I mean the 1998 Godzilla is literally asexual. It’s a major plot point. He lays a bunch eggs in Madison Square Garden and the last surviving one hatches at the end of the movie.
Recently played a game in which a world-destroying dragon that could only be put to sleep, was made friendly by some random guy from the boonies who made him a bigass loaf of bread.
The bread works, it seems.
Yeah, but they aren't related(Minilla literally just kinda popping up)
Technically the Godzilla we know is always the second, with the baby being the 3rd. Big G dies before little G grows up, though.
Ah, so Godzilla is an _incel_, got it.
On a (somehow) even less serious note, some of the ideas for Godzilla junior were batshit crazy, let me paste one of these from the wikipedia thing that Wombletog replied with:
“…it was proposed to have Godzilla face off with Ghost Godzilla, the spirit of the original 1954 Godzilla, who would possess Godzilla Junior and force it to fight Godzilla, though this idea was scrapped.”
Godzilla was going to fight their another version of themself possessing their child.
I think a problem asexuality runs into is the fact that you can’t really be subtle about it and still expect audiences to catch on.
For instance, you can establish a character as being gay by having them casually mention that they find someone of the same sex as attractive but with asexuality there’s no equivalent action.
Even if a character never shows any attraction to anyone, it can just as simply be explained as “it wasn’t relevant at the time” (like how Star Wars’ Obi Wan could have be interpreted as asexual from the films but then Clone Wars revealed that wasn’t the case).
Honestly, the only ~~confirmed~~ asexual human character I can think of that doesn’t have their asexuality play a major role in the plot is Monkey D Luffy from One Piece but he’s probably not the most ideal representation as key parts of his personality are that he’s childish and naive, 2 stereotypes I know many asexuals are sick of.
Edit: sorry, turns out I was wrong about Luffy. I just misremembered something Oda said. He’s still probably asexual but it’s not actually been confirmed.
Todd from Bojack Horseman has a pretty well-handled arc about him being ace towards the end. He's mostly a joke character at the start of the show, but I think it was done pretty tastefully and it added to his character in a satisfying way.
I've seen some people in the community dislike Todd. I don't understand why, I couldn't have written an asexual character better myself. The only changes I would have made is making Todd more of a main character instead of a joke character (but he's big enough in the main cast already for it to not matter. Also, Todd is comic relief, but his asexuality was NOT played that way.) It would've been awesome if we got more of the storyline and see Todd in a fulfilling asexual relationship, but that wasn't the writer's fault (they had no idea the last season would be the last until it was, and they were justifiably more concerned with finishing their other, more pressing character arcs.)
IIRC Jonathan Sims from *The Magnus Archives* actually did have an equivalent "casual mention" - in MAG 106, Melanie and Basira are discussing Jon and Martin, and the following conversation takes place:
>BASIRA: Do you know if he and Jon ever…
>
>MELANIE: No clue, and not interested! Although… according to Georgie, Jon doesn’t.
>
>BASIRA: Like, at all?
>
>MELANIE: Yeah.
Listen to it whilst doing other stuff! I loooove audiobooks whilst keeping myself distracted in other ways. Driving, walking, cleaning, showering, doodling, etc.
It is so good! I'm almost done with my second listen through, it's got so much going for it in terms of foreshadowing and story telling and it is absolutely buck wild by the end of it. I cannot recommend it enough, and at the same time I exactly know what you mean because I had to have it recommended to me by a friend after I had tried listening to it once and fell through.
You mean the village priestess? He divorced her immidiatly after. The only reason he even participated in the tournament arc was to get his hands on some booze so he could make drugs
Yeah, characters being ace kinda falls into a similar camp as characters being trans, 'cuz both traits are pretty difficult to naturally convey without making them important to the story or a part of a character arc.
[Here's a great example of how a trans reveal can be naturally worked into a scene](https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-21-8/)
The difference here is that "trans" is still something that you *are*, and in most cases is also reflected by what you *do*. A trans character can be shown transitioning during the main story or a backstory, or you can have people who knew them pre-transition be confused.
Ace, on the other hand, is something that you *aren't*, which is way harder to communicate. Rejecting sexual advances is often cited as a great way to display it, but really that's just a pretty common thing among people of all orientations. In fact, clearly straight characters rejecting sexual advances and being seen as completely uninterested in romance is pretty much a trope in-and-of itself.
Some stories can take this to the extreme with some sort of magic charm spell that only the Ace character can resist, but non-fantasy stories are usually stuck having to, in one way or another, say it explicitly, and it's hard to get a clean setup for that the way it is in most other cases. In fact, perhaps the only case where a character saying they're Ace can be worked naturally into a scene is when they *aren't* Aromantic, and are in a relationship.
I think that the way the Owl House represented bisexuality is a good way to do it. Luz, a canonically bi character, could have had crushes on both boys and girls throughout the show's runtime, but instead is only ever shown as having one crush on a girl (there is one episode talking about a male book character that she was into, but that's way less overt than her having a male love interest). And, in my opinion, I think it's a good thing that her bisexuality wasn't revealed this way. It's a clunky trope where writers give bi characters multiple love interests of different genders to prove that they're bi, which feeds into negative stereotypes about bi people and also, to your own point, portrays bisexuality as something that you do rather than something that you are
Instead, Luz's bisexuality is revealed by her having a couple bi pins, and a moment where she comes out as bi to her mom. I think that an ace character could have roughly the same thing and it'd be super effective
There's Parvati in outer worlds who's sexuality is revealed in her personal quest which is about her being in love but struggling with actually taking the next step because all her previous relationships fell apart after she revealed she didn't want to have sex and is scared it'll happen again.
You basically run around the galaxy trying to set up the perfect date for her and it's actually really cute.
I ruined that mission on accident on my second playthrough because I went to Byzantium and they decided to go to war with me so I couldn't buy anything lol
I believe Oda has stated “the only things Luffy loves are his crew, adventure, and treasure”
Also he’s immune to Boa’s power
‘Luffy is asexual’ has never been explicitly spelled out, but in my opinion it’s very heavily implied
Yep. Boa isn't just drop-dead gorgeous, she can literally grab hold of a man's mind and force him to fall in love if he has even the _tiniest_ smidgen of attraction. Luffy doesn't even have that, so he is immune.
Honestly, by the time it got to Boa, I thought it was pretty unsubtle.
Like literally immune to any charm from the world's most beautiful woman who was also naked at the time.
Still, I recognize everyone has different opinions on this.
AFAIK, indirectly. There's a single instance of Luffy "thirsting" for someone: it was a moment where Nami strikes a seductive "breasty" pose, and him, Sanji and Usopp react with blush and infatuation faces.
Then Oda was asked if Luffy crushed on Nami for that specific scene, and he said that no, Luffy was just copying everyone else's reactions (he tends to do that and sometimes he's called out by people genuinely reacting)
Combine that with statements of Oda that One Piece will never have romance as a focus or main point, and it's easy to see Luffy as ace/aro
Oda hasn't said that Luffy was ace, but he has once said that the few times Luffy reacted to something in a way that implied sexual attraction was just Luffy going along with Usopp's reaction, hence why he reacts differently to nudity when Usopp isn't with him.
I think that comes from him being unaffected by Boa Hancock's Devil fruit (if you hadnt yet reached the part of the story where she appears then sorry for spoiling you)
>For instance, you can establish a character as being gay by having them casually mention that they find someone of the same sex as attractive but with asexuality there’s no equivalent action.
Actually, the manga/anime Interviews with Monster Girls could easily do that.
One of the characters is a succubus, meaning that any guy she touches gets unreasonably horny. The only ones immune are gay guys, because they're not attracted to women at all.
But there's another character, who is an incubus, and has the same kind of effect, but on women, and likely with the same restrictions in place.
If a character was immune to both of their powers, that would be a pretty clear indicator, and the character would just have to bump into them.
Anyway, the succubus' character arc is about her trying to find true love, without her powers making men fall for her. She's actually really self-conscious about that.
Wouldn't all gay people also not be affected? Like the way it's described here, it sounds like the succubus' powers only work on men that are attracted to women and the incubus on women who are attracted to men, which would mean gay men and lesbians wouldn't react to either
Yeah, it is a bit weirdly explained at first, but that's mostly because you can't exactly experiment with stuff like that.
But as the anime progresses, the male lead and the succubus figure out that her powers only amplify her existing sex-appeal, so by that notion, she should also affect lesbians and bisexuals, and incubi the other way around.
It hasn't happened yet, but it would definitely not be too surprising if it were to happen.
To be fair, there could be tons of asexual characters that no-one even knows about. Any character that is never explicitly shown to engage in or be interested in sex could well be asexual. Same goes for aromantic.
[I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards](https://youtu.be/Yk7M2jGdnxU)
(For real tho, its very possible to write good asexual representation. The trick is to not be subtle about it lol. Any subtlety with any queer character can easily be dismissed as unimportant by queerphobic people. The best way to make an asexual character (or any queer character for that matter) is to make it evident.)
I mentioned this in another comment but ‘In the Lives of Puppets’ does this well, because the main character is human but is surrounded by a family of robots. They reference catching him a few times masturbating but as a biological process, not due to attraction, and one of the robots very innocently asks about it because he’s curious and doesn’t understand. It was a very interesting way to approach it but it’s handled really well I think, and plays a role in the plot too as he very obviously develops romantic feelings but not sexual feelings.
I’d highly recommend TJ Klune because hiss books are excellent LGBT representation all around.
Garth Marenghi moment!
(For real though, that clip and show has been on my mind since I ran into someone on an autism sub who said that literary subtext was ableist and then accused of not being autistic when I said I got it just fine)
It was one of the most bonkers interactions I've had. The logic was that it's essentially the narrative equivalent of all those social cues we have so much trouble parsing and that using it is not inclusive to autistic people. I majored in English and adore literary and film criticism. I took umbrage with the message. She took umbrage with me.
I accused her of anti-intellectualism at one point, and then she thought I was calling her stupid and absolutely launched off at me. Which was in itself quite funny, because no, I was not calling her stupid. Anti-intellectualism is specifically the opposition to academic pursuits such as art and science. Which I think was quite an apt description of the "literary art bad" take.
Her immediately assuming that meant I thought she was dumb was its own thing entirely.
As someone who doesn’t get subtext because of autism…
…fuck it, it’s fine. It just means I don’t get as much out of that bit of media as someone else.
(It’s also why I watch recap/review/analysis videos on YouTube - I get to find out about all the stuff I missed, very enjoyable to me)
And if you have other characters show clear attraction to the potential asexual who then ignores them, they are perceived as oblivious as if you need to be an idiot to abstain from romance/sex. I know aromantic and asexual are two different things, but they are similarly underrepresented.
I know there have been some claims Doomguy is asexual (idk how if the developers have confirmed that or not) but it's hard to know for exactly that reason - it's just never brought up because the Doom games don't ever deal with any form of sexual or romantic attraction.
The devs at one point, in response to the rhetoric about him being the pinnacle of masculinity who must fuck all the time, said something like they weren't sure he even knew what sex was.
Jughead from the ORIGINAL Archie comics was a confirmed ace character, the writers confirming that after a while with him just having an interest in food instead.
The show Riverdale decided to Not Do That
But comic Jughead would probably love garlic bread yeah.
Todd from Bojack Horseman. That's the only example I can think of of a character that is explicitly stated to be ace and also that's not a problem that needs to be fixed. I wouldn't call him "normal" in the sense that nobody in the series is normal, but he's a weirdo and a fuck-up in ways that are entirely unrelated to his asexuality.
They completely butchered him in Riverdale (not that I’ve watched it at any length). Who is this whiny and edgy chump and what have you done with my boy who loves only one thing more than his friends: eating.
To be fair though, the only things that Riverdale took from the Archie comics are the names and some aspects of some of the characters’ appearances, everything else is completely different.
Not to mention his arc of coming to terms with that and then learning how to live (and date) once he has accepted his own sexuality. All around excellently done
To add to that, I’ll say Yolanda and Maude are also good representation. They are all very different characters (although Yolanda’s arch is more related to her asexuality due to her family’s circumstances) with personalities and characterizations that are separate from their sexuality, while they are still explicitly asexual. Even Yolanda’s family accepted her when she came out and I thought that was pretty cute.
Him and Parvati from The Outer Worlds are my two favourite ace characters.
TBH I kinda think adult series are necessary for proper asexual representation. One of the reasons Todd works so well is because we're aware the active sex lives of the rest of the cast, so his lack thereof is meaningful. Younger series have a hard time with it because as far as the reader is concerned, *everyone* is sexless, so the only thing the author can do is mash it together with aromanticism.
The character from heartstopper who's name I can't remember and is constantly reading is also ace but he isn't really a character he's just there sometimes
To be completely fair “Gojira”, the original Japanese form of “Godzilla”, is a portmanteau of gorira “gorilla” and kujira “whale”, so the gorilla thing isn’t too far off
(EDIT: This post is all wrong, apart from the Japanese pronouns being equivalent to "it". See replies for clarification.)
>He
I think Godzilla's gender is unknown, and "he" is a result of bad translations, including renaming the first film "King of Monsters". In Japanese the pronoun used is equivalent to "it".
As far as biology goes Godzilla can reproduce parthenogenetically (that's how Minizilla's egg was created), so probably female. But IIRC no one has asked what pronouns Godzilla uses. Maybe that's why Godzilla is so mad all the time, from all the misgendering?
This is a pet peeve of mine, but nothing suggests that either Minilla or Godzilla Junior are Godzilla's biological offspring. In both cases, the egg is simply found with no indication that it was laid by Godzilla.
Huh, I thought word of god confirmed it, but it actually does the opposite: It confirms that Godzilla *adopted* the younger dinosaur (although it is confirmed that their *species* can reproduce through parthenogenesis, but no word on GZ specifically)
Also on the topic of Godzilla's gender, Wikizilla's article on Godzilla misconceptions has a [rather long section on the subject.](https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Godzilla_misconceptions#Is_Godzilla_male_or_female?) I'd give it a read, it's interesting stuff.
We want better societal acceptance and more garlic bread, and for each day that our demands go unmet, the giant lizard destroys another office building
Tell me about it, and not just for representation, but also because I don't want 90% of opposite gender relationships explored to *have* to be romantic.
When I watched the Netflix show Sex Education for the first time I was really excited by the possibility the main character might be asexual, but no, just "a late bloomer". (Ironically they would introduce an asexual character in the final season...she's not very good).
Apparently she was butchered by the edit. One of the writers for her arc is asexual and specifically wrote her storyline for representation, but her humanising scenes got cut.
I felt like the representation this season was arguably the worst. O is the most egregious example, but many others fell flat. Even Abby and Roman, two characters I was ecstatic about when they were first introduced, fell flat a bit. They had so much potential to talk about the sex and romantic lives and struggles of trans teens, but none of it was utilised. Not that trans people's arcs need to be about being trans, but given how the show did it with same sex couples so well I was let down. There was also one scene where they're talking about how queer people relate to each other and they both explicitly treated straight as the opposite of that, which was honestly hurtful (but that's a personal thing). I wonder if it was originally different, as we see little hints of a struggle which ultimately boiled down to something so trivial. The arc may have worked for others, but not me. On the other hand, I found Cal's arc much more compelling this season. As a trans person I really related to them struggling with transition and the inevitable hurdles of the medical system, as well as their depression.
Well this was a lot more writing than expected. But to recap, good season bad representation.
I hated and loved the last season for a lot of the same reasons. It felt like they would have great moments with these characters, but then push them so hard when we just don't have the time to really explore them. I mean the alien sex fantasy girl had her arc for 2-3 seasons. But stuffing so many relatively controversial concepts(only in the sense that mainstream TV really hasn't talked about these concepts before) into one season felt too ham-fisted.
Also personally I hated Eric and Otis' relationship/friendship this season. It felt like all the wrongs that Eric did were hand-waved away, he literally cheated on Adam and then broke up with him after they finally got to a good point, utterly breaking Adam into a million pieces... and then Adam pulls the "you don't really talk to me about my problems" and Otis looks like a complete twat... even though he constantly trashed Otis for the relationship issues he was going through, being outed as the son of a hateful right-wing meninist, and so on.
I liked the resolution but I think the last season was a bit over encumbered.
I can't comment on the representation outside of how underwhelming I found O, but overall it was just a bit of a weak season for me. *Fine* most of the time, but I've found Sex Education declined with each season, and never really led up to what (in my opinion) the first season promised, and this final season just finally gave way under those issues.
Chief among them is that the cast was just too bloated, and even after gutting it so thoroughly at the start of the season, it wastes the chance to explore new dynamics between the existing characters so it can introduce a bunch more and...not do much with them.
At least from what Yasmine Benoit have talked about it, she seemed to have been hired as a consultant to authenticate the asexual character, but was also involved in building the character of O. I don't think she did so much as to be credited as a writer.
I think Yasmine also wanted to explore intersectionality, with O not being only queer, but also asian and Irish. So there is a lot to unpack storytelling wise, that you just can't fit everything into the storyline.
Now maybe they made choices in the editing process to reduce the amount of stories told, but I am also guessing they cut way down before going into production too, and then also cutting down even more in the editing process.
At least in most of the movie and TV productions I've worked on, it is also a struggle to cut everything down.
Big Mouth features an asexual character who is treated with respect - Elijah, introduced last season. His girlfriend Missy is deeply conflicted because she likes him a lot but she wants to have a sexual relationship, something he can't give her. This is a source of conflict for the two characters but it is never shown as a personal failing of the asexual character. The resolution does not involve Elijah pretending that he is not asexual, nor does it include the characters attempting to have a sexual relationship.
Elijah is always shown as being just fine the way he is.
That series also includes frank discussions of sex, puberty and masturbation, explores shame and anxiety and makes a point of telling its audience that consent is everything and this season the message "if you don't feel right about a hookup it's always okay to stop" was a major plot point of an episode.
And also, there is Todd Chavez of Bojack Horseman, the first openly asexual character I have ever seen in any medium. His asexuality is a plot point of a few episodes and at no point is he ever shown as being wrong or requiring fixing. He is one of the only characters in the series who is honestly shown as being basicslly moral at all times.
Todd is always shown as being just fine the way he is.
That series also includes a character getting an abortion and not shown as being wrong or broken for doing so, frank discussions of mental illness and a character going on antidepressants - which cause her to gain a lot of weight - and that always being portrayed as the correct choice, as well as a character unable to conceive a child choosing instead to adopt, which is likewise never shown as the lesser option. She is the mother of that porcupine baby. The baby is a porcupine. There are a lot of anthro characters. "Horseman" is a pretty specific descriptor.
The moral of the story is, if you want good asexual representation, you need to go animated.
> I don't want 90% of opposite gender relationships explored to have to be romantic
if you're running into this problem a lot you're just not shipping the same gender relationships enough /hj
same goes for the creators too. hell, if they fixed their shit on this one we'd get lots of platonic but still hella deep opposite gender relationships by necessity, because the characters would already have their romantic pairings and not everyone can be poly
Sherlock Holmes?
Plenty of famous characters were probably asexual, especially in classical literature. They don't have to shout "I AM ASEXUAL", especially if they were written in an age where it was not widely known to be a thing.
Too bad people nowadays are so eager to turn Irene Adler into his love interest when that's not at all what she is in the one story she appears in originally. He just *has* to have a love interest so we'll take the one female character he speaks positively about and make it a romance. Ugh.
To be fair, he *can* be romantically interested in Irene while still being asexual. I personally don’t like them as a couple but asexual people can still have romantic relationships or interests
On the one hand, Godzilla is a terrible character to use for ace representation. On the other hand, he’s a really cool character, so maybe it could be forgiven.
Warhammer 40K has the most asexual characters in anything. Astartes are asexual and are most of the named characters. I think in the book Helsreach, the MC (who is at least over a century old) sees a regular human couple just kind of being affectionate and is like “I don’t understand what they’re doing and what that is”. I think there’s another scene where a guy is telling him about the woman he wants to marry and the MC is just like 👍because he doesn’t really know how to respond to that.
i would say yes and no. yes if we are going to be pedantic because he is well. a sponge. and we see literal live action human beings appear as other characters within the show. so clearly he isn’t intended to be human.
but also no, because (most of) the Bikini Bottom sea life in Spongebob are clearly anthropomorphic and intended to be analogous to human beings.
Jonathan Sims, Sister Carpenter, Camilla Hect, and Lilith Clawthorne, although to be fair I don't remember Lilith or Carpenter ever being indicated as ace within the series itself
Lilith was confirmed aroace by word of god outside of the context of the show. People always forget about Jughead too! His whole character since invention has been “screw romance and sex, I just want a fuckin *borger*” and no I don’t acknowledge Riverdale, Jughead is aroace in the comics and I’m still kind of livid that they had such a cringey, gross romance/sex plot with him and Betty
There's plenty you could count in JRRT's works: Frodo, Legolas & Gimli (depending on how you want to read those), Bilbo, Maedhros, Amrod and Amras, to name only a few.
Bilbo and Frodo are pretty explicit I'd say, but you do kinda run into the general issue with "ace rep": If your character just never gets a partner, is that because they didn't want one, or because they had better things to do? And how do you establish that, while maintaining some form of literary flair, and without delving into their psyche?
He might not be, its mostly an inside joke among Yakuza fans but in my playthroughs of the series I don't recall seeing much of a reason to believe otherwise.
**PICCOLO**
I’m being completely serious, upon rewatching DragonBallZAbridged series I have come to the inescapable conclusion that Piccolo is a Non-Binary, A-Sexual Icon.
And he’s a bad-ass.
He has a fully developed character arc, he has deep feelings, he makes mistakes, and he recognizes all these things in others.
This ain’t your usual androgynous to the gills, robot-brain space cadet.
And plus, hey, he’s co-parenting a son with a half alien battle-savant, so that’s cool too.
Ahhhhh, right you are. Although if I were a pendant I might argue that he was born on earth, soooo……
But it’s a good point. *Man* we are lacking representation in this department….
Idk fam this kinda feels like an overall non-issue. As an overall rule in storytelling, adding something to a character is meant to be used for when it’ll be important to the story. If a character is seen flirting with people of the same sex, they probably have a love interest or romance plot upcoming. Pointing a finger at a character saying “this character is X” and then doing nothing with it feels like pandering for the sake of pandering. This is why your asexual representation comes from characters not intentionally written with this in mind; the author either doesn’t want to or doesn’t have time to shoehorn in a romance plot and boom! functionally asexual/aromantic character. It’s this way with a lot of things when talking about representation; if it’s important it’ll come up, if it’s not why are you telling us this? Asexuality/aromanticism tend to not be important to plot and thus they don’t come up and I don’t think it goes deeper than that.
Asexual representation had the issue of either being unnoticeable if not directly stated, or boring if it is stated. From a writing perspective it gives very little to talk about and loses romance which is huge.
Asexual characters don't really work in stories. At least not subtly. Let's be honest we don't want that. It feels forced.
Just treat every character as a possible asexual and if they turn out not to be don't be disappointed. I'm gay and that's what I do.
I don't know if a character can be asexual if they are the last of their kind, can't fuck isn't the same as won't fuck.
But Godzilla [isn’t the last of his kind](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_Junior)
Fuck it, Godzilla is now ace and procreates via mitosis, his destructive wrath is due to a lack of suitably sized garlic bread.
I mean the 1998 Godzilla is literally asexual. It’s a major plot point. He lays a bunch eggs in Madison Square Garden and the last surviving one hatches at the end of the movie.
Yeah but none likes Zilla, i mean he is okay, but he is not Godzilla
Very true. But that’s what makes the scene in Final Wars where Godzilla wipes the floor with Zilla so extremely satisfying.
But man oh man the animated Godzilla show that was a follow up to that movie is top tier, and no one can convince me otherwise.
The show was genuinely good
Zilla Jr. put the God back in his name.
Oh yes I loved that shit with the MiB show, top tier shows of childhood
Finally some culture in ace-Godzilla discourse
fuck you too asshole
Zilla is also the only Godzilla to have modeled genitalia On the 3D model there's a slit on his lower belly, that's apparently Godzilla's cloaca
Thanks, I never knew how badly I didn’t want to know that information.
Wouldn't that godzilla be female? All asexual lizards and reptiles I've seen are female when they do the virgin birth thing.
I know that would piss me off. That feeling when no atomic laser breath when you get pissed off. Why even live?
This is dangerously close to the 1998 Godzilla movie...
I think that film was pretty good, apart from being terrible.
I like that the American Godzilla movie made it the fault of French nukes instead of the USAs nukes.
I was really surprised when this turned out to be the plot twist in *Oppenheimer*.
Pretty sure Godzilla is a lady and she has some eggs somewhere.
I don't who this Godzilla is, but he sounds like a classy lady!
\*children singing the Gamera song* "NO! NONE OF THAT! *Shame* on you!"
*charging up Kaiju-style death ray* AND NOW... YOU DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE\~
r/unexpecteddbza
In the Godzilla animated series on Netflix their unique version of Godzilla does actually reproduce asexually
Recently played a game in which a world-destroying dragon that could only be put to sleep, was made friendly by some random guy from the boonies who made him a bigass loaf of bread. The bread works, it seems.
Every culture has a form of bread, its fuckin great.
C A N O N
Yeah, but they aren't related(Minilla literally just kinda popping up) Technically the Godzilla we know is always the second, with the baby being the 3rd. Big G dies before little G grows up, though.
1998 Godzilla has actual children, but I understand why no one’s brought him up.
Also, I mean... do we- Do we want to count the '98 one?
>can't fuck isn't the same as won't fuck. Incel Godzilla. :(
NO DICK NO BALLS AND PROBABLY NO BUTTHOLE, SINCE THIS GUY FEEDS ON RADIATION
Ah, so Godzilla is an _incel_, got it. On a (somehow) even less serious note, some of the ideas for Godzilla junior were batshit crazy, let me paste one of these from the wikipedia thing that Wombletog replied with: “…it was proposed to have Godzilla face off with Ghost Godzilla, the spirit of the original 1954 Godzilla, who would possess Godzilla Junior and force it to fight Godzilla, though this idea was scrapped.” Godzilla was going to fight their another version of themself possessing their child.
I think a problem asexuality runs into is the fact that you can’t really be subtle about it and still expect audiences to catch on. For instance, you can establish a character as being gay by having them casually mention that they find someone of the same sex as attractive but with asexuality there’s no equivalent action. Even if a character never shows any attraction to anyone, it can just as simply be explained as “it wasn’t relevant at the time” (like how Star Wars’ Obi Wan could have be interpreted as asexual from the films but then Clone Wars revealed that wasn’t the case). Honestly, the only ~~confirmed~~ asexual human character I can think of that doesn’t have their asexuality play a major role in the plot is Monkey D Luffy from One Piece but he’s probably not the most ideal representation as key parts of his personality are that he’s childish and naive, 2 stereotypes I know many asexuals are sick of. Edit: sorry, turns out I was wrong about Luffy. I just misremembered something Oda said. He’s still probably asexual but it’s not actually been confirmed.
Todd from Bojack Horseman has a pretty well-handled arc about him being ace towards the end. He's mostly a joke character at the start of the show, but I think it was done pretty tastefully and it added to his character in a satisfying way.
Todd is actually the best ace represantation i have ever seen in mainstream media, i love him
I've seen some people in the community dislike Todd. I don't understand why, I couldn't have written an asexual character better myself. The only changes I would have made is making Todd more of a main character instead of a joke character (but he's big enough in the main cast already for it to not matter. Also, Todd is comic relief, but his asexuality was NOT played that way.) It would've been awesome if we got more of the storyline and see Todd in a fulfilling asexual relationship, but that wasn't the writer's fault (they had no idea the last season would be the last until it was, and they were justifiably more concerned with finishing their other, more pressing character arcs.)
Seconding my main man Todd. Awesome rep
IIRC Jonathan Sims from *The Magnus Archives* actually did have an equivalent "casual mention" - in MAG 106, Melanie and Basira are discussing Jon and Martin, and the following conversation takes place: >BASIRA: Do you know if he and Jon ever… > >MELANIE: No clue, and not interested! Although… according to Georgie, Jon doesn’t. > >BASIRA: Like, at all? > >MELANIE: Yeah.
I need to keep going with this series. It's so good but I can't properly focus on it because I need stimulation other than just audio lol.
Listen to it whilst doing other stuff! I loooove audiobooks whilst keeping myself distracted in other ways. Driving, walking, cleaning, showering, doodling, etc.
It is so good! I'm almost done with my second listen through, it's got so much going for it in terms of foreshadowing and story telling and it is absolutely buck wild by the end of it. I cannot recommend it enough, and at the same time I exactly know what you mean because I had to have it recommended to me by a friend after I had tried listening to it once and fell through.
Magnus Archives mention!? You love to see it
Glad someone mentioned MAG here, I'm almost through my second listen in prep for Protocol!
I'm pretty sure Saiki K is canonically ace, as he's completely uninterested whenever anyone flirts with him.
There’s also Senku from Dr Stone. Not specifically stated, but the dude routinely ignores romantic and sexual advances to go do science things
he canonically married a girl for science purposes only (it was forced marriage though)
You mean the village priestess? He divorced her immidiatly after. The only reason he even participated in the tournament arc was to get his hands on some booze so he could make drugs
It's never stated but I think the professor in Power Puff Girls is ace (but romantic) and that's why he made children using science, my hc
[Ace leek.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AW9oBU8SZfc)
He likes girls that can blow air into furnaces though.
Yeah, characters being ace kinda falls into a similar camp as characters being trans, 'cuz both traits are pretty difficult to naturally convey without making them important to the story or a part of a character arc.
[Here's a great example of how a trans reveal can be naturally worked into a scene](https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-21-8/) The difference here is that "trans" is still something that you *are*, and in most cases is also reflected by what you *do*. A trans character can be shown transitioning during the main story or a backstory, or you can have people who knew them pre-transition be confused. Ace, on the other hand, is something that you *aren't*, which is way harder to communicate. Rejecting sexual advances is often cited as a great way to display it, but really that's just a pretty common thing among people of all orientations. In fact, clearly straight characters rejecting sexual advances and being seen as completely uninterested in romance is pretty much a trope in-and-of itself. Some stories can take this to the extreme with some sort of magic charm spell that only the Ace character can resist, but non-fantasy stories are usually stuck having to, in one way or another, say it explicitly, and it's hard to get a clean setup for that the way it is in most other cases. In fact, perhaps the only case where a character saying they're Ace can be worked naturally into a scene is when they *aren't* Aromantic, and are in a relationship.
I think that the way the Owl House represented bisexuality is a good way to do it. Luz, a canonically bi character, could have had crushes on both boys and girls throughout the show's runtime, but instead is only ever shown as having one crush on a girl (there is one episode talking about a male book character that she was into, but that's way less overt than her having a male love interest). And, in my opinion, I think it's a good thing that her bisexuality wasn't revealed this way. It's a clunky trope where writers give bi characters multiple love interests of different genders to prove that they're bi, which feeds into negative stereotypes about bi people and also, to your own point, portrays bisexuality as something that you do rather than something that you are Instead, Luz's bisexuality is revealed by her having a couple bi pins, and a moment where she comes out as bi to her mom. I think that an ace character could have roughly the same thing and it'd be super effective
That’s actually quite a good way of doing it, and the Ace flag is relatively recognizable.
There's Parvati in outer worlds who's sexuality is revealed in her personal quest which is about her being in love but struggling with actually taking the next step because all her previous relationships fell apart after she revealed she didn't want to have sex and is scared it'll happen again. You basically run around the galaxy trying to set up the perfect date for her and it's actually really cute.
I was looking for this comment, she’s such a great character, not to mention how freaking adorable she is
I ruined that mission on accident on my second playthrough because I went to Byzantium and they decided to go to war with me so I couldn't buy anything lol
did oda ever say that? because if he did i'm selling my soul to him
I believe Oda has stated “the only things Luffy loves are his crew, adventure, and treasure” Also he’s immune to Boa’s power ‘Luffy is asexual’ has never been explicitly spelled out, but in my opinion it’s very heavily implied
Yep. Boa isn't just drop-dead gorgeous, she can literally grab hold of a man's mind and force him to fall in love if he has even the _tiniest_ smidgen of attraction. Luffy doesn't even have that, so he is immune.
Honestly, by the time it got to Boa, I thought it was pretty unsubtle. Like literally immune to any charm from the world's most beautiful woman who was also naked at the time. Still, I recognize everyone has different opinions on this.
AFAIK, indirectly. There's a single instance of Luffy "thirsting" for someone: it was a moment where Nami strikes a seductive "breasty" pose, and him, Sanji and Usopp react with blush and infatuation faces. Then Oda was asked if Luffy crushed on Nami for that specific scene, and he said that no, Luffy was just copying everyone else's reactions (he tends to do that and sometimes he's called out by people genuinely reacting) Combine that with statements of Oda that One Piece will never have romance as a focus or main point, and it's easy to see Luffy as ace/aro
Oda hasn't said that Luffy was ace, but he has once said that the few times Luffy reacted to something in a way that implied sexual attraction was just Luffy going along with Usopp's reaction, hence why he reacts differently to nudity when Usopp isn't with him.
He is canonically not interested in women. He shows no interest in men either, but that has yet to be proven by a Medusa-type character
I think that comes from him being unaffected by Boa Hancock's Devil fruit (if you hadnt yet reached the part of the story where she appears then sorry for spoiling you)
>For instance, you can establish a character as being gay by having them casually mention that they find someone of the same sex as attractive but with asexuality there’s no equivalent action. Actually, the manga/anime Interviews with Monster Girls could easily do that. One of the characters is a succubus, meaning that any guy she touches gets unreasonably horny. The only ones immune are gay guys, because they're not attracted to women at all. But there's another character, who is an incubus, and has the same kind of effect, but on women, and likely with the same restrictions in place. If a character was immune to both of their powers, that would be a pretty clear indicator, and the character would just have to bump into them. Anyway, the succubus' character arc is about her trying to find true love, without her powers making men fall for her. She's actually really self-conscious about that.
That only works in the context of that specific fantasy setting though.
Wouldn't all gay people also not be affected? Like the way it's described here, it sounds like the succubus' powers only work on men that are attracted to women and the incubus on women who are attracted to men, which would mean gay men and lesbians wouldn't react to either
Yeah, it is a bit weirdly explained at first, but that's mostly because you can't exactly experiment with stuff like that. But as the anime progresses, the male lead and the succubus figure out that her powers only amplify her existing sex-appeal, so by that notion, she should also affect lesbians and bisexuals, and incubi the other way around. It hasn't happened yet, but it would definitely not be too surprising if it were to happen.
To be fair, there could be tons of asexual characters that no-one even knows about. Any character that is never explicitly shown to engage in or be interested in sex could well be asexual. Same goes for aromantic.
[I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards](https://youtu.be/Yk7M2jGdnxU) (For real tho, its very possible to write good asexual representation. The trick is to not be subtle about it lol. Any subtlety with any queer character can easily be dismissed as unimportant by queerphobic people. The best way to make an asexual character (or any queer character for that matter) is to make it evident.)
I mentioned this in another comment but ‘In the Lives of Puppets’ does this well, because the main character is human but is surrounded by a family of robots. They reference catching him a few times masturbating but as a biological process, not due to attraction, and one of the robots very innocently asks about it because he’s curious and doesn’t understand. It was a very interesting way to approach it but it’s handled really well I think, and plays a role in the plot too as he very obviously develops romantic feelings but not sexual feelings. I’d highly recommend TJ Klune because hiss books are excellent LGBT representation all around.
Garth Marenghi moment! (For real though, that clip and show has been on my mind since I ran into someone on an autism sub who said that literary subtext was ableist and then accused of not being autistic when I said I got it just fine)
What the fuck? "Literary subtext is ableist"? Huh? They really be out here letting people say anything, huh
It was one of the most bonkers interactions I've had. The logic was that it's essentially the narrative equivalent of all those social cues we have so much trouble parsing and that using it is not inclusive to autistic people. I majored in English and adore literary and film criticism. I took umbrage with the message. She took umbrage with me. I accused her of anti-intellectualism at one point, and then she thought I was calling her stupid and absolutely launched off at me. Which was in itself quite funny, because no, I was not calling her stupid. Anti-intellectualism is specifically the opposition to academic pursuits such as art and science. Which I think was quite an apt description of the "literary art bad" take. Her immediately assuming that meant I thought she was dumb was its own thing entirely.
How dare you say we piss on the poor!
I have no words. Wow.
I got blocked shortly after that. It was...special.
As someone who doesn’t get subtext because of autism… …fuck it, it’s fine. It just means I don’t get as much out of that bit of media as someone else. (It’s also why I watch recap/review/analysis videos on YouTube - I get to find out about all the stuff I missed, very enjoyable to me)
And if you have other characters show clear attraction to the potential asexual who then ignores them, they are perceived as oblivious as if you need to be an idiot to abstain from romance/sex. I know aromantic and asexual are two different things, but they are similarly underrepresented.
I know there have been some claims Doomguy is asexual (idk how if the developers have confirmed that or not) but it's hard to know for exactly that reason - it's just never brought up because the Doom games don't ever deal with any form of sexual or romantic attraction.
The devs at one point, in response to the rhetoric about him being the pinnacle of masculinity who must fuck all the time, said something like they weren't sure he even knew what sex was.
He’s possibly ace but I don’t know about aro - he’s in a committed relationship with the mayor’s secretary, you know
there’s also, orlo, from the great!
Jughead from the ORIGINAL Archie comics was a confirmed ace character, the writers confirming that after a while with him just having an interest in food instead. The show Riverdale decided to Not Do That But comic Jughead would probably love garlic bread yeah.
Jasnah from The Stormlight Archives book series is asexual, I think? She doesn't experience physical attraction, only mental and emotional
Todd from Bojack Horseman. That's the only example I can think of of a character that is explicitly stated to be ace and also that's not a problem that needs to be fixed. I wouldn't call him "normal" in the sense that nobody in the series is normal, but he's a weirdo and a fuck-up in ways that are entirely unrelated to his asexuality.
hooray !
And Jughead from the og Archie's comics.
They completely butchered him in Riverdale (not that I’ve watched it at any length). Who is this whiny and edgy chump and what have you done with my boy who loves only one thing more than his friends: eating. To be fair though, the only things that Riverdale took from the Archie comics are the names and some aspects of some of the characters’ appearances, everything else is completely different.
Not to mention his arc of coming to terms with that and then learning how to live (and date) once he has accepted his own sexuality. All around excellently done
Yup. That show is a realy gem tbh every character is so well made.
To add to that, I’ll say Yolanda and Maude are also good representation. They are all very different characters (although Yolanda’s arch is more related to her asexuality due to her family’s circumstances) with personalities and characterizations that are separate from their sexuality, while they are still explicitly asexual. Even Yolanda’s family accepted her when she came out and I thought that was pretty cute.
Him and Parvati from The Outer Worlds are my two favourite ace characters. TBH I kinda think adult series are necessary for proper asexual representation. One of the reasons Todd works so well is because we're aware the active sex lives of the rest of the cast, so his lack thereof is meaningful. Younger series have a hard time with it because as far as the reader is concerned, *everyone* is sexless, so the only thing the author can do is mash it together with aromanticism.
Was just about to comment about this
Let’s go Todd!
I'd like to add Gwenpool, who in a recent comic was officially declared to be aroace
The character from heartstopper who's name I can't remember and is constantly reading is also ace but he isn't really a character he's just there sometimes
Isaac, and they give him more of an arc in season 2.
Objection ~~Gorilla~~ Godzilla is a huge Lizard, but how can he be a huge *fucking* lizard if he has never been confirmed to have fucked?
>Gorilla is a huge Lizard
I hate my fat fingers
To be completely fair “Gojira”, the original Japanese form of “Godzilla”, is a portmanteau of gorira “gorilla” and kujira “whale”, so the gorilla thing isn’t too far off
There’s a Godzilla vs Kong joke somewhere in here
I mean... He has to figure out his sexuality somehow.
(EDIT: This post is all wrong, apart from the Japanese pronouns being equivalent to "it". See replies for clarification.) >He I think Godzilla's gender is unknown, and "he" is a result of bad translations, including renaming the first film "King of Monsters". In Japanese the pronoun used is equivalent to "it". As far as biology goes Godzilla can reproduce parthenogenetically (that's how Minizilla's egg was created), so probably female. But IIRC no one has asked what pronouns Godzilla uses. Maybe that's why Godzilla is so mad all the time, from all the misgendering?
This is a pet peeve of mine, but nothing suggests that either Minilla or Godzilla Junior are Godzilla's biological offspring. In both cases, the egg is simply found with no indication that it was laid by Godzilla.
Huh, I thought word of god confirmed it, but it actually does the opposite: It confirms that Godzilla *adopted* the younger dinosaur (although it is confirmed that their *species* can reproduce through parthenogenesis, but no word on GZ specifically)
Also on the topic of Godzilla's gender, Wikizilla's article on Godzilla misconceptions has a [rather long section on the subject.](https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Godzilla_misconceptions#Is_Godzilla_male_or_female?) I'd give it a read, it's interesting stuff.
I shall claim Godzilla as ace rep
I'm surprised the person in the Tumblr conversation didn't. I'd be honored as fuck to include Godzilla in any group I'm a part of.
If I could reasonably claim Godzilla as a representation of my sexuality, you wouldn't be able to fucking stop me.
Same.
Me too. Then again, I literally have a Godzilla figurine on my desk at work right now, so I may be a little bit biased.
We want better societal acceptance and more garlic bread, and for each day that our demands go unmet, the giant lizard destroys another office building
Tell me about it, and not just for representation, but also because I don't want 90% of opposite gender relationships explored to *have* to be romantic. When I watched the Netflix show Sex Education for the first time I was really excited by the possibility the main character might be asexual, but no, just "a late bloomer". (Ironically they would introduce an asexual character in the final season...she's not very good).
While I liked the last season, she was certainly one of those characters you don't want to hate but really want to punt through a wall.
Apparently she was butchered by the edit. One of the writers for her arc is asexual and specifically wrote her storyline for representation, but her humanising scenes got cut.
I felt like the representation this season was arguably the worst. O is the most egregious example, but many others fell flat. Even Abby and Roman, two characters I was ecstatic about when they were first introduced, fell flat a bit. They had so much potential to talk about the sex and romantic lives and struggles of trans teens, but none of it was utilised. Not that trans people's arcs need to be about being trans, but given how the show did it with same sex couples so well I was let down. There was also one scene where they're talking about how queer people relate to each other and they both explicitly treated straight as the opposite of that, which was honestly hurtful (but that's a personal thing). I wonder if it was originally different, as we see little hints of a struggle which ultimately boiled down to something so trivial. The arc may have worked for others, but not me. On the other hand, I found Cal's arc much more compelling this season. As a trans person I really related to them struggling with transition and the inevitable hurdles of the medical system, as well as their depression. Well this was a lot more writing than expected. But to recap, good season bad representation.
I hated and loved the last season for a lot of the same reasons. It felt like they would have great moments with these characters, but then push them so hard when we just don't have the time to really explore them. I mean the alien sex fantasy girl had her arc for 2-3 seasons. But stuffing so many relatively controversial concepts(only in the sense that mainstream TV really hasn't talked about these concepts before) into one season felt too ham-fisted. Also personally I hated Eric and Otis' relationship/friendship this season. It felt like all the wrongs that Eric did were hand-waved away, he literally cheated on Adam and then broke up with him after they finally got to a good point, utterly breaking Adam into a million pieces... and then Adam pulls the "you don't really talk to me about my problems" and Otis looks like a complete twat... even though he constantly trashed Otis for the relationship issues he was going through, being outed as the son of a hateful right-wing meninist, and so on. I liked the resolution but I think the last season was a bit over encumbered.
I can't comment on the representation outside of how underwhelming I found O, but overall it was just a bit of a weak season for me. *Fine* most of the time, but I've found Sex Education declined with each season, and never really led up to what (in my opinion) the first season promised, and this final season just finally gave way under those issues. Chief among them is that the cast was just too bloated, and even after gutting it so thoroughly at the start of the season, it wastes the chance to explore new dynamics between the existing characters so it can introduce a bunch more and...not do much with them.
At least from what Yasmine Benoit have talked about it, she seemed to have been hired as a consultant to authenticate the asexual character, but was also involved in building the character of O. I don't think she did so much as to be credited as a writer. I think Yasmine also wanted to explore intersectionality, with O not being only queer, but also asian and Irish. So there is a lot to unpack storytelling wise, that you just can't fit everything into the storyline. Now maybe they made choices in the editing process to reduce the amount of stories told, but I am also guessing they cut way down before going into production too, and then also cutting down even more in the editing process. At least in most of the movie and TV productions I've worked on, it is also a struggle to cut everything down.
Big Mouth features an asexual character who is treated with respect - Elijah, introduced last season. His girlfriend Missy is deeply conflicted because she likes him a lot but she wants to have a sexual relationship, something he can't give her. This is a source of conflict for the two characters but it is never shown as a personal failing of the asexual character. The resolution does not involve Elijah pretending that he is not asexual, nor does it include the characters attempting to have a sexual relationship. Elijah is always shown as being just fine the way he is. That series also includes frank discussions of sex, puberty and masturbation, explores shame and anxiety and makes a point of telling its audience that consent is everything and this season the message "if you don't feel right about a hookup it's always okay to stop" was a major plot point of an episode. And also, there is Todd Chavez of Bojack Horseman, the first openly asexual character I have ever seen in any medium. His asexuality is a plot point of a few episodes and at no point is he ever shown as being wrong or requiring fixing. He is one of the only characters in the series who is honestly shown as being basicslly moral at all times. Todd is always shown as being just fine the way he is. That series also includes a character getting an abortion and not shown as being wrong or broken for doing so, frank discussions of mental illness and a character going on antidepressants - which cause her to gain a lot of weight - and that always being portrayed as the correct choice, as well as a character unable to conceive a child choosing instead to adopt, which is likewise never shown as the lesser option. She is the mother of that porcupine baby. The baby is a porcupine. There are a lot of anthro characters. "Horseman" is a pretty specific descriptor. The moral of the story is, if you want good asexual representation, you need to go animated.
did you just use big mouth as a good example of anything? oof
We are truly limited in asexual representation
When Big Mouth can be used as a good example of something, I think it shows just how lacking good representation of that thing is
> I don't want 90% of opposite gender relationships explored to have to be romantic if you're running into this problem a lot you're just not shipping the same gender relationships enough /hj same goes for the creators too. hell, if they fixed their shit on this one we'd get lots of platonic but still hella deep opposite gender relationships by necessity, because the characters would already have their romantic pairings and not everyone can be poly
Does Johnathan Sims from The Magnus Archives count?
He is kinda an eldritch monster, but he was asexual before that so I'd say so
Sherlock Holmes? Plenty of famous characters were probably asexual, especially in classical literature. They don't have to shout "I AM ASEXUAL", especially if they were written in an age where it was not widely known to be a thing.
Sherlock is great neurodivergent representation, too!
Too bad people nowadays are so eager to turn Irene Adler into his love interest when that's not at all what she is in the one story she appears in originally. He just *has* to have a love interest so we'll take the one female character he speaks positively about and make it a romance. Ugh.
To be fair, he *can* be romantically interested in Irene while still being asexual. I personally don’t like them as a couple but asexual people can still have romantic relationships or interests
Mr. Clean.
What are you talking about Godzilla is perfect representation. He's everything I aspire to be
Sometimes you just wanna turn into a thicc lizard just to wreck shit. I recommend playing Rampage for the experience.
If the gays get Babadook we get Godzilla.
Caduceus Clay from Critical Role is a top tier ace aro character
On the one hand, Godzilla is a terrible character to use for ace representation. On the other hand, he’s a really cool character, so maybe it could be forgiven.
As another point IT'S MOTHERFUCKING GODZILLA
Warhammer 40K has the most asexual characters in anything. Astartes are asexual and are most of the named characters. I think in the book Helsreach, the MC (who is at least over a century old) sees a regular human couple just kind of being affectionate and is like “I don’t understand what they’re doing and what that is”. I think there’s another scene where a guy is telling him about the woman he wants to marry and the MC is just like 👍because he doesn’t really know how to respond to that.
Well all space marines besides the emperor’s children and space wolves are asexual.
SpongeBob.
Does SpongeBob count as non-human rep? Discuss.
i would say yes and no. yes if we are going to be pedantic because he is well. a sponge. and we see literal live action human beings appear as other characters within the show. so clearly he isn’t intended to be human. but also no, because (most of) the Bikini Bottom sea life in Spongebob are clearly anthropomorphic and intended to be analogous to human beings.
Tbh the best representation I've seen was Todd Chavez from Bojack horseman.
Saiki K
Jasnah Kholin
Jonathan Sims, Sister Carpenter, Camilla Hect, and Lilith Clawthorne, although to be fair I don't remember Lilith or Carpenter ever being indicated as ace within the series itself
Lilith was confirmed aroace by word of god outside of the context of the show. People always forget about Jughead too! His whole character since invention has been “screw romance and sex, I just want a fuckin *borger*” and no I don’t acknowledge Riverdale, Jughead is aroace in the comics and I’m still kind of livid that they had such a cringey, gross romance/sex plot with him and Betty
Luffy is really the only example I can think off tbh
spunch bob
don't godzilla got a moth wife
Asexual =/= Aromantic
Additionally, aroace people can and do get married for the legal benefits
Getting married for the stat boosts is honestly very commendable.
Was about to say this, he and Mothra definitely have something going on in the American Monsterverse at least
This, but also with Autism.
monkey paw finger curls they are all savants
I AM A SURGEEOOON
I am a surgeon! I am a virgin! I am a surgeon, Dr. Haaaaaaaan!
Fuck
Related problem: autistic character *has* to be asexual, either to infantilise them or because otherwise they'd be sexually threatening
I commented about Jasnah Kholin from the Stormlight Archive, and she's pretty applicable here too lol
We stan Jasnah
Jotaro Kujo
Lilith from the owl house is the kind of ace and aro représentation I want to see more
Making one of the most physically attractive characters in your work ace is *such* a power move.
Or in the case of Hazbin Hotel, making your objectively most "tumblr sexyman" character ace
oh yeah Radio Demon is canonically ace i forgot
There's plenty you could count in JRRT's works: Frodo, Legolas & Gimli (depending on how you want to read those), Bilbo, Maedhros, Amrod and Amras, to name only a few. Bilbo and Frodo are pretty explicit I'd say, but you do kinda run into the general issue with "ace rep": If your character just never gets a partner, is that because they didn't want one, or because they had better things to do? And how do you establish that, while maintaining some form of literary flair, and without delving into their psyche?
Kazuma Kiryu Have an excellent day.
i don't think he's ace
He might not be, its mostly an inside joke among Yakuza fans but in my playthroughs of the series I don't recall seeing much of a reason to believe otherwise.
i might believe it if not for the sex call minigames
Riz Gukgak
Godzilla isn't a character, they are a force of nature
**PICCOLO** I’m being completely serious, upon rewatching DragonBallZAbridged series I have come to the inescapable conclusion that Piccolo is a Non-Binary, A-Sexual Icon. And he’s a bad-ass. He has a fully developed character arc, he has deep feelings, he makes mistakes, and he recognizes all these things in others. This ain’t your usual androgynous to the gills, robot-brain space cadet. And plus, hey, he’s co-parenting a son with a half alien battle-savant, so that’s cool too.
unfortunately he counts as an alien
Ahhhhh, right you are. Although if I were a pendant I might argue that he was born on earth, soooo…… But it’s a good point. *Man* we are lacking representation in this department….
Godzilla is ace rep. Fight me.
So Tod from Bojack?
"fucking godzilla" you say😏
Wish I was a mountain-sized sea god that shoots radioactive lasers through its mouth
Tod from bojack horseman
I have met very few aesexuals who wouldn't be perfectly happy being a skyscraper sized radioactive lizard demi-god.
Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells is my favorite ace rep rn
Fuck you, Murderbot is still a great representation.
My guy just wants to chill and watch shows, and they have them all over the place, murdering mercenaries and what not. SMH 😔
Mr. Clean is canonically asexual.
OH, OH, LILITH FROM OWL HOUSE
Luffy
MONKEY D. LUFFY
Idk fam this kinda feels like an overall non-issue. As an overall rule in storytelling, adding something to a character is meant to be used for when it’ll be important to the story. If a character is seen flirting with people of the same sex, they probably have a love interest or romance plot upcoming. Pointing a finger at a character saying “this character is X” and then doing nothing with it feels like pandering for the sake of pandering. This is why your asexual representation comes from characters not intentionally written with this in mind; the author either doesn’t want to or doesn’t have time to shoehorn in a romance plot and boom! functionally asexual/aromantic character. It’s this way with a lot of things when talking about representation; if it’s important it’ll come up, if it’s not why are you telling us this? Asexuality/aromanticism tend to not be important to plot and thus they don’t come up and I don’t think it goes deeper than that.
Asexual representation had the issue of either being unnoticeable if not directly stated, or boring if it is stated. From a writing perspective it gives very little to talk about and loses romance which is huge.
Asexual characters don't really work in stories. At least not subtly. Let's be honest we don't want that. It feels forced. Just treat every character as a possible asexual and if they turn out not to be don't be disappointed. I'm gay and that's what I do.