"The Angst Monarch"

Post-HM-launch queerplatonic-ish probably-unhealthy Eva Stratt/Carl. Bonding over being among the few who know the full tragic scope of Grace’s fate.

The two meet up and quietly break out the drinks on certain Hail-Mary related milestone anniversaries.

Because, like, okay. It's 2026. There's rising queerphobia of all stripes--which is undeniably one reason I'm thinking about the lateral violence of it all, and we'll circle back to that--but the media environment of today does still makes it more possible than ever before to find and enjoy queer fiction. And this is critical to what I'm about to say next, so I hope those of us that grew up in times where that was not true can sort of table our thoughts on what things were like when we were kids.

My point it, if I'm an adult who isn't in the closet (and even if I am in the closet, plausible deniability is higher than it was pre-2010 or so!), I can go see a gay movie. I can go buy a gay book. There are members of the community, like kids/teens or people in unsafe situations that might not have that freedom, but at the very least, finding the gay media isn't the hard part for anyone. Heated Rivalry is one of the biggest TV shows of the year (and the books that it's based off have since seen a huge jump in popularity, too), queer romantasy is flourishing, and even classic queer media is getting revamped (pun intended) in series like the Interview With the Vampire TV series. And if, for whatever reason, none of the current professional stuff is doing it for you, Ao3 has approximately 8.4 million M/M stories and 1.7 F/F stories--which isn't the greatest ratio for the femslash fans, but is still nothing to sneeze at. And that's not even getting into the many gay podcasts and audio dramas, self-published books, comics (indie and otherwise), and other, nicher options. Long story short, if you only want to watch, read, or listen to media with prominent gay characters in it, you can establish a very healthy media diet, with everything from fun, trashy romance to acclaimed TV miniseries to weird podcasts to RPG actual plays, and everything in-between. This has very much not always been the case, so it's really cool we're here!

As an aro/ace person I... can't do that with stories about people like me. Like I really, seriously can't do that. I guess if I was content to enjoy less media, maybe, but I love stories, which I'm sure a lot of people on this website can relate to. And I love participating in fandom, too, so sometimes I do want to be into something that's big enough for me to chat about it with other people, or get more than a handful of kudos on my fanfic. So at the end of the day I don't limit myself, and that's honestly a good thing! It's great to be into things about characters who don't exactly share your identities, too.

But like. This year I've bought* exactly one book with an actual, canonically aro and/or ace character in it--the short story collection Tales From the Folly, which is a part of the Rivers of London series and features the aro/ace character Thomas Nightingale. (*I say bought, because I'm yet to actually read it--I'm sorry, Thomas!). That's it. I've enjoyed various other stories, but as far as ones with people like me go, I've gotten my hands on exactly one. And it's not for a lack of trying! There just... hasn't been much on my radar. This is a huge reason I've gotten so excited about Project Hail Mary recently--it doesn't have any canonically queer characters, and the original author definitely didn't intend to write the main character in a way that resonated with so many aro/aces. But it's a story without any canonical romance of any kind, where as a result, I can watch a fun movie and pretend for a little bit that Ryland Grace is like me. There are so few aro/ace characters that most of what we get. Playing pretend.

This is where I think some of the wires are getting crossed. When people hear someone like me say "I'm really exhausted by all the emphasis on romance and shipping in fandom," I think what some of you are hearing--because it's historically been true, and we're at a scary time in the world where it feels more and more like it's threatening to become true again--is "I want there to be fewer gay stories." When what I'm really saying is "I want there to be more aro/ace stories--or at least stories where I can pretend the main character is like me." And to even further hamper understanding, when aro and/or ace folks say we want stories about people like us and we hear other, allo queers object, what we aspecs often hear is "I think people like you aren't worth telling stories about"--even though many of you have valid reasons for liking the stories that you do, too.

I think that those of us who belong to older generations (especially millennials and above) can all probably relate to what aspecs are experiencing here on some level. There was a point in time where gay books were extremely limited, and gay characters in TV and movies were unheard of. Even as things crept in a more progressive direction, the Bury Your Gays tropes meant not everyone could enjoy the stories those characters showed up in. That was really hard for a lot of people, and I never, ever want us to go back to that. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that gay media just isn't at that point right now. Media with actual aro/ace characters in it.... kind of still is. It's different, because society is in a very different place, and also cishet people have historically demonized aromantic and asexual people with very different tropes--the heartless villain incapable of love, the cold lover that the protagonist abandons to be happy with someone else, the boring stuck-up prude, etc. And there are people, especially in the indie sphere, who are making some good stuff. But at the end of the day, I have a lot fewer choices than you do. Which is why it really hurts to get told that my headcanons and readings of canon--which are most of what I have--are actually problematic.

Anyway. None of this is groundbreaking. It's been said before, by people more eloquent and more persuasive than me, and it'll probably be said again. It just feels worth reiterating, considering some of the blowback I've been getting to expressing this sentiment. Because I really do think a lot of us want the same thing--for everyone to be able to enjoy whatever kind of stories they like most about people like them. (Without losing sight of the fact that media can be a great way to understand the experiences of people of other experiences, of course). When the scales are so unequally weighted, however, it gets really messy to talk about.

in grad school one time I had a conversation with a professor during office hours that ended up with me confessing I was afraid with the rising homophobia and transphobia in the country. she said that I could always just go back in the closet and I wouldn't be a target.

In a huge way that's what even the current (a year after OP's post, this being the second time the Lefebrvists are being excommunicated) kerfluffle - and all "mad about Vatican II and the Church having the audacity to be more focused on proving that it serves the poor and the vulnerable than proving that it can tell people how they're allowed to have sex and that they're not holy unless they are also Catholic" piss-fits from so-called tradcaths - is about: in the middle of the twentieth century, and in some cases even solidly previous back into the nineteenth century, very powerful people in the establishment started heavy duty realizing that they were losing the laity at an alarming rate. And they realized that they were not losing them to Protestantism (which had also started losing people, in a large scale way) but that people were literally going " . . . maybe I just . . . don't want this church thing in my life" and often the tagline was "because frankly it makes me miserable, and sucks, and is hypocritical as everloving shit, and is just a lot of work really."

And you can shake your fist at that all you like on a purely moral angle (people should care more about the state of their soul than - !) but the Church did not survive the 1800+ years of violence and upheaval and threats from secular powers that actually did march right up to the gates with an army that felt ABSOLUTELY FINE about killing everyone inside . . . it did not get through all of these by ignoring the pragmatic realities. The schismatics will try to give you the impression that eg Vatican II reforms were the pet project of specific popes but almost 3000 bishops spent a number of years hashing them out and they were quite literally voted on by the assembly of bishops and at no point did any one of the reforms get less than over a two-thirds majority (the one that was the least amount over was actually the first vote on a thing about how to use broadcast media).

And the special status of Vatican City in the world is not something that was coincidentally bestowed or just Happened to the Roman Catholic Church. The historical struggles over control of the physical city of Rome, and the land surrounding it, and then post-Unification - like this was fought over and the key, core, most important part of it was at heart ensuring that the bishop of Rome - the Pope - did not actually answer to the laws of a secular power in terms of trying to do his job as pope. At certain points in history this de-facto wobbled as one secular power or another invaded Rome with "forcing the Church to do what I want" in mind, and the other side of the wobble was some OTHER secular power going HEY THAT'S OUT OF BOUNDS and people died over it; and then the point of the papal states was to go ok you can't do that anymore because we actually own a country around us, and then the people unifying Italy were like no we require Rome for lo what is Italy without Rome and there was a huge fucking fight about what to do about that before the Lateran treaties validated this weird little city-state we now have inside Italy and Rome called "Vatican City".

But this is because the Roman Catholic Church wants to survive, and wants to survive as what it can recognize as itself, and not answer to any king or president or anything else in terms of where its supreme pontiff Actually Lives.

cis women's fight is part of our larger fight, but too many do not want to make these connections. a cis woman will fight for the right to abortion, hormonal birth control, labor protections against discrimination for pregnancy, etc. as entirely disconnected struggles from access to other gendered surgeries, hormonal treatments, and labor protections against gendered discrimination. but they are not disconnected.

this perceived separation between these struggles is only in one direction. for example, the disparity between the percent of trans people who openly defend the right of cis girls accessing abortion at any age without needing parental consent (almost all of us) and the percent of cis women who defend the right of trans kids accessing transition care at any age without needing parental consent is stark. and that is very depressing to me.

whenever I draw obvious parallels, I get notes from cis women telling me how disgusting it is to compare our healthcare to theirs. they tell me in a variety of ways that their politically controversial gendered healthcare needs are obviously legitimate, unlike ours.

but all of our healthcare is getting criminalized and dismantled. you talk to a reactionary and they do not believe your healthcare is a legitimate need either. they also say cis women who get abortions are selfish, sex-obsessed, and a danger to children. this is the same fight and too many cis women refuse to acknowledge it.

whenever I see posts talking about defending pregnant women (not people, but women) the notes are full of transphobic cis women. I saw one the other day where a USian in the notes was saying "this is why women become republicans, because at least the right respects pregnant women." do they? how is that alliance going?

I want cis women to understand that the struggle for bodily autonomy over sexed characteristics is one struggle. insisting on this rhetorical distinction between us is a reactionary move. it calls people with regressive gender politics to your side even if you do not intend for that to happen. it reproduces the conditions that are currently stripping you of your rights, too.