mildly ominous frog (apparently)

So: repurposed vaguely Kinseyesque scale describing your aromantic and/or asexual protagonist's awareness of and relationship to their own aromanticism/asexuality:

Unaware That This Is A Thing People Can Be. Type specimen: Carl from Dungeon Crawler Carl. Has never once considered that "not wanting romance or sex" is a thing people could feel, let alone identify as. He is normal, which means straight. It's just a coincidence that his relationship with his girlfriend was a disaster and now he's just way too busy in this new nightmare dystopia world for any of that! Anyway!

Aware They Have These Feelings, Assumes Everyone Else Also Does. Type specimen: Doug Eiffel from Wolf 359. Firmly believes that his aro-allo experiences are universal and everybody else is just better at acting like a functional human being than he is. Being a huge movie nerd also leads him to believe that "romance" as we understand it is massively exaggerated for drama in movies and people in real life don't actually do and feel that stuff any more than they mind-meld or can use the Force. He's just a fuckup at everything; why wouldn't relationships be included in that? For most of the show if you told him about aromanticism he would NOT be comforted about it, he'd probably take it as a diagnosis that his fuckup-ness regarding relationships was innate and incurable. (This doesn't have to be negative; this is also where Andy Wheyface from Arden falls and he is having a GRAND old time.)

Aware They Have These Feelings, Realizes That It Sets Them Apart From Others, Doesn't Conceptualize It As Part Of An Identity. Type specimen: Ryland Grace from Project Hail Mary. His reaction to other people having sex is mostly "why would you do that." His single attempt at a serious romantic relationship didn't work out and he has a nagging sense that there is something in him that can't maintain serious relationships; attributes it to cowardice and fear of commitment. Ironically he does know what asexuality is. He's a middle school teacher in 2020s California, he has absolutely gotten LGBTQ+ Sensitivity Education at least in "pamphlet listing queer identities" form, he for sure has students with pride flag pins on their backpacks and pride stickers on their notebooks, and he is also not immune from the Culture War Bullshit around gender in schools. Knowing that asexuality exists did not even slightly lead him to apply this to himself.

Aware They Have These Feelings, Considers Them Significant, Attributes Them To Some Existential Feature Of Their Existence Rather Than A Personal Identity. Type specimen: Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries. Murderbot is very confident it does not want anything to do with romance or sex, and it attributes this to Being A SecUnit, and romance and sex are Human Things SecUnits Don't Do. Has not yet realized that this is an itself thing and not a SecUnit thing. Probably willfully at this point.

Considers These Feelings A Significant Aspect Of Their Selfhood, But Doesn't Name It. Type specimen: Sister Carpenter from The Silt Verses. Clearly confident in who she is and what she wants in her personal relationships, recognizes that as something that makes her different from others and out of step with what others expect from her, and is basically like, that's their problem. She knows who she is. Sometimes other people try to make it her problem but she has so many other problems that societal amatonormativity keeps getting pushed lower and lower on her list of Problems.

Recognizes Themself As Aromantic/Asexual As A Personal Identity. Type specimen: Nova NoStar from InCo. Clearly considers this part of her identity, but is allergic to talking about her feelings even at her therapy android's insistence and besides that's not anybody else's business is it?

Publicly Identifies As Asexual And Describes It With Period-Correct Sexual Orientation Language. Type specimen: Sally Grissom from ars PARADOXICA. The only character I've ever heard come out as asexual and lay out the definition in terms of sexual orientation and attraction to another character on-air that made me go "yeah she would do this, this is in character for Sally." Strongly feel like she would be an active commenter on the 2010s ace blogosphere. Would get in an argument about the correct definition of asexuality on AVEN.

What teens in these circumstances need is typically money, because poverty is the major driving force behind prostitution among youth. In other cases they need information about where to report abuse from their schooling. No legal model around sex work will put an end to poverty or targeted sexual abuse for profit, because this is a much larger issue.

When ER did show exposed breasts during a resuscitation scene (in 2004!) it was incredibly controversial (this wasn't long after the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident). NBC even blurred the actor's nipples.

I'm really glad you brought this up because the wave of absolute, unmitigated, brazen antisemitism I've seen in normie spaces ever since the Epstein files dropped has been staggering.

I'm against the "the elites are oppressing us!" framing for two reasons. One, like you say, is that it's perpetually one small step away from becoming "(((the elites))) are oppressing us!" And you don't have control over if and when that happens. You think Nazis aren't taking advantage of that framing? Slipping into progressive/normie spaces and "just asking questions" about this group of elites? Taking people like Epstein and using them as proof that Jewish people were conspiring against us all along? Dropping Nazi dog-whistles into the conversation to signal to other Nazis that this is a safe space?

If you've already primed people to agree that a small group of elites is shadow-ruling the country, you've primed people for antisemitism.

But even if you could completely remove antisemitism from the equation - you can't, but let's pretend - the constant waves of despair I see from people saying "nothing ever changes, nothing ever gets better, we're all under the boot of the oligarchs and there's nothing we can do about it" is both demoralizing and completely untrue.

People who insist that women, gay people, racial minorities, disabled people, etc., have not made any strides since the US was founded are either lying to you or too stupid to be speaking on this subject. You can acknowledge that injustice and discrimination is still deeply-rooted in our society while also acknowledging that decades and centuries of incremental legislation, organizing, and activism have vastly improved the lives of marginalized people.

If your pitch about why society is bad is basically "things suck, they'll always suck, there's nothing we can do about it", why on earth would I join your movement? YOU don't even sound like you believe in it! If you insist that "the elites" will never let us make real progress, then why would I even try? If you insist that incrementalism doesn't work and only violent revolution can free us, I'm not going to think "huh, I guess we gotta revolt", I'm gonna think "well a revolution isn't gonna happen, so I guess I'll stop paying attention to this".

And frankly, I think it's wildly offensive to the people who spent their lives desperately fighting for the progress that lets me live as myself to insist that they didn't actually accomplish anything because nothing has ever gotten better.

I will steal myself away from their intent for me. My blood will not ripen their soil, nor shall my body blossom into their chosen colours.

I will bring them fear instead

my collection grows