the deep moans round with many voices

Stuff that happened today:

1. I tried to clean a gross sticky patch on a bookcase in one of our vacant apartments. I was, shall we say, partially successful? I don't know what on earth that patch is composed of, but tomorrow I'm going to try again, this time with Goo Gone, steel wool, and some rubber gloves.

2. ( tedious work story )

3. I am currently reading Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen, because sometimes it's interesting to read scholarly work about one's own identity.

4. It has been SO HUMID in Ithaca, and yet no hard, cleansing rain. We do have showers predicted for tonight and Saturday morning, and I really hope they materialize.

I spent last night sort of idly spinning ideas for a Daredevil A/B/O fic of the sudden-change-inflicted-on-a-previously-normal-world type (because A/B/O is one of my bingo card squares, and I think one of the best ways to get to grips with a trope is to try writing it) and...

Well. Occasionally it becomes really obvious that I'm asexual, because I drifted off into alien retroviruses transmitted via magic spells, three-caste social pack systems and their awkward overlay on human sexual dimorphism, varying development/exhibition of A/B/O traits based on the presence or absence of a more socially dominant member of one's caste (similar to arrested development of secondary sex characteristics in male orangutans, because that's always struck me as fascinating), and the whole porn aspect got almost completely lost along the way. I had to keep reminding myself that hey, there's supposed to be a sex thing here, right? This is a porn trope, right?

Apparently my hindbrain disagrees!

Possessive behavior, sure. Pheromones, sure. Marking bites, sure. People dealing with bodies gone strange and unfamiliar, sure. I am totally into that stuff. But bluntly, I don't often find sex especially sexy. Power and fangs and stuff like that are way the hell more of a turn-on, as is found family, pack bonding, and people renegotiating social relationships. Meanwhile, sex qua sex can go hang for all I care; I do not need to interrupt my delicious plot and character dynamics with random bedroom grunting. *wry*

December 14: Thoughts on aromanticism and/or asexuality either on a personal level or how it's treated in media? (for jen) [Tumblr crosspost]

To be honest, I don't especially care about how asexuality is treated in media. I mean, I hear it's often made into sort of a joke? Or that people act asexual but then, gasp, True Love overcomes that and they discover the joy of sex? The first is only annoying as long as there aren't also non-mocking portrayals of asexuality out there -- I mean, humans being humans, we mock everyone for everything, and if every other sexuality is fair game... hey. Equal opportunity mocking! The second is only annoying, again, if there are no countervailing portrayals, because that does sometimes happen. People are weird and complicated and sexuality is full of "I am 98% this way, but somehow the 2% that doesn't fit that category ended up being the relevant part, because of reasons" scenarios.

So basically the solution is to have more visible asexuality. Actually, I think this is the solution to most representation issues. Have more people of every type on-page or on-screen so people can be people rather than serving as symbols and mouthpieces for their various categories.

As for my asexuality and aromanticism in real life, again, it's not something I pay lots of attention to. I was very pleased to discover that there was a word and category that made more sense to me than any other sexual orientation category, but I'm not into activism or identity-based groups, so that's largely irrelevant to my everyday life. I'd say my asexuality is most evident as mild annoyance at sex scenes in long, plotty stories, or as difficulty finding the motivation to write a sex scene in one of my own stories, or as wondering if someone was trying to flirt with me, because how does anyone ever recognize flirting anyway? It's like there's a radio station I am not tuned in to receive and I always feel awkward about maybe accidentally giving people the impression I might be interested in anything other than casual acquaintanceship.

I mean, the obvious consequence is that I am not in a romantic or sexual relationship and have no interest in looking for one. But I think that is at least as much attributable to my general introversion and asociality as anything specifically to do with sex and/or romantic love. I just kind of... don't do people, very much? How much of that is down to asexuality would be hard to determine.

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December Talking Meme: All Days

I had a doctor's appointment Wednesday morning -- just a general physical checkup thingy, and also brief gynecological exam. Turns out that I don't need Pap tests because hey, I've never had sex!

( TMI? probably TMI )

Anyway, I am basically healthy. Consensus between me and Doctor S is that I need a new and more ergonomic computer chair, which should solve most of my lower back pain issues -- they are entirely posture/tension related, since they're the sort that easily drain away after a few minutes of lying down on a hard, flat surface. I also personally would like to lose ten-ish pounds, which I'd suspected I should work on for a while but I don't tend to weigh myself so whatever. That shouldn't be too hard. I just need to quit my occasional midnight snack habit, drink more water, and probably do some situps and/or take random walks a couple times a week. That usually works, over six to eight months. (Then I gain the weight back over two or three years, because hello, I am lazy. *sigh*)

Over on asexual_fandom, chibifukurou has proposed an asexual big bang, including both fanfiction and original fiction -- the idea is to have at least one asexual character whose asexuality affects their view of the world, actions, relationships, etc. It doesn't have to be about asexuality, thank goodness. (More details here and here.)

I am tentatively interested, more because I think it's an interesting idea than because I have a story I am dying to write, or because I think I can reliably produce 10,000-15,000 words on command in a three month period.

...Or at least I didn't have a story idea until the morning after I said I might be interested. Then one attacked me *headdesk*

I am currently doing background world-building, character creation, and plot outline sketches for what wants to be a YA adventure story involving three teenagers with a magical mental link (due to a failed government experiment their parents participated in) who... okay, look, have you read Stephen King's Firestarter? Like that, only with three "psychic" kids, less gratuitous property damage, and no lengthy period in capitivity. Also a lot more family members thrown into the mix, because I like families. Also also, one of the kids (Gretchen Randazo) is asexual and mildly biromantic, a second (Marguerida Blake) is making noises about being genderqueer and won't decide on a sexual orientation, and the third (Arthur Cohen) is heterosexual.

They have informed me that of course they are all in a poly relationship with each other, though they've only met in person once before the story starts and both Blake and Arthur have had boyfriends and/or girlfriends before.

I am not sure how they think that's going to work in practice, but whatever. Their choice!

...

I am pretty sure I will run out of interest in this long before I get anything written, but for now the world and characters are a lot of fun to play around with. *wanders off to figure out details about witches and familiars*




(I freely admit that you do not have to look too hard to realize this idea started as a crack AU for Inception, but... I have a Thing about mucking around too far with canon. I like to start from as close to the base story as I can get away with, and have any changes flow organically from a few carefully chosen alternate turns. (This is a writing preference much more than a reading preference, mind you. I can read and love lots of ideas I would have immense trouble buying at the level I need to write.)

In this case, I needed my main characters to be almost exactly the same age, to have parents who could logically have participated in a government-funded study in NYC, and to still live close enough together to arrange a meeting while teenagers. I couldn't make those requirements happen in fanfiction -- it would have taken too many changes of the kind I hate writing -- so I started filing serial numbers off, discarding pseudo-science in favor of magic (I am almost always in favor of magic rather than pseudo-science, as magic doesn't put my back up the same way), changing genders and ethnicities, and generally building a proper world of my own instead of trying to distort someone else's. So there you are.)