Does anyone else on the aroace spectrum ever feel like

I’m in my twenties and I WANT these big epic romances I see in movies and tv and books and even in my social circles but

I literally feel no attraction to anyone

Like I feel like I’m missing out on this life experience but I can’t help it

Happy Ace Week to all the aces and aros and aroaces and people who are in the “experience little attraction” part of the definition and demi-aces and demi-aros and gray-aces and gray-aros and ace people who have sex and ace people who hate sex and aros in relationships and single aros and loveless aros and aplatonic folks and anyone else who I didn’t include but who deserves to be part of this community

wishing you guys acceptance and understanding wherever you might go. and also a dessert of your choice

may your futures be whatever you dream them to be :3

Everyone thinking Andrew’s nails are always painted black but in fact most of the time they’re a shade of gray because that’s Neil’s favorite color

Tfw you’re too autistic to tell if you’re asexual or demisexual

ok pt 2 now with more headcanony versions!! these aren’t necessarily my headcanons but they are all ones I vibe w. are they qp to me? idk! do I think it’s cool and real when ppl write and interpret them as qp? yeah! yknow if anybody has any requests for flags to edit onto them lmk! these are quick & fun & i don’t bite. & either way feel free to use these for whatever!! credit would be swag but is not necessary if u do. have a happy & safe pride everyone!!!

I’m not personally into Ashrym so this isn’t something I’ll write, but perhaps if this reaches anyone who is and wants a fun idea:

I think a really cool plot to explore would be that Ashton and FCG are like aro/ace together and for the first time, maybe Ashton realizes their preferences may be more complicated (maybe they’re demiromantic/demisexual, for example), and they have to process a new facet of their identity and sexuality and orym would help guide them through it, the precious lil guy he is. I think it could be both a really interesting character study, a chance to reflect on a personal journey of discovery, and just a really soft way for two people to grow and support each other along the way.

pirate website: HEY‼️YOU‼️HERES SOME HOT LADIES PLAYING WITH THEIR TITS AND BEING HOT HOTTIE HOT SEX LADIES ‼️click link when ur interested 😏😏😏🔥🔥

me: oh, cool. thanks i guess. *hits play on the Regular Show*

Holy shit wait a minute Porsche is demi, he is SO DEMI I CANT BELIEVE IM JUST NOW REALIZING

I will be honest here (and please let me know if you think I am reaching) but I think mxtx herself has been working through an gray or demi ace thing through her stories. Because like. Shen Yuan? That guy reads as someone who has no idea what love or attraction is even supposed to be. Wei Wuxian (while flirting with quite a few people) has Lan Wangji as his one and only romantic love of both lifetimes. And Xie Lian- as you've stated- is definitely experiencing all these new romantic and sexual feelings for the first time and is overwhelmed.

Now, I have ventured outside of mxtx (not...a lot, but still) and I havent seen anything to suggest that this is a genre convention?? For example, Chu Wanning or Zhou Zishu do not give me this vibe. Maybe I am reading the wrong books haha, but I have started to get the feeling she was definitely working through something (authors always put more of themselves in their work than they think)

hi anon, sorry this took me so long (i’m honestly still marinating in my own possibly grey-aroace revelation and so this ask sent me into a spiral of sorts). i think you have a point — idk about mxtx herself, but all 3 of her protagonists can be read as different types of grey/demi/aroace narratives.

what they all have in common is this particular total obliviousness to the romantic situation unfolding. not that they’re blind to what is happening, but it’s as if they have zero frame of reference for what that they are feeling. they don’t think, oh it’s a crush, i’m having romantic feelings for this person. instead the reaction is more like, ?????? suddenly i want to kiss???? why do i like them so much???????

off the top of my head, wwx’s blossoming feelings for lwj are a good example here. in the novel, he genuinely doesn’t have romantic feelings towards lwj at first — he may have had a bit of a crush back in cloud recesses, but he never perceived his interest in lwj as romantic. he slowly falls for lwj over the course of the novel. how it happens is (imo) a very demi-aroace process: it goes from > hanguang-jun is so good looking and admirable > omg he is so funny and great > i like him so much idk why??? > wtf i want to kiss him > i wanna jump on that dick

that strikes me as very non-allo?? it’s not that he’s in denial about how he feels, more that he has no idea what these feelings mean, which sounds very much like someone who has hardly, if ever, experienced sexual or romantic attraction before. iirc we never see wwx express any sort of specifically sexual attraction to lwj before developing feelings for him (literally sleeping in that guys arms seems a perfect recipe for unfortunate boner hijinks and yet it never seemed to happen?) — compelling argument for demi reading imo.

and it’s the same for sqq and xie lian, though their journeys are slightly different to wwx’s. i can’t imagine that this sort of narrative is at all common in the genre? i can’t speak to other c-novels but zhou zishu certainly doesn’t read that way, and from my general knowledge of BL/danmei, it doesn’t seem like a common romantic trope. i absolutely love it though, now you’ve pointed it out it makes sense why i connect so strongly with these stories. and certainly if mxtx managed to work this into all 3 of her stories, i’d want to know how she feels about it herself.

now excuse me i’m going down an a-spec analysis spiral for mxtx novels

2022 reads // twitter thread    

Kiss Her Once For Me

a poor artist agrees to fake-marry a rich himbo so he can get his inheritance, but when she goes to spend xmas with his family discovers his sister is the girl she had a one-day-romance with last xmas

anxious perfectionist webcomic artist MC

,

Also not me only NOW realizing that my love for Kanej is a little… a-spec of me.

Like.

They touch hands like once and that’s the most romantic this ever imo

werewolf!robb stark is so real to me

fucking insane conversation i had today

Aside from the obvious More Male Characters In General + Asexual Vision (wdym they’re not Default Ace (until shown otherwise)?! Seems fake)…

…think my Comfort Hyperfixation Blorbos trend towards men that I can also argue as asexual-spectrum out of a Rage for

-moar ace characters

-moar men who don’t behave as trash or hold trash biases, OR they’re actively working on themselves to NOT be trash

-moar ace men

(in that order.)

I always used to wonder why writing romantic interaction was so hard and why I could never bring myself to write smut without dying of uncomfortable embarrassment,, and now having fully realized that I’m somewhere on the aroace spectrum… it kinda all makes sense lol

Like I read an admittedly excessive amount of fic because the only relationships I desire are wholly unattainable (see: attraction to fictional characters); and I also have this wackass hangup with writing from lived experience so that just throws a wrench in the works