As an ace person who does resonate with AbaC and finds fics with asexual characters kind of a mixed bag in general, I think that what works in AbaC is that sex is still a big plot point.
I find that a lot of the time there is a tendency to write about asexuality as if ace folks never think about sex at all and experience no drive whatsoever (which is a thing for some ace people, but in my experience not as common as people seem to think), and there are definitely some stories where that works, but for the most part, my favourite ace fics are the ones that deal with those contradictions, acknowledging what it’s like being ace in a sexual world, that you can still feel horny while not experiencing sexual attraction, that you can want intimacy still, and that it can be confusing how to ask for that.
Which is why I think that AbaC Connor’s struggles with his sexuality ends up resonating with so many of us, because yeah, for him it was just because he was trying with the wrong gender, but he went through all the motions that I know I and almost every ace person I know went through trying to figure out our sexuality
This is wonderful nuance, thank you for sharing anon! The motions of struggling to fit your sexuality into a world that doesn't handle it well seems like a bit of a universal queer theme, and while I'm... not happy Connor's struggles resonate with anyone, I'm really glad to know that they have that feeling of reality to them. ❤️
As a sidebar, while AbaC has plenty of sexual exploration (and will have a lot more), the importance of intimacy as its own pillar in a relationship, separate from sex, is something of a core theme (and will remain so).
