There's this narrative that was especially peddled in the 2017-ish ace discourse era that a lot of teenagers and young aspecs would grow out of it and eventually realize they were playing pretend straight or whatever. The mob psycho fandom especially was hit with this weird ace discourse war where people got *really* aggressive about (especially) asexual headcanons and a lot of bad faith arguments were thrown around about it. Being visibly aspec in that fandom at the time guaranteed you'd have a target on your back. I think despite knowing a lot of it was bullshit that part of my life and the constant harassment me and my aspec peers faced at the time is something I'll probably carry with me for a long time. Diving back into that blog made me realize how much that time influences the way I view and present myself on online platforms to this day.

That is to say that despite everything, I felt the tiniest bit healed seeing how many of my mutuals and familiar faces grew up and are still visibly aspec! I know this is such a 'no duh' moment but I have to emphasize how moving it was for me after years of people saying its fake! Seeing real evidence that the rhetoric was wrong and that people are still living their lives vocally like that.

teru!!!!