Welcome to the year of klapollo (2026)

1.

ABSOLUTE CASSANDRA CAIN ONE-SHOT!!!11!!

Full art of Absolute Cass:

But I’d love a fic where one or both of Shane’s parents drop by the cottage for phone charger/laundry pod reasons and find Shane snuggled on the couch fast asleep on Ilya’s chest and that’s how they find out

They’re dressed in soft casual clothes, sleeping like the dead and wrapped around each other like vines and Ilya’s hand is in Shane’s hair and Shane looks so so comfortable and relaxed

b) I found the paper they’re citing and it’s actually really sweet and a really cool study to read! not at all too dense

some highlights:

this is VERY sweet

(this paper came about bc they were having trouble identifying participants by ‘traditional’ recruitment methods like posting flyers and contacting LGBT networks/support groups, and also didn’t want to skew the data toward people who would frequent these)

they also tried making profiles on dating sites but….. 

anyway here’s a link

Them: I have a work of literary cyberpunk that seriously explores the impact of ubiquitous cybernetic enhancement upon bodily autonomy.

Me: Does it really seriously explore the impact of ubiquitous cybernetic enhancement upon bodily autonomy, or does it employ bodily autonomy as a metaphor for the artist's loss of intellectual freedom under the corporate state?

Them: It definitely seriously explores the impact of ubiquitous cybernetic enhancement upon bodily autonomy.

Me: All right – show me your work of literary cyberpunk that seriously explores the impact of ubiquitous cybernetic enhancement upon bodily autonomy.

Me: *looks inside*

"Because the decision rests entirely on the Montana Constitution, it is insulated from the U.S. Supreme Court. Under the principle of adequate and independent state grounds, the federal Supreme Court cannot review a state court's interpretation of its own constitution, so long as that constitution provides more protection than the federal one. [...] What this means in practice is that Montana's transgender residents now have a constitutional shield completely independent of the Supreme Court of the United State’s decisions."

Like it's bad when a "tattoo is undulating" (as opposed to... "drawn in a wave like pattern on the skin"?), or when hair is "wet wheat from a late Summer field" (as opposed to "sort of brownish light yellow that dries lighter, but is not actual wheat stalks growing on someone's head but kind of reminiscent of the color and texture"?), or when when ice cream tastes like midnight at the fair" (as opposed to "ice cream flavour bringing back memories of undefined ice cream flavours that are individually popular but always tied to a memory of late evening at the fair ground and probably smelling vaguely like popcorn and sugar"?).

when it's framed as a "so just get married for legality reasons" and im like. you mean like how gay people married/marry people of the opposite gender for legality reasons? and that's considered to be a symptom of a problem, not the solution? you want people to "just" get married against their will because it's the only solution this system has available?

if people cannot or will not get married for whatever reason -- not just for being aromantic, but, say, due to inefficient disability support measures within marriage, because of having had bad experiences with marriage in the past, because of being polyamorous, because some element of marriage is ineffective, unwanted, limited, discriminatory, or hell, because you can't find somebody to marry or nobody wants to marry you, or maybe because you just plain don't want to without there being a distinct Reason -- then it's a problem that this is the only framework in place for people to be afforded certain legal and social protections.

i am glad for others that more people can get married, but it's a flawed institution with gaping holes that isn't for everyone and builds social structures that leave so many people behind and unsupported. this is abundantly obvious in the way that we saw why people pushed for the need for equal marriage in the first place.

that's what's said when making a point that it's a social construct. and also what's meant (partially) when pushing against the idea that "love" as concept isn't at the core of queer (amongst others hinted at in this post) activism, because it's about building better structures. if the only people we care about are those we "love" within a family unit, or those who successfully manage to pretend that unit without actually really wanting it, and if not being in that unit for whatever reason means that care isn't going to be/is no longer afforded, then are we really doing any better than heteronormativity?

yes, India made legal gender change impossible but my friends have always gendered me correctly and stick to it even when it confuses other people and my friend's little sibling calls me older brother in Kannada yes, India made legal gender change impossible but my dog learned my new name quicker than the humans and she runs to give me a kiss when she's told to without being confused about who's being referred to

yes, India made legal gender change impossible but I can feel the Adam's apple growing in my throat and my muscles getting stronger, and my smile more real and I'm growing a beard, and I talk more freely

Yes, it is wrong to conflate aspec identities with trauma, and it is wrong to say to an aspec person something along the lines of "what happened to make you this way." But it's not wrong because the idea of orientation and trauma being related is absurd and harmful. It's wrong because (1) that's just a deeply inconsiderate thing to say to a person, whether it's true or not, and (2) it implies that aromanticism and asexuality are an affliction that you acquire and something to be fixed, not a neutral or natural state of being and a part of one's identity.

I think in addition to those points, though, and perhaps most crucially: (3) it suggests that "healing" from one's trauma is about reverting back to baseline, back to "normal", back to who you were before, and that just isn't how it works. We already know that trauma and other experiences can rewire how your brain and body work, sometimes permanently; why should one's orientation be exempt from that?

If someone has had experiences, negative or otherwise, that lead them to feel most comfortable using an aspec label, or being in aspec spaces, and they don't feel any need to change that or go back to how they "used" to be, who am I to begrudge them the language and community that helps them make sense of their reality? Who am I to judge someone's reasons for putting a label on something as nebulous and individual and socially constructed as their sexuality, just because I feel I was "born" this way? If someone's reasons for identifying this way make you uncomfortable, why? And why should your comfort dictate what language others can use for themselves?

I am very tired of the narrative that there is a sexuality/romantic orientation/gender/whatever else that you are inherently born as and if something "happens" to make you something else then it should be fixed. I already hear enough that my aromanticism and asexuality are things to be fixed, and this is how I've always been. Why would I ever want to project such an idea onto other aspec people, just because their reasons for identifying as aspec are different or perhaps even transient? It is of no material threat to me whatsoever. In fact, I think people having the language and the support to make sense of their lives and to build a life without romance and/or sex, if that's what they want, can only ever be a good thing, regardless of why they want it. They're all welcome on my shores.

All Star but it’s in a minor key so it makes you question life and realize the years start comin and they don’t stop comin

aka, the theme song to Shrek 9: Shrek’s Third Divorce