fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4244 ]

[ SECRET POST #4244 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4244 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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03.

[Jane Austen's Emma]

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04.

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05. [SPOILERS for The 100]

[Monty Green/Harper McIntyre]

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06. [WARNING for discussion of incest]

[The 100]

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07. [WARNING for discussion of fictional shota/bestiality/rape]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #607.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Wow, all of that is very interesting.

Hypothetical situation: Character A is asexual but doesn't know it/doesn't realize there's a word for it, happens to find a partner like them that also is not interested in sex. Everyone that knows them assumes they are having sex but they don't particularly care and just ignore people's comments and go about their life. Is this acceptable or offensive?

I mean, it depends? Like on what society it's in and how it's treated and all. If they're held up as some weird sort of asexual ideal then that's... weird... but frankly this kinda situation happens irl and a lot of times people won't mention stuff or correct other people who make assumptions because it's a huge pain in the ass and more awkward to go over it than to just let people come to their own conclusions.

If they're held up as some weird sort of asexual ideal then that's... weird...

No, no one knows they're asexual.

I don't know, for some reason I was thinking it was necessary to be really obvious about it but I don't know, maybe it's not.

Oh yeah, it's definitely not, like - tbh if being asexual isn't integral or important to the plot somehow (a la Eowyn being a woman is definitely important for the whole I AM NO MAN!!! scene, and MacDuff being cesarean-ed is important for the whole FROM MY MOTHER'S WOMB UNTIMELY RIPPED scene) then I really don't think there's any need to be... obvious... about it like

Being gay or straight or ace is something that just sorta happens, like having black hair or being Indian or Polish or whatever, it affects you, sure, but it's nothing that has to define you. So if it's not plot important, and it's not central to your character's identity, and you don't intend for them to actually be like, An Exemplar Asexual For Representation Purposes or whatever, then there's just no need for it to be blatantly obvious or whatever.

Like - Case gave a bunch of ways it could vaguely come up in passing, or it could be even mentioned, but with writing characters it's just, you know, 'what defines them' and tbh 'I am not sexually into anyone' is kind of not really an amazing thing to be defined by (I'd feel the same way about characters whose defining traits were 'I WANT TO FUCK WOMEN/MEN/etc.'). Hope that kinda makes sense.

OH YEAH like, example! STEVEN UNIVERSE CHARACTERS they are a good case of female-coded / nonbinary women who are definitely into other women in romantic ways. Not once have I heard the word 'lesbian' onscreen. But there was like, a big gay wedding in some of the latest episodes, lots of kissing, hugging, SAD ROMANTIC SONGS etc.

...and at the same time I would not see ANY of them with 'Lesbians' as a defining trait. Even with Pearl, SAD EX, ROSE LEFT ME WOE is waaaay more of a defining thing than PEARL LIKES WOMEN, though it's pretty obvious she does. So that! Is actually what I would see as a good way of handling things, where it comes up as and when it comes up, and it's not seen as 'them being gay' as much as 'them being THEMSELVES, which happens to be pretty damn gay'.

Alternately if you WANT asexuality to be showcased or come up In Plot in the Eowyn / MacDuff way or to make it really obvious but not like preachy or anything, there are also plenty of other ways to do it like... off the top of my head:

1. Urban fantasy with a grumpy noir-ish detective solving supernatural murders who struggles over things like converting fairy gold to usable currency! Some shapeshifter demon tries to be a Sexy Femme Fatale to seduce him. ...Which fails. SO FINE, OKAY THEN, not into women? They can work with this. Sexy Hot Guy, surely that will - what do you mean detective isn't into hot guys? What about CUTE women? What about NERDY guys? More domineering?? More submissive??? WHAT THE FUCK IS IT -

(it's that the detective is asexual and just not bothering to explain because the demon going NUTS trying to figure what he's into is honestly the funniest thing that has happened to him in the last century)

2. LAWFUL PALADIN OF PURITY in a fantasy world is VERY COOL. DASHING. Rides on horses and saves people and fights evil, the whole shebang. A ROUGISH NOBLE kind of falls head over heels in love with her (how could he not!) and pursues her and offers her like, lots of stuff and WANTS TO BECOME A BETTER PERSON FOR HER!! And she's like haha uh so it won't work out but the becoming a better person thing, keep working at that, that's good in its own sake!

Which just FRUSTRATES HIM!! AND HE AIMS TO PURSUE THIS and follows her around and actually DOES become a slightly better person but then is completely irritated when she ends up ????? romancing? some LIBRARIAN of all things like what does THE LIBRARIAN HAVE that the ROGUISH NOBLE DOESNT HAVE

'actually its the other way around, noble'
'wat'
'it's more like YOU have an interest in sex / kids / etc and librarian does not, and neither does paladin, AND librarian also likes the same books as paladin AND is happy to be a stay-at-home spouse which paladin PREFERS, like paladin HAS BEEN TRYING TO SAY THIS ALL ALONG it's not personal it's a LIFESTYLE ISSUE, you just weren't listening'

3. IT'S DRAMATIC HIGHSCHOOL TIME. Young love is blooming! Sakura petals are falling! Everyone is blushing awkwardly and being stupid! Including our hero Ichinensei who is desperately in love and crushing hard on Kaichou from afar! But alas, Kaichou is not only the student council president but INFAMOUS for basically crushing the dreams of every single girl AND guy interested in them by rejecting all the confessions.

BUT NEVER FEAR Ichinensei is like, super plucky and stuff, and happy to love and support him from afar! Except!!! Shenanigans happen and Ichinensei discovers Kaichou's big secret, which is that kaichou is actually a HUMONGOUS OTAKU when he runs into Kaichou while cosplaying at comiket. Kaichou MAKES ICHINENSEI PROMISE NOT TO REVEAL IT and Ichinensei, summoning up his courage, agrees! If Kaichou will also do something for him!!! ... Which is to cosplay together like there are so many cool duo cosplays that Kaichou would look SO COOL IN :DDD JOIN HIM

And it turns out Kaichou always WANTED to but was kind of worried about that and his real life stuff clashing and now he finally has a friend and it! Turns out to be working really well! And they actually get to know each other much better and Kaichou is significantly more comfortable around Ichinensei who is just SITTING ON THAT CRUSH FOREVER but one day tries to ask Kaichou like - DOES Kaichou have a type? IS there anyone he's interested in (BESIDES HIS ANIME WAIFU/HUSBANDO) and Kaichou seems distinctly uncomfortable... ....... ...... and needs to think about it

Because it turns out Kaichou IS into Ichinensei or has sort of STARTED LIKING HIM but doesn't want to SAY because a) Ichinensei doesn't SEEM gay b) it's weird c) if it doesn't work out he loses his only Real Friend ugh d) also he doesn't actually want to SLEEP with Ichinensei? He's kind of confused about it, he's uncomfortably browsed enough yaoi to know that whatever he feels about Ichinensei it's not THAT exactly ??

AFTER MANY CHAPTERS OF TENSION AND DRAMA AND THIRD PARTIES INTERFERING AND ICHINENSEI BEING UPSET they finally confess to each other and Ichinensei is like, wat, but isn't that normal though? Ichinensei feels the same way AND thinks Kaichou was looking at the wrong type of manga for references he should be checking out G RATED SHOUJO AI NOT R RATED YAOI HERE HAVE THIS PILE OF PURE LOVE STORIES AND -

long story short they get together and are very happy to be very romantic and nonsexual forever, the end

4. OUR ANTIHERO is a gritty jaded veteran of MANY BATTLES in the FAR FLUNG REACHES OF SOMEWHERE OVERSEAS. However war has recently ended and they are back from their own personal odyssey and re-entering society after many years away! Also to claim their humongous inheritance after their granddaddy died and left everything to them. Society is full of glittering pretty people who have never really encountered hardship and lots of bad things are happening like... war is over but criminals and mafia still exist and corporations rule everything.

Antihero puts that inheritance to good use by basically building a SUPERSUIT and buying TONS OF WEAPONS like fine if the cops won't go after people and the army isn't of use here then it's VIGILANTE TIME. Also, punishing bad people gives him something to do besides drown in depression and alcohol, so yay!

Meanwhile this SEXY VILLAIN WHO IS ALL SLEEK AND EVIL finds antihero FASCINATING like how... cute it's like one of those superhero things come to life aw look at it smash people's heads in and climb buildings awww villain should go and BUILD A NICE OBSTACLE COURSE for antihero to go through :D hopefully antihero will like it :D

So Sexy Villain just ends up building a BUNCH OF EVIL LAIRS and traps and irritating all their friends by testing out various Evil Laughters to see which cackle is the most dastardly sounding and then getting VERY UPSET when one of the other villains actually ALMOST KILLS antihero like excuse! Him! That is HIS antihero wtf hey uh... you should... TOTALLY let Sexy Villain take Antihero and torture him HA HA YES UM. YEAH.

Somehow that WORKS, so now Sexy Villain has an Injured Antihero on his hands and isn't really sure WHAT to do with him like he's no FUN if he's just lying around, he's not DOING anything ugh and it sort of ruins the fun if Sexy Villalin basically fixes him up and is like that ruins the whole Villain thing. Upsetting. But he fixes up Antihero anyway because he kind of wants to see what Antihero will DO at least (saved!! by your evil nemesis! now you owe him one! that's totally a good trope, right?) and Antihero actually seems GRUDGINGLY WILLING TO RETURN THE FAVOUR well fine! HA HA COME SLEEP WITH HIM THEN

'ok'
'WAIT NO SEXY VILLAIN DIDNT ACTUALLY MEAN IT. YOU WERENT SUPPOSED TO SAY YES SO EASILY. Also why would you sleep with someone who is basically a villain and that you are not attracted to wtf'
'...antihero isn't into anyone sexually at ALL, sex is just sex? its like flushing a toilet, it'd probably be a chore but not especially worse or better than sex with anyone else'

Which kind of confuses Sexy Villain who has had lots of Sexy Villainous Sex with other people including things like whips and chains blah blah and enjoyed THAT well enough. So he remarks that maybe it's just the KIND of sex Antihero is having like lol given everything Sexy Villain has seen of Antihero perhaps it just wasnt PUNISHING enough was that the thing and ... Antihero kind of looks a bit awkward. What. Wait a fucking sec-

TLDR Antihero is asexual BUT also masochistic and Sexy Villain is actually INTO that and AFTER MUCH DRAMAS Sexy Villain ends up being properly distracted from doing villainous stuff for good by Antihero and Antihero stops haphazardly punishing himself since Sexy Villain (who now has a VESTED INTEREST in Antihero's long term survival and good mental health) takes over doing that for him.

I would read all of these...

You probably won't see this at this point but I just wanted to say those are all awesome ideas and I love the idea of asexual characters getting to be badass or antiheroes or just normal people and not all sad and lonely and seen as pathetic weirdos.

I did see it and aw thanks! :D I am glad you feel that way and - yeah, like a lot of times I suspect the issue is that people who are writing asexual characters aren't ... asexual themselves, so they just end up thinking of it like 'OH NO they are MISSING a FUNDAMENTAL PART of HUMAN NATURE' when actually it's really much more like 'for some reason everyone else around you loooooves spicy food and you just aren't a fan'. I honestly haven't seen stories like these much, which is a bit of a shame.

But yeah I would read each of these! If anyone wanted to write them. Haha, I'm legit considering if I have the time attempting NaNoWriMo or developing them out a bit, if anything.

Also for the NOIR DETECTIVE and FRUSTRATED DEMON I figure in the end it would turn out to be something like, the demon FUCKED UP or is in major trouble and needs help and being... a demon has literally no money or bank account or anything like that and frankly seducing people to do favours is traditional! That's how it's DONE! They make CONTRACTS! The human totally gets something out of it, it's not like the demon LIKES the whole sexy sexy thing anyway that's all for human eyes anyway, so can't noir detective like just fucking cut demon a break and WORK WITH THEM SOMEHOW FFS

To which noir detective could just be sort of lol like... ok sure if demon really wants to pay with their body and all then noir detective does have... a weakness...

'YES OK WHAT'
'theres a great hipster cupcake store one city away which detective is way too busy to travel to, pls fetch some for him, here is money, detective will consider that to be worth the cost of One Return Uber Ride which works out to about one hour of his professional rates :) gl hf'

Which just leads to demon ending up paying for it by becoming noir detective's temporary assistant and flunky while detective works on solving demon's murder mystery issue, whatever that is. Probably something like demon being accused of SEX VAMPIRING SOMEONE TO DEATH ('you did kill them though' 'ok yes fine but it wasnt MURDER, it SHOULDNT have killed them, THATS the mystery!!!') or whatever, and ends up with demon getting booted out of hell or whatever. IDK lol.

So yeah in all of those examples like ... asexuality! Would come up in SOME way as plot points and in ways that are relevant to the characters and I would say they'd end up being fairly obvious, but only because the plot kind of has it come up naturally or as a matter of course given what the characters involved are like. But again in all of them the point isn't that they're asexual, it's more like 'them being asexual makes the plot turn out in particular ways'.

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[ SECRET POST #4244 ]

Re: How would you feel about asexual characters in a story/book?

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Re: How would you feel about asexual characters in a story/book?

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Re: How would you feel about asexual characters in a story/book?

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