this isnt even the full thread, there are even MORE tweets to this thread that i think are really necessary to read if you do what op is talking about! it is not enough to know that feeling this way hurts the people you love, we already know that.
this rest of the thread continues after the third tweet from the reblog.
like THE FULL THREAD is genuinely so reassuring.
sometimes, it is not enough to just know, sometimes you might need that reassurance of "do you really think of me when i'm away?" and someone reassuring you that yeah, they do. and evaluate that! trust that! just like op did.
and then learning that ykw, it's NOT any of my business really. and finding comfort in that trust that like. whether they are or aren't thinking of me, they really do love me.
this full thread changed my life and i am ALWAYS going to give the full thread because the parts people cut out aren't enough for the people experiencing these things, speaking as someone who does. it, really it just makes us, made me, feel bad about my own capabilities when i saw the unfinished thread.
Indroduction: Ok, so, from what I've seen in fandom and in general, most people don't really know how to write an asexual character. Many just quit it and make them allosexual, others just struggle their way without having much of a guide. Prime example is Alastor from Hazbin Hotel, whom many people want to involve in sexual scenarios so they go with the "asexuality is a spectrum" route. Problem is, they don't understand how asexuality is a spectrum exactly and then they just end up writing their characters as allo. Now, how to avoid this? Teaching them!
If you're looking for a good way to get started with your own asexual oc, an ace headcanon or a media charater, I've got you! (i mention sex briefly here in some parts)
My credentials: I'm ace.
The basics
What is asexuality?
Asexuality is a sexual orientation that is generally defined by the lack of sexual attraction, or a very little amount of it. Sexual attraction is many times confused with libido, which is the sexual desire. Sexual attraction is more accurately, "the desire of having sex with this specific person." Therefore, some ace people do have a libido, and do want to have sex, but mostly are just not attracted to a person.
Myths and misconceptions
Asexuals can't have sex - as many shippers say, "asexuality is a spectrum", and while some aces don't have sex indeed, they can want it and have it as well. Person to person scenario
Asexuals don't know nothing about sex - unless the ace in question is a child, they probably may know, in fact, a lot. Many ace people like reading, watching or consuming smut, and by this and other means, even if they don't have sex themselves, they pretty much know how it is and how it works. Sex is everywhere, after all. Hard to miss
Asexuality is caused by trauma - it can be! Just not always, and most aces are simply born this way
Asexuality is a medical condition - much like homosexuality, asexuality is frequently treated as an illnes and many ace people are forced into conversion therapy. Some people also hold the belief that asexuality is caused by an anormality in a person's hormones, a mental illness, etc. But it is not true! Asexual people can obviously also be mentally ill in some way, but these are different things. It is just a sexual orientation like any other!
Asexuality is caused by HRT - hormone replacement therapy, ie. taking testosterone or estrogen, is one of the most common type of medical transition for trans people. Some hold the belief that taking hormones like those can "break" your sexuality (estrogen does sometimes decrease a person's libido, but it depends on the person's organism and it doesn't take your sexual attraction away from you), and turn you asexual
Asexuality is caused by autism - this myth may be originated from the fact that many autistic people are in fact asexual, or by the fact that both asexuals and autistic people tend to be infantilized a lot. However, as much as autistic people are very commonly also ace, asexuality is not, in fact, a symptom of autism
Basic terminology
Ace - short for "asexual".
Aro - short for "aromantic"; someone who experiences little to no romantic attraction, aka typically "doesn't fall in love".
Allo - somebody who does experience attraction. "Allosexual" is someone who is not asexual, and "alloromantic" is someone who is not aromantic.
Aspec - short for "a-spectrum". The a-spectrum is an umbrella term for anyone who is in any way ace, aro, aplatonic, afamilial, or other identities that fit here.
Acespec - short for "asexual spectrum/ace spectrum". It's a part of the a-spectrum and contemplates all asexuality.
Aesthetic attraction - finding someone pretty or beatiful, without necessarily wanting to have sex with them. Many ace people who didn't know they were ace report to having used to mistake it with sexual attraction.
Sensual attraction - similar to sexual attraction; the desire to touch someone, but without wanting to actuall have sex with them. Many ace people also confused this with sexual attraction.
Aphobia - discrimination against aspec people.
Amatonormativity- the belief that everybody is happier in a relationship, wether they want it or not, and should want and seek to be in one, and the general root of aphobia.
The Split Attraction Model
If you are looking on the ace community for a while, you might have heard of the split attraction model--if you haven't, here it is:
Image description: The Split Attraction Model, a cross chart inside a square, with four ends. The first end of the cross is labelled "ace", its opposite is labelled as "alloce", the third end is labelled as "alloro" and it's opposite is labelled as "aro". The section on the "alloro" and "ace" square is labelled "alloromantic asexual", the section in the "ace" and "aro" part is labelled "aromantic asexual", the section on the "alloro" and "alloce" square is labelled as "alloromantic allosexual" and the section on the "aro" and "alloce" section is labelled "aromantic allosexual". /end ID.
The split attraction model divides all orientations in four groups: The aroaces, the aroallos, the alloaces and the alloallos. It is usually shortened to "SAM".
Many people find this model useful, because it sorts your attraction into two groups: allo- and a-, and yes and no. It's simple and easy.
Many aces do not use this model to explain their attraction/lack thereof though! Hence the first distinction of aces we have here: SAM-aces and non-SAM-aces. Basically aces who use the Split Attraction Model and aces who prefer not to!
A non-SAM ace may define their asexuality as their romantic orientation as well, or label themselves differently altogether. While a SAM ace could call themselves an "asexual aromantic" or an "asexual alloromantic", a non-SAM ace could call themselves just "an asexual". In this case, they can be neither "alloro" nor "aro".
If your character is aware of their sexuality and identifies as ace, it's good to know wether they use the Split Attraction Model for themselves or not.
The spectrum
You may have heard that "asexuality is a spectrum" a thousand times, but what does it mean?
Just like "non-binary", "asexual" can be an identity on its own, but it is actually an umbrella term for a bunch of orientations. When we say that it is a spectrum, we are saying that there is Nuance. "Ace who doesn't date", "ace who dates", "ace who experiences just a little bit of sexual attraction", "aces who like sex" and so on. 'But Angel', you ask me, 'didn't you say that asexuality is when people don't have sexual attraction?' It can be! But there IS nuance, and that's what I am here to tell you.
There are two more factors beyond the SAM that you can consider:
"Are they sex repulsed, sex favorable, or sex neutral?"
Here is the "aces can still have sex" thing. A sex repulsed ace is probably what the majority of people think when they hear "asexual". It is an ace person who doesn't like sex. Doesn't want to have it, is disgusted by it, despises sexual intimacy, etc. They are the aces who tipically just don't want to have sex, and are very happy without it.
A sex favorable asexual is someone who likes it. Sure, they don't feel sexual attraction, but who's letting it stop them, right? They like sexual acts, they are fine and happy with having sex in general, and that's what the "aces can still have sex" point means. Yes, they can, if they want to! Maybe your character themself doesn't define themselves as neither repulsed nor favorable, but it's good to know what their instance on sex is.
Sex neutral asexuals are aces who are not repulsed by it, but are not really into it either. They may have sex, they may be fine with it, they may like it even, but they generally don't have a desire or strong feelings regarding it. It's just sex, after all.
Sex ambivalent asexuals are another thing I want to touch on. They are tipically aces whose instance on sex changes! Sometimes they may feel repulsed by it, sometimes they may want it, sometimes they may not care. They are neither strictly one, nor another. Their feelings change!
It's good to see where in this categorization your character or blorbo would be.
Inside the asexual spectrum, where do they stand?
If I were to represent the ace spectrum as a linear thing, I'd do it like this:
Image description: A linear representation of the asexual spectrum, in the shape of an arch. In one end, it is written "asexual", on the other, it is written "allosexual" and on the very middle, at the top of the arch, it is written "gray-asexual". /end ID.
or like this:
Image description: Another linear representation of the asexual spectrum. One of the ends is a black circle and the other is a white circle. Between them, a gradient goes from one circle to another, passing through different shades of gray. The black end is labelled as "asexual", the white end is labelled as "allosexual", and the gradient with shades of gray is labelled "different kinds of Gray-As". /end ID.
What is graysexual, you ask me? We all know that the world is not black-and-white, and as so, sexuality is also not. Grayace is a term for a person that is also asexual, but not strictly: that is, they are the "feels a little of sexual attraction" part of the spectrum. It is called like that because when we put asexual and allosexual in two ends of a spectrum, graysexuality stands in this gray area.
Gray sexuals may:
Experience sexual attraction only sometimes
Experience light sexual attraction
Experience sexual attraction under certain conditions in certain scenarios, for example, when they are already very intimate with a certain person
And many more! Graysexuality is on itself a spectrum, but having an idea of allosexual -> graysexual -> strictly asexual is already a good guide. Graysexuality can also be described as "having partial sexual attraction".
Fun fact about gray-aces: The asexual flag has four stripes; purple, white, gray and black. The purple stripe is meant to be a color signifier of the community, the white means allosexual, the gray means the gray aces and the black stripe represents people with strictly no sexual attraction. Hence the term "black stripe asexual" (which is not very popular but I personally like).
Micro-labels
You already have a basic understanding of the asexual spectrum and how it works, so you can think on where exactly in the spectrum your character/blorbo is. To help you out further, I present you the microlabels! Much like non binary is an umbrella term with many microlabels like genderqueer, xenogender and demigender, that help one explain their identity with more and more specific explanations, asexuals also have a lot of microlabels! Here are some:
Cupiosexual - asexual person that wishes to have a sexual relationship (example: i am cupioromantic person and i am basically a hopeless romantic and a yearner. cupiosexuality is similar, but with sex)
Gray sexual - asexual person with partial sexual attraction
Demisexual - asexual person who can only be attracted to people they already have a bond with
Abrosexual - person whose sexuality is fluid, and may be asexual at one time, bisexual at another, gay at another, etc.
Aceflux - asexual person whose sexuality changes, like abrosexual, but only between asexual identities
Aegosexual - asexual person who likes the idea of sex or fantasises about it, as long as it doesn't envolve them
Lythosexual - asexual person who is only sexually attracted to people they are not close with, and their sexual attraction fades out once the become closer
Myrsexual - asexual person that uses multiple asexual identities to describe their sexuality
Aroace - aromantic asexual person
Alloace - alloromantic asexual person
Apothisexual - sex-repulsed asexual person
These are not all micro labels in the asexual spectrum, but they are quite a lot. Maybe even if your charater is not sure if they are in a certain label or not, you may find them in some of these descriptions.
Links to resources with more microlabels: Tumblr post by @aroacesafeplaceforall (no images) /
/ A slightly longer list on asexuals.net (undescribed flags) /
/ Another guide for microlabels on lgbtqia.fandom.com (undescribed flags)
Bonus questions
Is it okay if I make my asexual character autistic? Is it not stereotyping? Yes, it's okay. There are actual asexual autistic people, and I'm sure they'd love to get represented as well!
Is it okay if I make my asexual character have sex? Is it not erasure? Yes, you can do that too! As long as it is where they stand in the spectrum (as explained in the topics above), you are doing a good thing by representing sex-favorable asexuals.
Do I have to make a romantic orientation for them too? No. Your character may be a non-sam ace, and identify as ace alone!
I heard that it is erasure if I make smut fanfic of ace character X. I don't get it how! While it is true many ace people have sex, many people when writing that just ignore their sexuality when writing/drawing smut of them! The spectrum is wide, so when you are doing that, remember where they stand on it.
Why can't I headcanon this ace character as allosexual? I headcanon straight characters as gay/bi/pan all the time and nobody says it's wrong! If people don't like my headcanon why can't they just look away? Because asexual people are a marginalized group, unlike straight people, so it is as okay to make them allo as it is to take an asian or black or jewish character and make them white. Because it is not just an individual headcanon; it's a part of a much bigger problem, and by avoiding headcanoning ace characters as allo, you are confronting your own internalized aphobia, which is a good thing! If you still want to make them have sex, well, that's what I made this guide for! So you can make them have sex as you wish without erasing their identity.
I am ace and am basing myself or my own experiences here. Is it okay if I...? The answer is generally yes. If you wanna write about a different ace experience than your own, a little bit of research won't hurt, though!
Is this enough for me to write my ace character? It is a start. This is a general guide, and there are some things I haven't touched on this guide (like aphobia) so I'd advice you to do more in-depth research on topics you want to focus more on, but this should get you pretty far.
Extra
"Is Alastor from Hazbin Hotel canonically ace or aroace?" (slightly related, because some people looking for this guide to write this guy might want to know this too)
Answer: link to a post clearing this up this with some sources. Short answer though, is that he is confirmed to be ace, not aroace.
"If I didn't understand something here, or I have more questions, can I ask you?"
Answer: Yes! You can reblog this post with questions, and my inbox is also open, and I make sure to always let anon on. I will be happy to help if I can.
"One of the image descriptions on this post was off or confusing, can you change it to X so it is better to understand it?"
Answer: Of course! I will need you to signal me in either the notes or in the inbox what I need to change, though.
"Are asexual people queer?"
Answer: Yes! Because the queer community, as the name suggests, is for people who are different, odd, and are not considered "normal" because of that. Asexual people are not a part of "the norm", because we don't feel sexual attraction, and therefore, we, and by extension your ace characters too, are queer.
The mattress company I worked for the first time no longer exists. It was long ago eaten and assimilated by a bigger company. But when I started it was an incredibly intense five weeks of training. I was told I was extremely lucky to be selected, and I was. From a pool of a hundred applicants only fifteen of us made the cut to entering the training program.
The course covered how to talk to customers, how to ask open ended questions, how to close a sale, and product knowledge. I learned a lot, and truthfully my greatest takeaway was a lot of social scripts that I could use in other areas of my life.
We also had a midterm exam and a final. Both included a roleplay element with a trainer and a written portion. They told us when we started that the course was challenging but it was still a shock to come in after the midterm and realize half the class had failed.
I was named valedictorian of training- a dubious honor as it meant I’d done the best in the class, but popular lore had it that valedictorians struggled the most on the sales floor. Lo, I struggled.
Not because I wasn’t good. I was. But because my manager set out to systematically destroy my self esteem. Every sale, every interaction I had was scrutinized and criticized.
If I sold a bed with protectors, moveable base, and pillows he’d ask why I hadn’t managed to sell pillow protectors too. His first trainee had thrived on being challenged and he’d never bothered to learn a different way to coach.
It was wretched. My performance started strong but nosedived after a few weeks with him. My trainer, a man I loathed for stonewalling me in my interview, came in to inform me I was on new hire probation. If I couldn’t get my sales numbers up I’d be let go.
His actual phrasing was, “When you have a bandaid do you like to rip it off or pull it slowly?”
Since it was eminently obvious why he was visiting and because I thought it was condescending I sweetly informed him that I liked to soak my bandaids in hot water so they come off on their own.
He was briefly startled at this derailing but then got on with the bad news. I signed some forms stating that I understood my job was in peril.
I went home furious. I thought long and hard about why I wasn’t succeeding and how frustrated I was with my manager. I came in the next day and my anger had crystallized into a cold sharp edge.
My manager opened his mouth to address the probation and I snapped, “Just leave me alone. Go in the back if I have a sale. If you must address a serious issue then you will give me praise on two things I did right and present it as a compliment sandwich. Otherwise just say good job and shut up. Your constant nitpicking just makes me anxious and I do worse. Back off.” Belated and begrudging I added, “Please.”
He raised his eyebrows in dim surprise but I’d gauged him well. He backed off. Dutifully he’d meander into the back when I had a sale and praised me when I closed it. I resented knowing it was only because I’d demanded complimented but they still boosted me up. My numbers skyrocketed, I landed my first split king sale, and I exited probation with flying colors.
The trainer came back in to congratulate my manager for turning things around. To my gratification he gave me credit for setting him straight and said I’d taught him a different way to lead. My manager would often genuinely praise that moment when I’d stood up to him, impressed with my stubborn refusal to fail and my insight into what would help.
My biggest takeaway from the whole thing was just that people need positive reinforcement to succeed. Praise people for doing a good job. If you’re ever in a position where you need to criticize someone put it in a compliment sandwich instead of just saying the negative.
Yep. That shit can poison an interpersonal relationship, if it's common, and also keep the thing from getting done. Do not punish wanted behavior. People will stop doing it.
I am extremely thrown off and angered by this micromanaging when people do it. It feels incredibly disrespectful and demeaning. And I can tell you, even knowing that wasn't the intent, and trying very hard not to take it that way, it never stopped feeling that way.
Unless there's a safety issue I was unaware of, or there's a way to save me significant effort or time, it doesn't help to pick at how I'm doing something. If it got done the hundred times I did it when the person was not there and they had no complaints, how I do it is obviously good enough.
"There's no way in hell there was a supervillain who called themselves-"
"No, no, not officially - we came up with the name when we were assigned to find them, and we were kind of taking the piss, but it's still a good name. It was before your time - they had the power to-"
"I don't want to know what their power was."
"No, listen - their power was that they could summon a pie and throw it at someone."
"Oh. Oh, well, okay - that's the greatest supervillain you've ever fought? Doesn't sound like much."
"But that was the thing. They could throw a pie at someone and it would never miss. So long as they could see their target they'd hit them. We eventually found out they could throw a pie at someone who was on live broadcast, miles away."
"Jesus. Okay, I think I see the issue. But it was still, like. Pies, right?"
"Oh, for sure, it was never poison pies, and they could only summon a pie every 15 seconds so they couldn't drown someone in meringue. But - do you remember Murgatroyd Bentley?"
"Sort of, he was president when I was a little kid - something, something superhuman rights, and he was the guy who nuked Saskatchewan, right?"
"That's the guy. We found out about this guy after the Humboldt Crisis, because after that, whenever there was a live broadcast with the president - the state of the union, addressing congress, the Christmas tree lighting - a pie would splatter across his face every fifteen seconds."
"…Is that it?"
"Hon, it was everything. You haven't lived until you've seen the president try to talk about dignity while being smacked in the face with a banana cream. By the end of term, he refused to show his face in public, and he resigned in quiet disgrace. There were a few other pieings for a few years, but nowhere near the amount that took place when Bentley was president, and eventually they stopped. We never found out who or even where this person was.
"And that - more than anything - makes them the greatest supervillain I've ever had to deal with. Because they didn't do much, but they did it loudly, they did it consistently, and we never caught them."
"...How hard were you trying to catch them?"
"Not very."
"...And you decided to call them Dr. Creampie?"
"We were young. The president had just bombed Saskatchewan. It was a weird time. Honestly we took what we could get for laughs."
This is WILDLY incorrect, sheep are my special interest and I've been raising them for over a decade so excuse me while I get up on this soapbox: ewes do not have a standing heat. Cows reportedly do, but not sheep.
a) ewes who are in heat and feeling flirty solicit sex by walking other to someone they're attracted to, then turning their backs, peeing, wagging their tails, and making extremely flirty bedroom eyes over their shoulders at their crush. Also try to murder anyone they feel might be a rival for suitors. Also also try to murder her crush if it turns out they're not keen on her. Ewes in heat but not feeling flirty (yes this happens) walk around all business as usual and you only know they're in heat bc of the crowd of hopeful suitors following her around and fighting each other. Either way it's not subtle.
b) ewes DO mount each other, with great frequency and enthusiasm. If this is mentioned at all, it gets written into the literature not as a sexual act but as something ewes do to visually signal to rams that they are in heat. (If a ram is within a mile and not dead I promise he doesn't need any such signal) A 'lesbian' ewe will follow a ewe in heat and try to run all the other suitors off to keep breeding rights to herself just like a ram would, whether she herself is in heat or not.
c) it's really really easy to tell what a ewe is attracted to by who she mounts/lets mount her and who she head-butts away from her with murderous intent. Most ewes are more or less indifferent to gender. Out of two dozen I currently have one(1) exclusively straight ewe, and two(2) exclusively lesbian ewes, everyone else is in between.
As far as I can tell the real reason there's no "concrete facts" (sarcasm) about lesbianism in sheep is first off, in a commercial flock ewes that don't get pregnant every year, preferably on the first heat of fall, get culled. No one bothers to determine if she's infertile or just doesn't like rams, so lesbian ewes determined enough to actually stop rams from breeding them don't last long, and secondly that most people researching homosexuality in livestock I've experienced are either stuck in a Victorian "two feemales can't have sex cause there's no peenus for penetration hur dur" mindset or in an equally outdated male-actively-chooses/female-passively-chosen mindset and it just doesn't occur to them that ewes might have preferences.
my dumbest fandom moment was realizing that in the tvd in-universe the myth of vampires sleeping inside of coffins probably were caused by fucking klaus mikaelson trapping his siblings daggered in caskets intermittently for 1000 years and calling it their "nap"
headcanoning right now that the garlic myth is because rebekah was a picky eater
I think what I love most about mythology is that the “Trickster God/Spirit” is an archetypical character found in almost every body of folklore. It’s like “Oh, here’s our God of the Sun, our God of the Sea, our God of Fertility, and our God of Being A Wretched Little Gremlin Who Causes Problems On Purpose”
Love love love characters that present themselves as emotionally open social butterflies but the more you see of them the more obvious it is that they’re the most closed off fuckers in the story. Sure, they want to help you with your personal problems and messy emotions, but if you turn that shit back on them, they’ll shut down or deflect every time. Why are you sticking your nose in their business anyway? It’s not like it matters. They’re not a person, they’re just a role being played. They’re the guy who fixes things and saves people. Please ignore the man behind the mask, he’s fine. Everything’s fine.
more stories where falling in love is a horrifying fate worse than death rather than a source of comfort and hope. more stories where love is understood as a terminal affliction.
more stories where someone falls in love and understands that this means they will be changed and made more vulnerable by it, compelled to do irrational things in the name of it, and be willing to die for it, and starts lashing out and stress vomiting about it
gummygunk
pixelskylines
2087
dailybridgerton
ellievsbear
