previously shiftytracts

Just–does it scare you guys, how in T/M/A canon when Jon goes right back to work after an injury he gets away with it? How he never learns his lesson, nothing bad enough ever happens to him to make him stop doing that? ... I am constantly hungry for art that lives with that fear, that stares at it, rather than trying to paper over it with stories about bodily suffering as an aberration that suspends the normal rules. ... [In] real life, pushing yourself till you shatter into pieces and your boyfriend (or friend, or coworker) puts them back together isn’t how you learn to take better care of yourself. Like? I’m not saying real life is “all h, no c”; it isn’t. Nor am I saying no one’s ever gonna drive you to the hospital if you come into work with a 104-degree fever; of course they will. I’m saying that a lot of the time, in real life you push and push and push and never shatter. You come in with a 101-degree fever, and it’s really fucking boring because you can’t concentrate, but no one notices you’re ill until you tell them, at which point they ask once, maybe twice if you shouldn’t be at home, and then change the subject for fear you’ll think they’re judging you. Whatever milestone you tell yourself you have to hit before you can stop? Either you’ll endure countless unanticipated miseries on the way but never find it, or you’ll pass it and think, “Huh, that’s weird–I don’t even feel that bad. Guess I’ll go another mile.”

I call myself aroace for convenience but find that kind of... reductive? Misleading? Because--what is kink attraction. It's definitely a real thing, that I definitely have, and in this realm I am extremely bi,* in a way that the aroace label doesn't leave much room for. And I want a way to communicate that because it's important to how I experience Being Queer in General. But I don't know if what I experience is a subset of sexual attraction? Aesthetic attraction? Something else entirely?

Like--what is "I want to have kink thoughts about this specific (real or fictional) person." What is "looking at/thinking about this specific (tbh usually fictional) person has reminded me that my kinks exist and I'm low-key horny now." Does the fact these feelings have the potential to stimulate sexual arousal make it sexual attraction? Or does an attraction count as sexual only if it makes the prospect of specifically sex with them seem appealing to me? Is some hypothetical person's "ooh he's cute; imagine if we had sex" sentiment fundamentally different than my "ooh he's cute; imagine if he had the flu" sentiment? Even if "IDK; maybe whack off to the thought of it later" is their and my identical response to these respective sentiments? Like: which thing makes an attraction sexual. The part where your genitals have a positive opinion about it, or the activity that the attraction makes you wish for? 'Cause like... I don't usually want to interact in meatspace at all with the people I'm kink-attracted to. But masturbation is a sex-adjacent pleasure, yeah? So if "maybe whack off about it later" is the action that an attraction draws me toward, then. Is that not sexual........?

And I don't even necessarily mean I wish there was a consensus on this. My wishes are less ambitious!--I just want to read perspectives on how one potentially might classify these feelings. The queer community is chock-full of microlabels and navelgazing, so? Why have I found no attempt anywhere ever by anyone to give words to experiences like this?

Perhaps part of my problem is that "kink" is a very vague word, and that (don't sound bitter don't sound bitter don't sound bitter) most people when they say "kink" just mean "non-normative sex acts"

So that if I try to google "how does asexuality interact with kink" I just find a bunch of articles reassuring readers that yeah, you can be asexual and still want to Do BDSM!--in the same way you can be ace and yet want to have vanilla sex

Yeah dog I frickin' know that. I'm not asking for reassurance that my actions don't undermine my identity I just want to know how other people who intensely don't care about sex but do have fantasies about/whack off to stuff that isn't sex-related describe that phenomenon!!

I want to be able to call myself aegosexual.

But I can't, because every explanation of that identity I've seen specifies enjoying the sight/thought/&c. of sex between people-not-yourself while not wanting to participate.

I want to be able to call myself fictosexual, or close to it. (Fictoflux I guess?)

But I can't, because when I get the horn for a fictional character it's not sex I want to do with them or imagine them having. It's just that the kind of excitement I have about it involves the same physical response that most people associate with sex

And I want to draw from this the conclusion that I'm looking in the wrong places?--that clearly this isn't a kind of sexual attraction, since every description of aspec forms of sexual attraction is...... about sex. Whereas I'm like, "No, see, if I'm reading kinkfic and there's a sex scene that always and immediately dampens the horn. I can enjoy sex scenes for intellectual reasons but kinkbrain is actively bored by them and will go offline until that part's over. The 'not actual sex' part is load-bearing. Show me kinds of attraction that aren't about sex."

But if I look at descriptions of other kinds of attraction they're all completely divorced from libido, which this isn't, so??? Not relevant either?

I call myself aroace for convenience but find that kind of... reductive? Misleading? Because--what is kink attraction. It's definitely a real thing, that I definitely have, and in this realm I am extremely bi,* in a way that the aroace label doesn't leave much room for. And I want a way to communicate that because it's important to how I experience Being Queer in General. But I don't know if what I experience is a subset of sexual attraction? Aesthetic attraction? Something else entirely?

Like--what is "I want to have kink thoughts about this specific (real or fictional) person." What is "looking at/thinking about this specific (tbh usually fictional) person has reminded me that my kinks exist and I'm low-key horny now." Does the fact these feelings have the potential to stimulate sexual arousal make it sexual attraction? Or does an attraction count as sexual only if it makes the prospect of specifically sex with them seem appealing to me? Is some hypothetical person's "ooh he's cute; imagine if we had sex" sentiment fundamentally different than my "ooh he's cute; imagine if he had the flu" sentiment? Even if "IDK; maybe whack off to the thought of it later" is their and my identical response to these respective sentiments? Like: which thing makes an attraction sexual. The part where your genitals have a positive opinion about it, or the activity that the attraction makes you wish for? 'Cause like... I don't usually want to interact in meatspace at all with the people I'm kink-attracted to. But masturbation is a sex-adjacent pleasure, yeah? So if "maybe whack off about it later" is the action that an attraction draws me toward, then. Is that not sexual........?

And I don't even necessarily mean I wish there was a consensus on this. My wishes are less ambitious!--I just want to read perspectives on how one potentially might classify these feelings. The queer community is chock-full of microlabels and navelgazing, so? Why have I found no attempt anywhere ever by anyone to give words to experiences like this?

Perhaps part of my problem is that "kink" is a very vague word, and that (don't sound bitter don't sound bitter don't sound bitter) most people when they say "kink" just mean "non-normative sex acts"

So that if I try to google "how does asexuality interact with kink" I just find a bunch of articles reassuring readers that yeah, you can be asexual and still want to Do BDSM!--in the same way you can be ace and yet want to have vanilla sex

Yeah dog I frickin' know that. I'm not asking for reassurance that my actions don't undermine my identity I just want to know how other people who intensely don't care about sex but do have fantasies about/whack off to stuff that isn't sex-related describe that phenomenon!!

Either it leaves me cold, because so often descriptions of suffering will prioritize pathos and intensity over character, and, I hate feeling like I'm reading a persuasive essay on why I should feel sorry for my blorbo, you know?

a. an extrapolation of canon events better left unsaid. Canon is so elegant and restrained that it's hard to elaborate on its hints without robbing it of its power. Also a lot of its horrors don't actually fit well in the human brain?? Like. Trying to imagine getting locked away with the Radiance is like trying to imagine an eternity in hell; it only works if you approach it sideways and playfully. I've seen it done beautifully,* but only by authors who take the viewpoint either of an outside observer, or of a THK for whom it's old news. I don't know how to look straight at suffering on that scale of time and intensity, and have found that the writers who think they do know how to do that........... are in way over their heads, actually

or b. "what if we took this thing that already sucks in canon, and made it even worse?"--which, too, can be done beautifully, but... most of the time, the answer is, "then either I will cry (and not in the fun way), because canon is already full of unspeakable horrors, or I will just get bored because, well, see point a." Tragedies becoming statistics, &c.

It's like, idk man--yes, I want to see my babies suffer; also yes, I want to see them find comfort; but neither of these will suffice if I don't also get to see them have traits that don't inspire pity or admiration or any other noble emotion of that kind. I require also evidence they care about things that don't matter. Whump tends to be pretty one-note, and I find this alienating lately because without little distracting subplots, or moments where you're low-stakes annoyed by or embarrassed for the characters--without these things I care either not enough or way too much, and will end up closing the tab.

Please send me some numbers:)

And Sorry if this has been done before, I’m just bored lol and feel free to do it as well :)

Instead of denying to the ends of the earth that they are sick, they are completely blasé.

For example

A: “you sound terrible! Are you coming down with something?”

B: “I have a cold”

A: “I didn’t actually expect you to admit that”

B: “Why? It’s just a cold. Everyone gets colds”

Character A pretends to be sick to get out of doing something/to stay home for the day/(insert reason of your choice here) and character B takes care of them. Checking if they have a temperature, asking their symptoms, getting them water and food and anything else they may need, telling them to rest up, etc.

The twist? Character B is actually sick themself, maybe they’ve been sick for a few days and was debating on letting A know only to have A fall sick. Oh no they probably caught it from B and now they feel bad! Better make it up to them by taking care of them.