#and i don't know if this makes sense to non-demi folks

[universallywriting]

Is the friends to lovers trope a Demi sexual trope? Could Run stoppable and Kim possible be Demi?

Demi basically precludes any "love at first sight" tropes, and then anything else will work fine.

I think the thing that's interesting to me is how some of these tropes would have to change to accommodate people like me.

For instance, in any given soulmate AU, it would be... awkward for me. If I found out someone was my soulmate and I bumped into them, there would be no part of me that was attracted to them. I wouldn't be excited, I would be nervous. I would be awkward. Probably uncomfortable. It usually takes me months before I can summon up a sliver of attraction for someone I know.

Demisexuality alone changes the context of it, because the soulmate AU wouldn't end with me realizing they were my soulmate! That would have to be the beginning. I wouldn't kiss them, I wouldn't love them. The universe would be telling me, "You could, if you put the work in" and that's the way I would walk into a love story like that.

I think demisexuality is confusing for a lot of people because people think attraction and action are the same thing. They think "I wouldn't have sex with someone I just met" is the same as "I wouldn't be attracted to someone I just met".

I could have every sign in the universe, every encouragement, every promise of safety, and the first time I met someone the most I would possibly feel is a flicker of friendship. I don't find people sexy at a glance. I don't want people at a glance.

So many things can be demi! But the thing that I crave is the actual experience, the description, the representation.

And by that I mean - It's not just falling in love with your friend. It's being with someone, and spending time with them, and growing closer, and then - like a light turning on - one day you look at them and you suddenly realize how gorgeous they are. You don't really get distracted by other people, you don't chat about who's hot, and in a lot of ways you don't ever really think that any person you come in contact with could ever date you. You live as asexual. And then you don't.

There is no Josh Mankey for me. There's no boy or girl who made my heart flutter from afar. I lied about having crushes on people as I pretended to be "normal". I pretended to understand when people talked about "sexy" movie stars, when to me there was no difference between a well-muscled man and a beautiful stallion. Both are beautiful specimens of biology, but what else is there to feel other than a wonder at what nature makes?

There have only been friends that I've fallen desperately in love with that made me feel something else - and I can count the number of them on one hand. I'm married to one.

It's hard to describe, but I guess I'd say - I don't wake up and realize that I think my best friend is sexy. I wake up and realize that I am capable and finding someone sexy. And it isn't about how they look, really, or about the way they move. It's just them. I met my husband through online messaging, and it's a struggle to explain how he was attractive before I ever saw his face, in a way that no "hot" person can ever be attractive to me. It's him that makes his body attractive. His body could never be attractive on its own.

I don't know if this helps at all as an explanation, but this is what demisexuality has felt like to me. I'm asexual, until I'm suddenly not in this one very, very specific way.

I hope that helps!

#demisexuality #lgbtq #pride month #explanation #i have no idea if this makes sense #demi is hard to explain #it took me a long time to even understand I was demi #and i don't know if this makes sense to non-demi folks

[piccolina-mina]

The entire One Chicago franchise is a mess when it comes to the romantic components of the series. But Chicago PD continues to be the most uninspired, boring, and redundant mess when it comes to their romantic ships and how they display them.

It's as if someone holds a gun to their head and says "let's choose the most basic, young, white heteronormative relationships and smack a cutesy name on them. Fandom will eat it up!" And without fail, fandom always does.

It's bad enough that half the Intelligence Unit thinks they can only date or sleep with each other. It's also bad enough that it further contributes to Chicago PD's ongoing issue with rarely knowing what to do with its female characters beyond specific plots I've come to call the "traditionally feminine womanly plots" and tying them in with a male character where everything about them hinges on their connection to a male. And also that "there can only be one" issue where only one of the female characters can serve as the primary one while the others duke it out for screentime, plot, and relevancy (congrats on always winning Lindsay and Hailey).

But they recycle the same things ad nauseum. For eight seasons, they would rather devote all of their time cooking up romantic subplots that exclusively feature a constant rotation of Ruzek and Halstead. I get it, they're attractive, hell, I'm no stranger to thirsting over Ruz myself, but they're the lotharios of the unit as if only they can be desirable, and it's gotten so old. My God.

They would rather give us these two involved with mostly young and white women, especially their squad mates, then devote screentime to literally any alternative couple.

I mean they have SHARED a love interest. Why? The only ships they have ever devoted significant screentime or development to: Halstead and Erin, Halstead and Upton, Ruzek and Burgess, Ruzek and Upton, Burgess and Roman. Qwhite shocking, I know.

Trudy and Mouch have one of the sweetest crossover romances from the franchise, and it's so refreshing to see a middle-aged couple find love, and yet, they've all but cooled off showing them, rarely give that ship screentime, and it tends to stay in the peripheral compared to the big ships.

Dawson had a romance with Brett from Chicago Fire (another character who gets passed around to the point of absurdity), but they did very little with it, and most of THAT even took place on CF.

They gave Dawson something troubling with another law enforcement officer or whatever for like a single episode, but hell, they still devoted more time and actual arcs to the two or three times where they put Halsted in similar relationships because of course they did.

Never forget that the first relationship that dates pre-series was Chicago Fire's Gabby with *spins wheel* you guessed it, Jay Halstead.

And of course there was Erin and Severide. So pretty. So ... basic.

Yet they never attempted to give us more of Dawson and his wife or Olinsky and his. The women were barely characters on the series. It would've been something.

I don't mind Burzek. Out of all the ships, I enjoy them most more often than not, but it has been eight seasons of will they/won't they bullcrap that they've drawn out. All of these ups and downs. The one non-cop related romance Burgess had lasted all of a second and ended in tragedy because heaven forbid they DON'T put that woman through endless pain.

But they've always remained the second place ship of the series, and it's just... enough. Meanwhile, we started the series with Erin and Halstead monopolizing screentime with their romantic situationship drama, and instead of giving it a rest and changing things up when she left, they switched it out with the Halstead and Hailey will they/won't they. Why?

Heaven forbid Halstead or Ruzek don't have a piece of ass.

Ruzek was even Trudy's choice for a relationship ruse to dupe her father.

In the meantime, one of the most outlandish and unrealistic parts of this series is that Kevin Atwater-- young, smart, just as hot as Chicago PD's golden, pretty, white boys hasn't had a real, significant romantic storyline in the eight years this series has been on air.

In what universe does that make sense? Single, eligible, employed, decent black man? Da faq?

Pardon my bluntness but Kevin Atwater should be seeing more ass than a toilet seat. The fact that he isn't batting folks off with a stick is ludicrous.

He had ONE fkd up romantic storyline in his one "very special black Kevin" episode in season SIX and that's it. Pardon me? Do you know how many of those Jay has had? Twice or more than Kevin.

On a series that pairs up colleagues like it's their mission, they never once even considered taking the Burgess and Atwater relationship in any other direction beyond platonic (and even that is underused these days). I'm not even saying I would've wanted that. I'm just pointing out that it made no sense given their track record to not even tease it. But Kevin is only good for platonic purposes, I suppose.

The fact that they put all their eggs in a potential Atwater and Rojas ship, that never even came to fruition, in season SEVEN of a series Atwater has been in since the beginning when characters like Adam and Jay have already had two relationships or more under their belts by then is ridiculous.

And then there's Voight. He's the lead character and never once had a romantic storyline. If he were younger, you already know they would've went there a few times over.

Yet the closest Hank has come to one is an ambiguous scene with him talking to a sex worker in a hotel room back in, like, season two. Are we to believe that he has never once developed feelings for or even had sex with anyone else since his wife died? He's never moved on after that?

They could easily allude to him being on an ace or demi spectrum if they want, even if I would side eye them for choosing the older character to do it, but if that's the case, they should do something with that.

Even a storyline with a widowed, middle- aged hardass finding love or getting some would be infinitely more interesting and at the very least something different than the same old same old Ruzek & Halstead merry-go-round. Damn, the 50 and over crowd need love too.

And yet Chicago PD keeps feeding us the same bland diet repackaged.

Fine. Burzek has been a thing from the beginning. But after Jay and Erin WHY did they need Hailey and Jay? And if they were going to do Jay and Hailey, why in the mother loving fk did we need Hailey and Adam?

The good sis bagged not one but both of the coveted white boys.

I mean, just for variety, Dawson was right there. Kevin was right there. I wouldn't have been a fan, but hell, it would at least be something different. Much better than acting as if Halstead and Ruzek are the only viable romantic options.

Why subject her to that?

Isn't it bad enough that she's more often than not reduced to being Lindsay Lite anyway? They struggle to give her a presence that deviates and distinguishes her from Erin as is. From her troubled past, and her stage of being mini- Voight and challenging his authority, to this thing with Jay.

Hell, they even repeated a whole job offer thing.

Mind you, don't get me started on how they missed what should've been the obvious chance to make Hailey queer. If I'm stepping on toes, my bad, but everything about Hailey screamed bi or lesbian. She radiated queer energy, but INSTEAD they chose to pair her with not one but both of CPD's romantic male leads.

Why beat this well-tread path yet again?

Of all the possibilities, and all the different avenues they can explore, they just keep dipping into that same well, and it's so tiresome. It's so unoriginal and uninspired. Yes, it's just so basic. I'm talking 20th century shipping... CPD is so outdated with this and it makes it hard to invest or care about any of them, especially if you already aren't inclined to ship within the series as is.

Shock me. Thrill me. Intrigue me. Bloody hell.

#chicago pd #anti upstead #I'll tag it that just to be nice #ship culture #updated with pics to break up the blocks for the visual learners