welcome to my fandom hodgepodge

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A pair of love bugs: Pinsir and Heracross mini heart cake for Valentine's Day! 🤎💙

There seems to be a weird phenomenon in fandom where people give their aro/ace headcannon to an unimportant side character or the one person that they don’t have a ship for. Every other character is shipped with another person and there is just one single person in their story and that is the aspec character.

And that is shitty for a few reasons.

You cannot only make the “boring” or ”undesirable” people aro/ace. It feels incredibly weird. Those are typically the characters that get sidelined in fics as well. There are outgoing aspec people. With friends and in some cases they are in relationships as well. They aren’t all shy introverted people or science geeks with no desire for a social life. But you don’t see that in fandom.

The other problem is that it seems like you cannot imagine an allo person being single. Choosing to stay single. Like the only way someone could be happy like that is if they were “incapable” of love and had to settle for what you perceive to be a lesser form of happiness.

You also often see the aroace label, but rarely aroallo or alloace headcannons anywhere. The aroace label just gets used as a “this character doesn’t date and is therefore unimportant” box.

I knew that I was asexual at 6 years old. 

Well, that’s somewhat of an exaggeration: I wouldn’t have been able to describe myself with that word at that age. I also (obviously) wouldn’t have had a nuanced understanding of sex or sexual attraction yet - after all, 6 is barely above toddler age! 

And yet, I would 100% say I knew I was asexual. I still remember the moment I realized, actually! 

I had just recently learned what sex was. That specific conversation I actually do not recall, I don’t know if I asked or if my parents initiated the discussion. I vaguely (and fondly) remember a children’s sex ed book, that’s all. But I do remember what must’ve been a few days later when that conversation was still fresh in my mind: My family went to a bistro and someone left their magazine in the booth we sat down into. I was an early reader and was easily fascinated by any reading material and so I, somewhat painstakingly still but successfully, deciphered one of the article headlines on the cover:„30 things to know about sex“ - and I decided right there that this is not relevant to my life whatsoever. 

The memory stands out to me as an adult because it was so mundane. It wasn’t a scared „My parents explained it badly and now I’m terrified of encountering anything sex-related“ and it wasn’t even the stereotypical „That’s yucky, I will never do that yucky adult stuff“ thought that you may expect a 6 year old to have. It was just a sort of… disconnect. It was the very same feeling I got when I learned about astronauts and space travel: „Wow, its so interesting that some people have to learn all that! Luckily it doesn’t apply to me whatsoever. Whatever I learn here is theoretical knowledge that does not affect real life for me whatsoever.“ 

Was I, at 6 years old, emotionally and cognitively mature enough to really be able to have an accurate and nuanced understanding of sex and attraction? Had I been in puberty yet? Was I physically ready to have sex? Did I have enough life experience to confidently choose a forever label? Well, no to any of that - but I was right. I have a more nuanced understanding now, and the disconnect stayed. Sex is still space travel to me. Not in the sense that I do not understand it or fear it or have never done it or think it cannot be a fascinating topic, but in the sense that I just don’t really have any big emotional connection to it. I just don’t feel that spark.

This is a long and personal story, just to say: no, I do not think you are too young to know. And no, I don’t think you need to have sexual experience in order to know. I also don’t think you need to be 100% sure that it’ll never change either. 

In fact, I would even say I don’t really care if you’re too young to know. 6 year old me was content with his decision. It’s enough if it feels right for now. If it ever stops feeling right, you can still adjust your label! You’re allowed to call yourself asexual for now. 

With all my love, 

a curiosity

Momo!!

You make iterations, because you get better by doing them. I teach art and when one of my students gets dejected for 'being bad' I double-check: this is prob the first time you're [sculpting a flower] right? right. Well is the first time you played soccer, or tennis, or a musical instrument, or drove a car, also the best time you ever did? you probably got better by doing it more often.

and ofc it's not magic in the sense that you'll be perfect by next Tuesday, but as a wise person on the internet once said, the time will pass anyway.