Carletoncolton - GPOY 1

It's almost Ace Week!

(Image description: a square with a gray background, white text in the center of the image says "Celebrating Asexual Awareness Week", with smaller text above that says "October 25-31, 2020" and below that says "Visibility. Acceptance. Respect." In the bottom right corner is an illustration of a brown skinned hand with purple painted fingernails holding an asexual pride flag.)

9 Questions Meme

I was tagged by wentworthsbitch.

1.What’s your name?

Jack!

2. What’s your URL?

carletoncolton

3. What’s your blog’s name?

I Know

4. Have a crush?

Uhm, in a way - on my BFF. Although, since my feelings in that direction are wholly platonic, it's probably more like a squish. ( ˘ ³˘) ♡ Casandra ❤

5. What’s your favorite color?

I can't choose, really. But black, red, and gold are always at the top of my list.

6. WRITE SOMETHING IN ALL CAPS:

PLEASE HIRE ME. ANYONE. PLEASE. *hurls an armful of cover letters and résumés into the wind*

7. Got a favorite band/singer?

Mm-hm, and it's Damon Albarn. I don't have to look for something to love in anything he does; it just presents itself all matter-of-factly. Blur, Gorillaz, his solo work, his operas, his film soundtracks... Hell, I even like the murmuring, circuitous way he talks.

8. Favorite number?

17, 27, 9... one of those.

9. Favorite drink?

I've been irrevocably seduced by coffee, I think, over the last few months. *gazes moodily into Star Trek mug*

Tag 10 other people:

Nine times out of ten I'd make my excuses when it comes to tagging, but ... this once, I figure I'll take my chances. So. Ten random followers I've never talked to, and wouldn't mind hearing a little bit about:

betteralwaysearly

ipackmycase

wristnipples

assassinofromeaor

endeavourmorsecod3

double-zero-agent-alison

hippiefreak23

lisaraiqiu

gnarlystarships

wanderingmind13

I’m sorry, you were saying something about how asexuality is a “disorder”?

The American Psychiatric Association disagrees with you. Officially. In print.

Scrapbook #10: On Earth as it is in Heaven (Click for full-size image.)

Other entries in this series: 16 15 14 13 12 11 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

My friend: *updates me on her relationship encounters*

My asexual ass:

day 27 - daud, dishonored

happy pride month of 2020!

Dear LGBT community members who don’t think asexuality should be allowed “in”:

I’m biologically female, and I’m not attracted to men. Society told me I was supposed to be, but it never happened, and I spent years of my life feeling broken and wrong. The other option presented to me when I was young was being attracted to women. I watched girls closely, trying to figure it out, but that wasn’t working for me, either. Wanting to be sexually close to another person just baffled me. I swore everyone else was making those feelings up. But they weren’t, and I got older, I realized that and it sunk in that I was just one big weirdo. I was in college when I learned the word for it, and had a breakdown of panic and relief. I can’t begin to put into words how it felt to discover I wasn’t broken–that I was a part of a group of people who felt in their hearts and souls the way I did.

Then came the process of coming out. My friends were a mixed bag, but friends you can pick and choose from if they aren’t supportive.The vast majority of my friends were cool about it, even if they didn’t quite understand. There were assholes, and one suggested “showing me” I was wrong (creepy creepy creepy), but mostly my friends were neutral to positive.

After some select friends, I came out to my family.

My parents told me I was wrong.

It was like being run over by a truck. To this day, I can’t talk about my asexuality around those I love most. It caused one of the only serious arguments I’ve ever had with my parents (I love them and they’re wonderful about 99.9% of the things in my life, but this is one place they weren’t). I was told I just had to find the “right person”, and I would change. That I was too young to understand my feelings (I was in my 20s) towards boys. That I shouldn’t put labels on myself that would make men not want to date me. Because god forbid men not find me attractive! Because clearly, from my conversation with them, what I wanted most of all was to find a man who wanted to get in my pants! Yeah!

Yeah.

It’s not really their fault. We live in a world where happiness is defined as falling in love, getting married, etc. Not wanting another person in your life as your “other half” is an alien concept. Media is flooded with messages of heterosexual normalcy, and now in very small pockets (hopefully growing, because it should! <3), a homosexual option for partnered normalcy. It’s shoved in our faces CONSTANTLY. Our society and government have even set things up to benefit couples financially. Which is fun now that I’m in my 30s and trying to save up for a future family, all by myself. And thankfully, even though they still avoid the word, over a decade later my parents do seem on board with the fact that I’m not pursuing relationships and are supportive of my life choices to save for a family by myself.

Listen. I am by no means saying that I am oppressed as a person the way people attracted to same-gendered people are. I’m not saying I’m oppressed the way the trans community is. I’m not saying any of that. But I AM dealing with a world where who I am is just not “okay”. Where who I am is wrong, where who I am needs to be fixed. Or, in many cases (most cases), where who I am DOES NOT EXIST. I don’t belong in the heterosexual world. I’m an outsider to it. But I’m also an outsider to any world that involves sex and attraction. And as a youth, I had NO WORD to use to describe who I was!

So when asexuals advocate for asexual inclusion in the LGBT community, it’s not because we want to weirdly steal thunder from anyone in your community, or because we want false pity for oppression we haven’t faced the way you have. It’s because we don’t want others to have to grow up the way we did.

We don’t want the world to continue not knowing about our existence. We want asexuality recognized publicly–both so asexuals can learn about themselves in an honest way, and so non-aces see us as legitimate humans. The LGBT world seemed like the natural place for us to go to to ask for inclusion. The place where others might understand what it’s like to grow up in a heterosexual world, as someone who is not. It’s who I first turned to when I discovered the word for myself, only to find immediate pain, rejection, and even mockery. I was horrified.

But I didn’t give up. I couldn’t give up. In 2005, I was in college and gave a talk at my university’s LGBT club. They had never heard of asexuality before, despite being part of a huge liberal university. It was the scariest thing I’d ever done in my life. I had to introduce the concept, and represent the entire community. And then answer a barrage of questions. Personal, personal questions, about my body, my life experiences, everything. And at the end, there was a long period silence. Until one brave person said:

“Wow. You have gone through the same things as us. You said you had some pamphlets about it? Can we put them in our office? People need to know about this. I can’t imagine growing up not knowing about homosexuality. As scary as it was for me, at least I had a word for it.”

I broke down crying and gave them all the pamphlets I had ordered. Many of them started crying, too. We became a blubbering mess in that meeting room. In that moment, I thought I had found a community who understood after all.

Did I? I suppose that’s up to you. But please, take some of this into consideration before you say that asexuals shouldn’t have a letter in your acronym, or should make their “own, separate” community. We’re unknown and invisible in so many ways, but nevertheless hurting in ways I think many of you can sympathize with and understand. It’s not that we’re attracted to the “wrong” sex or gender. It’s that we’re not attracted to the “right” one. And holy crap, the world just isn’t super friendly or understanding to people like that. Like us.

Thank you.

Reblog if you've formed a meaningful relationship with someone you met online.

Random Round-Number Give-away! At the moment I unfortunately don’t have the means to actually send out gift-prizes, but a few people seemed interested in the idea of winning a custom fic. So that’s what you’re playing for – custom Sherlock fanfic! Yay?

How it Works:

You can enter the contest twice in total – one “like” and one reblog.

You must be following me.

After a week, I will use a random number generator and choose someone at random.

Winner and runner-ups will be contact, and they have three days to send me a prompt of their choice before I move on to the next person.I will write fic based on the prompt and post it – either on Tumblr or AO3.

Prizes: 1st – One fic of your prompting, 1000 or more words.  2nd – One fic of your prompting, 500 or more words. 3rd – One fic of your prompting, 250 or more words.

Please note: I have a habit of not actually being able to write short-fic, so you might end up with more.

What I Will/Won’t Write:

I’m currently only writing for the Sherlock fandom. 

My primary pairing is Sherlock/John.

I will not write Mycroft/Lestrade, or Moriarty/Moran.

I’m uncomfortable writing femslash/genderswap/explicit het. 

I’m mainly comfortable writing vanilla. (No BDSM or hard D/s, bestiality, omegaverse or hard kinks.)

I’m uncomfortable writing most kidfic (some exceptions – ask) or giving John and/or Sherlock (specifically) children.

I have a hard time with historical AUs or AUs that take the characters out of their environment. (I can give it a try – I just can’t guarantee quality.) Other AUs/magical realism-type stuff is fine.

If you have something specific in mind but are uncertain, please send me a signed-in ask.

START: Right now! WINNERS ANNOUNCED: Monday, July 22nd, 2013.