#aspec thoughts

[the-ungovernable]

the only kind of allo i am is allosexual. god made my soul devoid of emotional bonds for some reason /neutral

[ineffable-doll]

Shipping is so much more FUN when you're aspec.

I'm not super fandom savvy, having only ever been active in one of them in any meaningful way, but I am familiar with the online culture surrounding shipping fictional characters together. Something I've personally witnessed is that the thinking around platonic v.s. romantic is extremely binary; a relationship can be one or the other, and a platonic relationship is the failing outcome if you, as an audience member, preferred the latter. This reflects much broader societal thinking, so it makes sense that most people approach shipping this way.

However, when you're aspec (anywhere on the aromantic and/or asexual spectrums), this idea doesn't necessarily apply. Suddenly, platonic and romantic are not opposing ideas, they're just two potential options on a very, very wide sliding scale / multi-dimensional graph wherein the significance of a relationship is completely disconnected from its label.

A huge part of shipping culture (again, just from what I've witnessed) is that Explicit Confessions and/or an onscreen mouth kiss are necessary to make a ship canon, and that not happening means Your Ship Isn't Canon And Therefore Isn't Important or Valuable (and gets used as a way of invalidating other people's ships). However, for a lot of aspec folks (and others, of course), romance is not automatically more valuable than friendship, and an end goal for a particular character dynamic becomes a lot less about fulfilling A, B, and C to verify the couple as "real" in the eyes of the mainstream or even the fandom as a whole, and instead is more about wanting to see characters happily in one another's presence. Specifics vary wildly case to case, so I'm gonna leave that fairly broad.

Ultimately, I have found myself shipping characters in the usual way less and less as I've learned more about my own aspec identity and experience. I care less if characters kiss; I care less if characters declare three little words...though I also am very familiar with the history of queer erasure and definitely root for explicitly romantic queer rep. And all this doesn't mean I don't have couples I support - I very much do. But whether their relationship is specifically romantic matters very little to me, with rare exceptions. (In fact, I often find myself "shipping" characters platonically - seeing a couple that would make great best friends being forced along standard, heterosexual romantic beats.) Mostly, I want the characters I ship to be around each other, to support each other, and to love each other in whatever capacity is fulfilling to their arcs and to the narrative.

Or, to put this all in a more digestible meme format:

Allos: If the couple doesn't kiss then the ship isn't canon

Me: but have you considered that the real kiss was the friends we made along the way?

[mxanigel]

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be ace or aspec. Specifically, about the beautiful range of identities that fall within those labels. And how one ace person's thoughts and experiences can't (and don't need to be!) identical to another's.

Because how we perceive and act on our identities isn't shaped by that identity alone but also by our background and personality and relationships and perspective on the world.

There isn't one right way to be ace. We're all queer. And I love that for us.

[andifthestarsweretodie]

i love seeing the aro and aroace positivity on here but i just. i just want to not to be a revolutionary by being myself. yes I'm queer and yes i revel in not being a part of the status quo but i also would love not to be so different sometimes. the fact that i'm aro and in a relationship that's committed and serious, a relationship that is almost equal parts romance and qpr. the fact that this relationship doesn't meet all my needs but that i want it anyway and i don't want to leave him. the fact that my relationship is open on my end to get my needs met in a way that works for me. the fact that i'm an ace that is not exactly celibate. all of these things. i wish i was unnoticeable and not a thing to be put on a shelf and studied by others. idk man

[minervadashwood]

.

[natashalierushman]

A decisive list of characters I headcanon as aroace as a little NYE treat to myself:

-Luke Skywalker

-Obi-Wan Kenobi

-Frodo Baggins

-Legolas

-Yelena Belova (kinda confirmed by comic writers in interviews?!)

Characters that are def aspec in Some Way:

-Damian Wayne

-Stephanie Brown

-Bilbo Baggins

-Gimli

-Natasha Romanoff

-Merlin

-Anakin Skywalker

-Bail Organa

-Breha Organa

-Hera Syndulla

-Sasha James

-Din Djarin

[almost-sans]

the wildest thing i experince today, finding that, yes i am in fact demiromantic & demisexual. no matter how i feel & experince other formes of attraction. or who im attracted.

also i'm in fact that i'm turian t4t. i also go with polysexual since it fits too. so poly turian works & i'm so happy figuring out this aspects about me.

intersex nonbinary demi poly turian & polyamours is my full label

[almost-sans]

why cant a nigga be ace cause they feel like it? why i gotta analyze every aspect of my existence (which a nigga cant cause plural)

like im ace cause i feel like being ace. & when i dont feel like it, im back on my gaybian shenanigans