#pre-decimation

[aspecinitiativecenter]

Hi! I'm somewhat new to the tumblr aspec community, and I was wondering if you could clear up what exactly the Decimation was.

It’s a term I made up to describe what exclusionists/aphobes did to the aspec community in the past few years. People haven’t really ‘voted’ on it so I’m not going to say coined just yet, but if people generally approve of it I will be sticking with it. 

What you see now is the end result of that; discourse wasn’t so prevalent as it is today, it was more of a discussion among aspecs about our experiences, and not what it is today. There were a lot more people out, and the attacks online against us weren’t quite so vicious/prevalent.

We were also having lots of fun with being aspec and it was generally a much stronger community with more positivity going around. 

[aspecinitiativecenter]

Pre-Decimation: Before REGs destroyed the online aspec community when we had fun with our identities and were making progress in terms of education and visibility for our aspec identities. 

Decimation: The result of REGs viciously attacking any aspec person for our identities and actively ruining any community building we had done or were doing. 

Post-Decimation: The period of time where aspecs were closeted and laying low/in hiding from the fallout of the Decimation. 

Resurrection: Coming back from the Decimation. 

[aspecinitiativecenter]

Ace dragons were interpreted a couple of different ways.

Dragons have always been an in-joke among aspecs, particularly aces (that I saw, at the time I was more focused on asexuality than romantic). It was a joke about how “well we don’t exist and neither do dragons so we’re dragons!”

Dragons are a manifestation of your powers as an aspec. People interpreted it as being able to turn into a dragon and/or having a dragon companion form (it could disappear as needed, like when the Ace Hunt was nearby or around people you were not out to). The dragons also were connected to your emotions and whether or not you accepted yourself-you would have conflict with the dragon if you were rejecting yourself or had emotional conflict about your identities.

I hope this helps!

[aspecinitiativecenter]

I can't remember what the Shadows are. My memories of the world pre-Decimation are...fuzzy. Could you remind me?

Here is-the Shadows don’t exist. Some memory loss is normal if you damped your powers when you went into hiding. 

[aspecinitiativecenter]

I have vague recollections of some aro specs starting to build a parallel set of powers based on a different mythical creature, and as an aro now I would strongly support any aros who wanted to do that. Does anyone else have any idea of what I might be thinking of? I can't for the life of me find any of the posts I'm thinking, even on my own blogs where they should still be

Yeah, the Tumblr purges really did a number on pre-Decimation posts-I am genuinely (though pleasantly) shocked that @ace-s-ops and @aceproblems survived blog deletions etc. 

I can’t help you because at the time I was much more focused on my sexual orientation. Do you remember what the powers were? It might jog some memories-now that you mention it I also vaguely remember Aros doing something, but at the time I thought I was alloromantic. 

[aspecinitiativecenter]

I'm a relatively new demisexual and I'd never heard of any of this! I love it so much and hope the community thrives post-Decimation. With love, a demi-spy in training

Me, too! 

Welcome to the AIC!