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neptune-scythe · 7 months

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The reason I take issue with people sexualizing Kanej or portraying them in a way of being physically intimate is because doing so takes away valuable representation that they provide

Representation for asexuals, for people who have touch related trauma, and people who simply don't like or want touch

There is so little representation for us, as is, and people are (unintentionally or not) taking away this too

Especially for Kaz

Yes I want him to heal, but giving him the desire for or action of physical touch, especially within the canon timeline where he still is unable to have that, is erasing representation for haphephobia and touch aversion

And if we're being honest (because I know the haters are gonna come after me and say the only way for Kaz to heal is to be super touchy), if it's between Kaz healing and losing that representation, or remaining crippled by his trauma but keeping the representation, i would take the representation any day

Of course I want Kaz to heal, and unlike the acephobic haters that keep coming after me, I am aware that Kaz can heal and still not want touch

But Kaz is a fictional character, his healing, while important and something we all want, is not in the greater scheme of things more important than the representation his trauma provides in the real world

Especially for me, I had no idea haphephobia was a thing until I read six of crows. I thought I was just making up my dislike of skin to skin contact based off my parents focus on modesty growing up, and my not wanting to violate or intrude but touching People's skin ... not realizing it was my own dislike until I read six of crows.

That's why I fight so hard about this

Because it's not just about the character, it's about what they're providing in the real world. It's important, and needs to be talked about.

And I'm sure someone will come on here and say I'm making a huge deal out of nothing and that they're just fictional characters, but some things are a huge deal, and representation is.

And if you're having a hard time understanding, let me use this example

It would be as if Wylan suddenly could read, yes he is technically "healed" but the representation has been erased

Or if a healer fixed Kaz's limp, yes hes technically healed but the representation is gone

Those two examples would be weird right? You would have a problem with it, with erasing a big part of who these characters are and what they mean to people, even if it does give the characters an easier or better life

That's the same for Kaz and Inej's touch aversions. It is representation, it's part of why they mean so much to me ... and why this topic is bigger than just book characters

Touch aversion and haphephobia deserve to be acknowledged and treated as valuable representation that needs to be preserved and handled with care

It's not just a casual thing that is light and no biggie

It is a big deal to me and likely a lot of other people

And I will never stop talking about it and fighting for it

#six of crows #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #grishaverse #dirtyhands #the bastard of the barrel #the wraith #kanej #kaz x inej #representation #ace representation #asexual representation #touch aversion #touch averse #touch aversion representation #touch averse representation #haphephobia #haphephobia representation

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pftones3482 · 2 years

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Listen, I hear y'all and your Touch Averse Autistic Donnie headcanons. But may I take a moment to present you with the option of: Physical Comfort Autistic Donnie, who is very comfortable touching his family and friends and with them touching him? And who uses physical touch as a way to show love without words?

Bc once you start looking for it, he is CONSTANTLY in physical contact with someone, and it's almost always in an affectionate way

#this is just a headcanon and observation obvi yall hc what makes u happy #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #donatello rottmnt #its always just disheartening when all autistic representation is touch averse when thats not how every autistic person is yk?#myself included #leo and mikey can def get away with it more than the others can but donnie really just always is in someone's personal space #i think his aversion would come in times of insanely high stress (like when theyre fighting the krang)#and as soon as he manages to calm down enough he'd be clinging to his brothers #also i think a lot of his 'ew hugs' moments are just the typical 'ew my family is hugging me' phase that a lot of teenagers go through lol #6 of these screenshots he actively initiated the touch or equally participated in it too #also also love the idea of a fic where Donnie is nonverbal one day and just uses touch to make sure everyone knows hes ok

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aroaceconfessions · 10 months

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I've finally found a romance story where the possibility of one of the partners never being comfortable with physical intimacy isn't answered with some form of I'll wait until you will accept it. But has the other person being comfortable with the possibility that that form of intimacy will never happen.

After FL asks her boyfriend what he would do if she'll never be comfortable with kissing he tells her that he accepts that about her because "there's nothing more important than having you by my side."

In this story FL wasn't romantically attracted to anyone and is uncomfortable with physical touch from anyone except long term friends and family. She develops romantic feelings for her childhood friend at 17 and eventually feels she wants to kiss him at his 18th birthday after they've been dating for some months, and later asks him if he didn't want to kiss her before earlier in their relationship. It's cute when we learn he just wants to live happily with her by his side and he didn't bring up kissing because he remembered the romance movie she picked randomly last time and her repulsed reaction at seeing people kiss, so he didn't want to make her feel like she had to do that for him and make her feel pressured.

The story wasn't perfect or anything but it ending on this note with him telling her he loves her for who she is and accepting her and her feeling secure and loved with them mainly showing their love in thoughtful gestures towards each other is nice.

Submitted June 7, 2023

#aromantic #aro #arospec #aspec #asexual #aroace #ace #acespec #arose #dating #relationships #representation #romance averse #romance repulsed #kissing repulsed #kissing averse #touch averse

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the-sea-anemone · 1 year

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as someone who tends to be fairly touch averse (probably for autism reasons), one of my least favourite tropes is when a character doesn’t like/want someone to touch them and it’s treated as a sign that they’re a bad person or a character flaw they need to work on, or like they actually do like/want to be touched and are just pretending not to. sometimes people touching you Just Feels Bad and actually doesn’t say anything about your morality.

#writing #autism #touch aversion #representation for team One Hug Per Family Member Per Visit

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rjalker · 1 year

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[ID: Three screenshots from the show The Good Place, showing Eleanor and Chidi talking, in the format of the "Okay, but that worse" meme, now edited so

Eleanor is saying cheerfully: "Actually, it's not a problem that people erase everything that makes Murderbot who it is, because it's just a fictional character. It doesn't hurt anyone to erase literally everything that makes Murderbot unique as a character."

Chidi responds, "Okay, but do you realize that Murderbot represents real oppressed people? And by erasing the parts of Murderbot that represent real people, you are literally contributing to the very real erasure and oppression of real people?

Please tell me you understand that erasing real oppressed people's only positive representation is literally further oppressing them.".

End ID.]

I think you all need to go back to How To Be An Ally 101. Because you sure love treating real bigotry like it's nothing more than silly internet discourse.

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master-missysversion · 10 months

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I love when the doctor is awkward and rude and bad with people and weird, and more than that i love that despite all this people love them anyway

#i want that #the doctor is the touch averse but touch starved-socially awkward but needs social interaction to not go insane representation i needed #doctor who

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penguinsfly · 2 months

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I unfortunately saw something I didn't want to see and that was my last straw. I'm fucking doing this.

Let's establish this first. Alastor is stated in the show to be asexual that is not up to discussion. He is also very heavily implied in the same conversation to be aromatic. 'An Ace in the hole' being used in context of him being with Charlie is also implying his aromanticism.

VIDEO

If that's not enough then here is Viv speaking about his romantic orientation. It's pretty clear despite the fact that afterwards she said it's okay to headcanon whatever (it's not but I will get o that later) that he is written purely as an aro ace character.

On top of that going by Alastor's interaction with Angel from the pilot and the first episode it is clear that he is sex repulsed. Not only that but on the fandom website he is stated to be touch averse with two sources which you can check out on the website.

Hazbin hotel wiki, Alastor page

Now we established that Alastor is canonically Asexual, Aromantic, Sex Repulsed and Touch Averse

As I also am all of the above I'll try to explain everything to the best of my ability as simply as I can.

Aromanticism and Asexuality.

I'm probably targeting the audience that knows those terms but regardless I will explain it anyway.

Aromantic - people that experience little to no romantic attraction towards any gender

Asexual - people that experience little to no sexual attraction towards any gender.

Little to no

Asexuality and aromanticism are spectrums in which people can feel certain attractions towards people but those attractions are less occurring or are defined by personal connection.

Diagram from AVEN website

However some people are at the end of the spectrum, they never felt attraction and that's valid. Alastor was stated to be aroace he wasn't written as demi or as gray he was written as aroace as in the end of the spectrum. His repulsion and not giving shit about romance or sex speaks for itself.

Representation

I do understand that everyone wants to be represented but it's so important to understand that aroace people are one of the most underrepresented queer groups in the media.

And I'm not here to scream about how I want my fav character to be just like me I don't care for it I'm way too confident in my orientation to rely on that however I'm tired of explaining to people what asexuality and aromanticism is just to receive 'are you sure' or 'you'll change your mind' or 'its not real' or the community favourite 'you'll find the right person' no I won't I'm not looking thank you very much (I just smile and nod to be polite and I'm sick of it).

'Harmless' buts like: 'He might be on the spectrum', 'AroAce people can still feel attraction' hurt the final outcome for all the people on the spectrum not only strictly aroaces because it allows people to write one shots with 'Demi Alastor' that falls in love in 2000 words because he is 'demi' (spoiler alert: they don't understand what that label means). It's just a cover, an opening, sneaky way to disregard his orientation, feel good about themselves and move on. Newsflash there is no moving on for aroace people it's our life.

Shipping

Shipping is just harmless fun right? Usually yes but not in this case. In the same way its not okay to ship gay characters with genders they are not attracted to.

It's erasure and since there is much less people identifying on aro/ace spectrums then there is gay or bi people our voices are being silenced. Not to mention that gay people received support from entire LGBTQIA+ community over the years in contrast to aro/ace specs who to this day are told that we are 'not queer enough' or 'not oppressed enough' often by other queer people.

And finally... FINALLY we get cannon Aro/Ace character that is clearly not interested in romance and sex. Character that beats stereotypes of boring and timid aro/ace people and what's the first people do? They ship him. Alastor's storyline provides so many points to be explored like 'what is his backstory', ' what's about his deal', ' how does he fit in in the found family trope' , 'does he care about hotel guests' yet people choose to write about the only thing that he is not interested in. As a heavily repulsed person that used to be horrified about the fact that I'll have to fall in love with somebody at some point before I found out what aro/ace is I find it repulsive and trust me he would too.

But Viv said it's okay!

Its the same point once again. What if Viv said that it's okay to ship gay Angel with woman. She doesn't have authority to say shit like that.

Queerplatonic relationships

I can't tell you not to do it I don't think he would be necessary interested in it but for fuck sake do your research and try to understand what queerplatonic means before you use it as a cover to shamelessly ship him. Respect the fact that he is sex repulsed and touch averse and you're fine.

Why can't you just avoid it?

First of all I shouldn't have to. Alastor's orientation should be respected in the fandom like any other orientation is. Second of all I've tried. I tried to only look up AroAce Alastor tag I've blocked over 80 people on tumblr alone (I just counted) to avoid to see anything that could trigger me and I'm not talking about slightly shippy posts or fanarts I'm talking about full blown disregard towards his orientation. Guess what it didn't work!

Archive of our own where do I start. I've used this website for over a decade and I could probably count days I didn't go there on my fingers. I'm fluent in AO3 I know which tags I should block. I know how to skim thorough the summary and tags to see if I'm interested. I've seen shit I'm a shipper I've been on ao3 for ten years but never had to mentally prepare myself to face queerphobia as I click on the tab.

Just use aro/ace Alastor tag.

I do and let me tell you people can't tag for shit or they just pretend to be clueless at this point. Besides see this?

there is more ff with Alastor/reader (disgusting) than there is Alastor with his canon orientation and to play the devils advocate for arophobic people there is more Angel/Alastor then his stated in the show sexuality. I understand that fandom goes back before the show was aired but Viv confirmed his orientation back then too.

Summary

I could go on and on bout different issues and maybe I will in the future but I'm not wasting anymore of this weekend on it. I'm ready to answer any questions as long as they are respectful.

I'm aware that he is a fictional character, it doesn't affect him in any way whatsoever but it does affect aromantic and asexual people keep it in mind.

If there are any mistakes grammar related I'm not sorry I'm fluent in English (not my first language) but I took 3h nap in between and I'm sleep deprived.

Have a nice day.

#alastor #aroace alastor #hazbin hotel #aromantic #asexual #aromantic alastor #asexual alastor

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the-maddened-hatter · 6 months

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Honestly Monk was SUCH a good show for me to see as a young teen I'm ngl. Like yeah, it's not an overly accurate representation of OCD and I'm sure there's things that probably didn't age very well, but OH MY GOD can you even comprehend how amazing it was to get to see a canonically disabled, ND, and, more specifically, PROFOUNDLY ANXIOUS badass main character when you're a freshly diagnosed autistic & anxious young 12-13 year old with the only real advice from a crappy psychiatrist being to "learn to step out of your comfort zone or consider beginning prescription medications."

To get to see "do it scared" depicted in cinematic action in both heroic and relatively mundane contexts. A touch-averse, routine adhering, socially awkward, sensory issue having character as a SMART AND COURAGEOUS PROTAGONIST!

Hell, it was pretty amazing (for me at least) to see a character use those disinfectant handwipes every episode! I have severe food allergies and I have to carry a pack or canister with me for when I need to eat in town or when I've had to go into a grocery store and now that there's a pandemic and food allergies are rather more of an understood issue it's not all that weird a thing to have, but at the time it was definitely yet another step apart from peers and by god was it awesome to see a (again, smart and awesome) character use them too, even if it wasn't for quite the same reasons.

There's things that took longer to germinate too (and tbh still are).

That you don't owe people being "normal and easy". Yes, you have to be cognizant of their needs, boundaries, and how your behavior affects them, but it's still okay to need help and to do things in odd ways and have unusual needs.

That sometimes you're going to fail, do things badly, not be able to be as reasonable as you logically know you should. That logic can't always beat fear even when it should, and that it doesn't make YOU a failure, it means you have to try again another time or try differently.

And that sometimes people aren't as good for you as they seem, no matter how much history you have, and it hurts, it truly does, but sometimes it leads you to connect, by pure chance, with a compassionate stranger, and time will make the disparities between them clearer to the point that when you look back you don't know how you ever thought they were your ally just because they put up with your problems

#monk #adrian monk #monk tv #tony shalhoub #nerodivergent #autism #anxiety disorder

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celestial-depths · 3 months

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Poor Things and Born Sexy Yesterday

(spoilers for Poor Things)

I stumbled on a discussion on whether Bella Baxter from the movie Poor Things (2023) is a representation of the Born Sexy Yesterday trope coined by video essayist Pop Culture Detective, who defines it as a mostly fantasy and sci-fi adjacent trope of a regular human man falling in love with a beautiful, otherworldly woman who, through some plot quirk or another, has no knowledge of social norms and no sexual or romantic past. Even though he is brutally average, he is able to win her love simply because he is the first (human) man she connects with and thus everything that's basic about him is impressive to her. Some examples of the trope given by Pop Culture Detective in his video essay are Leeloo from Fifth Element (the physically grown yet mentally child-like alien creature who falls in love with a taxi driver in a wifebeater) and Madison from Splash (a clothes-aversive mermaid who thinks that Tom Hanks is the most enchanting man in the world). I love Pop Culture Detective's work, and the Born Sexy Yesterday video essay was a cultural reset in my personal history. I saw the video when it premiered six years ago, but it has never fully left my mind, so of course I immediately thought of it when I saw Poor Things a couple of weeks ago. The movie certainly touches on the same themes that the Born Sexy Yesterday is made of. However, I think that the movie is an intentional subversion and a satire of the trope rather than a sincere execution of it.

The main character of the movie Bella Baxter starts out as a grotesquely literal version of the trope, as she is literally a newborn in the shape of a conventionally attractive woman who is being actively shielded from the influence of the outside world. She has the brain of a baby salvaged from the fresh corpse of a deceased pregnant woman, planted inside the skull of the reanimated body of the aforementioned woman as an experiment done by the unorthodox doctor Godwin Baxter. He keeps her locked inside his house and controls every aspect of her life, so when he invites the young doctor Max McCandles to join his research, McCandles is served what is essentially the perfect Born Sexy Yesterday experience: an exclusive access to a beautiful and naive young woman who is in a prime position of being groomed into whatever her keepers wish her to become.

Or so they would think.

A sincere Born Sexy Yesterday would be fully fascinated by this power dynamic and probably leave her here to be romanced by McCandles for the rest of the film. The audience would be expected to assume McCandles's perspective and indulge in the fantasy of falling in love with the untainted woman who has neither the life experience nor the critical thinking skills needed to question him.

But, fortunately, the movie doesn't remain here. After the first act, the movie switches its point of view from McCandles to Bella and starts putting her experiences to the forefront. She starts developing interests that absolutely do not align with the wants and needs of the men around her, and she begins to learn things that clash with the essence of the Born Sexy Yesterday trope. Soon, she has grown into a headstrong, independent, sexually experienced, intellectually curious woman who had zero interest in entertaining the whims of men and who intends to live fully for herself and herself alone: an absolute antithesis of the clueless and subservient blank slate the trope would require her to be. My reading of the film is that it's an intentional satire and an autopsy of the BSY trope and the gender politics that gave birth to it. It criticizes the men who entertain fantasies like it by making them look like absolute losers, urging us to ponder on what the hell is wrong with these creeps who see nothing wrong with drooling over a woman who is mentally a toddler instead of their intellectual equal.

The movie also reads as a critique of how women are socialized into a patriarchy. Godwin treats Bella just like a possession of his. Her body and her life are completely under his control from the moment she is "born" (another act in which neither Bella nor the woman she was born from had any say in), which isn't dissimilar to how a lot of fathers view their daughters. He wishes to keep her under constant supervision until the end of her life, until she protests and gets him to change his mind. When he asks McCandles to marry her, the two men treat the proposed marriage as a contract between the two of them rather than as a contract between McCandles and Bella herself. Again, this isn't too different to what marriage between men and women has meant throughout history.

McCandles is romantically interested in Bella even though he is fully aware of the fact that she is mentally a child. He seems to be looking forward to starting a sexual relationship with her after they are wed, as if the seal of marriage would make the intellectual disparity between them any less iffy. This bears resemblance to the way men in the real world prey on young girls with little to no sexual experience and whose brains are not fully developed because they're easier to control than grown women. I don't think that McCandles's hypocrisy is lost on the film. He agrees to marry Bella almost in the same breath as expressing his desire to keep her safe from other men, as if his desire to bed a person who is intellectually at the level of a five-year-old was any better than theirs.

When Bella chooses to leave Godwin's house to explore the world, the two men immediately replace her with a new experiment, showing that they were never truly interested in her as a person. They wanted the eternal baby, the thing that they can cage and control, and not the person who can think and learn and disagree with them. This exemplifies how disposable women are when they no longer serve their limited purpose in a patriarchy, and how replaceable people are when they are primarily viewed as bodies to be used. (Sidenote: I do think that Godwin and McCandles eventually learn to appreciate Bella for the person she is and that they both grow to be better people by the end of the film, but I still attest that these two are total creeps at least by this point of the movie.)

And then there's the supreme loser of the movie: the sleazy lawyer Wedderburn, who slithers into Bella's life and convinces her to run away with him. He is the darkest example of the kind of person who is drawn to inexperienced women like the ones represented in BSY movies - a predator who finds pleasure in the prospect of getting to corrupt and consume an innocent. He intends to take advantage of Bella and abandon her once he's gotten his fill only to find himself choking on his prey, who turns out not to be the malleable, naive creature he thought her to be.

This is the point where I think the movie goes from simply critiquing the BSY trope and everything it represents to successfully subverting it. The characters who embody the BSY trope don't really evolve. The movies they appear in are not really interested in their inner worlds and individual experiences beyond whatever serves the interests of the male protagonists. These characters are projections of male fantasies, so there really isn't a way for them to exist without centering men. This is not the case with Bella, who quickly grows into her own woman who is only tangentially interested in the men around her.

The bright side of Bella's condition is that she isn't just unaware of the ways of the world, but that she's also unaffected by the years of patriarchal conditioning that most normal women are burdened with. She literally has no shame, no internalized misogyny, no history of crushing blows to her sense of self-worth, and no looming knowledge of societal norms society. She has skipped the part in life where she is constantly bombarded with demands to make herself smaller and more palatable, to hate herself, to think of her body and the way it finds pleasure as something disgusting and abnormal, to treat other women as competition, and to think of herself as so much less important than men that she must pursue their validation beyond all else. Because of this blessed defect, she is free in a very rare way.

Wedderburn absolutely cannot handle that. When Bella first gets to know him, he paints a flattering picture of himself as a proud social deviant who gleefully eschews the rules of polite society. However, when faced with the actually deviant Bella, who flatly refuses to obey and center him, Wedderburn is revealed to be a phony. He is not a genuine libertine. He does not want to live in a truly free world with a free spirit like Bella, because he is a pathetic, insecure little man who only likes women in scenarios where the power balance is stacked against them. In my opinion, this is a direct shot fired at the BSY trope and its average enjoyers: if your ideal woman is someone who is many steps behind you in terms of mental capacity and experience, you are quite pitiful and would not stand a chance in an equal playing field.

It's hilarious how Wedderburn loses his mind when Bella starts exhibiting the kind of behavior he himself has proudly displayed earlier in the film: having multiple sexual partners, keeping sex and feelings separate, not falling in love with him or treating him like he's special, dropping him once she's had enough of him, and generally living life in an unconventional way. Again, the movie is pointing out the hypocrisy in men who fetishize inexperienced women while bragging about their own sexual conquests.

The part in the movie where Bella becomes a sex worker delivers the final blow to whatever is left of the BSY trope in her story, because the trope relies on sexual exclusivity and the fetishization of virginity. By having many partners and gaining lots of sexual experience out of her own free will, Bella stops fitting the ideal of the untouched woman who can be deflowered and exclusively possessed by the male protagonist. Also, through the conversations between Bella and the other sex workers, the movie finds another way to address the politics behind certain men's sexual fantasies of women - such as pointing out that some men enjoy sex with women more the less the women themselves enjoy it. It's a stray observation that the movie doesn't get deep into, but it has its place in the tapestry of the general theme of what desire reveals about people.

Finally, there's Alfie, who gives Bella (and us) an idea of the kind of life Bella's "mother" lived - as well as the kind of life Bella herself might be living had she grown up the normal way. It seems hellish. She'd be living under the tyranny of her awful husband, under a constant threat of violence, under absolute bodily control. Alfie wants to impregnate her against her will and to mutilate her genitals to deprive her of pleasure, and there's nothing that she could do about it because he is her husband and thus legally allowed to lord over her. She sees a terrifying glimpse of the role even privileged women like her have in this world: objects who exist solely for the pleasure of the men who own them. I would venture to say that the same description lies in the underbelly of the BSY trope.

I am happy that the movie doesn't take its sweet time to revel in the horror of this part of the story like so many other movies that address the oppression of women do. Instead, Bella stays with Alfie just enough time to say a hard and a well-informed no to his bullshit before getting on her merry way.

I think Poor Things is such a great example of taking a trope and exploring its implications in a way that goes beyond just pointing it out or parodying it by simply repeating it.

#poor things #yorgos lanthimos #bella baxter #emma stone #born sexy yesterday #pop culture #tropes #feminism #gender politics #movies #cinema #film #film studies

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godsandvillains-if · 2 months

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Piggybacking off the selective mute question, I would love to see similar representation as well if you were able to implement it. Im headcannoning my mc as touch adverse and selectively mute regardless - im personally touch adverse, so a lot of my mcs are too. I just wanted to let you know that thered definitely be interest, but again, I also understand how much work thatd be. Writing a regular novel is stressful, I could not imagine writing a story with that many choices 😭

Thank you for sharing your story with us! Looking forward to adopting Ace and Zodiac as my parents 😊

I'll let you know that I already implemented a touch averse option!! It will be available in the next update 🤗🤗

Ace and Zodiac will be thrilled to co-parent the MC 🤣

Thank you for the question!! 🥰

#if: gods and villains #ask #touchaverse #mc

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neptune-scythe · 7 months

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More thoughts on the usual subject of Kaz, Inej, and touch.

Yes their respective aversions to touch are due to trauma, and not something they had until they suffered from it. And thus something that can be healed from, and hopefully won't always hinder their lives so completely.

But touch aversion is not something that is wrong or needs to be fixed. There are many reasons one might not want or enjoy touch, and all of them are valid and deserve to be respected.

Kanej healing from their traumas doesn't mean they are going to want or enjoy touch all the time. They might, or they might only some days and not others, or none at all. Just because they can learn to touch without being triggered or having a panic response doesn't mean they have to enjoy it or want it, or that it won't still effect them in those ways sometimes.

More specifically, my point is yes I want them to heal from their traumas, but they don't need to be "healed" from touch aversion. They don't need touch to have full and happy lives or a healthy relationship.

Not wanting a sexual or physically intimate relationship does not make them broken or in need of fixing, or mean that they haven't healed from their traumas.

#six of crows #grishaverse #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #dirtyhands #the bastard of the barrel #the wraith #kanej #kaz x inej #touch aversion #touch averse #touch aversion representation #touch averse representation

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gwenllian-in-the-abbey · 1 month

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i think Helaena can be autistic but also a happy and joyful girl , autism ≠ depression. the way the portrayed the only neurodivergent character on screen as unstable, shunned depressed, and with no importance to the plot feel very ableist and weird , but then they're the ones who made the guy with a foot disability a feet fetishist 🫠

Hi OP, finally answering this because the trailer dropped and still the only Helaena shots we have are from her Jaehaerys' funeral. There is also one still photo of her. If you haven't seen it, here she is, apparently sewing the funeral shroud for her little boy:

So it seems like season 2 is going to continue on this trajectory for Helaena as a character who exists in order to suffer beautifully.

Don't get me wrong. I am glad that the show is going to wring the full emotional effect from Blood and Cheese, not just shock value. The audience will feel the real horror of a six year old child brutally murdered in his own home and the psychological torment of Helaena. It should be terrible, it should be devastating, and I hope they do not pull any punches.

What's disappointing about how the show has handled Helaena is that they didn't really put any effort into building up her character before her tragedy. It's all well and good that she likes bugs and she's touch averse, but what are her opinions? Who is she closest to? How did she react to becoming a mother so young? To what extent does she understand her visions? What does she value? She can be happy and cheerful, or she can be frustrated and angry, and hell, she can be depressed too, but I need to know why. It's telling that I can describe the basic internal motivations for each of the male children, including Luke who was a glorified plot device, but I cannot for Helaena. Aegon wants to feel loved, Jace wants to prove he's as worthy as any trueborn heir, Aemond wants what his brother has, Luke wants to be free from his family's expectations. Helaena? Fuck if I know. I guess she wants not to die horribly.

The ableism is an issue. F&B is full of women who were deemed "simple" -- Gael, Daella, Jaehaera-- without being given much else to define them, and HotD adds another (there's something, I think, to the way the "simple" Targaryens are always women and how disability kind of used as a way to remove them from the narrative and shunt them aside, often tragically). And while it's great to see an autistic person represented on screen, the show consistently has an issue with treating representation as characterization. "Autistic girl who likes bugs" is not a personality. Autistic people, (even those with horrifying prophesies I assume), do have hopes and dreams and feelings about things. The one peek we get into Helaena's life is at the in episode 8 when she roasts Aegon and even that scene is open to interpretation (and gets taken wildly out of context). Now, I can read a lot into the actor performances, but ultimately, lines that could have given a glimpse Helaena personality were cut. It's as if they're afraid that if they give her an opinion on anything she would lose that (frankly kind of infantilizing) "pure cinnamon roll too good for this world" "i would die for her" sympathy from people who are not inclined to be sympathetic for her family as a whole.

(And anon, you're right about Larys. And let me say, turning Larys' clubfoot into the punchline of an OnlyFeet joke also does not inspire confidence that they'll handle Aegon II's eventual disability with any sensitivity either, especially when Mushroom's accounts of his last few months are incredibly mean spirited. We need to start that discourse now so they get the memo).

Sadly, I don't think the show really has any intention of course correcting with Helaena in season 2. I imagine at most we'll have her try to warn Aegon and/or Aemond about Blood & Cheese but they won't understand her warning, and then this will be a vehicle to further their guilt and grief. And while we do need to see Aegon's guilt and his grief, I also want to know if Helaena blames herself, if she wishes they'd run away when they had the chance, if she thinks Aegon could have done something, if she is angry at Aemond for killing Luke, if she wants revenge. I do think, with the public funeral for Jaehaerys, they are going to show that the smallfolk are fond of Helaena, and hopefully that will be expanded upon this season and in season 3 because her death is the catalyst for the revolt that sees Rhaenyra driven from the city, and we should understand why her death has such an impact before she actually dies.

#asks #helaena targaryen #hotd critical #hotd ableism #team green

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busines-as-unusual · 1 month

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₊ ⊹Pairing⊹ ₊

Alastor x Female Reader/You/OC (Reader has a name and description)

₊ ⊹Summary⊹ ₊

You kept your attraction to Alastor hidden since the day you reacquainted in Hell. Unfortunately, he saw right through you. When recruited for a joint venture with the Hazbin Hotel, Alastor uses this as the perfect excuse to toy with you. While he respected that the mask you wore seemed to closely resemble your true face, he was far too intrigued with you to not want to make you drop your facade.

No, he didn't want to simply remove your mask, he wanted to shatter it in his hands and watch you crumble with it.

⚠️❗Content warnings for this story❗⚠️

Gore

Canon typical violence

Varying levels of cannibalism

Unrealistic depiction of self-harm

Accidental drugging

Brief mention of child S/A

Child abuse in Reader’s backstory

S/A in Reader's backstory (hinted at but not graphic)

I'll put the warnings at the beginning of each chapter, too. If I miss something, please let me know and I'll change it ASAP.

Also despite the warnings, there are jokes and goofy moments of levity. It’s not all edge and angst, I promise.

₊ ⊹Disclaimer (of sorts)⊹ ₊

I mean… this is a ship fic with Alastor, so you already know what's up.

But seriously. I know Alastor is aroace. I know representation is important, and when it comes to Alastor's canon sexuality I wouldn't change him. This is just for fun.

That said, when writing this I did a lot of research into the spectrum of asexual and aromantic identities, queer-platonic relationships, alterous attraction, etc., in order to properly understand and write their relationship. But as a novice writer and someone who is not aromantic or asexual, I don't think I'm equipped to fully explore these identities and their nuances without it coming off like erasure at the end of the day. Aspects of that are still included in their characters (Alastor is touch averse unless he initiates it, what drives his sexual appetite isn't solely based on attraction and his interest in Reader starts from a place of ill-intent rather than romantic interest. Reader was written to be greyromantic.) but they're written as parts of their character and not accurate representations of their sexuality. I just want to be upfront and honest before we jump into this.

˖ ࣪⭑⟡Chapter List⟡⭑ ࣪ ˖

Chapter 1 - Key Signature

Chapter 2 - His Plans for Sabbath's Daughter

Chapter 3 - Creatures We Desire

Chapter 4 - Zeal with Knowledge

Chapter 5 - Chapter 5 - Some Pumpkins

#hazbin hotel fanfiction #hazbin fanfic #alastor x reader #alastor x female reader #alastor x you #alastor x oc #hazbin x reader #hazbin x you #hazbin x oc #alastor x reader smut #reader fic #reader #reader insert #hazbin hotel memes

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prince-liest · 1 month

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Hi there! I've been having SO much fun with your 666 verse, and I can't send you enough Kudos for your ace-spec / touch-averse representation of Alastor. I'm a big fan of how you build up and build in the gentle moments of caring between alastor and vox but honestly I am also a big fan of them exploring the D/s dynamics that emerge (I'm also so happy that they're not fixed within the dynamic / roles but rather explore)!

Ayyy, hello there and thank you so much!

I am fairly rarely actually strictly fixed about the dynamics I prefer to see in ships—it's happened on occasion in different fandoms, admittedly, but it's always a characterization thing for me—and for Vox and Alastor in particular they honestly just 100% strike me as the kind of people who enjoy both roles. Alastor because "sadomasochist" just seems like his thing, and Vox because he's obsessive and gives 110 very enthusiastic percent to anything involving Alastor. So I'm really glad you're enjoying! I've spent the last few years in danmei and Genshin fandoms which tend to be a little more... let's say picky about the idea of fixed dynamics (whether they be top/bottom or d/s), hahaha, so the positive reception that radiostatic being the switchy as heck is getting is genuinely so nice to me.

One of the fun parts of writing radiostatic in 666 is that Vox doms more often and enjoys the hell out of it, but at the same time, even when he is taking on a dominant role in an encounter (I hesitate to call them scenes because they kind of are in terms of how the two of them wear the roles, but also they're generally not at all negotiated or defined as such by radiostatic themselves), it's still relatively clear that there's a bit of a power imbalance in terms of who openly cares more about the other's opinion—and it's in Alastor's favor. Which I think comes through in how the flavor of their play changes depending on what roles they're taking on in a fun way!

And that resulting power imbalance has been slowly closing somewhat as Alastor grows to care more and, as you said, realizes that it's actually important and not always necessarily fucking painful for him to show that he at least fundamentally gives a shit in those quieter moments. But it will probably never close entirely, because consistently behaving like he's beholden to the good opinion of another person would give Alastor hives and possibly anaphylaxis, let us be real.

Anyway, thank you very much for your kind words! I hope you continue to enjoy!!

#ask #personal #tshjortile #t #hazbin hotel #nsft #666 live on air #my writing #this got longer than intended haha oops

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rjalker · 1 year

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[ID: The meme of Anakin and Padme talking, now edited with different dialogue.

Anakin says, "Oh, yeah, we love The Murderbot Diaries. We love Murderbot."

Padme, smiling cheerfully, replies, "So you actually respect the character and the real people it represents, instead of erasing everything that makes it who it is and ignoring the real people who are telling you this is bigoted, right?"

Anakin stares back in ominous silence.

Padme, now looking distressed, asks again, "So you actually respect the character and the real people it represents, instead of erasing everything that makes it who it is and ignoring the real people who are telling you this is bigoted, right?"

End ID.]

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phasesofpencils · 2 years

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Just thinking about how much i love that the turtles are different species and how well those species choices play into their characters

Donnie being a soft shell to emphasis and give a physical representation of his "glass canon" archetype. As well as him using a battle shell to protect it but also could be read as him being a bit of a sensitive type but putting up emotional barriers to protect himself as well as physcial ones like his physical aversion to touch and sensory issues.

Leo being a red slider, he's the face man, a showboat and he feels a need to have all eyes on him all the time. And he has bold red marks on his face going over his eyes draw your attention to him and sorta influence you to look at him in his eyes. (And to some of the people saying "what if he's embarrassed of them?" Respectfully, you are wrong. 100% Leo loves his red stripes and thinks it adds a distinctive look and charm to himself.)

Raph being an alligator snapping turtles is perfect example of subverted expectations while also playing into them at the same time. He's huge, he's beefy, he's spikey, he's clearly the toughest and you expect him to loud and brash and hot headed and angry. And to a certian extent he is. But he also has a frequent buyer teddy bear coupon and a teddy bear collection that he's named every one of. He loves prowrestling but he loves hugs just as much. He yells but tries to only yell at his brothers when its needed ("stop. Eating. THE POISON!!!!!") but also is soft spoken when he doesn't want to hurt his brother's feelings. He wears his heart on his sleeve and with his bigger size it also correlates to how much love he has to give. Those arms were made for HUGGIN' and you know he gives the best hugs.

And Mikey being an ornate box turtle to compliment his creative and artistic personality. It's right there in the name, ornate. And being the smallest species cus he's the baby brother. His brothers naturally want to protect him but he's perfectly capable of protecting himself and wants his brothers to know that, the kid can throw a cargo ship. He may be small and usually a peaceful turtle but he also has en explosive temper when particularly pissed off. (see his "Dr. Delicate Touch" scenes and how pissed he was in Pizza Pit when they were destroying the pizza places but didn't even realize the unintended consequence of destroying the shops.)

It's just HHHHHH SO COOL!! And of course it also has the added benefit of giving them their own unique silhouette and design so you can easily identify why is who even without their signature colors or weapons which is VERY refreshing.

#rottmnt

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