Grumpy Old Snake

Aro and ace activism is healthcare reform, so that no one needs to rely on a spouse for health insurance, so that healthcare is available to everybody regardless of income, so that no one’s lived experiences or basic dignity are dismissed or overridden by doctors

Aro and ace activism is well-funded and expansive public transit, so that you don’t need to have someone on hand to drive you places if you are incapacitated, so that you don’t have to pay for an ambulance if you need to get to the hospital quickly

Aro and ace activism is disability and elder care services, so that no one needs a spouse to care for them, so that no one needs children to care for them, so that marriage is not a bind for disabled people, so that people on disability who want to and can live alone can

Aro and ace activism is community-building, it’s public events, it’s free social activities, it’s mutual aid, it’s activities that bring community members together without socializing relying on just a romantic partner

Aro and ace activism is developing a culture of believing when people tell you who they are and what they want rather than assuming you know them better than they know themselves

Amatonormativity affects everyone.

Fighting amatonormativity is an everyone thing.

Making sure everyone can get healthcare regardless of if they have a family member (expected to be a spouse, if you are an adult) who can care for you when you’re ill or injured, can drive you to your doctors’ appointments, who can pay for your medication and medical care when you can’t work, is disability activism. The fact that we have woefully inadequate infrastructure for most of that because your spouse or romantic partner is expected to provide it is, among other thing, amatonormativity.

Untying basic rights in finances, healthcare, housing, immigration, and hospital visitation from marriage so that those tights can’t be taken away if gay marriage is restricted is gay activism. The fact that these rights are tied to marriage in the first place is amatonormativity.

Untying these things from marriage is also polyamorous activism, so in a poly relationship you’re not left with one partner who gets full rights and another partner who does not. It is activism for anyone with any kind of intimate relationship with more than one non-blood-related person. (Hell, it’s activism for people who have a spouse and a sibling all part of the same household.) The fact that marriage, the only taken-seriously relationship you can legally form between individuals as adults, is between two non-blood-related people in a romantic relationship and no other options, is amatonormativity.

Making it easier to survive on your own without a familial support system is queer activism, for all the queer people who don’t have those support systems! And the fact that your spouse is supposed to be your entire support system as an adult is amatonormativity.

Making it so elderly people who don’t have a spouse or children can still get care when they can no longer take care of themselves is elder activism. The fact that your spouse and children are supposed to be the ones who handle that and if you don’t have any then fuck you I guess, is amatonormativity.

Making it possible for a woman to leave her abusive husband, and not lose everything, to live on her own, maybe with her children, and have a place to live and money to live on and infrastructure to support her living without a spouse, is just about the most basic feminist activism that there is. And the fact that society is structured such that staying in an abusive relationship can look like a better option than trying to leave is because of—imagine it!—amatonormativity!

You also just… don’t need to be aro to be single. Plenty of single people are not aromantic and they deserve to have a house and healthcare too.

1. A lot of dudes. Just a ton of fucking people from beginning to end of the process.

2. Ancient people weren't stupid, they just figured shit out the same way we do: fuck around until you find out.

3. We're gonna plan this out and it's gonna take ten fucking years, and you will cope.

4. Sticks and string are surprisingly versatile and can be used for a variety of purposes, like moving stuff and making sure things are even and go in the spot you wanted to put them in!

Y'all loved this last year, so I had to do it again for 2026! This time I added an additional sheet for the queer writers along with the queer readers!

For "what counts" under individual prompts, err on the side of personal interpretation. I made some of these vague so people with varying levels of ability and access can do them!

I started writing this after reading a post about bees @curlicuecal​ made a while ago. Today I decided to finish it, and, a little miraculously, ended up following through.

She knows the animal as it enters.

It buzzes. She buzzes in response, but it means nothing. Her daughter, Lives-In-Peace-Near-Stone-Hives, knows of the buzzing, can know the thoughts within it, but she is not so clever.

She concentrates, so as to know it better. It flinches, shudders, as any mammal would, but it does not flee. To her, acts such as this is what set the beasts-who-know-fire apart from the other animals; proof that its kind knows of more than survival, or offspring, or survival of offspring. It is what makes them dangerous, and what makes them interesting

The animal attempts to use the limb-dancing language her sisters created so that they might communicate with the creatures’ ancestors. She is not well-versed in the language, and neither is it, but she can feel the outline of what it is saying. It needs her help, and it is desperate enough to ask for it.

She is intrigued. With a twist of effort, she ceases to know a strip of herself. The act is painful, but the meaning is clear to the creature: a path.

Abruptly, a desperate, primal fear grips her, but she recognizes the feeling, quells it. A temporary loss of control after the forceful reorganization. If the beasts can survive dozens of years depending on blood so near to their surface, she can very well bring this one to within a few feet of her heart.

She feels the prickling of the beast’s passage on the edges of the channel she has created. It’s moving haphazardly; it wants to rush, but it is terrified of provoking her. She feels a vague sense of satisfaction that its kind still know to fear her after all this time.

It stops just in front of the dense knot of activity around her heart. She makes certain that she will not punish it for its trespass before reaching out, and knowing the beast once more. This close to her heart, her senses swarm more densely, her thoughts flick by in greater numbers, she is more. And she will know what message it is so desperate to convey.

The creature’s limbs dance, its movements slow and measured as it tries not panic. Your eggs are captured, it sweeps out. It isn’t making any sense; her eggs are housed right next to it, and they are quite safe. Our stone hives are endangered. Why would it come to her for help with this? Either of her daughters might rise to its aid, but though she no longer holds quite so much anger for its kind, she holds little love for them either.

The beast is shaking, a display of emotion. Droplets of water leak out of its eyes and slide down its cheeks. She is taken, your eggs are taken, our hives are taken. It is pleading, begging her to understand it, to know what it knows. And, suddenly, she does.

Not her eggs, her daughter. Not actual animal hives, but Lives-In-Peace-Near-Stone-Hives.

Rage grips her, and she embraces it, channels it into a fury which burns like lightning. She explodes into action, gathering resources for transport, splintering off a scout-self, filling the air with her intent to harm. The beasts-who-know-fire have forgotten the horrors of war against her kind. The horrors of a war not against other individual animals, fearful and disorganized, but a war against a living landscape, a single vast mind simultaneously composed of and directing a thousand thousand soldiers.

Folds study with some gradient maps I made c': So pretty ;o;

✨ Get the gradients here!