whole experience, which certainly sounds like it could be a description of demisexuality. She doesn't get a pov, though, so that's about as far as that exploration goes.

Demisexuality does come up in a different Wexler series, though. The Shadow Campaigns series is not queernorm - misogyny is dealt with extensively, and homophobia peripherally. One of the pov characters, Raesinia, spends the first half of the series utterly uninterested in romance or sex. She's not dismissive of them, or without opportunities to explore either - she simply doesn't feel either kind of attraction to anyone and never has, and is unbothered by that fact, except for when it puts her in the situation of needing to let one of her friends down gently. However, over the course of two books and about a year and a half in universe time, she develops a friendship and mutual respect with one of the other pov characters, Markus. In spite of a few comments from some of their other friends, Raesinia's feelings for him are pretty unambiguously platonic, with the most she'll concede to her friends' teasing being that he seems and looks nice enough, I guess. However, eventually her feelings for him begin to shift, until eventually she expresses a romantic interest in him. Again, this is not a queernorm series. One of the pov characters and several other main and supporting characters are unambiguously queer, but there's no in-universe cultural awareness of aspec identities, and no one remarks on them as a possibility. Again, here is where I would normally assume that the author intended to write a slowburn between a two allo heterosexual characters, except. There is a specific point in the story, years since they first met and months after they became romantically involved, where Raesinia specifically and dramatically experiences sexual attraction for the first time. And the degree to which that is emphasized by the text makes me think that her demisexuality might have been purposeful.

Ultimately I'm not really concerned with authorial intent; the text is the text, and both series feature characters who read as aspec to me. But it's not often that I'm so uncertain about what the authorial intent was. In any case, it makes for compelling reading.

#the wlw review #burningblade and silvereye #ashes of the sun #the shadow campaigns

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youremyonlyhope · 1 year

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In Defense of Tolya/Inej

(A long rambling essay exploring asexuality, "shipping wars," and the effect that constant cancellations has had on fandom. 4600 words. I'm not even sorry that it's long. There's a tldr at the end.)

Let's start this off by saying I am asexual. Or demisexual... greysexual... aceflux... the point is I am on the asexual spectrum. I don't know where precisely. I don't personally think it really matters for me to specifically define it. I am somewhere over there. I also consider myself to be somewhere on the aromantic spectrum (for that one I'm 90% sure I lean toward greyromantic).

All of this is to say: asexuality and aromanticism are both spectrums. They are umbrella terms. There are subgroups within them to help describe the range of the spectrum, but if people want to just use asexual or aromantic to describe themselves then they can. Where I fall is different from where someone else falls, and that's different from where another person falls, and that's probably different from the person reading this if you are ace and/or aro too. And it's different for Tolya. There isn't one aroace experience and there isn't one type of aroace representation.

A little more about me. I am also mixed race. More specifically Black and white like Jesper, but mixed people of all races know the shared experiences of feeling like we're between two worlds. It's not as obvious in the show (I can't remember if it's even mentioned but I can see that some fans don't seem to know), but in in the books Tamar and Tolya are half-Shu and half-Ravkan. Also, I am a twin. I am a girl with a boy twin. My twin brother is a foot taller than me. So, Tamar and Tolya's existence in the Grishaverse speak to MY SOUL. Tamar, Tolya, and Jesper make me feel like so many parts of myself are represented on these pages.

Moving on from my background. Just another reminder that ace is a spectrum. Aro is a spectrum. Life. Is. A. Spectrum.

Onto the actual topic: Tolya. In the books, Tolya doesn't have any love interests. He also notably says "I have my faith, my books. I've never wanted more," in Rule of Wolves. This leads many fans to headcanon him as ace, aro, or aroace. I headcanon him as aroace too. I loved that one almost throwaway line and it made me feel even more connected to Tolya. I recently reread the Shadow and Bone trilogy and it renewed my love for Tolya. The perfect casting of Lewis Tan also reignited my excitement for seeing this character that I adore appear onscreen.

It seems, from the scene of Tolya helping Inej onto the boat, that the show will explore the possibility of Tolya and Inej being together. THIS IS OK. This is ok specifically because THE STORY IS NOT OVER.

I find that when I am worried about something, going over worst case scenarios and best case scenarios can help me calm down. Let's list a few possibilities of where this will lead:

Tolya and Inej fall in love. Inej forgets Kaz exists. Tolya's possible aroace-ness is never acknowledged. They spend all their time kissing and having sex, never again hunting slavers or reciting poetry ever. If Inej and Kaz meet again, she'll break his heart because they'll never get together. Kaz dies alone. Tolya and Inej then have 20 kids.

Tolya develops (or has already developed) a crush on Inej. It's understandable, she helped save his life and they fought well together against Ohval. Tolya is a very outwardly affectionate person: he's open about his feelings (hence the constant poetry recitation), he loves to care for the people around him (sharing food with multiple characters, helping Jesper with Wylan), he values his blade (his hallucination nightmare is Tamar dying on his blade, he doesn't notice people ducking out of the way of his handle), and he is incredibly spiritual (praying in Shu-Han, but many more examples in the books, the show has barely touched the surface of his spirituality). He is nearly the polar opposite of Kaz, and Inej has said that Kaz cannot give her what she wants, so that probably draws Inej towards Tolya. They get closer after spending time at sea, and they start a relationship. They stay together through the end of the show. Kaz either stays alone or finds someone else. Tolya's aroace-ness is never acknowledged.

Everything from #2, except they don't stay together through the end of the show. Inej realizes that despite Tolya being able to give her what she thinks Kaz can't, she still wants Kaz. And Kaz, now having been away from Inej for a period of time and possibly working through some of his touch aversion and other anxieties, wants to try to meet Inej somewhere in the middle after knowing with it's like to almost lose her to someone else. She accepts Kaz, leaves Tolya, and Tolya is fine with it (because I can't imagine Tolya ever holding a grudge for that). Tolya's aroace-ness isn't never acknowledged, but is probably somewhat implied (something along the lines of telling Inej the "faith and books" line to reassure her).

Everything from #2, but this time Tolya is the one who realizes that this might not be what he wants. Maybe he realizes that he has romantic feelings for Inej but not sexual. Maybe he realizes that he has sexual feelings for Inej but not romantic. Maybe he realizes his feelings for Inej are purely platonic and the intensity comes from his gratitude for saving him. Or maybe the intensity comes from them connecting through their spirituality. This could either lead to Inej feeling sad and rejected and turning to Kaz for some comfort, OR she just agrees that the feelings aren't the same as what she had for Kaz. Kaz has now worked through some of his trauma. So they end the relationship, Toya is happy with his faith and books, and Inej reconnects with Kaz romantically.

The look that Tolya gave Inej wasn't from some sort of romantic interest, but instead intrigue at the chance of getting to know her better. They become best friends with their bond starting from their mutual love for blades and their spirituality. They become the blade fighting duo we never knew we needed. The show never mentions his sexuality, he just stays single.

Same as #5, but they also Tolya say the "faith and books" line and confirm he's aroace.

The show sees the negative response from some fans and does a complete 180, never addressing the possibility Tolya and Inej again. I do not want this to happen. Not because I like Tolnej, but because I hate that fan response and pandering has become a thing in the current age of social media and letting fans influence media. It completely ruined the Rise of Skywalker. I fully believe it's influenced RTD's Doctor Who (I can go more in depth on that another time). Looking at these examples, I would rather the Shadow and Bone writers continue with whatever storyline they already have planned rather than shift to appease some of the fans, even if that planned storyline isn't something I will like. People need to remember that the fans who care enough to speak on social media, both positively and negatively, only make up a small percentage compared to the entire viewership. So I definitely do not want them to take fan response into account when planning the show. Leigh is an executive producer, so I trust she wouldn't let them explore something with her characters and her world that she wouldn't mind seeing herself.

Kaz, in my headcanon, also falls somewhere on the asexual spectrum. Whether it's because of his touch aversion or if that's just a part of it, I do think he's somewhat asexual. While most of us are ace just because we're ace, there are some people who are ace due to past trauma and I've imagined Kaz falls in that category. To me, subtly in the books but definitely in the show, Inej desires a sexual relationship and she's well aware that Kaz doesn't want that. Her hallucination, which I see so many Kanej fans gif'ing and fangiring over, would never happen at this point in Kaz's life. Inej realizes it in the moment, and that's how she knows it isn't real. Tolya is literally using his Heartrender abilities to try to slow down the effects of the poison before succumbing to the horror of his hallucination, but it's Inej who snaps out of her hallucination first BECAUSE she knows what she's seeing is not possible. It's different from Jesper, who knows his hallucination isn't real since his mom is gone and yet still wants to stay in it, because Inej knows this could theoretically happen, but also knows that Kaz would never let it happen. She doesn't even let herself enjoy the hallucination the way Jesper did because it's something she doesn't think she can ever have with Kaz. There is a very real possibility that the show could ultimately decide (after some combination of the earlier scenarios in my list) that Tolnej doesn't work/doesn't happen AND then that Inej and Kaz will never have any sort of relationship either. They could all end up single or with other characters. Even at the end of Crooked Kingdom, the Kanej relationship is still somewhat ambiguous. They hold hands, she says she's not ready to give up on him, and he helped find her family, but they aren't explicitly in love. I wouldn't be surprised if the show goes the book route and leaves Kanej ambiguous yet hopeful at the end.

BONUS! Just because I think it'd be fun. Make Tolya canonically aromantic and just care deeply and platonically for Inej, but maybe he can still fulfill Inej's desire for a sexual relationship since he can be demi or greysexual or even asexual with a libido. Kaz may never fully stop being touch averse, which is perfectly fine, and he and Inej connect romantically with a fulfilling life of love. And then Kaz and Tolya get to bond deeply platonically over their mutual love for life's beauty (poetry and Inej). Make them some sort of triad that mixes and fulfills everyone's romantic, sexual, and platonic needs. It's a win-win-win for all three. It doesn't have to be a love triangle, Inej has two hands. Do I expect the show to go in this direction? No. Would I love to see it? Yes.

Obviously I'm exaggerating scenerio #1 on purpose. Because that exaggeration is what I imagine people to seem to think the show is leading to based on how intense their responses have been so far. I also tried to address some other things I've seen people freaking out about when making the scenarios, like how Kaz will react to Tolya or worrying if Tolya being aroace will ever be acknowledged in the show.

What do I think is most likely to happen? Honestly, scenario #3 or #4. Maybe #6. That's why I'm not freaking out. Yes I ship Kanej, yes I think Tolya is aroace, but I also like the idea of them exploring Tolnej and I think either #3 or #4 would be fun to see. While the show strays from the books in a lot of ways, I don't think they'll stray from the final relationships by the end of it.

At the end of Ruin and Rising, Mal and Alina get to leave, get married, and live an ordinary life full of ordinary things. I LOVE the ending (apparently that's another controversial opinion I have about the Grishaverse) but that didn't happen in the show. Yet. The show has separated Mal and Alina so that Mal can figure out who he is without his tracking and so they can find out if they love each other for each other, or if it was just destiny that pulls them together. This is not in the book at all. And yet I love it. It can lead to strengthening their relationship since I trust the show will still end eventually with them together, hopefully with their ordinary ending. I think the show is doing the same thing with Kanej. The "I'll have you without your armor or not at all" conversation actually came towards the end of the duology, but the show moved it much earlier. I like that they did because this gives them something to build up from. Another reason I like scenarios #3 and #4 is because they still give Kaz the opportunity take what Inej said to heart and try to live without his armor. At the end of Crooked Kingdom, he takes off his glove and holds Inej's hand, but he is not at that point in the show yet. He will be eventually. And knowing that Inej might move on with Tolya can give him more reason to work to get to that point. I don't think the show is telling us Kanej will never happen, I think the possibility of Tolnej is the same as them separating Malina. I believe they will all come back together.

And if any of my listed scenarios do happen: THAT DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN TOLYA'S SEXUALITY IS ERASED.

Sexuality in the Grishaverse is never defined. The fans can make inferences based on the relationships that Leigh gives her characters, but they don't define the characters' sexualities with labels in the books. This is because in the Grishaverse, labels as we know them don't seem to exist. You can kind of think of it in the way that we should treat LGBT+ people in history: we can give them labels of what we would consider them to be in our current era, but we'll never truly know what they would have labeled themselves because either they were closeted or there were just no labels for their sexualities at the time. And when they did have labels, they often called themselves things that many LGBT+ people would never use today. I look at the Grishaverse characters' sexualities in a similar way; they don't label themselves, and we can make assumptions based on the labels we would use, but they will never be explicitly canon unless Leigh puts it in the books.

For example, Hanne in Rule of Wolves (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THIS PARAGRAPH) Leigh uses "she/her" pronouns for them up until the last part of the book, and then Leigh is careful to NEVER use any pronouns for Hanne again. The fandom assumes Hanne identifies as a transman from that point on or maybe nonbinary, but we really don't know for sure yet because it happened so late in the book. The Grishaverse wiki uses "they/them" pronouns for Hanne precisely because we don't know what they prefer. All we know is that they always felt uncomfortable when they presented as a girl, and they enjoyed Tailoring themself to be more masculine. Maybe in future books we will get a definite answer as to whether they are a transman or nonbinary, but for now we technically don't know. But out of respect, the fandom has agreed to use they/them for Hanne. (RULE OF WOLVES SPOILERS ARE DONE)

So, if Tolya does have a relationship with Inej at some point in the show, whether or not it lasts, it doesn't erase the possibility of Tolya being on the asexual and/or aromantic spectrums. The show and books are never going to give him a definitive label. He could be demisexual/romantic and figure out after forming a bond with Inej that he has sexual or romantic feelings for her. Or he could be greysexual/romantic, which has a purposefully wide definition (rare specific circumstance that he desires having a relationship, weak attraction or difficulty telling it apart from platonic feelings, etc), and his experiences with Inej could fall into one of those categories. In these cases, we'd probably get a scene where he'd say something like "I've always thought I only needed my books and faith, but after getting to know you, Inej, I have never felt this way before and I don't think I'll ever feel this way again." This would still be representation for people who fall along the middle of the aroace spectrum, but not those at the furthest edge. If the relationship doesn't last and through it he realizes that he's sure that these are things he's not interested in, then that represents every aroace person who had to go through that before coming to terms with their sexuality. It's not erasure. Maybe it doesn't specifically represent YOU if you consider yourself aroace, but it definitely represents SOMEONE who does (I'd find it very relatable).

And all of this goes back to something I mentioned at the start: the show is not DONE. If it gets renewed, which it likely will, then there is more to see. To me, the people I see freaking out about the possibility of Tolnej, whether it's because they ship Kanej and don't want a triangle or because they don't want Tolya's sexuality to be "erased," are reacting the way you'd usually see people react if the show ended at this point. But it probably will not. And then when I see posts from the people who are thinking ahead, they seem to only be considering scenario #1 and not realizing there are a multitude of directions for the show to go in. It's not worth freaking out over. Plus, there's always the saying "don't like don't read," so if you find you really are disliking even the possibility that any scenario I listed could come true, you can just not watch the show and pretend it doesn't exist. The books are never changing. Even if the show changes everything, even if they have Alina end up with Jesper or Wylan end up with Nadia or Zoya marry a volcra or any other ridiculous outcome that utterly changes the show's canon, the book's canon will never change. You can always turn to the books if things don't ultimately turn out in a way you want them to.

Also, why am I seeing people complain that fans are writing fanfiction already about Tolnej? Why are you complaining about what other fans are doing that has zero affect on you? Fanfiction is not just for the canon ships. It's not even just for shipping in general, but it's definitely not reserved to the ships that are canon. You can write fanfiction for any ship you want to. Shipping wars have never truly made sense to me, but maybe that's because my first big online fandom was Glee and the ships were constantly changing and switching around so there was no point in putting too much effort into arguing because it may all change in the next episode anyway. Yes, we had lots of ship wars, but when people shipped the most random "crackships" possible then the appropriate response for most people was "wow, they really ship that, weird" and then to move on. Let people write fanfics. That's why AO3 exists. You can just write whatever you like. And yes of course a new crop of fans hate AO3, which is a whole other issue I cannot wrap my head around, but the point is to just let people write the fanfic they want to write and make the fanart they want to. Someone has already made a Tolnej fanvid on YouTube? Wow that's incredible since they did it so quickly! Malina on the moon AU? Cool throw in some sun and moon jokes! Do you think that Wylan and Hershaw would be best friends? Go for it, they'll probably blow everything up! The Darkling and Mal and Alina incest AU fic? Not my cup of tea but you do you and I just won't read it. People will write what they want to, and they aren't hurting anyone in the process, so if you don't want to see it then don't read it.

I see people complaining that shipping wars will begin to start after this fandom had been so peaceful for years. Honestly, the only reason there weren't shipping wars before this was because Six of Crows didn't have enough characters and possible ships to have a war over. Mixing with Shadow and Bone earlier in the timeline has opened up the possibilities. You know how to prevent shipping wars? Just don't fight with people who ship the things that you don't ship. Don't engage. If you see a Tolnej fanfiction, don't tell the author "Ew I hate Tolnej. You shouldn't have written this." just don't read it. Or if you do read it and still don't like it, then move on. If someone who ships Tolnej comes on a Kanej post and starts saying Tolnej is better, or vice versa, you can press the block button. Or you can just not respond to them. A shipping war doesn't start if you don't fight in it. There can just be people who ship Tolnej, people who ship Kanej, people who ship all 3 of them together, and everyone can just choose what they want to interact with and scroll past what they don't.

When it comes to Avatar: The Last Airbender, I am a gigantic Zutara shipper, and the Zutara vs Kataang ship war was infamously a bad one, but I just try not to engage in it. I know my ship isn't canon. Sure, I'll complain that it's not canon, maybe say "Oh in this scene they were so in love" and think about what could have been, but then I just go read Zutara fanfics. If you don't want to see shipping wars, don't participate. Ignore it. Move on.

But you know what? I think I know what the ultimate source of this is, or at least one of the sources. I've been seeing similar uproars in the Stranger Things and Umbrella Academy fandoms this year. Both are fandoms that also tend to skew younger than myself. I think fans, especially younger fans, are now reacting in these intense ways as a defense mechanism because so many shows get cancelled early. They're preparing in advance for this to be the last of whatever media they love, they're preparing for this to be canon forever, and they aren't happy.

Using Stranger Things as my example, I saw it happen when people were mad that Will didn't come out as gay at the end of Season 4 and that Mike didn't fall in love with him. I get that you guys ship them, and I love Will and want him to be happy, but just because it didn't happen in Season 4 doesn't mean it's not going to happen. First of all, Will is a 14 year old kid in the 1986 from a small town in Indiana that can barely handle Dungeons and Dragons and he's already been bullied at school for possibly being gay, coming out is not as easy as it is today. Reagan only just acknowledged AIDS one year earlier. Even Robyn hasn't come out to anyone but Steve. If they had thrown in Will coming out amongst the chaos of Elle fighting Vecna and trying to save Max, I know people would complain that it got shoehorned in as an afterthought. And because it didn't happen at all, people are complaining about that too. I know people will always complain about something, but I'm sure that fewer fans would complain if they didn't have the fear of cancellation instilled in them. Sure, Stranger Things would never get cancelled before finishing the planned story, but these fans are just used to feeling that the end of each season of every show could possibly be The End, and then complain about the loose ends accordingly.

That's what I think I'm seeing from the people who are upset about the possibility of Tolya and Inej being together. The show will probably be renewed, but it's not guaranteed. If it were to end right now, then yeah, fans who only watch the show would assume Inej and Kaz will never be together, that Tolya is interested Inej, and they'd have no idea that he's implied to be aroace in the books. But here's the thing: if you read the books, you know none of this is true. In the books, Tolya is aroace representation. In the books, Kaz and Inej are implied to have a romantic future. Why does it matter to you and your life if some people who watch the show don't know about the parts of the books that haven't happened yet? The fans who are mad about this change are all book fans because we're the ones who know it's a change. If we don't like the change, we can always choose to only acknowledge the books. The books can't be cancelled. The books are not going to change. Even if the show goes in directions you don't like, you can always take solace in the books.

Also, I see way too many people complaining about Tolya and Inej who have only read SoC/CK but not any of the books that Tolya actually appears in.

I'm nearly done. I wanted to address the aroace fans who are sad because they saw themselves in Tolya and now feel he doesn't represent them. I'm sorry that a character you connected to doesn't touch you the same way in the show as they did in the book. But you can't say Tolya isn't aroace representation in the show, at least not yet. At this point, he doesn't represent YOU and you definitely deserve representation, but he does represent SOMEONE. And hopefully he will continue to represent someone. So many aroace people had relationships with people they cared about and thought they felt romantic or sexual love for, before they eventually realized they were aroace. If this ends up as Tolya's story, then that rings true to SO MANY people. As I keep repeating, the show is not over, this could be leading to one of the scenarios where Tolya figures out that he is aroace through pursuing a relationship with Inej. He could already be demi or grey and it just hasn't come up in the show yet, but meeting Inej is one of the few times in his life that he does feel romantic and/or sexual attraction. Or, the look he gave her was just platonic and he's excited to have her aboard the Volkvolny.

We don't know for sure. It's better to just let the show's story unfold and remember that you will always have the books you love, rather than waste energy worrying about where the show is heading.

So yeah. I love Tolya. I love the idea of Tolnej. I love any plot point that can put more Tolya on my screen. I am greyromantic and demi/grey/flux/asexual/whatever and I personally like where they're taking his character and I want to see what it leads to. I hope it ultimately leads to him staying on the asexual and aromantic spectrums, but we don't know for sure right now. We just need to wait and see.

Also, don't tag any hate posts for the ship in the Tolya Yul-Bataar, Tolnej, Tolya x Inej, and Inej x Tolya tags. That's just fandom etiquette 101.

.......................

tl;dr:

1) The show isn't done yet and we don't know where it's heading. 2) The show can be heading in a bunch of different directions, including keeping Tolya as aroace and having Kanej be canon. 3) Asexuality and aromanticism are spectrums and umbrella terms, so Tolya could be with Inej and still be considered aroace. 4) This isn't erasing aroace representation because there will still be aroace people who will feel represented by him. 5) The books are not going away so if worst comes to worst, he'll still always be aroace representation in the books.

#tolya yul bataar #grishaverse #shadow and bone #inej ghafa #sab spoilers #shadow and bone spoilers #anyway if you're gonna try to argue with me then at least read the whole thing first #i try to anticipate things people will ask about or argue against when i write stuff like this. so at least read it if you wanna argue.#since i likely tried to touch on whatever point you wanted to make. if not then cool.#if you don't wanna read the whole thing and if even the tldr is too long for you then just don't try to argue #also my anon is off. it hasn't been turned on in years. so. yay.#my replies are also off unless i follow you or you've followed me for a week. but not because of this post.#it's because i had a racist call me the N-word over House of the Dragon. so. i got bigger things to worry about.#oh especially listen to that last point and don't tag any hate. notice i didn't tag this as kanej.#this isn't even kanej hate. this isn't remotely kanej hate. you can see from my SoC duology review post #i ship kanej. i like kanej. but i still didn't tag it. this will show up in searches because i said kanej throughout.#but it's not going to show up in the kanej tag. because i just don't want to open that can of worms.#anyway i spent like... 7 total hours writing this over the course of this afternoon and evening #when i get in the zone i get in the zone

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sagesolsticewrites · 2 years

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Cake & Dragons | Austin x asexual!gn!Reader

Your boyfriend goes above and beyond to help you celebrate Ace Week <3

a/n: aaaand here’s an incredibly self-indulgent little blurb from your local greyace author! Happy Ace Week to my fellow aces, you're all valid and I love y'all! And to my allo friends, I really encourage y'all to learn about asexuality and the asexual spectrum, it's such an underrepresented identity in fandom. I'd recommend starting with AVEN, the Asexual Visibility and Education network!

Asexuality is defined as experiencing little to no sexual attraction. This is not aromanticism, which is defined as experiencing little to no romantic attraction, though some asexuals also identify as aromantic, and vice versa!

Word count: 552

Warnings: mentions of previous aphobia, Austin being a sickeningly perfect boyfriend, I think that’s it? As always, please let me know if I missed anything!

Please like/rb if you enjoyed! 🤍

Masterlist | add yourself to my taglist!

Austin had always been supportive of your asexual identity.

You remembered being absolutely terrified to come out to him, sure that as sweet as he was he’d break up with you for someone more normal, someone who could give him what you couldn’t. That had happened with previous partners— you worked up the courage to tell them that you had no interest in sex at all, and they either broke up with you on the spot, or made it their mission to “fix” you.

He was confused at first, but once you’d explained it to him — you didn’t experience sexual attraction at all, and you had absolutely zero interest in sex — he soothed your fears immediately.

“Thank you for telling me, sweetheart,” he had said, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles on the backs of your hands, “You know that I love you, and this doesn’t change anything about that.”

You had established boundaries, and he was diligent in respecting them and making you promise to tell him if he ever did anything that crossed a line or made you uncomfortable.

So yeah, he was pretty perfect. But when you had offhandedly mentioned a couple weeks ago that Ace Week was coming up, you hadn’t expected… this.

Austin had been suspiciously absent from bed when you’d woken up, and you had crept out to the kitchen, following the telltale sounds of Austin surely creating some sort of chaos, to find an array of black, white, grey, and purple balloons decorating the kitchen, along with a bouquet of flowers in the same colors, and your boyfriend messily, painstakingly frosting a cake in the same colors: the colors of the ace flag.

“Um… Aus?” you laugh, taking in the scene before you.

He spins around, a bright grin on his face.

“Hey, sweetheart!” He beams, stepping forward to press a sweet kiss to your cheek, keeping his frosting-covered hands carefully away from you.

“What’s all this?” you grin, leaning over to take in the cake, the different colored frostings messily fading into each other.

“It’s Ace Week, isn’t it?” He replies, “You’re always doing things to celebrate me, I wanted to do something to help you celebrate for a change.” He looks around, seeming to finally take in just how much is going on in your little kitchen. “I, uh… might have gone a little overboard,” he laughs sheepishly.

Your heart melts at the earnestness in his eyes, and you pull him in for a kiss.

“I love it,” you assure him as you pull away, beaming. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now c’mere,” he says, leading you over to the living room, “I’ve got more stuff for you.”

“More?!”

Austin indeed showers you with gifts the whole day, despite you sweetly reminding him that he has “a whole week to do this, you don’t have to do all this today!”, and you fall asleep that night with a new stack of books on your bedside table (“Did you know how many books there are with ace characters now?” Austin had said in wonder when he presented them to you, “I picked out ones I thought you’d like, but I’ve got a whole list if you want to look at it.”), cuddling a purple stuffed dragon (“You said dragons are an ace thing right?” he had asked almost nervously, “I just saw it yesterday and thought of you.”), heart full to bursting with the knowledge that Austin was willing to do all of this just to make sure you knew how much he loved and supported you.

Taglist: @queenslandlover-93 @anangelwhodidntfall @austin-butlers-gf @butlersluvbot @killerqueenfan @kittenlittle24 @beauvibaby @kingelviscreole @justjacesstuff @sweetheartlizzie07 @coldonexx @londonalozzy @kaycinema @annamarie16 @adoreyouusugar @djconde58 @mirandastuckinthe80s @luke-my-skywalker @tubble-wubble @apparently-sunshine @kisseskae @whotfatemywaffles @gyomei-tiddies @friedwangsss @shynovelist @sassy-ahsoka-tano @she-is-juniper @hallecarey1 @adoreyouusugar @iheartcbe @nora-nexus-34 @finelineskies @dontbesussis @fangirl-imagines

#happy ace week y’all!!!#i know this one was a little short but i hope y'all liked it :)#austin butler x reader #austin butler #austin butler fic #austin butler imagine #elvis (2022)#elvis 2022 #austin butler fanfiction #ace week #asexual!reader #asexual reader #asexual awareness week

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cartoonyappreciation · 3 months

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As an asexual a(gray?)romantic, it’s hard for me to explain to my allosexual friends what life for me is like. I would think it should be easy, “You know how you feel about people you don’t feel attracted to? Take that and apply it to everyone.”

“So you don’t love anyone?”

“Of course not, do you need to be attracted to your best friends or family to love them?”

It’s hard to say, “oh that person is attractive/hot/beautiful,” and not feel the need to defend my sexuality. I define those things in the same way that a child defines a color as blue, a flower as pretty. Growing up surrounded by social media, we are constantly told what is sexy, who is hot, who is attractive. Feeling nothing to indicate otherwise, of course I might adopt those ideals as my own.

It is difficult, still, to explain to them the difference between recognizing a person as attractive, despite not experiencing it myself, how some aces are able to enjoy sex, although some do not. How does one explain the lack of something they have never experienced?

In high school, maybe middle school, we are (or at least I was) taught that men will tell you anything to get in your pants. That it is men who feel this way, and while it could prove tempting for women, it is us who bear the consequences of those irresponsibilities. With that fear mongering, and those words, how was I to suspect anything might be “other”?

A boy asks me out and I say yes because it is exciting to be wanted, to be loved. I break up with him a couple months later because I still feel no different about him to how I felt before. He is still my best friend and I feel guilty for leading him on, a lie of omission. While my other friends are dating, none of them that I know are interested in sex. I’ve heard of other girls in school partaking, but those rumors are bounced around with insults. I feel bad for them, but do not really know them.

In college I live with three other girls I have barely met. It is here where I first begin to suspect that I may not feel everything these girls do. I try dating when it comes up, but still feel no desire to take things up a level. I become well-aware of my roommates sex-lives (living in that close proximity to one another and being away from friends/families for the first time makes you talk). I talk to other girls, I look things up online, I reflect.

Sometimes it’s easy to see how I feel differently than others around me. When people around me fawn over celebrities, or get nervous around people they find attractive, I realize that it isn’t really a bit. Not for these people. It’s fun to go along with sometimes, to be dramatic, but for my friends, after talking to them, I know it’s not a joke for them. They may have a flair for the dramatic, but apparently they also feel something alongside the happiness of entertaining one another, aside from just the general anxiety of being close to other human beings you are unfamiliar with. In elementary school, I had one go to celebrity and one school-mate who were my go-to crushes. Declarations of having no crushes were met with total and utter disbelief and speculation.

How does one show or explain the lack of certain thoughts? Here, let me draw you a comic, write you a book, of just how much I am not thinking of boys, or girls, enbys (bc yall are stylish as hell) or having a relationship, having sex. Oh wait, that’s just a story about a normal person doing literally anything else.

When I tell new friends about my identity, sometimes I get the good old, “Wow, I’m so jealous. You must be able to be so focused and get so much done!” I question how much of that is a joke versus how much allos actually pine or get distracted by their sexualities. (Granted, I have had to stop my brother from getting us into an accident when he was distracted by a particularly caked up booty, but he hasn’t gotten into an accident before, so surely that must be an outlier?)

That is all to say, as many have said before, it is difficult to explain, or even recognize, the lack of a certain feeling. I think it’s kind of funny, if a bit annoying. But online communities have really helped me accept myself for who I am, even if I’m still figuring it out one step at a time.

#asexuality #asexual #musings

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nedxnancy · 9 months

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Barbie (2023) and Nancy Drew (1959)

I have to put this under a read-more because it's gonna talk about the way Barbie (2023) ends.

I went to see the movie today, and I couldn't help thinking about Ned and Ken.

There are a lot of similarities between Nancy Drew and Barbie (in fact, if somehow that ever actually happened, a Barbie modeled on Nancy Drew instead of just general Detective Barbie or Spy Barbie, I would lose it. Lose. It. A friend made me some vintage-inspired-Nancy-Drew Barbie outfits and I LOVE THEM.) - Barbie is allowed agency and high-profile careers and all the importance, although, as the film points out, Stereotypical Barbie exists only to be pretty and blank.

(I also didn't realize until drafting this post that the Nancy Drew revisions, removing racial stereotypes and streamlining/shortening the plots from the 1932-1958 books, which began in 1959, started the same year Barbie was introduced.)

My Barbies were always involved in crime plots. Evil Barbie was blackmailing people and trying to steal their boyfriends. It was like a reality show in my Barbie townhouse. My Kens (who were outnumbered by a significant ratio) were pretty much always just accessories, either literal or figurative.

Nancy Drew is on the cusp of adulthood and has no stated money-earning career, much like Stereotypical Barbie. She loves mysteries and is an amateur detective, but it's very clear that she is not professional, is not paid for her work, and would be unable to operate as an amateur detective were her father unable to bankroll her activities.

Ned, like Ken, exists without Nancy—but also has no job. Ken does "beach," but performs no function there. (The film aside that Ken's domestic sphere, the Mojo Dojo Casa House, sells like hotcakes, is fascinating: masculine-coded toys seem to have castles or Batcaves for "homes," and are heroes or rescuers or doers in some sense; Ken is allowed to just be a horse enthusiast who also loves full-length fur coats. Ken doesn't sit in the Pink [White] House being absolute ruler all day.) Ned is a college student who plays sports but also isn't employed beyond temporary summer jobs. To the viewer/reader, Ned does functionally disappear without the context of Nancy. Nancy defines Ned's life.

a yellowed-paper heart imagines Ned without Nancy, much like Ken, but in the story Ned recognizes that Nancy has been made to never return his affections; he has agency, where she is bound by the decisions of her creator. Ned seeks meaning in reality but it's to escape the pain of knowing his love won't and can't be requited. He gets to be his own main character for a while, but recognizes that the lack remains.

Ned can't return. But Ken does. Ken comes off as kind of incel in the last part of the film, but he also freely admits early on that even if he did "stay over" at Barbie's house, he's not sure what that would actually mean. He's hurt that his feelings aren't returned, not that Barbie is denying him (functionally impossible) sex.

I think it's very easy to read Nancy Drew, especially original Mystery Stories, 1932-1979, Nancy Drew, as asexual. She can't return Ned's feelings because she hasn't been given the capacity. She does feel warmly toward him, he is her favorite escort, but her priority is always her mysteries, and for the most part Ned has no interest in interfering with that, because the excitement of her mysteries is part of what he loves about her.

I think it's really interesting to read Barbie as asexual too, although the film makes the point that Barbie lacks functional genitalia (until the end, anyway). Becoming a "real woman" doesn't make Barbie attracted to Ken. Stereotypical Barbie can't be married Barbie because that isn't a universal goal.

You can argue that Nancy Drew is niche; she's not stereotypical Barbie. But Nancy Drew also breaks gender norms in a few different ways while reinforcing others, and just like Stereotypical Barbie, Nancy calls the shots in her relationship.

Ned doesn't exist only for Nancy's gaze, even though he very obviously hints that he wants to marry her eventually. Ken wants to make a home with Barbie partially because Kens just don't have homes in Barbieland. Ned, were he to change his mind and seek another partner, is presented as a very attractive guy.

In the movie, the ways the Kens perform a lot for and with each other was fascinating. The Barbies interact with each other; Kens are temporary distractions from the work. Nancy and her friends interact with each other; Ned and his friends are around to serve as muscle in dangerous situations, crew sailboats, and call the cops before returning to their summer jobs. In that way, Ned does have a role, where Ken is shut out.

(This is also ignoring the Kens who clearly DID have careers, or at least the wardrobe to imply them. Those Kens always seemed niche, though. Doctor Ken was a thing. Otherwise, Ken comes dressed appropriately to accompany the corresponding Barbie on an adventure.)

Nancy Drew can't end. Barbie can't end. They were written to survive and be and read ourselves into. Marriage/relationships aren't the goal we all have - and even if they were, we aren't all straight - so the characters can't have that, but that doesn't mean that they, that Barbie, can't be people, adults, complete.

It's just interesting to think about.

#nancy drew #barbie 2023 #asexual #film #ned nickerson #and ken

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