AVENUES
JULY - SEPTEMBER 2021
SUMMER 2021
FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE 3 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 4-5 FANTHROPOLOGY ...BY SCARLETLATITUDE
6-17 QUESTIONS OF THE MONTH 18 MEMBER HIGHLIGHT: OPTIMISTICPESSIMIST 19-21 PHYSICAL & MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES ...BY SCARLETLATITUDE
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F eatured
ASEXY PUZZLE - WORD SEARCH ACE SPOTLIGHT
in this issue
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Hello aces! This is my first Issue as the new Chief Editor, having already been an AVENues Member now for more than two years and even just a regular AVEN Member for soon to be 10 years! As for this issue, we are exploring the concept of Fandoms, we have never, ever done a theme such as this one before, despite our nearly fifty issues. It is an interesting question, having to belong to two fandoms myself. As usual, we explore with questions such as: how being part of a Fandom meshes with being asexual in one, especially if a fandom is heavily sexualisied. I look forward to seeing how AVENues changes in the future. Keep sending in your artwork, creatives, articles, and other items! I know you are in good hands. A welcome to all that continue to read AVENues, Janus DarkFox Chief Editor
EDITING TEAM Editor in Chief: Janus DarkFox Layout: kelico Co-editors: kikuka, scarletlatitude, Kimmie Benevolent PT Overlord: AceMissBehaving
CREATIVE TEAM kelico, MichaelTannock, ben8884 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS/ARTISTS scarletlatitude SPECIAL THANKS TO: Interview: OptimisticPessimist
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FANTHROPOLOGY By scarletlatitude
Recently I’ve taken up listening to podcasts while I drive and while I exercise. One podcast I listened to recently is “Ologies,” by Allie Ward. Right after we decided this issue would be about fandoms, Allie did an episode on Fanthropology, or how fandom interacts with anthropology. (More on that podcast episode here: https://www.alieward. com/ologies/fanthropology.) What a crazy coincidence, right? It was a sign that I had to write about this for AVENues. First, what is a fandom? The term fandom “describes communities built around a shared enjoyment of an aspect of popular culture, such as books, movies, TV shows, bands, sports or sports teams, etc.” (Grinnell.edu). The first fandom was probably for the original Sherlock Holmes books. When Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill off Sherlock in 1893, the fans held protests and mourned outside of the author’s home. There is even some evidence of Sherlock fans writing fanfiction back in the early 1900s. The internet is making it possible for fans to find each other, no matter where they live or what fandom they are in. Fandom members can argue, critique, support, and validate each other. They can share artwork, fanfiction, cosplays, and other forms of media. In the past, being a fan might have had negative connotations, where fandoms were only for “nerds.” Now, it’s so mainstream that companies are marketing to specific fandoms. Why do people participate in fandoms? This is still an active area of research, where anthropologists are studying the impacts of on demand media (think Netflix) and the internet. The technology has changed so quickly and anthropologists are catching up. According to Carrie Neill, “we identified a fairly well nested set of psychosocial needs that fandom fulfills - needs related to identity, self-care, and social connection. We know mechanisms like religion or 4
political ideologies can fulfill similar psychosocial needs. Now, we see that fandom can do it as well.” Beyond just being passive consumers of media, a fandom can become active creators. “Fan interaction with media becomes a social activity, and this process allows fans to build their own communities in which they can express themselves” (Grinnell.edu). Participating in some fandoms can be seen as an act of resistance or social defiance. In some ways, fandoms represent “a space within which fans may articulate their specific concerns about sexuality, gender, racism, colonialism, militarism, and forced conformity ” (Jenkins). For an example of this, look no further than when the BTS Army became a political influence in 2020. (https://www. theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/24/how-us-k-pop-fansbecame-a-political-force-to-be-reckoned-with-blm-donaldtrump) Obviously, the scope of fanthropology is something way beyond my ability to condense into one article. It is an ever-changing field incorporating many different people and many different fandoms. I will include some references below if you want to learn more. Resources: https://www.alieward.com/ologies https://variety.com/2016/tv/columns/understanding-fanssuperpower-troika-1201743513/ https://www.wired.com/2009/04/pl-brown-6/ https://dscout.com/people-nerds/susan-kresnicka-fieldreport https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultural-theory-andtheorists/fandom-and-participatory-culture/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/confronting-challengesparticipatory-culture https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/9757 https://www.academia.edu/491940/The_Dynamics_of_ Fandom_Exploring_Fan_Communities_in_Online_Spaces
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QUESTIONS OF THE MONTH
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THIS ISSUE IS ABOUT FANDOMS. WHICH FANDOMS ARE YOU INVOLVED WITH? hunger games, digimon, big time rush, land before time, warrior cats -Anonymous Danganronpa -Anonymous Voltron, Pokemon, Digimon -Anonymous All for the Game - a book series by Nora Sakavic -Anonymous Percy Jackson and the Olympians -Anonymous You really want a whole list? Good luck, then… Mystic Messenger, Harry Potter (+ Fantastic Beasts), BBC Sherlock, The Shadowhunters Chronicles, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Good Omens. (Can I consider “The Great Gatsby ” as a fandom, as well?) I was also in the Percy Jackson and Twilight fandoms at some point. It’s not like I am not into those books anymore, it’s just that it’s been a long time since I last read them. I need more time for my hobbies, I guess. -Anonymous Doctor Who, Sherlock, Merlin, Archie Comics, Harry Potter -Amée Fanfiction for star trek, harry potter, marvel mcu, merlin tv, sherlock tv, and various other -Natasha None yet, as I haven’t identified until very recently. I had no idea there were so many who felt like I did, much less, so much so, that there was an actual name for it. -Thunbo
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Murdoch Mysteries, Superstore -M Not very many, there are a bunch that I check in with occasionally though and these include the video games The World Ends With You and Ace Attorney, the book series about Percy Jackson, the tv series Steven Universe and She-Ra, and the How To Train Your Dragon movies. -Christa There’s too many to list, but the major ones are: Dimension 20, one direction (yes still, lol), mcyt, Kipo, Andi Mack, stardew valley, and celeste -Anonymous anime, visual novel games, cartoon -Anonymous 911 & 911:LS (TV) and MCU - Jes
HOW IS SEXUALITY (OF ANY KIND) REPRESENTED IN YOUR FANDOMS? HOW “SEXUAL” DOES THE FANDOM FEEL TO YOU? Mainly in Voltron, sexuality is heavily represented. And it is an *extremely* sexual fandom. -Anonymous The fandom is very sexual but also very inclusive. -Anonymous There are straight, cis, and canon LGBT+ characters; the fandom ships characters a lot. The ace headcanons are usually welcomed by our fandom. -Anonymous Mmm, not really. I mean, NSFW arts and fanfictions are everywhere, but I respect it. I just don’t read them. Out of all my fandoms, I would say The Shadowhunters Chronicles is the one with more sexual content, but it’s not explicit, so I am super okay with that. -Anonymous
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Most of the fandoms are extremely sexualized, despite the media itself not being that -Amée Cannon-wise, all of them, perhaps with the exception of Harry Potter, have moments of sexual innuendo, some of them not very subtle. In general, I view these moments as tacky since they don’t have a lot if depth or affect the plot and are only there to raise ratings. In terms of orientation, most of them mainly cater to straight audiences and usually don’t bring up idea of non-hetero orientations. I love Star Trek DS9’s queer undertones, but the producers worked really hard to suppress it. Sherlock has gay johnlock shippers, but nothing cannon. Its “A Scandal in Belgravia” was very sexual in terms of very explicit innuendo between Sherlock and Irene Adler. The fandoms (I mainly interact with fanfiction) are notably more sexualized. Sometimes it is difficult to find stories to my taste, which don’t 100% focus on sex, negate or ignore the plot to focus on sex, worship sex, or make sex the only reason characters can desire to be together. I like more plot or character study than sex. Nevertheless I understand why people desire these sexual types of work when the source material is often regulated by the maturity of target audiences. Fandom tends to be considerably more queer than canon sources. Queer ships gain even more popularity over the canon-straight couples, probably because people who don’t find enough or any representation in media create their own representation in fandom. By far the most common lgbtq+ ships are usually gay. Examples of very popular ships are Drarry, Remus/Sirius, Johnlock, Merlin/Arthur, Bashir/Garak, Bucky/Steve. -Natasha Can’t answer that yet. -Thunbo Murdoch Mysteries has(had) TWO GAY CHRACTERS!!! Sure it’s set in the early 1900s, but GAY FOR THE WIN Superstore has a gay character too -M
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Most of the fandoms I’m involved with are aimed at kids, so there is very little sexual content, which is perfect for me! -Christa The content the fandoms are based around aren’t overly sexual. Some of mine are literally around kids media, and the ones that aren’t really only have passing remarks, quick jokes, or “fade to black” moments. Most of them do show or have canon queer relationships or canon queer characters, but not all of them. The fandom communities themselves are complicated when it comes to how “sexual” they feel. For the most part I don’t see those sides of the communities because I don’t go searching for them (and they ’re fairly isolated to their own pockets of the internet, so that’s the only way to find them), but some of them there’s a lot of tension between the non-sexual and sexual parts of the community and it ends up being dragged out into the open. -Anonymous Sometimes, I’ll see mildly sexual/risque images of ships to do with a show, but nothing ever excplicitly sexual. When people discuss ships, people don’t really look at the sexual aspect, and more at their personalities and chemistry with eachother, so more of a romantic point of view. -Anonymous The Old Guard (mild spoilers, nothing groundbreaking): The canon is actually super queer! Joe and Nicky are two men who have been in love for nearly one thousand years, and the fandom responded accordingly which is great to see. I mainly interact by reading fanfic, and while most of it is outright porn there’s always enough emotional intimacy and otherwise good writing that I can skim it and not feel cheated. Another relationship, arguably more important to the plot, is between Andy and Quynh, both women; Andy is word-of-god pansexual. Quynh does not appear much in the movie, but will likely feature much more in the rumored sequel. Marvel (spoiler-free, I’m talking about a this ship that fandom entirely made up): The larger fandom is a beast I cannot describe. My corner is Winterhawk (Bucky Barnes/Clint Barton) which has some basis in some of the comics but none at all in the movies. My understanding of it is that it came almost entirely of one fic author writing a massive Winterhawk story and dragged a lot of us
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into the dumpster with her. There’s a lot of sex in the fanfic (it’s... fanfic) but also a lot of exploration about how two people who are broken in different ways fit into each other. Both are canonically disabled and have been brainwashed and deal with the trauma in different ways, and there is a lot of emotional intimacy (which I am always going to be here for) and trust and fun. Good Omens (...medium spoilers, probably?): Two of the main characters, an angel and a demon, are canonically described as “sexless, unless they make an effort.” One of them consistently presents as a man, the other as both a man and a woman; there is no overt romance or sexual relationship between them but fanon took that in predictable and marvelously queer directions; again, lots of porn :D Two other main characters (man and woman) actually have sex in the book/on the screen, because the girl’s many times great grandmother said they would. I honestly haven’t seen a lot of fan interaction with the scene, except some giggles about the encouraging comments the descendants have left for the pair through the years. -Anonymous 911 has a lot of good queer representation because the cannon does, as well as some well-loved straight pairing. I’d say the fandom’s pretty typically sexual; a lot of the discourse is dominated by shipping (and the most popular pairing is a non-cannon M/M ship) and about a quarter of the fics on ao3 are mature/explicit. MCU fandom’s most popular pairings are definitely queer M/M ships and that usually seems to be the focus of the fandom. - Jes
DO YOU SEE ASEXUAL REPRESENTATION IN YOUR FANDOMS? IF YES, EXPLAIN HOW ACES ARE REPRESENTED. No. -Anonymous yes! ibuki mioda and rantaro amami from danganronpa 2 and danganronpa v3 r both asexual-coded! -Anonymous Yes but it was an uphill battle, especially concerning a certain very popular who is in the two most popular ships. But now slowly more
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aces have come in and write and draw more content. -Anonymous Yes because the main character is demi-sexual -Anonymous Yes. The Hunters of Artemis and Reyna are canon asexual characters. -Anonymous I tend to headcanon all my favorite characters as aces, lol. But if you are talking about some real representation, well, then Good Omens is probably the best fandom ever, by this point of view. Its main characters are clearly in love with each other and the author, Neil Gaiman, said it’s perfectly okay for him to see them as asexuals. This is not really stated, though, neither in the book, nor in the series, but for once, I don’t mind that. It’s just so clear they are aces, to me. I especially love the fact that, for once, we get to see an asexual couple, since being ace is not the same as being aro and many allo people seem to forget that. For example, I love Cassandra Clare and I am really grateful for her wonderful books, but in her Shadowhunters Chronicles, her only ace character is actually aro. The books never say he is aromantic, they only say he’s asexual. I mean, of course aro people deserve representation as well, but maybe not by confusing them with aces? Another character by Cassandra Clare is actually demisexual and in love with a girl, though, even if it is never stated in the novels he is demi, it’s the author who said that later (just like Dumbledore and JKR, if you want). He just quickly, deeply falls in love with his friend and no one else catches his eye, that’s the representation we got. But I appreciate it nonetheless. Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorite characters of all time and I think he may be a good representation of alloromantic asexuality, even if, actually, I still don’t understand what the creators of the show really want to do with him. He may be aroace, he may be gay, he may even be straight (Irene Adler, anyone?). Who knows? Certainly not the fandom. Maybe that’s one of the many, many reasons why the show keeps being interesting. Anyway, he sounds as a demiromantic ace to me. The truth is that actually, most of the representation I personally get is by people who haven’t got a love interest *yet* in the story. (e.g. Loki. I don’t dare to hope they ’ll stay that way, with their show coming.) Maybe it’s a bit sad, but it’s better than nothing. -Anonymous
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Jughead Jones in the 2015 revival of Archie Comics is wonderful representation, and the reason that I finally accepted my asexuality. Unfortunately, with the series being adapted for TV (Riverdale), his asexuality was completely erased and he was made straight. Another example of asexual representation is Sherlock Holmes, who was asexual in the books, and is very ace-coded in BBC’s Sherlock. The show is often aphobic and implies many times that some sort of partnership is required to be human, and the fandom very much sexualizes Sherlock. The only character that is really widely accepted as ace that I can think of is Charlie Weasley from Harry Potter, who only shows up in a couple scenes in the books, and doesn’t appear in the movies at all. -Amée Never explicitly in canon. To me, Charlie Weasley, who is mostly absent from HP, is aroace because he’s more interested in dragons than dating. I see Sherlock as aroace, although nothing is explicitly sure and many people disagree for various reasons. The way I see it, he simply isn’t interested in anything sexual or romantic and feels no sexual attraction, so he spends his time obsessed with other things such as solving crime. When John asked him first about women and then men, he shut the conversation down by saying “I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work.” Some authors will write a couple of stories where a particular character is made to be ace-spec or aro-spec. This is where I find most of my asexuality representation anywhere in fandom. These works live at the edge of fandom in their own little niche, but bring a large amount of comfort. The fact that I enjoy reading many characters as ace is affected by my bias. I tend to unconsciously read people as aroace until evidence to the contrary is presented. Even in real life. I subconsciously think “sex/ romance isn’t important” about someone I just met, until they talk about a crush, their orientation, etc. Then I think, “Oh this person is straight/gay/ bi/interested in this person.” This bias is a-normative rather than heteronormative I suppose. -Natasha Not really -M Steven Universe has Peridot, who is canonically aroace, and She-Ra has Double Trouble, also canonically aroace. It’s nice to have a little representation, but I would love to see more! -Christina
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Only one of the main fandoms I’m in has a canon asexual character. In one of the campaigns that Dimension 20 produced, one of the player characters officially came out as asexual to his father because there was a lot of ongoing tension due to how different they were and it was a way of clearing the air. In other campaigns there’s a few suspected but unconfirmed Ace characters, and all of them are given complexity and traits outside of just being asexual/suspected asexual. Otherwise, there aren’t any other fandoms based on fiction that have canon Ace characters. There are a couple irl content creators who have come out as ace though, which is cool. The communities have a large amount of asexual fans and I always love seeing them interact, and they cheer on the ace or suspected Ace characters with me. -Anonymous Not much. There’s no specifically asexual representation in the 911 cannon, though they got close with one character and I’ve seen some of the fandom embrace that, particularly right after that episode. - Jes
HOW DO YOU THINK ACE REPRESENTATION CAN BE EXPANDED IN YOUR FANDOMS? More aces feeling comfortable with expressing themselves and allos learning not to be combative and aphobic. -Anonymous While having canon asexual characters is good, the representation could be better. -Anonymous By explaining that asexuality and aromanticism aren’t the same thing and by introducing characters who show that you can deeply love someone whatever “love” means to you - even without feeling sexual attraction. I think we also need aro people who are in a queerplatonic relationship as well as aros who don’t want to get involved with anyone (I may be aro, that’s why qprs are so important to me). Most of all, we need to understand that love comes in many forms and that there isn’t a “most intense” one. I would like to see an author or a creator finally clearly talking about all these things. Well, one can dream, right? -Anonymous I would say that it’d help so much if the ace characters would be explicitly acknowledged by the creators, but this doesn’t always fix things. In the case of Jughead Jones, his asexuality and aromanticism were explicitly stated, but that didn’t stop people from completely disregarding it, to the Q uestions
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point where most fanart and fanfiction of him makes him allo. -Amée It is difficult because asexuality is not very well-known. Plus authors have to be careful not to further common misconceptions. It is easy to dehumanize asexuality, especially when writing Data from Star Trek or Voldemort from Harry Potter. I want to see more people recognize the difference between abstinence or celibacy and asexuality. Yes, many asexual people are abstinent. But some asexual people are sex-indifferent or sexfavorable. Some have sex. Media likes to conflate these things, just serving to further inaccurate stereotypes and misconceptions. There is no “one type of asexual.” Also, I would like to see more aces who aren’t white. Black aces exist, Hispanic aces exist, Asian aces exist, where are they represented? Why don’t we get any stories about them? Again, there is no “one type of asexual.” -Natasha I think having main characters that are aro or ace would be lovely to see!!! -Christina It’s hard for some of my fandoms, because they ’re based around real people. If it’s a group that’s never going to expand or add new members, there isn’t really much they can do besides acknowledge the asexual fans. For the ones that are fictional, there’s three main things. First, they can obviously confirm characters to be ace if it’s something that’s suspected anyway, though they should specifically focus on doing that in the content itself and not just having the creators do so afterwards. Next, add asexual people to the creative team. Generally it would just help the team to see the possibility of asexual characters more directly. Finally, unsurprisingly, they can add characters to be representation. They need to be careful that being ace isn’t the only thing about them, but adding a character who’s allowed to say the word, and mean it, is and important step. I’ve only heard the word even be said in two pieces of media and I (plus this community in general) need so much more. -Anonymous Hard question. It’s difficult to add ace representation in fandoms when there’s so little in media to model from. I would love to see Q uestions
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the 911:LS fandom embrace the almost-cannon ace character as fully ace and think there’s hope of that. But even as an ace fic writer myself, I haven’t written anything like that (yet at least). - Jes
HOW HAS YOUR FANDOM BEEN IMPACTED BY COVID-19? HAVE YOU HAD MEETUPS OR CONVENTIONS IN DIFFERENT WAYS? Not sure, never met up in real life. -Anonymous No. -Anonymous I’ve never been to a convention even before the pandemic, so I am afraid I am not the most suitable person to answer that question. -Anonymous I am only part of the fandoms online, so this question doesn’t really apply to me -Amée not really -Natasha Nah I never went to meetups to begin with. -Christina For me specifically there hasn’t been that strong of an impact. I’m very introverted, and otherwise have limited money and transportation, so I never went to meetups or conventions anyway. The fandoms as a whole have definitely been impacted, a lot of content creators don’t get much opportunity to meet each other in person (although when they do it’s always very exciting), or meet fans. A lot of fans have found ways to still make friends within the communities, they organize themselves in tons of different discords and group chats and make names for their section of different social media platforms. Even with that, creators and fans alike have regularly talked about how excited they are for everything to be safe again, and for conventions and travel to start back up. -Anonymous Before, I would meet fans of my favourite shows through conventions Q uestions
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exclusively, but this has really been halted due to covid. The last convention I attended was in February, 2020, and it is a shame to not be able to meet artists in real life and discuss things. Everything just continues on forums without any planned meet ups. -Anonymous my participation in fandom was already online, so I haven’t noticed an impact in how people interact, though seems like there’s an increase in fic reading & writing during covid-19. - Jes
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MEMBER HIGHLIGHT: OPTIMISTICPESSIMIST INTERVIEW BY: Janus DarkFox 1. How long have you been in your fandom? Since around 2014ish 2. How does asexuality relate to your fandom? Within the ace community, their is a huge community of BTS fans (ARMY, BTS’s fanbase name). Their music resonates with many in the ace community because it’s focused on many different subjects. 3. What songs, media etc do you relate too? 2!3! and Life Goes On are hopeful songs and remind you that you’re not alone. Also Cypher part 4 because it talks about loving yourself as well as dealing with people’s comments etc 4. What would you like people to know about your fandom/how can people get involved ARMY is diverse and all ages, not what the media likes to portray and is supportive, there’s lots of money raised for different charities and there are lots of activities and things going on. BTS also talk about different topics, they write, produce and mix their own songs as well as coming up with dance routines. Social media is the best place to get involved, twitter, instagram etc. There’s many ace specific BTS fansites, also there’s people like ResearchBTS who look at trends, culture and impact of BTS, BTS ARMY Psychology Union who talk about mental health and for ace specific sites, there’s BTS Aspec Week and Aces With Luv. There’s also fan magazines Borasaek Vision and Dream Glow. Ace podcast SoundsFakePodButOkay also collaborated with Dream Glow.
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PHYSICAL & MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES BY SCARLETLATITUDE When I am writing this, it has been exactly one year since the covid pandemic started in my area. It has been a rough year for us all – physically, mentally, and emotionally. Here are some resources you may want to use. All links are property of their respective owners. Physical health resources: • PopSugar Fitness: https://www.youtube.com/user/ popsugartvfit “POPSUGAR Fitness offers fresh fitness tutorials, workouts, and exercises that will help you on your road to healthy living, weight loss, and stress relief. Check out Class FitSugar, our do-it-along-with-us real-time workout show to sweat alongside fitness experts and Hollywood’s hottest celebrity trainers. Class FitSugar regularly covers the most buzzed-about workout classes and trends, including the Victoria’s Secret workout, Tabata, P90X, Bar Method, and more.” • Yoga with Adriene: https://www.youtube.com/user/ yogawithadriene “Our mission is to connect as many people as possible through high-quality free yoga videos. We welcome all levels, all bodies, all genders, all souls! Browse our library of free yoga videos to find a practice that suits your mood or start a journey toward healing.” • Body Project: https://www.youtube.com/c/ BodyProjectchallenge “High energy, motivating workouts to do from home. We created Team Body Project to share our passion for exercise and excellent movement with others who want to feel good about their body and experience great health.”
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Mental health resources: *If you or someone you know is currently experiencing a mental health emergency, please call your local emergency services (911, 999, 000, etc.).
In 2018, AVENues did a mental health issue. You can find it here: https://issuu.com/avenues1/docs/avenues-magazinesummer-2018 International: • Check Point: https://checkpointorg.com/global/ Websites and emergency contact numbers listed by country. • 7 Cups: https://www.7cups.com/ Call or chat with a therapist for emotional support. USA: • SAMHSA:https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nationalhelpline “SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.”
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• IMAlive: https://www.imalive.org/ Online crisis help chat UK: • Mental Health Foundation: https://www.mentalhealth.org. uk/ Information and resources for mental health. • Together UK: https://www.together-uk.org/ Online and in person help Canada: • Crisis Services Canada: https://www.crisisservicescanada.ca/ en/ Call and text services in English and French. • Canadian Mental Health Association: https://cmha.ca/ Information and resources. You can look up information based on your location. Australia: • Lifeline Australia: https://www.lifeline.org.au/ 24/7 crisis support through phone, text, and online chat. • Kids Helpline Australia: https://kidshelpline.com.au/ Resources for kids and adults. • Q-life: 1800-184-527 & https://qlife.org.au/ A national LGBT counseling service.They have resources specifically on asexuality, too.
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ASEXY PUZZLE – WORD SEARCH
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ACE SPOTLIGHT AVEN is not affiliated with or responsible for other websites listed here
“SIP, SOY ASEXUAL” (YUP, I’M ASEXUAL) A tumblr for all Spanish speaking aces to feel welcomed and loved! https://adivinaquienesasexual.tumblr.com/
KITTEN KOMFORTS - LGBTQIA+ SOAPS For every ace flag bar of soap sold, we’re donating $1 to ace organizations! This includes AVEN, Asexual Outreach, and local groups. On top of that, for every aro themed bar of of sold, we’re donating $1 to an aro organization called AUREA. I can ship to North America and Europe right now. If you want to order soap and don’t see your country listed as an option, get in touch with Heart via PM on AVEN or use the “Contact Us” page on the website and I’ll figure it out! https://kittenforts.square.site/shop/lgbtqia-/6
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For our next issue, we are celebrating our AVENues History -- 50 Issues old! Tell us when you became a reader, how long you’ve been reading AVENues and/or what your reader experiences have been like. Was there a specific issue that stood out for you? Let us know! Fill out our questions of the month form here: https://tinyurl.com/sdyxvkkt REMEMBER,WE ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR ARTICLES AND ARTWORK TO ADD TO AVENUES! • To submit creative works, please go here: https://goo.gl/forms/QQqfdfOR69niJFoP2 • All creative works also need to be submitted through our copyrights form: https://goo.gl/forms/ciEyCwNew5wjuzVg1 • Send us your asexy jokes and puns here: https://goo.gl/forms/Rg4vlY6XZ7c17bNJ3 • You may also send a private message to any of the AVENues staff on AVEN
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