#youre not an aphobe for not seeing them as qpr or wanting them to be in a traditional romantic partnership

[missbiddle]

Getting accused of being an aphobe, despite being ace/aro myself, because I'm critical of consistent wlw ships being considered QPR, is a new one.

This just in - sometimes, asexuals don't want QPR in their media and just want to see sapphic relationships that actually allow attraction because female attraction, and especially lesbian attraction, is either hypersexualised, made puritan, or just doesn't exist. Let ladies wanna be with ladies.

I'm asexual. I don't have interest in sex, at all. In fact, I don't have interest in romantic relationships for myself either. But, not wanting a romantic/sexual sapphic relationship as a QPR and being critical of the vitriol being spat at sapphics for being critical of wlw ships constantly being considered QPR but het or mlm not getting that treatment, does not make me a fucking aphobe.

#anyway im done with this fucking discourse #romantic/sexual relationship is not 'better' than qpr #and qpr is not better than romantic/sexual #calling ppl aphobes because they question and criticise the pattern of wlw ships consistently being better as qpr is bad #lesbophobia is incredibly rampant in the cr fandom and has been #for ages #let lesbians want a ficking romantic relationship without calling them aphobes #fuck me dead #couldnt even be bothered tagging this for the fucking ship tbh #but to those out there; its okay to shop imogen and laudna romantically #youre not an aphobe for not seeing them as qpr or wanting them to be in a traditional romantic partnership #this is comijg from an aro/ace

[viviennevermillion]

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

[aromantic-nerd]

While I don’t ever see myself being in one, I love the idea of queer-platonic relationships. I love that they give aspec individuals who are interested a way to indulge in relationships that can be molded and shaped into anything. I love that there are no expectations of what it needs to be or what specific things need to happen. I love that every person has the opportunity to make it fit to their own needs and wants. I love how aphobes get so angry about relationships that don’t fit their inherently-romantic standards. QPRs just simply are, and no one can mess with them. I love that. Shoutout to people who are in/want QPRs, especially those whose relationships look very different from the amatonormative standard. Y’all really rock for saying “screw you” to romantic relationship norms and making it work by creating your own instead!

#this isn’t anything #simply a gushy paragraph #legitimately have never wanted a qpr #and that’s okay #but everyone who does? #*chefs kiss* #i love the aro community #aro #aromantic #aspec #qpr #aromantic community #arospec #aspec positivity

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

See, here's the thing, I am onboard with SolarxMoon. Their dynamic is the cutest within the Tsams/Tlaes that I have enjoyed. What I am not onboard, as an AroAce, is when you and your friends use your A-specs cards as some sort of gotcha. Yes, some A-specs can date either romantically or qpr, and they are used against us A-specs that are romance/sex-repulsed as some sort of invalidation of who we are. We are all too familiar with: "Well, this A-specs person dates. What's stopping you? You have no excuse." and "I like shipping and I'm A-specs, so..."

You and your friends got to understand why the way you worded things made you three seem aphobic to your own community. Adding on, celebrating that Moon is now questioning was another questionable move on your guys' part. A lot of A-specs Tsams fans found comfort in him being AroAce and being the representation for a group who has little to no representation at all in any sort of media. Imagine how it felt seeing people of your own community being happy that the one thing we had as a community is now being erased.

Just because you're part of the minority group doesn't mean you can't be -phobic to that very same group. Tons upon tons of LGBTQA+ infighting has proven this.

Okay.

I tried to go to bed.

But I couldn't after I got this message.

It got me really tossing and turning and thinking, truthfully.

So, maybe I haven't made myself clear in my initial posts.

But I am not saying or using A-spec cards as a "gotcha"

That is not my intention so let me make it abundantly clear what I am trying to say.

Solar and Moon are not real.

Even if Moon was ace, I would ship them Queerplatonically, and I still do right now.

I believe limiting characters on how they can be shipped is Acephobic. Because you are limiting options and narrowing the box of what the ace spectrum can be.

My experiences are not others experiences.

The reason why I personally was excited about Moon being questioning, is because my sexuality is very fluid.

I have identified as Bisexual, Queer, Dyke, Questioning, Demisexual, Grey and Fag.

As of now, I am experimenting with the term aroace and it seems to fit me for now. Will I change it in a few years? Perhaps. I'm not even sure on how much aroace I am. Probably more demi or grey spectrum.

But a fictional character, expressing need to change their sexual orientation because of differing circumstances, means a great deal to me. Because back then, folks thought 'the gays' we're just all 'born this way' or there is something wrong with us.

That if you were gay or ace or lesbian you were born that way and it's concrete and nothing you can do or say will say that.

Unless they literally beat or fucked it out of you. Which is just awful btw.

Nowadays, people experimenting with sexuality and labels is far more common.

To see it in characters in a silly little youtube show like Moon, and Lunar makes me really happy.

It tells me "yes you can change your mind. You can be whatever you want to be."

So when I say "I am on the ace spectrum and I ship this"

What I actually mean is:

"They are fictional characters and you are flexible to portray them in any level of ace that you want that you personally identify with. Because they are not real. They can be whatever level of ace you want."

I am allowing every single ace to express Moon at the level of aceness they feel comfortable with. Because he is not real. Where he lies on the spectrum is entirely up to you. Your fanart. Your fanworks.

Now. Did you need all my sexual identity history to know that.

Probably not.

But I had to let this all out here. Because I'm tired.

If this makes me Acephobic by saying that sexuality is flexible and labels can be changed and so can levels of the spectrum with experience.....

Then...

I don't know man.

I'm tired.

#personal #sexuality is flexible

[a-romantic--aromantic]

tell me more about your experiences in real life aro spaces please *big pleading eyes*

okay so i am notoriously bad at answering asks because i’m on mobile, but i figured i can take a crack at this one

so i actually wasn’t in explicitly aro spaces, but due to the culture in my area, most lgbt individuals didn’t feel that they needed to use the pride spaces to have the ability to express themselves or feel safe. this very quickly led to queer spaces and clubs being full of aspecs. due to luck, i found my queer club was about 30% aro at the start, and about 50% aro halfway through. the more discussions we had about romanticism and amatonormativity and trying unpack and discover what romantic attraction meant, the more and more people in the club realized that romanticism didnt apply to them in the stereotypical or normative sense, and more and more people came out as aro. there were lots of conversations that included us just pointing out “that sounds like demiromantic” or “is that romantic attraction?” when people said something that sounded like a very aro perspective.

i also didnt join the aspec club at the university nearby because im not a student, but im always really tempted. im curious what a space intended for aspecs is like.

within my experiences, our aro circle was pretty large, and being open about queer identity and connection with our aro identity and community led to me knowing more aros, because you get excited if you overhear it in public, and the more people know about it the more people come out.

my aro circle did have a lot of dating in it, still, but that was because they were all aro4aro if that makes sense? a lot of people realized they were demi. and a close knit aro circle opens up nicely for aro identity being respected And developing romo attraction.

i’ve mentioned before that ive dealt with an exclusionist/aphobe irl, and that im annoyed their “romo aro” flag shows up in google. this person was actively a “chronically online” and “discourse” kind of a person. they held a lot of colonial ideals, were fairly ableist, and pushed a lot of people’s boundaries. this person was one of like 3 that were openly aphobic on campus, and all three of them gave off the sense that they were there to start arguments, not to engage in having a community of any kind. they were ultimately ignored by all the other allospec queer members. by and large, everyone accepted us in their queer spaces, and our “pride alliance” never once suggested that we didnt belong. we spent a lot of time talking about what mattered to us and how our queer identities impacted eachother, and how our communities intersected in various ways.

when the aros broke off to interact independently, our aromanticism was rarely brought up, it just was something that was a fact. we could talk about our struggles with our aro identity, they watched my blog grow, and we always chose activities that were friendly to the folks who didnt want to see romo stuff. ultimately it performed more as a tight friend group than as any sort of overarching activity to participate in. ive found virtual aro communities are pretty similar.

i dont know if this helps at all, but i do want to say you’re not alone in your aro identity, and you’re probably not even the only aro in your area.

for stats, i know:

7 arospecs in highschool , 2 aplspecs

10 arospecs in my close friend group in college , 2 (different) aplspecs

8 arospecs from my pride alliance (not in my friend group), 1 aplspec not in my group

4 arospecs in passing in college

an honestly unknowable number of arospecs from my old job, where ive been recognized from this blog before. these were mostly arospec and queer teenagers that were in awe of seeing a queer and arospec adult.

ive also made multiple online friends in fandom spaces who were not arospec or questioning arospec who recognized me from my blog, and, including both irl and online dating, have dated 9 aros/arospecs, and had qprs with 3 (tho ive had qprs with non arospecs too).

we aren’t an insignificant percent of the population. there’s honestly quite a lot of us and you shouldnt feel alone in this community. because theres so many of us, every aro community you join or create irl will be a little bit different. i live close to an aro organization that is in the nearest major city, and im thinking about volunteering and getting involved there, too. if you want to try making an irl aro community, honestly the easiest way to do it is just to be out and proud. they’ll come to you or you’ll help them realize it.

anyways i dont know if thats what you were asking, but thats everything i have in my brain for now. hope this helps.

💚💚🤍🖤🖤

-ghost

#aro spectrum #aro #aromantic #grey aro #aromantic spectrum #arospec #aro spec #aro pride #aromantic pride #safeforaro #safe for aro #aro community #aromantic community #irl aro spaces are good #aro spaces #hey bees #whatd you ask? #they speak #rambles #aromisia mention #aphobia mention

[acespec-ed]

Hi! I'm not aplatonic, so this ask comes with absolutely no pressure, but I would love to hear about your experiences as an apl person. How did you come to identify as apl? How do you experience friendships (if at all), are friendships important to you? Is there an apl community you're part of? Is 'apple' an acceptable nickname? At risk of sounding ignorant, is there an element of "i just don't like people" in being aplatonic? Are there any questions or assumptions you're tired of hearing? I'm just curious because I've seen the definition of aplatonic come up on your blog a lot, but I struggle to imagine what life is like for apl spec people.

Again, absolutely no pressure, and im really sorry if I've been rude or crossed any boundaries by asking. And I realise that's a lot of questions! I'd be interested to hear anything you have to say.

No problem! 😊 So many questions though, I don't know where to start!

I've never been good at making friends, and I've never been bothered enough about that flaw to fix it. All my friendships started with someone talking to me regularly for some reason or another, or someone joining a friend group and taking an interest in me. I have had best friends in the past, and I considered them important people that I cared for. I have happy memories of them. But at the same time, I always felt like I needed more space than they did. Like, they wanted to hang out and talk to me A LOT. And I don't mind talking and hanging out, but I'm very introverted and require a lot of alone time. I always chalked it up to me being introverted and them being extroverted. But at the same time, they'd make the occasional joke comment about what if we lived together, which is just... something I would not want. And sometimes they'd get, like, fiercely protective over hypotheticals of someone hurting me? But I played along with that sort of thing to spare feelings. I was never sure if they were joking or serious.

And then, God, all the aphobes talking shit about QPRs being just a "normal friendship" or whatever. Saying it's normal to want to live with your friend and whatnot. And of course, I disregard those kinds of comments because, those people are being willfully ignorant. But it's funny because, the more I saw them dismissing friend-related aspec terms for being "normal," the more I'd end up looking into all these aspec terms because none of that shit is "normal" for me! So occasionally, I'd do some poking around to try and figure out what exactly is wrong with me. Because for the longest time, I thought I was just introverted. Or just asocial. Or possibly had schizoid personality disorder. I'd heard about aplatonic, but I thought that was just an aro term for not having squishes. It never once occurred to me that, even alloros can have squishes!

Anyways, one day, I don't remember why, but I was digging through the aplatonic tag here on Tumblr and a lot of what aplatonic people were saying sounded relatable. It then occurred to me that it was ridiculous to think platonic attraction was an aro-only thing. This was confirmed by seeing people say alloros can be aplatonic too. I even saw some sort of aplatonic checklist that I hit every box on. And then it just, fit!

There have been times where I’ve wondered if I’m possibly aplatonic due to childhood experiences of losing friends. In elementary school, I kept gaining friends then losing them each school year. With the exception of a neighborhood friend, I had no friend stick around me longer than a year or two. By high school I was starting to wonder what the point of getting attached to people was if they’d only ever leave in the end. Sometimes I wonder if that could’ve contributed to it. But then again, I don’t recall ever going out of my way to make a friend even before all that. There might’ve been periods of times when I was little, where I wanted a friend because I didn’t have any. But we’re talking about shit that happened 20+ years ago so fuck if I’m remembering anything right. (Then again, some apls want friends so whether I ever did or not doesn’t matter anyway.)

I'm not part of any aplatonic communities. I'm not even sure if there are any active ones. But apple is an appropriate nickname! I've come across jokes about apl = apple similar to aro = arrow. I kinda like it.

I've often joked about "not liking people." But it's not entirely true. I do need some level of human interaction. But I'm fine with that interaction being with acquaintances and coworkers. I do have my boyfriend who I consider my best friend. I'd also be fine with living with him, and I actually don't get tired being around him all the time. So he's a strange exception to all my rules. (Probably helps that he's also an introvert.) So right now, I'm satisfied with the level of social interaction I get between him and coworkers. I sometimes worry what would happen if we ever break up- how my life would look like then. Because my biggest concern is, getting older, I won't always have parents/family around to get me out of any jams I find myself in. And I'm (typically) not interested in being in a romantic relationship. So I'll probably remain single. But with no friends/family, it makes me worry about when I get old and start having medical emergencies or get in unsafe situations or even just, need help moving. That's when having friends comes in handy. And it's, like, going out to make friends would solve that problem. But it feels shitty to only want to be someone's friend JUST so you have someone to fall back on if your life goes to shit. Nobody likes that person who only calls you when they want something. And that's exactly my motivation for having a friend. But I currently don't see any signs of my relationship ending, so I'm gonna try not to worry about that stuff unless it happens.

I actually don’t have any questions/assumptions I’m tired of hearing. Because I rarely hear anyone even talking about us to come across common questions and misconceptions. (So I guess in a way it would be nice if we were talked about more?) I have seen people say it’s made up, which I hate, but people say that about every label. I guess the most helpful thing would be to acknowledge that, alloromantic aplatonics exist too! I probably would’ve embraced the label sooner if I’d heard that. Everyone just associates it with aromantics, and the vast majority of people identifying as apl seem to also be aro. Maybe that will change several years from now when it becomes more well-known.

This got long! Thanks for reading. 💛

#asks #as a quick note to whoever sent the other ask today i haven't answered #i'll get to it tomorrow

[rjalker]

This is still pissing me off so I'm just copying and pasting the whole stupid aphobic shit into a post for posterity.

littledeconstruction

for your free aphobe blocklist.

The bullshit is under the cut.

this, THIS is why QPR make me so fucking nervous. i’m not trying to shit on your beautiful poly aroace love affair, i’m asking you HOW WILL THIS RELATIONSHIP HOLD UP IN COURT. cause, news flash: it won’t.

if you have shared bank accounts and a house and a kid with someone who isn’t married to you, they can wipe you out – legally speaking – and you have no recourse. none. you will never see your kid again, unless you’re lucky and contributed half their DNA.

if they have a car accident and end up in hospital, you don’t have a legal right to see them. if they’re in a coma, their parents can pull the plug and adopt that child and you can do nothing.

queers wanted marriage equality not to Be Like Teh Hets, but because it is the most legal protection you can ever have against that bad stuff that comes (and it comes for everyone).

if you don’t have that stuff, if you’re relying on your partners to do the right thing forever and be perfect people and never have a business collapse or a messy family situation or an accident or even to get sick … you’re being really, really naïve.

this aphobic bullshit is in response to this. Archived version here.

#free blocklist #it's so fucking infuriating #aphobia

[my-strange-attraction]

If you used to use a label (specifically a microlabel but any label applies) and you no longer think it describes your experience the best way/ no longer think it’s necessary for you to use a label that describes such a specific experience even though it does still fit, I don’t know how to tell you this, but that label is still valid as a label.

I’ve been seeing (as has everyone else here, I think) a lot of panphobia lately by people who think it’s not necessary to specify pan as specific from bi, who think it’s biphobic when people feel the label fits them better, especially people who used to identify with pan because they thought it was the trans friendly version of bi.

This is also, I think, the root of a lot of the ace disc horse that happened a few years back (I wasn’t on here yet but I’ve heard Stories) and a lot of the hate on microlabels in general. People who have in the past used more specific, usually microlabels, have “seen the light” and now “realize” that it’s -phobic of the existing macrolabels for microlabels to even exist as labels that people use. 

Today, for example, I saw a post. The post that prompted this one. It was insisting that it’s “ok to just be bisexual, good in fact” and while I agree with that as a statement, the motivation was aphobic. They were hating on labels like demi and sapiosexual in the tags and they, obviously, got some anon backlash. On their blog, they had a picture of a demi pride shirt with a cute little saying and under it they said* “I wore this every other day in middle school, trust me I’m allowed to talk about this”

A few months back I saw something similar, a TikTok with a person in it who was listing off all these microlabels that they used to use vs. the macrolabels they use now, making fun of the existence of microlabels and people who use them, essentially. Saying microlabel users are naive and there’s no reason to use microlabels when the big umbrella labels are there for us. 

And I understand, I do. As you get further along in your queer journey, the “baby gay” does start to wear off a bit. You stop feeling the need to label the more specific nuances of your identity, or you get tired of trying to pin them down. It’s natural for something like that to happen. 

But weren’t the microlabels helpful in getting you to this point? Didn’t it bring you some comfort to be part so so many smaller nuanced communities? Did you or did you not at one point feel it was the best way you could describe yourself with the vocabulary you were given and the understanding you had at the time?

I was bicurious before I was ever ace. Then I was panromantic, demiromantic, bellusromantic, cupioromantic, arospec, then aro, then finally loveless aro after some playing around with qprs. I was genderqueer, then genderfae, then girlflux, agender, genderfluid. I’ve settled back on genderqueer for now but who knows right?

I’ve jumped a bit all over the place in this post, but I want to come back to this as my final point: labels cannot be queerphobic. That’s not how any of this works. People get too caught up in labels, yes, and when you’re younger, generally, you get really caught up in finding just the right one. In the end, maybe you are still demi but bi feels right to you. Maybe I’m still everything I have been or maybe I’m none of it at all. Labels are there to help the people who they describe. If they don’t describe you, they’re not attacking what you are, it’s just a different experience than yours, or maybe the same experience but just for a different person, someone who prefers to be more specific with their labels. 

Does it really hurt so much just to live and let live?

#labels #queer #brief talk of panphobia #brief talk of aphobia #microlabels #another one of cloudy's essay posts #cloudy rambles

[thethiefandtheairbender]

also since it’s almost pride month here are some aphobic (ace / aro-phobic) or exclusionist dogwhistles

implying / stating outright that aces are cringy

“i just don’t want people to limit themselves” is basically what one of my family members said to me when i came out, it fucking hurt. don’t do it. you have no idea how much someone has wrestled with their identity

anti / ship policing, bc it’s predicated on purity culture and is a gateway to aphobia

saying that young people can’t be ace and that we’ll change our minds and just haven’t met the right person yet

“nobody cares that you don’t want to have sex” 

saying that aspec people are picky or just want to be special

calling us cishet 

getting upset when a character is headcanoned as ace or aro

only headcanoning characters as ace or aro and never shipping them - platonically or otherwise - with anyone

for that matter, treating ace characters and people like a punchline joke, including historical figures or memes. we’re not a cringe compilation

implying / stating outright that QPRs (queerplatonic relationships) are cringy or “you mean like having friends”

calling our history ahistorical and grasping at straws

reading our experiences and dismissing them as “oh but everyone feels that way” -- i got some news for you, bud

making fun of mogai instead of treating the damn thing with nuance

saying that asexuality or aromantic are a tumblr identity (we’re not and exclusionists destroyed our community here years ago, thanks for that)

aro erasure

“wow you don’t see these two characters as boyfriends because the line between romantic and platonic attraction is blurred for you? you must be homophobic” or “this relationship between two same sex characters that closely resembles a QPR isn’t Good Enough Rep and is homophobic because they didn’t kiss” (see: good omens)

making fun of heterosexual aros, heteromantic aces (particularly women bc you just love misogyny directed at “weird” people), and demisexual/demiromantic people especially

dismissing amatanormativity and saying that it doesn’t exist or isn’t a part of cisheteronormativity that fucks literally everyone up

taking posts clearly made to deride us or denounce as (i.e. aces don’t want kissing at pride, aros think all romance is Yucky) on face value and reblogging them as jokes and “discourse”

joking that it’s dumb/cringey/funny for people to want a queer safe space that isn’t as sexualized as clubs and bars

dismissing the fact that aros and aces experience comphet too (hi, op here: i definitely did and it fucked me up, thanks)

“just because you’re ace doesn’t detract from your gayness” and that only queer aces belong in the community (aceness is inherently queer)

an emphasis on lesbianism as Gold Star Gay (as aces often fell under the lesbian umbrella for similar reasons bi women did, historically) or gatekeeping

aphobic gatekeeping is often very similar to transmed or terf gatekeeping (sincerely an ace, aro trans person); if you can learn how to identify one, you can learn how to identify the other

along that vein, tagging things as q slur. i won’t trust you three separate fronts in case you’re a terf/exclusionist, congratulations

in other words, sincerely from an ace, aro spec, pan, nonbinary person

#tw acephobia #tw aphobia #mine #did i snap? perhaps #i'm so fucking tired of pointing out dogwhistles to people #Learn them

[themadcapmathematician]

Could you expand on your aphobia post? It sounds right instinctively but I can't quite figure out the concrete ways of how, except that I'm guessing the absolute refusal to let people ID how they want/feel is right is part of it (ie. hatred and mocking of the SAM that bled out well past the original target)?

I think i could answer this question more thoroughly another time, but ill try to explain:

-a lot of posts that people will circulate like the one i discussed a couple hours ago are interpreted to mean one thing but had an aphobic context. Those posts grow into active discussion. Sometimes it might be difficult to see the roots of aphobia, but more often than not the aphobia seeps into those ideas. The creators also get praise for making one statement when they were making a very diffierent one

-aphobic dogwhistles are not easily identifed by most people, therefore a lot of people are unable to recognize them when they interact with posts and broader ideas

-ace and aro terminology has largely been retired and buried, aro and ace activism and history has been buried, the aro and ace participation in formulating queer theory has been set back signficantly

-strides that aro and ace people have made to participate in discussion have been seperated from them. The idea of "queer cafes" has made a reappearance apart from the aspec community, after it became an aphobic talking point, but in a largely diminished form

-ace and aro spaces were largely dismantled. It is harder to participate and be heard when aros and aces have a diminished capacity to organize

-aro and ace concerns become no longer part of the discussion. If they are part of the discussion it takes a lot of pushing from ace and aro people. The power to self advocate has been diminished and set back, not to mention assumed acceptence in the first place

-the toolkit of aphobes has been applied to a lot of other groups. Aphobic gatekeeping is not just used against aspec ppl, but against other "suspect and undesirable" groups as well

-terfs have in the past used aphobic gatekeeping as a recruting tool for other terfs, and its acceptability allowed terfs to gain even more power in discussion

-the rampant aphobia has also pushed a lot of aspec people back into tbe closet and made them shy away from visibility

-as youve said before, SAM and the idea of an identity spectrum have been ridiculed to the point where people now dissmiss it. Many other concepts created by the aspec community are no longer as widely used, are easy targets for ridicule, and have also therefore not evolved to keep up with other concepts in queer theory. How much more productive could discussions of queer theory be if we assumed amatonormativity was part of the discussion? Or valued the queer friendship or qpr as much as queer romance? How much more fruitful and complex would our discussions be if aspecs had not been chased away?

All of these reasons and more have guided queer conversations and theory and set us as a community back signficantly. Theres so many subtle ways in which the way we formulate queerness has been directed by the systematic silencing of ace and aro people

#queer theory #lgbt #lgbtq #actually aspec #actually asexual #actually aromantic #madcap rants #madcap replies

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

I knew i was ace for a while and am okay with it and like it.

But now I think im (homo-oriented) aroace.

But I don’t want to be aro?! Not aphobic but I want a relationship even tho I dislike being in one. All my friends have relationships and they seem so wonderful and nice.

And QPRs seem so hard to get. I’m still excepting the fact I’m aro but I really really wish i wasn’t. I wish I could have a normal relationship with a guy and have romantic feelings. But I don’t, at least dont think so from what I’ve heard romantic attraction is. It just makes me sad I’m missing out on such seemingly wonderful things.

Is this normal? Or does it mean I’m not aro?

Yeah honestly I’d say we live in a culture puts a really heavy emphasis on romantic relationships and life partners being the one and only path we’re supposed to follow and what will make us happy. And this message is everywhere, how many times have you watched a tv show or movie where a character thought they were happy single and then their “one” showed up and showed them what they’d missing all this time? (Rom coms are especially bad with this, with a female character who’s happy in a career until she meets the right man.)

And it’s so easy to internalize this idea that a long term romantic relationship is something we eventually need to have to be properly fulfilled and happy. The thing of it is that it’s not true. Romantic relationships work very well for some people, and go very badly for others and anything in between (and I’ve always always believed people are better off single than in a bad romantic relationship). And what we find fulfilling and the kind of life that will make us happy is different for everyone. 

I also like to compare being romance averse to the point of not being able to enjoy being in a romantic relationship to not liking chocolate. Like listen and people will tell you it’s the greatest food to ever exist, that’s it’s an entire experience in and of itself. And like some people just don’t like chocolate and people going on about how great it is isn’t going to magically make it taste different. And no matter how you try you’re never going to get that experience other people are raving about. But you know there’s a lot of other really good food out there, there’s a lot more to life in general than chocolate. 

There’s a lot more to life than romance. 

If you don’t enjoy romance, you will find your own path, Anon. And you will find what does make you feel fulfilled and make you happy. And maybe there’s a passion you have somewhere, or a cause you care about. Maybe there’s a hobby you love, but try things out, get out and you’ll find something. You may also even find a good QPR, as hard as they might be to find, I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve managed it. So it’s not that impossible. 

Other things that may help you, look into exploring being aro a bit more. Follow blogs and consider looking into communities, even lurking is fine. Consume aro media (and there is a lot more than I think people usually realise, especially podcast and books). And seeing real life people who are aro, who like being aro, but are also interesting complex people in their own right will make the idea of being aro seem a lot less scary and a lot more normal. Aro media will give you relatable aro characters, and both will make the idea of being aro, and romance-averse, just seem a lot less scary. And make your own journey on figuring things out a bit easier.

Take things one day at a time, there’s no switch you can flip and suddenly be OK with the idea of being aro or not having a romantic relationship. But bit by bit it can get better as you explore yourself a bit more and find your own path. 

This is also something a lot of aro people deal with, so you’re definitely not alone either. 

All the best, Anon! Good luck!

#Anonymous

[collabwithmyself]

I know this is random, but I just wanted to say I love your art and that you made me more aware of things like queerplatonic relationships. On a related note, for a while I had two characters who I knew were more than friends but I couldn't see being romantic, and now I've decided they're queerplatonic! So thanks for that!

!!!! I'm so glad I could help spread awareness of things like that! I've been aware of QPRs for a while, but a previous friend group was really aphobic and caused me to reject a lot of stuff about the aspec community, including my own identity... since I cut ties with them, I've understood myself and my characters SO much more. I'm glad I could help pass on at least a little of that understanding to somebody else.

#collab answers #anonymous

[thedreadvampy]

Hey Ruth! I noticed you've talked in the past about asexuality in quite a negative manner. As an ace-person (who has received backlash for it) I was wondering: do you still uphold these opinions?

Hey! I have in the past said I don’t really...like people popping up in my ask box asking me My Opinion On Asexuality, but I do appreciate you asking me as someone I kinda know and with your face turned on, so I’m gonna aim to answer in the macro. Though I mean it depends on what the opinions...are? I have had a lot of opinions over the time I’ve had this blog and I don’t necessarily know what all of them were or which ones have concerned you. I can give you a top-level view of how I see my views, though (however, since I have been largely holding off on answering this kind of ask for Literally A Year Now this is less an answer to your specific question and more an answer to the last year of asks)

(also if I get dogpiled in my inbox for Having Bad Asexuality Opinions which I do every time I talk about asexuality regardless of what I actually say then. my phone is broken I won’t know about it :) so I feel untouchable)

I don’t think I hold a negative opinion of asexuality as an identity (I say I don’t think bc we all have blind spots)? I have a lot of very important people in my life who are asexual, aromantic or aroace and. I mean it feels pretty condescending to say ~uwu it’s valid~ bc like. ace and aro people don’t really need my input to validate their identity. but a) it seems like a pretty accurate way to describe their experience and b) I know a lot of them have had a really huge boost from finding a name and community to fit their experience and have found that really helpful, and I’ve seen that make a huge difference in people’s lives and I’m really happy to watch my friends come to understand themselves and feel comfortable and accepted in a part of themselves they had felt really alienated or stigmatised by. In a broader sense, I think there’s huge value in decentralising romance and sex in our assumptions of What Human Happiness Means and for some people that’s not the most important thing, and for some it’s just not interesting. 

So like. I find it difficult to really express these opinions in any meaningful way because my opinion on asexuals and aromantics is much like my opinion on trans people or idk like people of colour. like very obviously those people exist and very obviously those people don’t deserve to be marginalised or stigmatised but it would feel. weird and performative to just make a post saying like “Asexuality Is Good And Valid, I Am Pro It” bc again like. who needs my permission or cares about my opinion. it’s not a Good Thing To Do it’s just. a thing you are that shouldn’t be treated as a bad thing.

however. and I suspect that this is what you’re referring to. while I love and appreciate ace and aro people, I think building communities and active support for ace and aro people is valuable and needed and, as above, I think Asexuality Is Good And Valid I Am Pro It, I do take some issue with elements of how discussions around asexuality are framed online (pretty much only online, I really haven’t run into the kind of black-and-white thinking in in-person queer spaces) 

and I also. think there are some issues with people extrapolating their experience of their own sexuality onto the world in a way which. I’m just going to say a lot of the time when I talk about The Ace Discourse in a negative way it’s around people assuming that the world is split into a binary between ace and allo people, or assuming that only aspec people experience a nuanced or complex or fluid relationship to their sexuality while pigeonholing allosexuality into a pretty flat image of sex and romance focus. and I have always felt like this does a massive disservice not just to people who don’t identify with aspec labels, but also to the general hope that we could work against the expectation that there’s a Standard Amount To Value Sex/Romance - I think that the assumption that there are aspec people and then Everyone Else Has The Normal Type and Level of Attraction just. reinforces the idea that there’s a “Normal” type and level of attraction. which is ultimately pretty self-defeating and also just. observably untrue. 

and this division of the world into Aspec People and Allo People also has some other weird knockon effects - I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with identities like gray ace or demi or other aspec labels beyond asexual and aromantic, but I do think that the way those labels are used is often. unhelpful. and they’re defined in such personal, subjective ways that you get weirdnesses sometimes like people Diagnosing Each Other With Demisexual or people saying ‘you can’t talk about this experience you share because it’s an Aspec Experience’ and again. there isn’t a concrete material experience there because the whole experience of romantic and sexual attraction, what that feels like and how sharply divisible it is is very, very personal and subjective. and everyone has different experiences of those and will name those experiences differently.

there’s also. historically a minority of Big Ace Blogs that kind of sneer at allosexuality or who would hijack posts about other issues to derail them to asexuality. but I don’t think they were ever representative of the community as a whole and I certainly think that inasmuch as those blogs remain around they’re a legacy of the Long-Ago (and a lot of them are trolls imo)

but there is. an issue I take that does seem to be more currently live which is the question of allo privilege. I think personally that framing all allosexuals/alloromantics as privileged over all aspec people on the basis of feeling sexual/romantic attraction is provably untrue in a world where people, particularly queer people, are actively oppressed and marginalised for expressing non-normative sexuality. it isn’t that I don’t think asexuality and aromanticism isn’t marginalised and stigmatised, because it visibly is, but it seems pretty reductive to boil it down to a binary yes/no privilege when both sexualisation and desexualisation are so actively tied into other forms of marginalisation (this is what I was trying to express in the argument about Martin a while ago - sex and sexuality are so often disincentivised for fat, queer, disabled and neuroatypical people that it doesn’t...feel like a reclamation that those tend to be the characters that get fanonised as ace where slim, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical characters aren’t. like it’s more complex than a binary privilege equation; sex and romance are incentivised and stigmatised differently at the intersection of oppressions and. for example. in a world where gay conversion therapy and religious oppression of gay and SGA people is so often focused specifically on celibacy and on punishing the act of sexual attraction, I don’t think it’s a reasonable framing to say that a gay allosexual man has privilege over an aroace man on the basis of his attraction) 

so those are like. things I would consider myself to feel actively negative about in online discourse (and again. in online discourse. not in how I relate to asexuality or aromanticism or aspec identities in general but in the framing and approaches people take towards discussing it in a very specific bubble).

but also. um. the main criticism I have of the online discourse culture of asexuality is that there are things I don’t have experience of that I have mentioned, when asked, that I don’t personally understand the meaning of but I don’t need to understand them to appreciate that they’re useful/meaningful to others. things like 

the difference between QPRs, asexual romantic relationships and close friendships

how you know the difference between romantic attraction and friendship

the distinction between sexual attraction and a desire to have sex with someone for another reason

and I hope I’ve generally been clear that this is. honest lack of understanding and not condemnation. I personally have a very muddled sense of attraction and often have difficulty identifying the specifics of any of my own emotional needs so like. it’s a closed book for me at the moment, how you would identify the fine distinctions between types of want when I’m still at step 1: identify That You Want Something Of Some Sort, Eventually, Through Trial And Error. but I think I’ve always been explicit that this isn’t a value judgement it’s just a gap in my own knowledge and yet. every single time I’ve said anything other than enthusiastic “yes I understand this and I love it and it’s good and valid” (and again. I have not gone out of my way to talk about it I have mostly only mentioned it because people keep asking me to talk about it) I have got a massive rush of anger and accusations of aphobia and “just shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about but also answer my 30 questions to prove you think Correct Things about asexuality” and. I understand that this comes from a place of really unpleasant and aggressive backlash towards the ace community so it’s a sensitivity with a lot of people but like. it doesn’t seem proportional.

also I feel like ever since I hit like 700 followers my Tumblr life has been a constant cycle of people asking me Are You An Ace Inclusionist Are You An Exclus Are You An Aphobe Justify Your Opinion On Asexuality which. eventually yeah I’ve got pretty snippy about the whole thing. but you know. fuck it I’m just gonna lay it out and if you or anyone else is uncomfortable following me based on those opinions then I’m sorry to hear that and I will be sad to see you not want to engage with me any more but I also think that’s absolutely your prerogative. however I will not be taking questions at this time (and not just bc my phone’s broken) - demands for an argument about this Are Going To Be Ignored so if you want to go then go.

so like the big question I reckon is Do You Think Asexuality Is Queer and

yes. no. maybe. I don’t understand the question what does it mean for an identity to be queer? 

there are spaces and conversations where any form of aromanticism or asexuality makes sense as a relevant identity. talking about hegemonic expectations of normative romance. building community. combatting the idea that heterosexual missionary married sex between a man and a woman is the only rewarding or valuable form of relationship or intimacy.

there are spaces where I think heterosexual aros/heteromantic cis aces don’t. have a more meaningful or direct experience of the issues than allo cishets. because while being aro or ace or aspec has a direct impact on those people on a personal and relational level, disclosure is largely a choice, and the world at large sees them as straight. they don’t have the lived experience of being visibly nonconforming that SGA people and aroace people do. they may still be queer but there’s a lot of conversations where they bring a lot of the baggage of being Straight People (because. even if you’re ace or aro you can still be straight in your romantic or sexual attraction and if your relationships are all outwardly straight then you don’t necessarily have an intimate personal understanding of being marginalised from mainstream society by dint of your sexuality). this doesn’t make you Not Queer in the same way that being a bi person who’s only ever been in m/f relationships is still queer, but in both cases a) you don’t magically have a personal experience of societal oppression through the transitive properties of Being Queer and b) it’s really obnoxious to talk as if you’re The Most Oppressed when other people are trying to have a conversation about their lived experience of societal oppression. and they’re within their rights to say ‘we’re talking about the experience of being marginalised for same gender/non-heterosexual attraction and you’re straight, could you butt out?’)

(I very much object to the assumption coming from a lot of exclus that “cishet ace” is a term that can reasonably be applied to non-orientated aroace people though. het is not a default it really extremely doesn’t make sense to treat people who feel no attraction as Straight By Default. when I were a lad I feel like we mostly understood “asexual” to mean that identity - non-orientated aroace - and while I think it’s obvious that a lot of people do find value in using a more split-model because. well. some people are both gay/straight/bi and aro/ace, and it’s good that language reflects that. but I do think it’s left a gap in the language to simply refer to non-attracted people. this isn’t a criticism of anything in particular - there’s a constant balancing act in language between specificity and adaptability and sometimes a gain for one is a loss for the other)

some queer conversations and spaces just. aren’t built with aces in mind. and that isn’t a flaw. some spaces aren’t built with men in mind, but that doesn’t mean men can’t be queer. some conversations are about Black experiences of queerness but that doesn’t mean non-Black people can’t be queer. not all queer spaces will focus on ace needs but that doesn’t mean asexuality isn’t queer, or that queerness is opposed to aceness - sex, sexuality, romance and dating are all really important things to a lot of queer people, especially those whose sexuality and romantic relationships are often stigmatised or violently suppressed in wider society. there should be gay bars, hookup apps, gay and trans friendly sex education, making out at Pride, leather parades and topless dyke marches and porn made by and for queer people, romantic representation in media of young and old gay, bi and trans couples kissing and snuggling and getting married and saying sloppy romantic things. and there should be non-sexual queer spaces, there should be discussions around queerness that don’t suppose that a monogamous romantic relationship is what everyone’s fighting for, sex ed should be ace inclusive, etc. 

I think the whole question of inclusionism vs exclusionism is based on a weird underlying assumption that If An Identity Is Queer All Queer Spaces Should Directly Cater To That. like. aspec identities can be queer and it can be totally reasonable for there to be queer spaces that revolve around being sexual and romantic and there can be conversations it’s not appropriate or productive to centre asexuality and aspec experiences in and we can recognise that not all queer people do prioritise or have any interest in sex or romance. in the same way that there’s value in centring binary trans experiences sometimes and nonbinary experiences at other times but both of those conversations should recognise that neither binary or nonbinary gender identity is a Universal Queer Experience.

anyway that one probably isn’t one of the opinions you were asking about but I have been wanting to find a way to express it for a while so you’re getting it: the Ruth Thedreadvampy Inclusionism Take.

uh. it’s 1:30 on a work night so I have been typing too long. if there was an opinion you were specifically thinking of that I haven’t mentioned, chuck me another ask specifically pointing to what you want me to clarify my thinking on. sometimes I gotta be honest I’ve just been kind of careless in my framing (thinking of the Martin Fucks debacle where I spent ages insisting I didn’t say Martin couldn’t be aroace then read back like two days later and realised that I had said “he’s not aroace” bc I had written the post at 2am without proofreading and had meant to say “unless you think he’s aroace”) so I May Well Not Stand By Some Posts or might Stand By Them With Clarification

[entity9silvergen]

Thought That Cupid Shot Me With Love But It Was Only An Aro (Naruto Fanfiction)

Summary: Soulmates were supposed to be the other half of your soul. Your one true love. Ino always dreamed of finding her soulmate. Sai never wanted one. Still, they cared for each other so they were going to make it work. Somehow.

Relationships: Sai & Ino, Sai/ Ino, Sai & Team Kakashi, Sai & Team Asuma, Sai & Shin, Referenced Naruto/ Hinata, Referenced Sasuke/ Sakura, Referenced Kakashi/ Guy, Referenced Shikamaru/ Temari, Referenced Choji/ Karui

Characters: Sai, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi, Shin, Kakashi

Warnings: Minor aphobia

Other: AroWriMo 2021, Soulmate AU, Aroace Sai, Aro/ Allo Relationship, Oneshot, Aromantic Writer, Queer Themes, QPRs

Word Count: 10K

Author’s Note: This story was written for Aromantic Writing Month 2021! I’ve been wanting to write an aromantic Soulmate AU for awhile and decided to finally write it when I realized Aro Writing Month was approaching. Prompt for week 1 was Romo/ Loveless & Future which kind of aligns with this fic. 

The title comes from the song Not In Love by Natalia Kills.

This is my first time writing a soulmate AU and also my first time writing an aromantic character. I’d just like to say I don’t really like the idea of aromantic/ alloromantic soulmates because it implies they both have to compromise in some way but I’ve always wanted to see how that kind of relationship would be navigated so here we are. 

Some characters are mildly aphobic but there’s nothing hateful or extreme. It’s mostly just people not understanding.

Also this fic skips around through time a bit and begins before Sai gets his name in canon but I am just going to call him Sai because it’s kind of awkward to avoid using it. A few minor deviations from canon are taken just for convenience. 

___________

As long as Ino could remember, she’d had a massive, stark white tiger with jet black stripes wrapped around her arm.

She didn’t really question it’s presence. Everyone had marks on their bodies as far as she knew. Once she was old enough to really recognize what it was, however, she did find it a bit odd. Compared to the bright red bush clover on her mother’s upper arm and the aquamarine instrument on her father’s leg, a black and white tiger seemed strange. She tried asking about it but no one seemed to understand her confusion. They just saw it was any other soulmark with nothing out of the ordinary.

It wasn’t until she was a couple years into her training at the Academy that she really understood what the tiger on her skin meant.

She’d been sitting on the grassy hill where her Kunoichi classes were held with her friend Sakura. It was early spring and tiny flowers were beginning to sprout out of the ground. Idly, Ino plucked them out of the earth and slowly began tying their stems into a chain. What for, she did not know. She just needed something to occupy herself until the teacher arrived. She was running a bit late and once she arrived, Ino understood why.

“Hello class!” the teacher called once she reached the top of the hill, dropping a bag of books at her feet. They hit the grass with a loud thump. The bag was a lot heavier than it looked, no wonder it had slowed her down. “Sorry for the delay!”

“What are those books for?” Sakura called out, voicing the rest of the girl’s thoughts.

“Oh these?” the teacher said, picking up one of the books. “We’re going to use these books to help with the lesson. Today we’re going to talk about soulmarks.”

Soulmark. The word struck a chord in Ino’s mind. It sounded familiar yet she didn’t have the slightest idea what it meant. She sensed it was important though. Intrigued, she rested her arms on her knees and leaned forward a bit. She didn’t say anything, positive Sakura and all her newly discovered chattiness would do it for her. “What’s a soulmark?”

The teacher’s eyes glowed in a way Ino had never seen before as she sat down and threw herself into her explanation. “You see those designs on your bodies?”

Ino looked down at the tiger on her arm and felt a flash of excitement. Was she finally going to learn the meaning behind it?

“Those are soulmarks. You see, the universe is very wise and knows who we are destined to fall in love with,” the teacher told them, smiling at the wondrous expressions appearing on the girls’ faces. Ino tried to wipe the look off her own features but she couldn’t help it. This was nothing like flower arranging at all. That was fun but this was important. “That’s why we’re born with these marks. They give us hints about what our soulmates are like and tell us how to find them.”

A few girls squealed and made soft noises expressing their delight but Ino remained quiet, eyes wide as she ran her fingertips over the tiger’s curved stripes. She’d done so countless times before but now it felt different. Almost humbling. This mark told her who she was meant to fall in love with? That was amazing. Almost unbelievable. 

“I read a story book about soulmates once,” declared a girl Ino couldn’t remember the name of. “It said soulmates are each other’s one true love and we’re all meant to find each other some day. Some people have to travel really far to find their soulmate!”

“That’s true,” the teacher said with a nod, “but usually our soulmates aren’t too far away. I knew my soulmate since we were kids but we didn’t realize until we were much older. Sometimes we need time to develop as people before our soulmarks make sense. We need time to grow into them.”

“I heard that Hyuga girl has a ramen bowl on her somewhere,” another girl spoke up. She made an over exaggerated face of disgust. “The only person who eats ramen enough for the universe is that dumb Uzumaki kid. I’d bet anything they’re soulmates.”

“Now, Yaka,” the teacher chided, “it’s not nice to make assumptions about other people’s soulmates, let alone talk about their soulmarks behind their backs. Soulmarks are a private thing.”

Ino noticed the teacher didn’t scold Yaka for the way she was talking about Naruto and Hinata. She didn’t know what that was about but she didn’t really like it. She didn’t have the faintest idea who her soulmate was but she hoped no one made fun of him for her soulmark, whatever it was. As troubling as her mark was, she loved it and knew she would one day love her soulmate as much as the tiger on her arm. And he was supposed to love her just as much, right? They were destined to be together after all. Each other’s true love.

“I hope mine is Sasuke,” Sakura sighed dreamily, clutching her hands together.

Ino snapped out of her romantic daydreams and blew air out through her mouth, making her blond bangs move out of her face, as she rolled her eyes. “We’re too young to really know, Sakura. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Color is the best indicator to go off of,” the teacher told them, eyes drifting to the mark on Sakura’s hand. “Red isn’t an uncommon color in the soulmarks of the Uchiha.”

Ino’s mouth twisted in annoyance. Their teacher was indulging her? Really? At least Sakura seemed happy about it. And Ino would be lying if she said she didn’t think Sakura’s mark may one day fit their classmate. The scarlet feather of a hawk covered the back of her hand, the middle bleeding into a pale purple that stretched the shaft into a long snake trailing up her arm. It was a pretty cool soulmark, Ino had to admit. Two animals in one mark? And so colorful. Maybe that meant Sakura’s soulmate had a lot of character to him. Or that he really liked animals. Did Sasuke like animals? But like the others, it made her uneasy about her own.

“What if your soulmark doesn’t have any colors?” Ino asked, raising her hand. When the teacher’s eyes flickered to her arm, Ino put her arm down and covered her mark with her hand. She tried her best not to look down in shame to no avail then immediately hated herself for it. Then she decided she hated her teacher for the look she was giving her. How dare she make Ino feel ashamed of her soulmark and, by extension, her soulmate? 

The teacher’s judgemental look vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a cheery facade, and she handed Ino the book she was holding. “That’s a good question! Everyone, take a book and try to find any characteristics that might match your soulmark. You might be able to learn something about your soulmate!”

Ino wasn’t oblivious to the fact her question was ignored but Sakura was tugging at the book in her hands, excited to see what it’s contents could tell her. Ino shook her negativity away and laughed, scolding her friend into settling down and sharing the book.

They spent the whole afternoon flipping through the pages, gazing at the beautiful soulmarks within, and Ino found nothing about colorless soulmarks. Like many things regarding her soulmate, she didn’t know what to think of that.

___________

Sai thought he was markless until he was eight.

He knew what soulmarks were, of course. They were impossible to miss, especially since he lived in such close quarters with everyone he trained with. He’d just never seen one on his own body so he just figured he didn’t have one. And he was pretty okay with that. 

This batch of ROOT recruits were being trained in a Hidden Mist style so they spent a fair amount of time on the water. The instructor had begun teaching the Water Natured recruits how to use Water Style: Liquid Bullets recently so today that part of the group was polishing their jutsu while the rest of the recruits practiced dodging on a moving surface of water. It was a good exercise for everyone.

The only problem was all the Water Style users kept nailing Sai with their jutsu.

Normally Sai wouldn’t mind. He was a fast ninja and he was pretty good at dodging. The only problem was that there were so many and a few were bound to hit now and again. It was just that it was more than a few. And he seemed to be the only one getting hit. It was enough that the instructor asked him to get off the water and practice his Earth Style on his own until they were done.

“Maybe we can ask the instructor if you can wear a shirt next time,” Shin said casually once the session was over and the group was heading back to base. “I mean, it’ll get all wet if you fall in but it’s better than getting hit with Liquid Bullets the whole time.”

“What?” Sai peered at his brother, confused. “Why would wearing a shirt change anything?”

“Um, because of your soulmark?”

“I have a soulmark?”

Shin’s hands dropped from their place folded behind his head as he came to a stop to gape at his brother. “You didn’t know you have a soulmark?”

“No. Should I have?”

“Yes!” Shin exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Soulmarks are important! They tell you who you’re going to fall in love with and- wait. If you didn’t know you had a soulmark, why did you think everyone kept shooting you with their jutsu?”

“I thought maybe it was some kind of strategy to pick off a weak link.”

“You’re not a weak link!” Shin exclaimed, louder this time. Sai didn’t really understand what he was getting upset over but he hoped he’d get over it soon. The instructors didn’t really like it when the students got worked up like this. “Your soulmark just makes a giant target on your back. It’s easy to aim for so everyone goes for it.”

“Oh.” That made sense, he supposed. “What is it? My soulmark, I mean.”

“It’s a flower. I don’t know what kind.”

“What does it mean to have a flower soulmark?”

Shin shrugged. “I have no idea. I think I heard flowers are kind of rare since all girls like flowers. Hey, maybe that means your soulmate is a boy. The universe might think boys liking flowers is weird enough to make it soulmark-worthy.”

“I don’t think it’s weird for boys to like flowers.”

“So you think your soulmate is a boy?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really care.”

“Come on,” Shin whined. “You’ve got to care a little bit!”

“Not really. I’ve never wanted a soulmate.”

“Really?” Shin sounded surprised, far more surprised than Sai thought he would. “Well, maybe that’s just because you didn’t think you had one. Maybe now it’ll change.”

Sai didn’t think so but he didn’t tell Shin. He didn’t think he’d understand.

________

Ino was nine when she felt a blinding pain shooting up from her soulmark.

It wasn’t sudden. In fact, it was very slow. A gentle static that turned into overwhelming agony. Ino had felt emotions through the soulbond before, however rare, but never to this degree. The initial surprise was faint, easily mistakable for her own feelings, but the adrenaline and fear that followed most certainly were not.

Iruka seemed to notice something was wrong because by the time the first wave of crippling despair hit, he’d already yelled for a student to take charge of the class and had ushered her out into the hallway. She was dimly aware of what was happening around her through it all. If she’d been more clear headed, she would’ve worried more about keeping it together in the presence of her classmates but right now she could only think about the hurt, fear, and grief rippling through her. 

Her soulmark burned, sending bolts of emotion up her body, welling her throat shut and tightening her chest with raw, unfiltered emotion. It was like water boiling up in a kettle that exploded into a scalding ocean instead of steam. Like someone had injected lightning into her body and let it fry her heart. Like being surrounded by a heavy cloud of darkness that sucked any light out of her. 

Never before had she felt such a thing and she didn’t know how to handle it. She didn’t understand where it was coming from or why this was happening to her. But then it just… stopped. Like nothing had happened.

She regained control of her breath as the sharp grip around her receded. She felt the sobs die in her throat and clean oxygen fill her lungs once again. She hadn’t even noticed she’d been crying until now. Tears stained her face and Iruka’s shoulder but there were fewer than before. It was now that she realized she had collapsed on the ground in the hallway, body pressed against the rough wood floor. The realization didn’t make her want to get up any more though. She could lie here for the rest of her life for all she cared. She kind of wanted to. Lying here in this sleepy, numb fog that clouded her mind sounded like a good idea.

“Are you alright?” Iruka asked, her sensei’s worried tone drawing her back to reality.

“What happened?” Ino groaned, sitting up to meet his gaze. The concern was evident on his face but he looked relieved to see that she was okay. She felt a prickle of guilt knowing she was responsible for his worry. What was that anyway? It just came out of nowhere then left just as fast. Absently, her hand drifted to her soulmark. Any echo of its earlier noise was long gone. It was as silent as the dead of night. “I feel…”

“I think something happened to your soulmate,” Iruka told her softly, helping her sit up against the wall. He shifted a bit so he sat across from her. For that, Ino was grateful. She didn’t think she could handle getting up right now.

“My soulmate?”

“You’ve felt things through your soulbond before, right?” Iruka asked. Ino nodded as she wiped her face free of any stray tears. “Well, sometimes when our soulmates are in a lot of pain or distress, we can feel it through the soulbond.”

“How come?” Ino asked, genuinely curious. The pain she felt was probably nothing compared to what he was feeling so she could stomach a bit of it for her soulmate’s sake but she didn’t understand why the universe would place that upon her or anyone else. That just seemed cruel.

“Well…” Iruka trailed off for a moment, hesitating, before the words came to him. “Soulmates are a big part of our lives. They’re the other half of our soul. Our bond doesn’t begin when we meet. We usually love our partners a long time before we meet them.”

Ino nodded, following along so far. Sure, she didn’t know a thing about her soulmate, save what her soulmark told her, but he had a special place in her heart that only grew with each spark she felt through the bond. He was one of the most important things to her in the whole world. It felt kind of strange to call it love but any other word felt short of capturing what she felt. He was essentially a stranger yet, at the same time, he was the furthest thing from it.

“Soulmates support each other throughout their whole lives,” Iruka explained. “When our soulmates feel pain, we can comfort them through our soulbonds.”

“How?” Ino asked, leaning forward a bit. She desperately wanted to. The hopelessness and agony that had rooted itself in her chest had faded but if her soulmate was still feeling anything close to it…

“Just think about how much you love them,” Iruka told her with a lopsided smile, “and how much you want to be there for him. Try to focus those feelings through your soulbond.”

Ino nodded and tried her hardest to do as her sensei instructed her. But how could she express feelings for someone she’d never met? She could imagine her soulmate and the future they’d have together but that wasn’t real. It was all in her head and all she had to go off of inspiration-wise were stories and dreams. She was still young enough to indulge in the occasional fantasy or day dream but she was also a ninja. Ninja were realists and realistically, she knew nothing about what he was like and she didn’t have a real reason to love him the way she did.

But that didn’t mean the love she had wasn’t real. It was ingrained deep into her being, as deep as the bond tying her to her partner. It was a love that made warmth hum in her chest and the corners of her mouth twitch into a smile at the mere thought of it. Love so powerful she couldn’t put it into words. She just didn’t have the vocabulary and she didn’t think the right words even existed.

It didn’t make sense but it was real. The universe, spirits, god, sages, whatever was up there- It had made a decision and it was a good one. There was no reason to believe it but Ino knew it like a universal truth. He was destined for her and she was more than happy to be destined for him. Ino loved her other half however little sense it made. She’d always wanted him to know that and maybe now she could tell him through the soulbond if she tried hard enough.

She didn’t know what he was feeling. She didn’t know what he could possibly be experiencing that would make him feel this way. She just hoped that maybe she could help, even if it was just a little bit.

“How will I know if he can feel it?” Ino asked after a while. She felt a lot better. Her breath had regulated, the dampness in her eyes had dried, and her body felt a lot less heavy than it had when she sat down.

“There’s not really any way to tell immediately,” Iruka told her, getting to his knees before standing up. He offered Ino a hand to pull her up. She accepted it and began following him back to the classroom. “Your soulmate is probably going through a lot right now and he might not know how to respond or feel ready to. But, I’ve heard that soulmates sometimes send their thanks a few weeks after something big happens and feelings start passing through the bond a bit more easily. I’m sure he’ll be sending you some happiness in no time.”

Iruka’s words were a comfort and Ino momentarily forgot her worries and skipped back to class. But weeks later when Iruka asked her if she and her soulmate were doing better, Ino couldn’t answer. There wasn’t a hint of emotion coming through the bond anymore.

_________

It was over seven years since Shin died before Sai was shirtless around anyone again.

It wasn’t really something he’d thought about. Who thought about that kind of thing? He had plenty of other things to think about. His missions, crossing faces out of his bingo books, his art… Being shirtless was such an insignificant thing in his life that he never spared it a second thought. His training had ended with his brother’s death and there wasn’t really a need for him to change clothes or go swimming with someone. And without Shin or anyone else looking at his back, he’d almost forgotten his soulmark. There were a few flashes of feeling through the bond now and again but Sai was usually too dull to notice and he usually dismissed them without question. The existence of his soulmark didn’t affect his life in the slightest.

Imagine his confusion when Naruto wouldn’t stop staring at him after Captain Yamato dumped the two of them in a hot spring together. 

“Why do you keep looking at me, dickless?” Sai asked, smiling at how Naruto’s face soured at the nickname. He’d done well choosing it. “I was under the impression you were tired of being around me.”

“I am!” Naruto snapped indignantly. He crossed his arms and was silent for a moment. When Sai didn’t say anything, he caved and explained himself. “I… I was looking for your soulmark. Do you have one?”

Sai paused for a moment before nodding. “I do.”

Naruto’s gaze softened a bit and the hostility drained off his face. “It’s on your back, isn’t it? I didn’t see anything before you got in the water.”

“Why do you care?”

“I didn’t really think about it until you came in here and I didn’t see anything on you so I thought you might be markless. It’s… I dunno, it’s harder to stay mad at you knowing you’ve got a soulmate.”

“Why?

Naruto shrugged casually. “Knowing you love someone just makes you feel more human.”

If Sai were an expressive man, he would’ve made a face. One of anger or horror, he didn’t know. Angry Sai would’ve splashed Naruto in the face with a handful of water. Horrified Sai would’ve come up with a bad excuse and hurried out of the hot spring. But Sai wasn’t an expressive man so instead, he shut his mouth and sank into the water, trying not to think about the implication of his new teammate’s words. ___________

Ino met Sai at The Barbeque Place.

The Barbeque Place wasn’t actually called The Barbeque Place. They just called it that enough that it deserved to be called The Barbeque Place with the capitalization of the title and everything. It was actually called Yakiniku Q but no one cared. Team Asuma would convince everyone it was called The Barbeque Place until the owner changed the sign or they’d die trying.

Going to The Barbeque Place was the only way to properly celebrate anything Team Asuma style. Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru had only seen Naruto a couple of times since he returned to the village so when they saw him coming back from a mission, they knew they had to grab him then or they’d never get the chance to drag him to the restaurant and welcome their friend home.

The fact they had a new teammate with them was an added bonus.

Sai seemed nice. Kind of strange though. Ino didn’t know if it was just odd having someone new on Team 7 after so long or if it was just Sai’s general personality. She supposed she liked him but if it was anyone less good looking, Ino would definitely be upset Sasuke was getting replaced.

“So you’re ANBU, right?” Shikamaru asked the newcomer when the uncooked food had arrived and the early stages of conversation were over.

“How could you tell?”

“The uniform was a bit of a giveaway.”

“Noted.”

“ANBU?” Choji echoed, looking intrigued. His brief pause was long enough for Ino to take the opportunity to swipe a couple pieces of meat off the grill and shovel them onto Sai’s plate. Apparently pausing did not mean he was distracted though. “Ino!”

“Be nice! You don’t want to scare him off with your gross manners this early, do you?”

“I guess not…” Choji mumbled sullenly. His demeanor changed again in a heartbeat when a piece of perfectly cooked meat caught his eye. He plucked it up with his chopsticks and plopped it into his mouth, chewing the slices of beef happily, anger forgotten. 

Shikamaru, always the sharp one, picked up where Choji left off before his distraction. “So what’s that like? ANBU, I mean.”

Sai smiled passively. “I don’t think it’s too different from what shinobi teams do, just more isolated and the training is more rigorous.” 

“Really?” Sakura said, half distracted by trying to nab a piece of meat before Choji got his chopsticks on it. “I don’t know a lot about ANBU, even working so close with Lady Tsunade, but I’ve heard some bad rumors over the years.”

“Eh? Really? But Kakashi-sensei always seems happy wherever he talks about it,” Naruto replied. He swiped a piece of meat off Sai’s plate and popped it into his mouth before anyone could say anything. Ino would’ve scolded him but Sai didn’t seem to care. In fact, he seemed amused. It was hard believing someone as soft-spoken and gentle as Sai was a member of ANBU.

“Kakashi-sensei is Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura responded, brushing him off. “He doesn’t tell us anything and you never know if he’s actually happy or if he just hit a juicy part of those pervy books he’s always reading.”

“Eh, good point,” Naruto conceded through a full mouth, “but now we have Sai here to tell us stuff! I bet he’s a lot easier to talk to than Kakashi-sensei.”

Sai’s face remained passive but Choji and even Shikamaru seemed interested. Noticing, Sai sighed and gave in. “What do you want to know?”

“So you said ANBU was really lonely, right?” Shikamaru said, casually taking a piece of meat. Unsurprisingly, Choji let him and didn’t protest. “What about soulmates?”

“What about them?”

“I’ve heard they don’t let people search for their soulmates,” Sakura spoke up as she put a few vegetables on the grill. “They just have to live knowing their soulmate is out there wondering where they are and why they haven’t found them yet.”

“Well I heard they don’t let ANBU have soulmates at all,” Choji said, trying to wave Sakura’s chopsticks away from the grill. “Like they burn them off or make them stay covered all the time and that kind of thing.”

“I can confirm that isn’t true,” Sai said with a smile, sounding humored. “A lot of people have soulmates. Some of the best two-man teams and small units are made of soulmates, actually. We’re just not allowed to search outside of ANBU. My instructors always said it compromises our security.”

“That’s too bad,” Naruto commented and poked Sakura’s hand with his chopsticks. She yelped and pulled her hand away, allowing Choji to successfully steer the vegetables away from the grill and put down another couple pieces of beef. “But now that you’re out of ANBU, you can look for your soulmate, right?”

Sai said nothing and shrugged half-heartedly. 

“You do want to find your soulmate, right?” Ino asked, putting down her chopsticks to look at him instead of swooping in to aid Sakura. Choji really had to eat his greens. Naruto too but it wasn’t every day her friends got a new teammate. Right now he was a bit more interesting than a poking war.

This time, Sai had a clear answer to the question. “Not particularly.” 

“How?!” Ino’s plate clattered on the table slightly. She put a hand on it to stop it from falling but she could feel herself getting even more worked up. She sensed her friends giving her confused looks at her outburst. She tried her best to ignore them. “Your soulmate- Your soulmate is the other half of your soul! Without them, you’re incomplete. How could you not want to find them?”

Again, Sai shrugged.

“I’ve just never been interested in having a romantic relationship. Or any kind of relationship,” Sai said neutrally. He smiled and this time it was kind of infuriating instead of cute. “If it happens, it happens but I don’t particularly want to seek it out.”

“Isn’t it your destiny though?” Ino pressed. “To find your true love?”

“I thought you’d given up on that stuff,” Choji commented idly as he placed some new pieces of meat on the grill, “since you haven’t felt anything through your soulbond in years.”

Something inside Ino snapped. “Well, you’re just as far behind as me, fatso!”

In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the best move but getting the restaurant destroyed by Choji’s Human Boulder was worth it to escape that conversation. _________

It was well after the war had ended by the time the village’s Intelligence Division summoned Sai to lock up the members of the Seven Swordsmen that he’d sealed. 

The village was recovering well but the months after the end of the war had been chaotic. There were far too many things more important to worry about than who’d sealed their enemies and where their bodies were so Fuguki Suikazan and Jinin Akebino’s scrolls just ended up sitting in Sai’s apartment. It was only when someone from the Third Division was retelling the war story that everyone remembered they hadn’t given the sealed bodies to the Intelligence Division. Sai hadn’t really thought it was important but apparently it was important enough for the Hokage to send Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji running to his apartment in the middle of the day to retrieve them.

“I can’t believe you had these things just lying around for a whole year. What a drag…” Shikamaru complained as the shinobi carried the two scrolls through the front doors of the Analysis Division’s building. Between the four of them, it was a bit awkward but they were managing. Sai was surprised he and Lee had been able to carry these things around on the battlefield. Right now, they seemed so heavy. “I wish I’d known Intel involved so much running around before I joined…”

“Aw, you like it,” Choji said cheerfully. It went unsaid that Ino and Shikamaru were working in the Intelligence Division because there was no one else to fill their fathers’ shoes but Sai heard it in his voice. “And all this running around gives us the chance to see our friends more often!”

“You don’t even work here. You can see our friends whenever you want!” Ino groaned as they began heading into the underground storage unit. “Slow down guys, I don’t really want to fall down the stairs in front of all these Jonin. But he’s right, Sai. It’s nice seeing you. It feels like it’s been forever.”

Sai hummed in agreement and tried his best to convey the joy he got from seeing his friends again. After seeing Shin again and mastering the Crouched Tiger Bullet, it came a lot easier to him but years of underusing his facial expressions made it less than natural. “Indeed. Where are we putting these?”

Everyone looked to Shikamaru. The boy didn’t seem fazed. “These guys are dead, right? We should transfer them to body scrolls. Easier for the Analysis Team to… analyze them or whatever whenever they decide to. You know how to use that kind of sealing, right Sai?”

Sai nodded as they reached the bottom of the stairwell. “I do.”

“Great,” Shikamaru grunted as the group reached the bottom of the stairs and dropped the heavy scrolls on the concrete floor. “Ugh, do they really need to be this big?”

“It’s a difficult sealing jutsu. It requires a lot of ink.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s start unrolling this thing. Sai, there are some body scrolls over by the storage unit. Go grab whatever one you think will work best.”

Sai nodded and did as he was told, drifting off to the edges of the basement in search of the right tools. He wasn’t terribly experienced in any kind of sealing jutsu other than his own and he took his time finding a compatible scroll but after a couple minutes, he realized Team Asuma’s usual bickering had died down and the three had fallen into an unusual silence. Concerned, he stuck his head out of the storage area to check on them. “Are you alright?”

“Sai… Come here please,” Ino said in an unusual tone. Sai frowned. Her pale green eyes were fixed on something on the ground. Was something wrong with his seal? Had one of the Swordsmen somehow escaped? They were dead so it wouldn’t be the end of the world but it would be kind of a hassle to track down the body.

He stepped into the entry area and saw nothing out of the ordinary. One of the scrolls, Fuguki’s scroll, was unraveled, exposing the seal work and the swordsman's trapped form. Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji were just… staring at it? Sai couldn’t fathom why. Maybe they thought this method of sealing was immoral? It really wasn’t different from any other kind of sealing. Was the sight of the body on the page unsettling them?

“Sai, what is this?” Choji said in an uncharacteristically empty voice. 

Sai took a few steps to join them beside the scroll. He peered at it, trying to see anything that was out of place or didn’t belong. Fuguki was still there, held in by his sealing tiger’s sharp claws. Was his sword in there? No, no it wasn’t. They’d returned the Seven Swords to the Hidden Cloud a while ago. He remembered because that was when Choji had realized he and that girl Karui were soulmates. It’d been a whole thing. “I don’t see anything wrong.”

Ino held up her marked arm and Sai suddenly realized what was happening here.

“...Oh.”

“Oh? Oh?! That’s all you have to say?” Shikamaru practically shouted, taking an angry step toward him. “Ino- she- You saw her soulmark the day you met us. Why didn’t you say anything? Do you know how long she- Are you really that heartless?”

Sai flinched at his words. He didn’t mean to but he couldn’t help it. Regaining some level of emotion also meant losing some of his composure. He hoped the others hadn’t noticed but he wasn’t the hopeful type. “I…”

Choji put a hand on Shikamaru’s shoulder. He looked just as upset as his friend but Choji was too gentle and kind-hearted to take out his anger on anyone. And for that, Sai was eternally grateful. “Shikamaru, maybe we should go. Shouldn’t this kind of thing be between soulmates?”

Shikamaru looked like he wanted to argue but he shook himself and took a deep breath to calm down. Sai knew Shikamaru could get scary when he wanted to and hurting his friend definitely put Sai in danger of becoming a victim of his intellect. Thank the sages for Choji or Sai was fairly certain he’d have a Shadow Stitch aimed at his head right now.

“Just… Just talk to her, man,” Shikamaru sighed tiredly, sounding several times his age, and turned to head back up the stairs, Choji trailing behind him. Sai half expected him to turn around to give him some kind of warning or threat not to mess this up and hurt his teammate but he didn’t. He just kept walking until it was just him and Ino. Alone. In a basement. With a dead rogue-ninja and a tiger staring at them. Not really the best setting for a heart to heart.

The two didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just pale green eyes boring into inky black. What was there to say? What was someone supposed to say when they found their soulmate? What if it should have been obvious they were soulmates from the start and one hadn’t said anything? What was someone who never wanted a soulmate supposed to do when his soulmate so clearly longed for one? Sai had so many questions and the answers to none.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Ino asked, breaking the silence.

“I didn’t know.”

“Don’t give me that.”

It was true, in a sense. He really didn’t know. Sai had recognized the tiger when he saw it for the first time but only in the back of his mind. He was far from a master of emotions and farther from a master of his jutsu. Was the jutsu really even his then? It didn’t feel like it so maybe he didn’t recognize the mark on Ino’s arm as his own. 

Still, it was his art style. He’d recognized it immediately and always would. His art was such a big part of him and he didn’t dream of denying it so that couldn’t have been it. And it couldn’t be his lack of emotions because he wasn’t really lacking them, they were just suppressed. As guilty as it made him feel, it was very possible the truth was just that he didn’t want a soulmate. That he didn’t want to know what the universe had planned for him when it came to love.

“It just never occurred to me.”

Sai wasn’t lying but Ino didn’t seem to believe him. No one ever believed him. Not when it came to soulmates. But he wanted Ino to understand so he tried again.

“Remember when we met? When I said I didn’t want to look for my soulmate?”

Ino snorted and put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t need to look. She was right in front of you.”

Okay, he walked right into that one. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I would’ve said that to anyone.”

“Why?” Ino asked, her voice cracking. Sai noticed for the first time that her eyes were glossy. He felt… something. He couldn’t quite identify what it was yet but he knew it was a bad feeling. He couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry though. “I’ve always wanted to meet my soulmate, even before I really understood what my mark meant. I can’t imagine not wanting to find the one person who’s meant to love you unconditionally.”

That made Sai hesitate. He’d never heard it phrased that way particularly. It was making him doubt himself. Why had she said that? She didn’t know how much Sai struggled when it came to maintaining friendships or how lonely he’d been all those years after Shin died. She had no idea how rocky his relationship with love was or how much he craved it. She couldn’t fathom how much it pained him knowing it was always out of reach. Or maybe she could, with the soulbond and all. He cleared his throat. “I’m glad I met you and if I have to have a soulmate, I’m glad it’s you.”

“If you have to have one? What, do you wish you didn’t have one?”

“Sometimes.” Ino’s face dropped but Sai recovered quickly. “I think soulmates are wonderful but I’ve just felt like they’re for me, I suppose.”

“Are you one of those people who believe we should shape our own destiny?”

“No. Yes. Maybe? I don’t know.”

Ino laughed a bit and it sounded fond rather than angry. It gave Sai a spike of confidence. He smiled bashfully. 

“My apologies. I’m not very… articulate when it comes to how I feel. I’ve really only reconnected with my emotions since the war ended,” Sai admitted. Ino opened her mouth but Sai stopped her before she could say what he knew she was going to say. “And my emotional struggles have nothing to do with how I feel about having a soulmate. I think. I remember talking about it with my brother before…”

Something flashed in Ino’s eyes. “Your brother died when you were ten?”

Sai nodded. “You felt it through the soulbond?”

“And nothing after it,” Ino replied with a nod, “until the war. Probably when you saw him again.”

Sai looked down. “...I cried. I hadn’t cried since he died the first time.”

Ino made a sympathetic noise. Sai wasn’t really sure if it made him feel comforted or patronized. Ino seemed to sense he didn’t want to talk about it and that was probably for the better. “So you’ve talked about it with him? How you feel about soulmates?”

“Having a soulmate,” Sai corrected. How he felt about soulmates versus how he felt about having a soulmate were very different. “And yes. I didn’t know I had a soulmark until he told me. But… He never really understood. He was a romantic. I don’t think he really knew that some people just weren’t like that.”

“Like what?”

Sai’s face furrowed with frustration as he tried to find words. “I… I know love. I love my brother. I love Naruto. And Sakura. And maybe Sasuke. I love Kakashi-senpai and Captain Yamato. I love my art and my books. And I love… you. And I know what I feel is real. I think I’ve always felt it, even when I thought I didn’t have emotions and before I knew you were my soulmate. I like being with you but I don’t love you like Shikamaru loves Temari or like Sakura loves Sasuke. Is that okay?”

Sai hadn’t realized he was looking down until Ino took his hands, startling him into looking up at her. She looked a bit sad but not disappointed or angry. She offered him a gentle smile. “Yeah, it’s definitely okay, Sai. I mean, this isn’t really what I expected meeting my soulmate to be like but I’m glad it’s you. I don’t think I’ll mind missing out on some romantic fantasy if it means I get to be with you. If that’s what you want.”

Slowly, Sai nodded and curled his fingers around hers. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give you a romantic fantasy but I hope I can still make you happy. I want to see where this goes.”

_______________

Two years passed and Ino knew she and Sai weren’t really in a relationship.

They did couples things sometimes. They went out together fairly regularly. They ate at nice restaurants and went on quiet walks through the village. Sai sometimes slept over at her house and she sometimes slept at his apartment. Sai went with her to Naruto and Hinata’s wedding. And Shikamaru and Temari’s wedding. And Sasuke and Sakura’s. And Choji and Karui’s... There was a shocking number of weddings recently.

It was never romantic though. Their “dates” often had a few tag-alongs or didn’t seem all that different from what friends normally did. Sleeping together was never anything more than sleeping. She could count the number of times they’d just shared the bed on one hand. And they never slow danced at the weddings. Their friends didn’t even acknowledge they were together. Maybe they didn’t know. Or maybe they did and just thought they were just having fun with each other until they met their real soulmates. That was a depressing thought.

Ino tried not to let it bother her. She really liked Sai, that never changed, and she enjoyed all the things they did together. It was fun. Maybe even more fun than it would be with someone else since there weren’t any expectations and there weren’t dozens of eyes watching everything they did. Still, part of her longed to have the future she’d always expected. She tried to ignore the part of her before it became too much to keep inside.

But as a clan head, she couldn’t ignore it forever.

She was in some Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi Clan meeting when it came up. Normally these meetings were uneventful, just a bunch of clan elders hooting about babies and food or whatever, so Ino had been zoning out while they bickered and shuffled papers around the table. But with Shikamaru and Choji both married, she should have expected it.

“...so that brings us to the issue of heirs,” an elder said, snapping Ino’s attention back to the meeting.

All eyes in the room immediately fell on her. She sat up a bit straighter. “What?”

“The Nara Clan head and Akimichi Clan heir have already found their partners and are close to securing their clans’ futures,” the elder went on. Her name was… Ino wanted to say Chizo? Wait, no. That was an Akimichi name. Chizo was that one over there with her hand deep in a plate of cookies. This was a Yamanaka. What was her name? Ino couldn’t remember for the life of her. “The Yamanaka Clan on the other hand…”

“You think I can’t lead the clan on my own?”

Another elder made a noncomitmental noise. This one’s name was Ezume, Ino was pretty sure. Or maybe Ezuko? Either way, he was a Nara. She knew that much. By the sages, she really should know her own clan elders’ names. She’d known them all her life. How was she this bad with names? It was like she’d gotten worse over the years. “We know your capabilities, Ino, but every clan head must have a husband or wife to help shoulder the responsibilities of leading the clan and bring life to the next generation.”

Ino could practically feel Shikamaru and Choji making faces behind her. The elders were trying to be nice about it but they were basically telling them their wives only mattered to bear children for them and keep some stress off their shoulders. If the clans’ stability didn’t rely on the elders so much, Ino would’ve dragged Temari and Karui in here to speak their minds and slap some sense into them years ago.

The Yamanaka elder was speaking again. Ino wanted to say her name was Fumiko but she was pretty sure she was just thinking about her cousin Fū. They looked kind of similar. What ever happened to him? She hadn’t seen him in years. “You’ve had plenty of time to search for your soulmate. If you haven’t found him, we will choose-”

“Ino’s found her soulmate,” Shikamaru interrupted. His voice dull and bored but his eyes were sharp and telling. Ino wanted to punch him but he was out of reach and she didn’t think the elders would appreciate it much.

“Oh?” the elder, Chizo this time, said, looking interested.

“I’ve heard nothing of this,” another Yamanaka spoke up, sounding annoyed. This one was named Haneen, or at least Ino was pretty sure. Close enough. Ino would consider that a win if she wasn’t struggling to think of a response.

“Uh…”

The elders looked displeased. “Why have we heard nothing of this?”

“Um…. 

Ino looked to Shikamaru and Choji for help but they were already making a break for the door, the traitorous bastards. She turned back to the elders’ angry faces, swallowed away her uneasiness, and steeled herself for the inevitable discomfort that was coming her way. ___________________

Sai was coming back from a mission with Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi and Yamato when he saw Shikamaru and Choji barreling towards him with panic on their faces.

“We didn’t do it!” Naruto yelped immediately, practically springing away from them. “Tell Granny Tsunade it was just part of the mission!”

The two skidded to a stop and Naruto was met with confusion. “What?” 

“...Are you not coming from the Hokage’s office?”

“...No? We were just at a clan meeting. What were you doing?”

“Nothing!”

Sasuke shook his head and sighed while Sakura pinched her brow in exasperation. Sai and Yamato glanced at Kakashi then shared a deadpan look. Naruto really was an idiot sometimes. The Sixth Hokage was standing right next to them. Tsunade was finding out no matter what Shikamaru and Choji heard from them.

Sakura, always the most polite of the bunch, offered Shikamaru and Choji a smile. “Ignore them. Did you need us for something? Do I need to be at the hospital? Or did Kakashi-sensei lose some important paperwork again?”

“If it was really important they wouldn’t let me lose it,” Kakashi piped up lazily.

“We actually came here for Sai,” Choji spoke up. For once, he didn’t have his trusty bag of potato chips in hand. And Ino wasn’t there. That was concerning.

“Is something wrong?”

“Kind of,” Shikamaru said, looking a bit guilty as he scratched the back of his head. “So… I may or may not have told our clan elders that you and Ino are soulmates and they may or may not start harassing you about marrying her.”

Shikamaru spoke quickly and quietly and it took Sai a moment to realize what he was saying. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, however, didn’t seem to have the same problem.

“You and Ino are soulmates?!” the three screeched in unison.

“I… Yes?” Sai’s head swiveled to look at them in surprise. “You didn’t know?”

“How would we know?” Sakura asked. “Neither of you ever told us!”

“You’ve seen both our soulmarks.”

“Soulmarks are confusing!” Naruto exclaimed and Sai realized he probably should’ve known better than to expect Naruto to connect the dots. He and Hinata practically had the same soulmark, just in different colors, and it’d still taken them years to figure it out.

“We went together to your weddings.”

“I thought you two were just going as friends,” Sasuke admitted and he wasn’t exactly wrong. 

That made Sai hesitate. Were they friends? Or were they dating? How was he supposed to remember where they’d been in the relationship all that time ago?

“I’ve spent so much time with just the two of you,” Sakura said. “Are you saying I was third-wheeling on your dates?”

“I mean… No?”

“Wait, Ino’s soulmark is on her arm. Did you know since you met her after our first mission? Have you been dating since then?”

“No.” That was a question Sai could answer confidently. Kind of. Oh by the sages, he really didn’t know what he and Ino were doing, was he?

Sasuke opened his mouth to continue pressing him but Kakashi put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him before he could begin. “You five run along. I’d like to talk to Sai alone. Yamato, make sure they don’t destroy anything. Any more than it’s already been destroyed, at least.”

“No promises,” Yamato said drily and began ushering the younger ninja away from the former ANBU. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

“I want ramen!”

“I want barbecue!”

“Ramen!”

“Barbecue!” 

“That’s literally all we eat! Can’t you two pick something else?”

Sai watched the group walk away, bickering until they were out of sight, before turning his attention back to Kakashi. The man was watching him with a peculiar look in his eye that Sai didn’t understand. He waited for him to say something but Kakashi remained silent and the seconds soon stretched into minutes.

“Let’s take a walk,” Kakashi said eventually and Body Flickered onto the rooftops. Sai followed him without missing a beat.

“Why did you want to talk to me, senpai?” Sai said once it became clear Kakashi wasn’t going to say something first.

“You looked stressed when Shikamaru said the clan might suggest you and Ino getting married. It takes a lot to get a reaction out of you,” Kakashi said nonchalantly. “I just want you to know you can talk to me if you need someone.”

“I don’t know if there’s really anything to say.” That wasn’t really true but after explaining himself to Shin, and his teammates, and Ino, and Ino’s teammates, Sai had accepted he didn’t really have the vocabulary to express how he felt. But it never stopped him from trying. “I’ve never wanted romance. I like what I have with Ino but it isn’t romance. Everyone expects us to… be like every other soulmate. Be in love, get married, have kids. I’m not really opposed to marrying her but I don’t really want to. The only reason we would is for clan politics. Marriage is supposed to be this ceremony of love and I just don’t… I don’t really feel what everyone else is feeling.”

“Because of your time in ROOT?”

That question was expected but Sai tried not to let it bother him. He was not successful. “I don’t know. Maybe but I don’t think so.”

“Is it a lack of attraction?”

“What?” 

That was such a strange question but Kakashi didn’t really seem to understand Sai’s confusion. “Is it a lack of attraction?”

“I don’t… I suppose she’s attractive.” Sai never really thought about her that way but he knew other people thought she was. He’d been hearing it for so long that he believed it. But were those his own feelings or just the influence of others? He remembered wanting to call her ugly when they met but he thought everyone was ugly so he’d called her gorgeous because he thought she’d like it. And he just kept doing it. He’d done it so much that it’d just stuck with him and he’d forgotten the origin of the nickname. By the sages, was every compliment he’d given her the offspring of a lie?

Surprisingly, a look of understanding spread across Kakashi’s masked features. “So you aren’t attracted to her?”

“I just said she’s attractive.”

“That isn’t the same as being attracted to her.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A few years ago, Master Jiraiya gave me this book he’d written that was rejected by his publishers,” Kakashi began and Sai didn’t really know where he was going with this. “You know he writes romances, right? Well, he got this piece of criticism that said if you’re going to write about love and relationships, you need to understand that it’s not all romantic. Or sexual. You can imagine how confused Jiraiya was.”

Sai was kind of lost but he nodded along anyway.

“So he did some research. And not the kind of research he normally does. He actually talked to anthropologists and professors from different nations, I think. He wrote a character that didn’t experience romantic or sexual attraction. She still knew love and could appreciate a pretty face but she knew she wasn’t quite experiencing what everyone else was feeling.” Kakashi paused. “The word for not experiencing romantic attraction is aromantic. The word for not experiencing sexual attraction is asexual. They’re not really common words, it took Jiraiya a long time to come across them, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t heard them…”

Kakashi trailed off and Sai’s brain tried to catch up. Sexual attraction? Romantic attraction? They were different? Romantic feelings were supposed to be connected by some kind of desire? Desire to do what? That just sounded really weird. Sai had never heard someone phrase it that way yet it made sense in the most confusing way. “So… wanting to have a romantic relationship has to do with attraction?”

Kakashi shrugged. “Beats me. I’ve never felt that way. I didn’t actually know I’m asexual or aromantic until I read the book and I saw myself in that character.”

“You’re like me?” Sai said in surprise. Almost instantly, his world felt a bit brighter. Like everything was grey and he was seeing color for the first time.

Kakashi nodded. “You know Guy’s my soulmate?”

“Really?” That was actually really shocking but both men covered themselves at pretty much all times, leaving no room for a soulmark to peak out, so there was no way Sai ever would’ve seen either of their soulmarks. Maybe there was a reason for that. Probably not. “I thought you two were just friends.”

“We are, in a way, but we’re also more than that,” Kakashi said, slowing down a bit to try to find the right words. “Guy and I tried to have a relationship when we realized we’re soulmates but it didn’t really work. Guy prefers women and I’m not even sure if he likes men like that. We haven’t talked about it in awhile. And I never really liked anyone that way. But once I heard the words aromantic and asexual, I felt whole. Like I could explain my feelings and I wasn’t missing anything. I didn’t feel broken anymore. After I told him, it was like everything started making sense.”

“Are you two still together?”

Kakashi nodded. “Things got a lot easier when we gave up… The word Jiraiya used in his notes was amatonormativity. That’s kind of like, um, the belief that romantic and sexual relationships are the peak of human experience and everyone should prioritize those kinds of relationships over everything else. You and Ino don’t have to do what our society expects you to do. You can just do whatever feels right.”

Sai nodded slowly. Ino had mentioned once that it felt freeing to not necessarily follow the traditional route of dating but they’d still always felt that pressure to act like a couple. It felt like a huge weight being lifted off his chest to hear that it was okay to do just be. And the fact someone he knew and respected thought it was normal and even encouraged it was priceless.

He opened his mouth to thank the other man but his throat suddenly swelled shut and all that came out was a choking noise. It surprised him, he’d never felt enough emotion for him to be rendered unable to speak. Kakashi looked surprised as well but his eyes soon crinkled with fondness. 

“Go to her, Sai.”

Sai was already moving.

____________________

Ino wasn’t expecting to find Sai waiting at her front door when she got home from getting drilled by her elders at the clan meeting.

It looked like he’d been there for awhile. He’d taken out a piece of charcoal and began doodling on her doorstep. It was rather beautiful but she knew she’d have to hose it off sooner or later unless she wanted dusty footprints tracked through her house. He seems pretty focused on his drawing but not enough that he didn’t jump up in surprise at the sound of his soulmate approaching.

“We don’t have to get married!” he blurted out upon her arrival. The piece of charcoal fell out of his hand and cracked on the cement.

“Um, okay,” Ino said slowly. “Really weird thing to say at the beginning of a conversation, Sai, but okay…”

Sai at least had the decency to look a bit embarrassed and hurried to explain himself. “Shikamaru and Choji told you about your meeting.”

“Oh.” Ino felt the muscles in her shoulders tense up. By the sages, that meeting really had been hell. “And…?”

“Apparently my teammates didn’t know we were soulmates. Sakura might be coming here to yell at you soon, by the way,” Sai told her and it took Ino a moment to fully process what he was saying. Had they really not known? Sakura was her best friend. Ino talked to her about Sai all the time. And Naruto had seemed pretty happy when they told him they were going to his wedding together. And Sasuke had a Sharingan for crying out loud! He really should’ve noticed. Sai didn’t really seem concerned about it though. “But that’s not important. I talked with Kakashi and…”

Sai cut himself off, his excitement fading as doubt overtook him. Ino took his hands, ignoring all the charcoal dust on them, and offered an encouraging smile. “And?”

“I think… I think I’m aromantic. And asexual,” Sai told her and he smiled. It wasn’t his usual awkward smile though. He looked genuinely relieved and maybe even a little bit happy. “Apparently some people don’t have romantic feelings at all. There’s a word for it. Aromantic. I think- I think that’s me. I still care about you and I like being with you but Kakashi told me being aromantic is normal and it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me or that the universe made a mistake making us soulmates. It just means we can- We can just be us. Sai and Ino. And Sai and Ino don’t have to listen to anything anyone tells us to do. And that means we don’t have to get married. Unless you want to…?”

Ino watched Sai’s face carefully as it flashed between excitement, awkwardness, nervousness, and joy. She’d never seen him express so many feelings, let alone all together in such a short period of time. It was cute. And endearing. Especially when he stumbled over his words like this. By the sages, she loved him. And now she knew he loved her, even if it wasn’t the way she loved him. She was okay with that though. She was definitely okay with that. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Screw tradition. Forget the clan,” Ino said, breaking into a smile as she put her arms around Sai’s shoulders so she could look up into his eyes. “I like what we have. I don’t care if it’s not what I thought I’d grow up to have or if it’s not what my family wants for me. I just want to be with you and it doesn’t matter if we’re friends, lovers, neither, or something between.”

Sai’s smile grew and he just looked so happy. “We’re soulmates.”

“Yeah. That’s what we are. We’re soulmates.”

More AroWriMo Fics By Me, Posted on Ao3, Posted on FFN

#Aro Writing Month 2021 #arowrimo #aromantic writing month 2021 #oneshot #fanfiction #naruto #naruto: shippuden #saino #sai #sai (naruto) #ino #ino yamanaka #yamanaka ino #soulmate au #soulmates #soulmarks #soulbonds #aromantic soulmate au #aro sai #ace sai #aromantic sai #asexual sai #aroace sai #aromantic character #asexual character #asexual #aromantic #aspec #asexuality #aromanticism

[sazandorable]

things I wanna see in ace fanworks!

It’s Ace Week!

And there’s huge variety among the aspec community (spectrum! that’s what it means!), so here’s a post about a variety of things I’d love to see more in fanworks involving asexual characters!

(I’m especially thinking of Jon from The Magnus Archives and Zolf from Rusty Quill Gaming, but this should easily apply across fandoms!)

I’ll try not to repeat it every line but: blanket disclaimer that this is very much a “what I feel, what I want, me, personally” post. Others (including other asexual people) might feel differently, and that’s perfectly okay. That’s kind of the point of this post! This is absolutely not a “here’s the one correct way to write all ace characters that all ace people will enjoy and agree with” Rules post — on the contrary, this is partly in reaction to seeing other people say that they dislike seeing, or don’t dare create, things that I, personally… desperately want to see, actually.

CW: this post will contain references to many common sources of trauma for asexual people, such as aphobia, partner abuse and rape, as well as sex (in general and sometimes in specifics) and asexual people having sex.

So! I, personally, love and would love to see more...

Fanworks by all sorts of asexual creators

No matter what your specific experience is, it is important, and your getting to create and share art about it is important, and you deserve to get that, and there are people interested in seeing it. And the same is true for all the other aces with different experiences, too.

Variety! Room for all of us! Share your experience happily, and let other aces happily share theirs!

Fanworks by allosexual creators

I’m so happy you’re interested in asexuality and in depicting it! I do want my experience to be normalised and seen as a normal thing that anyone can find interesting and relatable, even allosexual people. If you don’t mean to be an asshole about it, if you’re generally interested in exploring asexuality and you’re doing it from the heart, thinking of asexual people as people — then I want to see it, and I want you to be able to give a try to creating or consuming whatever you want, and I do not want you to be attacked for doing it.

Of course, you might still unwittingly fuck up, and people might still get hurt, and truly hurtful things should still be pointed out in order to be improved on; but I want us as a community to help creators up instead of shouting down, and I hope you continue putting thought into creating fanworks involving ace characters.

Keep reading for some tips and suggestions of things to think about, to keep in mind and to look into to improve your representing of us and our experience of it!

Extremely specific, different, kinda weird, niche, Problematic™ content, from creators of any identity (including questioning!), who are wary about sharing it because they think that there’s no audience for it, or that they’re not allowed, or that it’s a bad and evil way to represent asexuality

I want to see that, I’d be thrilled if you did it, I hope you do it, and I want a fandom environment in which you can do that safely because you deserve to. Of course, make sure to provide good tagging and CW!

Awareness that asexuality is a wide varying spectrum of experiences and there is no One Correct or More Valid Way to depict it

Awareness that even people with the same identity, label and life experiences might want to create or consume different things

Permission for everyone to create whatever they like, so long as it’s just done earnestly

No shaming, gatekeeping, accusations of fetishising, etc.

There are newbie writers who will never learn if they’re scared away from trying; there are people who haven’t yet figured out that they are in fact ace and never will if they’re not allowed to explore it safely; there are ace people who consume ace content to feel good about themselves; there are ace people who create ace fic in order to explore complicated, hard, unpleasant experiences and feelings; there are ace people whose experiences do not match stereotypical narratives I’ve most seen brandished around, and those people are just as ace and just as allowed to create and consume whatever they want; I do not want to foster a fandom environment in which people must out themselves and offer up their experience to scrutiny in order to be “allowed” to write certain topics; etc., etc.

Over the past two years, I’ve regularly seen a lot of yelling along the lines of “this work includes x and not x because this character is ace!” or “this fic I just read is the only valid ace fic” or “oh my god everyone look at this, this is the perfect ace fic”. A lot of it comes from a place of defensiveness and/or pride, ace people happy and proud to share something that was, finally, pinning down their experience. That’s awesome! ... For them. There are plenty of other asexual people who don’t relate to or enjoy those narratives — in fact, all the ones I’m thinking of squicked me hard, despite being made by ace creators and accurate to (an) ace experience, and I would be really unhappy if all ace fanworks was like those. Meanwhile, plenty of stuff I enjoy gets accusations of being fetishising.

So it would do a world of wonder for me and my experience of ace fanworks if those things could be internalised by the fandom as a whole!

Clear distinction between “being asexual” and “not interested in sex”, ”sex-repulsed” or “not having sex”

Those can and often do overlap, but the word “asexual” just means “experiencing little or no sexual attraction”!

In fanworks about an ace character, the two are generally linked and the reason a character doesn’t want to have sex tends to be that they’re ace, but the shorthand and immediate assumption that “being ace” automatically and always means “never having sex” or “hating the concept of sex” always feels a little weird to me.

This goes both ways — even if your aspec character is very sexually active and enjoys it, or if they’re demisexual and currently experiencing attraction to their partner, etc. — they’re still a person who experiences little to no sexual attraction in their daily life, they’re still aspec in a way that can be depicted and that I can be made to feel.

On AO3, widespread use of the tag “Canon Asexual Character”…

There are different views on the “correct” way to use that tag, in part because… what's the point of it? Should we use it in every single fic in which the Archivist appears, because he happens to be ace in the canon, even if it doesn’t come up in the fic?

IMO, it is helpful — it indicates to me that the author wrote their story with that character’s asexuality in mind, and it informed their writing of that character. Personally, I use it on fics where it feels “relevant” even if it doesn’t come up, such as a fic from Martin’s POV about Jon not being very touchy-feely (even though it doesn’t specify that that is because Jon is ace), but not a fic from Jon’s POV in which they’re happily living together but it’s not about the physical specifics of their relationship (even though in my head that relationship is non-sexual, but I could have written this specific fic the exact same way if Jon wasn’t ace).

The use or non-use of the tag can also simply help distinguish fanworks that were created and posted before that revelation, and did not depict that character as ace because the creator genuinely wasn’t aware of it.

… but also more detail than that, for instance: tagging the “shade of ace” the character is written as

A few examples:

#aroace Jon

#demisexual biromantic Jon

#greysexual nonbinary Jon

#sexually active kinky asexual Jon

#sex-positive low-libido Jon

#touch-averse Jon

#sex-uninterested ace demiromo Jon in happy QPR with Martin

#sex-repulsed sub Jon gets creative

#aspec Jon experiences sexual attraction for the first time and it’s for freaking Elias of all people oh God oh no

etc., etc.

Those are VERY different things! There’s some I’d be delighted to read, some I’m not interested in, and some that would actively squick me personally for personal reasons but I can think of some friends of mine that would be super happy to see it.

If you don’t know or aren’t sure of the exact terms, or if you wrote a relatively broad scenario and want to let people project any labels on it, you can also just describe what the situation is or how you depicted your character relating to things. That’s still very helpful. For instance:

#Jon doesn’t like kissing but cuddles good

#the struggle of NOT liking touching but craving intimacy

#Jon and Tim pointing at each other like spiderman meme, same hat?? how??

#Daisy and Basira have no idea how to explain their relationship and it’s none of your business

#Zolf is just tired and wants people to stop prying into his love life

etc., etc.

More awareness that there’s plenty of stuff about the ace experience that, while very common, can be squicky or even traumatic, and more tagging/warning about that

Here’s some other things that are common to the ace experience and commonly depicted in fanworks involving ace characters, and that can be genuinely upsetting and potentially triggering and traumatic, whether or not an ace person has encountered it in their own life (lots of CWs in this list, obviously):

encountering aphobia, even clueless and well-meaning

having internalised aphobia, aphobic thoughts, self-hatred, feeling broken or strange

social pressure to have sex or relationships, people being invasive or judgy about others’ love life, feeling disconnected from allo people

trying things out just to see

having sex

enjoying sex

forcing themself to have sex

referring to past sexual experiences as something that they didn’t enjoy

being emotionally pressured into having sex

wanting to please their partner despite not desiring sex

feeling an obligation to satisfy their partner

the prospect of romantic rejection for their asexuality

the idea that they must earn love

the idea that getting their boundaries respected is something exceptional and rare and an incredible sacrifice from their partner

being sexualised by someone else or the object of someone’s fantasies

wanting sex or experiencing sexual attraction for the first time

etc., etc.

Two concepts here that are both simultaneously true: 1) those are indeed very common to the real life experience of ace people, 2) it is possible to depict the ace experience without tackling any of that.

Of course, you can have all that! You can create content about that! That’s very relatable for a lot of people, and that last one, for instance, can in fact be an accurate and important depiction of demisexuality. But it’s also not a given that a fictional work about asexuality will/should depict it, and not a given that all ace people looking for ace content will want to see any item from that list. So please, give content warnings for all that, too.

It would be a tremendous help in curating and improving my experience if this could become a widespread habit — I have lost count of the amount of fics tagged as fluffy that I had to backbutton out because they suddenly threw in something really depressing that I, personally, didn’t want to see happen to a character I project on (while other readers found catharsis, validation and kinship in seeing their experience represented accurately!).

If it does come up, tags about what comes up

Beyond the content warnings for clearly traumatic stuff, is there “#Discussion of asexuality”? Is it “#Coming out as asexual”, or “#Jon discovers the existence of asexuality”? Is there “#Acephobia” (“#Accidental”? “#Casual”? “#Internalised”?)? Is there “#Explanation of asexuality to a clueless partner”, or “#Jon’s partner tells him about asexuality”? Is there “#Relationship negotiation”?

Since, again, not all aces have the same experience, odds are that some people will JUMP happily on content depicting a specific experience which they relate to... and inversely: again, there’s some of that which I personally do not relate to and actively do not want to read.

Detailed tagging is a huge help for me to figure out if a fic about asexuality is going to squick me and make me sad for the evening because ah I am weird after all even amongst my brethren, or if it’s going to be, finally, my heart’s desire, what I’ve been craving for, and make my entire week. (Sidenote, thanks to good tagging I did find the perfect QPR fic I’d been yearning to read last week and I’m still thinking about it right now and so, so, so happy.)

Making it clear when an ace character is going to be having sex — beyond just the ship tag and rating

Reminder that a fic rating alone does not necessarily mean sex! A fic tagged just “#JonMartin” and rated Explicit could have them in a relationship and then an explicitly detailed scene in which Jon dies a excruciatingly gruesome death, or a graphic scene of Martin having some solo fun, or even another character, or a sex scene between another tagged ship.

With smut involving an ace character as with everything else, there are lots of us that do want to see it (for a wide variety of reasons), and obviously there are lots of us that desperately want to avoid it (but might be in the Explicit tag looking for smut involving other ships, or horror or whump content, etc.) — please help us know whether to click or not click!

The normalisation of not expecting/forcing anyone to do things they don’t actively want to do

There’s a relatively common thing in heartwarming ace fic where the ace character is surprised that their allo partner is fine with dating without having sex and the partner goes, “I love you, of course I’m fine with that” and the ace character is all oh, oh, oh I am loved and respected, did not expect that. Or an allo character saying “That’s fine, I don’t make you do anything you don’t want to do,” or “I don’t want to do anything unless you’re into it!”

And I see how it sounds nice and romantic. It probably is to many people. But it can also be extremely sinister and anxiety-inducing in its implications: what if the partner didn’t love the ace character quite that much? What did the ace character expect? If this is amazing and rare, then what was the baseline expectation? If this ace character has dated before, what were their past relationships like, for this to be surprising?

I end up running into it more in fluffy fanworks about asexuality than in fanworks that aren’t. Again — you can absolutely do that, but please tag/warn for it; even if it’s just in passing, in fluff fic it’s really not something I expect from the genre. Even though I might sometimes be specifically in the mood to read an exploration of that, in dark fic or in hurt/comfort fic!

And now for more specific stuff I wanna see in stories:

This last bit is intended as both an encouragement for people who want to create these things and think there’s no audience (there is!!), and as a box of ideas for people who have no idea how to depict the asexuality of characters but want to :3 Again, this is not in any way a statement that these are The Only Correct Way, or even things that all aspec people want to see, nor is it a diss at people who create, consume or want the exact opposite of these things — for that matter, some of the items on this list are mutually exclusive. It’s just my own tastes and literally just stuff I personally would love to see (more).

Ace character being single, happy to be single, and happily ace

Asexuality being written in but a complete non-issue, not discussed, not brought up, not even to reassure the ace character that It Is Fine

Ace character being flippant and snarky about their asexuality, making jokes and memes about it

Ace character not caring about other people’s perception of them at all

Ace character feeling only pride and happiness and comfort about that label

More than one ace character! Extra love for them having some similarities and also some differences!

Intersectionality: ace character being also aro, trans, nonbinary, bi or pan, polyamorous, kinky, a drag queen, a dom or sub, neurodivergent, disabled, non-white, … ; asexuality being just one part of their identity

Asexuality being queer and belonging to the LGBT+ community in itself; a character being cis, aro or heteroromantic, and ace, and “counting” as “queer enough”

Flirty ace character

Confident, self-comfortable ace character

Ace character considering their specific experience to be perfectly normal and not unique, if not typical

Ace character enjoying something that is commonly considered to be sexy or sexual, but it isn’t for them — such as wearing makeup or lingerie, going clubbing, pole-dancing, massages…

Ace character happily dating someone who is not aspec

I like the thought that it’s possible! I personally like this more than I like fanworks about two aspec people dating. I like it when the ace character is happy to adapt to their allo partner’s requirements and I like it when the allo character is happy to adapt to their ace partner’s requirements and I like it when there are things that just do not match perfectly and that doesn’t put an end to the relationship.

Ace character having a lot of experience dating

Partner(s) already knowing about asexuality and not needing to have it explained to them

Partners just being like “*shrug* okay”, without making it a big deal that they’re “giving up” sexual intercourse

Ace character crushing and getting flustered over physical but non-sexual aspects of their love interest’s looks

Big strong hands, nice jaw, strong nose, long eyelashes, lovely profile, silky hair, lovely eye-colour, delicate wrists, muscles, long legs, collar bone, shoulder blades, squishy stomach, peek of bellybutton, freckles, moles, scars, …

Ace character daydreaming about their love interest in ways that involve zero physical attraction, thoughts about how pretty or handsome they are, or desire to touch them

Jon pining for Martin and just wanting to talk with him, have tea with him, hang out with him… not seeing how Tim is good-looking but being attracted to his humour and nerdiness… missing his relationship with Georgie because it felt nice to cook together and share clothes and watch the telly together… Zolf missing Hamid’s fiery passion or Wilde’s awful puns… being attracted to Cel’s liveliness and inventiveness… being charmed by Azu’s emotional intelligence or her unwavering certainty in her faith…

Smut involving an ace character

No shaming of fellow real living people about that

Not going to go into it again because plenty of us have been talking about that in this fandom for two years now — bottom line is there do exist plenty of asexual people that 1) do have sex IRL, 2) do want to consume smut, can we please, as a community, move past the “this is not smut because this character is ace!” passive-aggressive attacks already. (“I depict this character as not having sex because he’s ace and I’m ace and it makes me happy” is fine! Just don’t imply that that’s the only way to be ace and that other people are wrong to want something else.)

Ace character enjoying sex

Ace character being completely neutral about having or not having sex

Ace character disliking sex in the same way they dislike, idk, coffee. No, absolutely not, thank you, no concession, not for me, but also it’s nothing traumatic or moral or uncomfortable.

Sex being just a thing, not a big deal, having or not having it not being all that important

Ace character enjoying the concept of sex, abstractly. Ace character consuming porn, writing porn, being fine discussing sex with friends, having a dirty mind — just not wanting to be involved in it

Ace character having fantasies that disturb them

Ace character feeling arousal and being just *shrug* about it, not particularly disgusted, just uninterested

Arousal, libido, or masturbation as something different and separate from sexual attraction and desire to sleep with someone or to be touched

Ace character being kinky af

Ace character having multiple partners and different sorts of relationships with each!

Open relationships

Non-sexual romantic relationships

Queerplatonic relationships

COMMITTED!!! NON-SEXUAL AND NON-ROMANTIC!!! PARTNERSHIPS!!! AAAAAA [sobbing emoji]

Non-sexual physical intimacy

Hand-holding! Playing footsie! Cuddles! Hugging! Kissing! Super heavy making out and getting aroused but no sex! Sharing a bed! Lying on top of each other! Bathing or showering together! Giving each other a haircut or a shave! Massages! Non-sexual nudity!

Non-physical intimacy

Committed couple having separate beds/rooms! Getting married! Being in love and not kissing or touching! Loving long-distance relationships! QPR! Affection and closeness expressed through speech, gifts, services, time, shared activities — wearing each other’s clothes, cooking together, long emotional conversations, trust and secrets, love letters, post-it notes, “thought of you” gifts, celebrating anniversaries with a candle-lit dinner, co-parenting...!

Sexual situations with no touching

(CW bit detailed:)

Sexting, cybersex, phone sex, dirty talking, reading or watching porn (alone or together), consensual voyeurism like watching their partner masturbate or have sex with someone else, kink using toys and accessories or scenes but with no actual touching, …

Romanticised consent and boundaries

An asexual character being super firm about what they do not want and their allo partner being thrilled about that trust and communication!! An allosexual partner trusting their asexual partner about what they want without infantilising them or doubting their capacity to establish their boundaries! “Wait, you always say you don’t like [x]?” “Yes, but I feel like it right now, as I assumed would be pretty clear from the fact that I am doing [x] right now :w” “Hey, just checking, sue me :w” “Yes, thank you :w”

Specific boundaries

Cheek kisses but no lip kisses, no PDA, not having sex where they’re also going to sleep, needing a shower immediately after sex, lights off only, …

(CW more detailed:)

… not caring about feeling or seeing their partner’s hard-on but not wanting to do anything about it, penetration but no oral, bottoming but not topping, giving a blowjob but not having their head held, being fine with extreme acts but not liking fluids, pet names but no dirty talk, dirty talk but no pet names, happy to pleasure their partner but not wanting to be touched, not wanting to come, being only into sex as part of extreme kink but not interested in vanilla sex, …

Shifting boundaries and consent

Ace character likes kissing or cuddles but only on their terms — they will come give their partner a kiss sometimes but bristle at being touched. Today is not a kissing day. Today this ace character is a bit down and would like a lot of physical affection and cuddling. Certain areas are off-limits for touching because this ace character is sensitive on their thighs, ticklish in their ribs, self-conscious about their scars. This ace character considers their chest non-sexual so that’s fine but do not pat their butt.

Today, exceptionally, this ace character is horny and feels like banging. Ace character feels like banging sometimes but is not in the mood right now, bye. Ace character feels like banging from eight to nine pm every second Thursday of the month, catch it or miss it. Couple shares a shower every morning and it’s never meant to be a sexual thing, but today the ace one is getting aroused and hey, you know what, they’d like to get off right now. This massage is fantastic but it’s getting overwhelming, so they ask to stop (but it was great!). Ace character is intrigued about this particular scenario/position/kink and wants to try it out, they do, it’s perfectly nice, but hmm, once was enough, they’re not interested in doing it again. Ace character sexts their partner all day but by the time their partner has got home, undressed and prepared and pulled out the strap, they’ve lost interest.

���♥ Thank you for reading all this! Hope this inspires people so I get more stuff that makes me happy! ♥♠

#ace week #asexuality #representation #the magnus archives #rusty quill gaming #a lot more TMA than RQG though #writing #fanfiction #happy end of ace week everyone!

[sign-from-god-complex]

every way that matters

Summary: “They were domestic; they were comfortable; they were happy. Patton and Virgil were Patton and Virgil, but they were never in love.”

Pairing: Queerplatonic moxiety (even if that isn’t how they label it).

Warnings: Homophobic/transphobic/aphobic parents mentioned.

A/N: I hadn’t actually written aromantic Virgil before this which truly is a crime, so I decided I needed to rectify that. Especially considering that, after analogical, moxiety is the relationship I see the most like a qpr.

Tag list: @mutechild @super-magical-wizard @shadowsfromthesun @teadays @sandersships @mctaetae613 @autism-goblin @deadlyhuggles6 @romanthestarstruckqueer @whispers-stuff-in-your-ear @rainboots-are-for-snobs @sanders-and-sides @spirits-in-my-thoughts @kee-and-co @autistic-virgil @stop-it-anxiety @figurative-falsehood @jadedfantasies231 @poisonedapples @sanders-screams @another-sandersidesblog @do-not-just-see-observe @idosanderssidespromptssometimes 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Do you wanna get married?"

Virgil pauses in the stroking he's doing of Patton's hair—an absent-minded action he's been performing since the moment Patton arrived, plopping down on the couch beside him and sticking their head into his lap. He's not entirely sure he's heard them correctly.

"What?" Virgil ensures to keep his voice level, projecting an aura of calm he may not necessarily feel.

His emotions are darting about inside his chest, kicking at his stomach and pulling apart his ribs and yet Virgil's body remains relaxed. Patton always managed to do that to him.

There's a sigh from Patton—nothing irritated or frustrated as far as Virgil can tell. Just... tired. They've been tired a lot recently. They claimed it was the long hours at work—"You know me, Virge! You don't have to worry!"—and Virgil wished he'd pushed them just a little bit harder on what was really going on.

Patton squints slightly into the overhead lights as they roll over to their back. They're barely able to meet Virgil's eyes but he avoids it anyway, gaze trained on the way the flickering light of the television reflects onto the coffee table.

"I said, do you want to get married?"

"Yeah, see, that's what I thought you said," Virgil frowns, and he's not entirely sure where they are anymore but he's hoping Patton can give him some kind of landmark, "I just don't know why."

They'd never been like... that. Patton and Virgil had been a lot of things, but never that. 

Patton and Virgil had been childhood best friends, sitting together on the swing set, falling off the monkey bars and begging for a chance to visit the other when they're sick. Years filled with muffled giggles spawned from silly jokes, losing teeth and sticking up for each other.

Patton and Virgil had been rebellious teenagers sneaking out to grab milkshakes at 2 am, dying their hair or growing it out, sitting on that same swing set and discovering more about themselves and how they fit together. Years filled with late-night discussions, losing bits of their innocence and learning all the things that, according to their parents, they weren’t supposed to know.

Patton and Virgil had been roommates who barely needed to communicate to understand each other, who could finish each other's sentences but preferred to let the other speak; who have a routine so ingrained that deviation is almost unthinkable. Years filled with soft silence, losing their built-up walls and the safety of knowing the other is always close by.

They were domestic; they were comfortable; they were happy.

Patton and Virgil were Patton and Virgil, but they were never in love.

"My mom called again." Patton's voice is not as shaky as it could have been, Virgil is sure, but it isn't far from it.

With that statement, though, Virgil did have a landmark. In a sea of non-sequiturs and out of the blue proposals, Virgil could always count on Mrs Hart being a transphobic, homophobic, aphobic bitch. Maybe it wasn't a complete explanation, but he’s beginning to see Patton waving at him from his destination—a lantern somewhere in the darkness, guiding him home the way they always did—even if he hasn't yet arrived.

Patton sits up, pulling their head from Virgil's lap with a rush of breath—it sounds pained, the cold of the air around them seeping into their skin. They move back into Virgil's space rather quickly, throwing their legs over Virgil's and tangling them together, draping Virgil's right arm over their shoulders.

If it had been anyone else Virgil would have huffed and pushed them right off, but it wasn't anyone else. It was Patton.

"I can't do it anymore, Virge!" They bury their face into Virgil's hoodie and Virgil tries not to worry about the last time he'd washed it—Patton had seen much worse from him in the past. "I can't sit here again and listen to her drone on and on about settling down with a nice girl and having two point five kids and a white picket fence, I'm going to go insane."

With their last word, Patton grips the front of Virgil's hoodie tight, forcing him to meet their gaze—something desperate, broken and a long time coming.

"And you're you, V! My parents think you're a terrible influence, my brother looks at you like you've hung the moon and you're..." Patton trails off, their face going soft.

Virgil can't tear his eyes away from the way they're looking at him. It's so difficult to figure out what that gaze holds but he thinks it might be love. A different, more nebulous kind of love; one that's impossible to describe but so easy to feel from every way they're pressed together, to regular coffee orders and Not-Date Nights, to the way Patton smiles—big and bright and stupidly proud—when Virgil laughs at one of their puns.

"You're my best friend," they finish and Virgil knows them well enough to know all of the hidden meaning in that, "Why wouldn't I want to marry you?"

They don't love each other like that, but maybe that's okay.

Virgil was sure in a thousand universes, a thousand Pattons were asking the exact same question and none of those Virgils had any more of a choice than he did. 

The hand in Patton’s hair had stilled with their change in position, but Virgil threads it back in now, gently tilting Patton’s downcast gaze to look him in the eye. “Yeah, okay.”

“Yeah?” Patton’s eyes are wide like somehow they were surprised Virgil had agreed and truly, he wasn’t sure why. Virgil’s quite sure he would do anything for Patton.

And beyond that, Virgil wants it. More than he ever thought himself capable of wanting something so blatantly romantic and sappy. He isn’t so keen on the idea of standing in front of a huge crowd of people, dressed to the nines, proclaiming how much they love each other—that was much too performative for his liking—but he was entranced by the aftermath.

The idea of being married, of coming home to Patton every day, dropping a kiss on their forehead and asking how their day had been… It wasn’t too dissimilar from what they have now but he loves what they have now. He doesn’t ever want that to end.

“Yeah, Pat.” Virgil is surprised by the way he can’t stop himself from smiling, his chest feeling lighter than it had in a long, long time. “I’d love to marry you.”

Patton’s face lights up like the sun. They throw their arms around him, babbling thank you’s and I love you’s and Virgil responds in kind. And in between all the smiles and hugs and chaste kisses, Virgil is hit with the realization that that is something he never thought he would say and have it be true.

Because, though Patton and Virgil may not love each other the way you would expect, they do love each other.

In every way that matters.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #patton sanders #virgil sanders #moxiety #queerplatonic moxiety #lo can write