So I watched Hazbin Hotel

Preliminary Poll

Jughead

Submission reason:

They put them in Riverdale. Ok but seriously they way they were portrayed in Riverdale was so against character, so edgy on comparison to the happy go lucky personality that is the staple of his character, and the fact that they entirely erased his asexual/aromantic identity.

They took away the fact that he was aromantic!! Im pissed because he was great rep!! Seriously, reading jughead 2015 was such a personal and relatable experience that i havent found often in media because aro people are overlooked all the time and the rep is ignored for shipping purposes and its even worse that it happened here!! Not only did they erase him being ace, which was STATED IN THE TEXT, but they also took away the way that he was intentionally written to be romance and relationship averse and its just infuriating because he did not deserve this!!! Aro people did not deserve this!!! Im still so annoyed!!!

I will be honest. I have not watched riverdale and I never will. But in the comics. ESPECIALLY THE JUGHEAD(2015) COMICS. HE IS CANONICALLY AROACE. ACTUAL DIALOGUE FROM THE COMIC, OF KEVIN KELLER SPEAKING TO JUGHEAD -> "my romantic options cant take that kind of hit! you just dont get it cause youre asexual..." ACTUAL DIALOGUE FROM JUGHEAD -> "I DONT GET CRUSHES. I just--found her interesting! Its a FRIENDSHIP crush, IF anything." "...And yet, IM the crazy one for not wanting to kiss people. RIGHT." AND NO IF YOURE WONDERING HE DOES NOT END UP TOGETHER WITH THE PERSON HES TALKING ABOUT THERE. HERES HIM TELLING HER -> "I dont GO on dates, Sabrina. I dont like people that way, you know? And when you asked me out, i didnt realize it WAS a date until too late. I shouldve explained the situation, but instead I went along with it, and just kept... you know, trying to escape. And that wasnt fair to you, and im sorry. My judgement was clouded by the fact that, on some primal and fundamental level, all I really want to do is hang out with a giant talking burger. I know that about myself now, and I accept it gladly." <- i will not be giving context for that last part go read the fucking Jughead(2015) comics right now i will GLADLY send ANYBODY who asks a link. Again. I havent seen riverdale. I HAVE however watched a VIDEO ESSAY on it by someone who never read the comics. And the only positive thing they had to say about that damn show was that they thought bughead was cute. Honestly you could put ANY character from riverdale in this bracket because the original comics ARE A FUCKING SITCOM!!!! well the special stories (like Jughead(2015)) arent as sitcommy and are no stranger to Things Getting Fucking Weird but they never had shit like DARK FUCKING BETTY! No. Instead they had MORE WHOLESOME storylines, like ARCHIE GETTING SHOT AND DYING. dude unrelated one of my comic books had an ad for that with the cover that had archie lying there drenched in a pretty minimal amount of blood actually and i was sooooo scared of it as a kid. i was flipping throuhg the book the first time and dropped it and RAN CRYING AWAY it was the most graphic thing i had seen in my entire 7 years of life. sorry these comics mean a lot to me. i have over 300 of them <3

Propaganda:

a vote for jughead is a vote for aroaces. like ME <3

Aro/Ace rights.

npmd headcanons because my brain is rotted <3 <3

heehee hoohoo i am rotating the entirety of hatchetfield in my brain

im updating this as i think of more stuff so bear with me if this gets stupidly long

richie has audhd. i know this because he is me i am him we are EACH OTHER /j

ruth and richie met in the anime section of barnes and noble in middle school and nearly screamed when they realized they were going to the same high school later on

steph is lactose intolerant and is not brave about it ever. tries to share a hot chocolate with pete and spends the next three hours miserable

grace is doomed to kill in every timeline but it can be prevented by her best friends keeping her too occupied with mundane nonsense for her to find a gun

richie has so much tboy cringe energy. that man kins sasuke you cannot tell me i'm wrong

i have hit them all with my transgender and gay beam >:3c they're the friend group that hit their gender and sexuality realizations in waves. someone's egg cracked first (richie) and it set off a chain reaction

pete is genderfluid and usually presents masc (he/they)

bi with no strong preference either way

only recently began to dabble with femininity in his gender presentation

steph is gnc transmasc (he/she, used interchangeably)

bi with a masc preference

no matter who you are, if you have a crush on steph, you're gay. them's the rules pal

richie is transmasc (he/it)

aroace spectrum! he's demi on both ends, fluctuates pretty often.

somehow incredibly perceptive to romance unless it directly involves him, then he's as dense as a brick

ruth is a girlthing because she's swag like that (she/it/they)

pan with a fem preference

her preferred type is pathetic mascs and intimidating fems

grace is fem-presenting nonbinary (she/they)

formerly closeted lesbian

had the WORST case of comphet until she realized she didn't necessarily have to be attracted to MEN to be attracted to masculinity :3

max is transfem (she/he)

she's a butch lesbian!!! she doesn't feel pressured to be hyper-feminine after realizing she's trans, because she's already pretty happy with her outward presentation

saw all her new friends going through their various gender and sexuality realizations and is just "i hope this doesn't awaken anything in me :)" (it did)

OH also paul is richie's uncle! richie's dad is paul's older brother. they don't interact much but it is literally Autism to Autism

if the group were to fall victim to any of the Lords in Black, it'd probably be as follows:

max - wiggly. rage hatred biting nightmare nightmare >:3

steph - nibbly. he's got the closest ties to the CotSC and also we need more nibbly rep

pete - tinky. duh. probs gets trapped in the box in timelines where steph dies before him and he desperately wants to bring her back

richie - blinky. idk it's just vibes to me. he seems like the kind of guy to go nuts for eye symbolism

ruth - pokey. she's a theater kid and i think that pokey would have a field day shoving her into the fucked up and evil spotlight

grace - all of them. they take turns babysitting her in various timelines. she is their favorite child

richie 100% uses anime terminology to describe normal ass situations. he calls steph a tsundere once and steph has to act like her world wasn't just shifted two inches to the left for the rest of the day

oh also in redemption timelines they have movie / bingewatch nights!! they cycle between everyone's favorite shows or films. it's the best part of their week every single time

max was cast as a leading role the one and only time she ever auditioned for theater and it freaked her out so much that she declined the role

richie's hair is Like That because he tried to get the cool anime spiky hairstyle to work for him (it didn't) (he doesn't realize this until college)

pete was a greek mythology girlie i just know this. something about him screams "i read percy jackson way too much as a kid"

after grace realizes she doesn't have to be a "perfect" christian, she swears like a sailor

also grace hand embroiders all her clothes as a hobby! (this is semi-canon, since she has embroidered strawberries on the cuffs of her jeans in the show)

the first time steph smoked ouid, he made the mistake of using cbd oil and a pipe at the same time. man was in SPACE

all of them are poly with each other but at different levels:

steph and pete are Dating dating. so are max and grace. wholesome yaoi VS toxic yuri

ruth and steph are almost definitely "best friends" in the historical sense

richie and ruth are qpp. if they were both 100% straight they'd probably be the most annoying couple in the world

pete and richie kiss sometimes but its genuinely platonic for them. just bros being bros (they are so deeply in love and neither of them realize it until years later)

ruth and pete are friends to ??? to lovers to friends who cuddle sometimes

richie and steph are polar opposites but they love each other to death. black cat and orange cat kind of relationship

max and grace barely intersect with the nerds but they still consider all four of them to be part of their weird situationship

(grace definitely experimented with all four of them, with max's permission. just to be Sure. y'know.)

max is doing her best to make amends with the nerds but it is very slow going. she has gotten to casual fistbump level with them though!

the nerds usually just look at max and grace from the sidelines like they're watching two wild beasts circling each other in their enclosure. their flirting is NOT rated pg and it still baffles them how the local prude and the highschool football star managed to get together

richie unintentionally dropped the fact that he has a fursuit - a timberwolf, because i'm projecting - and ended up helping everyone design their fursonas. pete is a traditional chimera (goat, snake, and lion), steph is a plain black cat, ruth is a flemish giant rabbit (she did research), grace is a sheep, and max is a checkered-tail nighthawk.

any time that the group gets spam calls, all they have to do is hand the phone to ruth and they get taken off the lists the moment she speaks. ruth was frustrated by it at first but it became a game of "how many companies can i inconvenience before they stop calling hatchetfield numbers entirely"

steph braided pete's hair once and he damn near proposed on the spot

ruth knows how to sew (from doing tech) and helps teach max how to mend her clothes! max ends up being really good at it! she goes on to teach the entire football team how to fix their uniforms and ruth ends up being the honorary team favorite for at least a year

im taking jon matteson's "richie should have blue hair in a movie version of NPMD" and fucking sprinting with it. he dyes his hair at least once a year and it's a wildly different color every time

ruth is the kind of gal to love games with lots of violence because it makes her feel like a badass vigilante (she can barely do a push-up in real life) (just like me)

steph is deeply afraid of large bodies of water. major L on his part seeing as he lives on a fucking island

bouncing off of the above hc, pete's afraid of planes. these two can't travel out of hatchetfield without one of them nearly shaking out of their own skin

max doesn't actually like football that much. she's REALLY good at it, yeah, but she'd prefer to play most other sports even if she isn't good at them! she likes the challenge of doing something she won't automatically win!

grace probably writes lists of things to keep everything in order. she's got lists of all her favorite foods, a checklist of daily chores, etc etc (it's also because she's got undiagnosed autism and she functions better when she has a Routine)

no matter what, pete will always stop and talk to the homeless man downtown. he doesn't really know why, though. (ted wishes he could say something to pete, but he never does. best to keep him at arms length.)

ruth really really really reeaaaally wants to cosplay but she's nervous that she'll be deemed as the "cringy weirdo" by other con-goers. she eventually admits this to richie, who rallies the group into a group cosplay for moral support

it takes a lot of convincing for them to find a fandom they all want to cosplay from. they settled on FNAF, specifically security breach bc it's Timely (they go to the con in 2022)

pete is glamrock freddy, steph is monty, ruth is glamrock chica, and max is roxy!

richie was glamrock bonnie and he gets so mad when the official design comes out a year later bc it was completely different than what he imagined

grace eventually agrees to dress up as vanessa (she never played the games) (she thinks FNAF is a real animatronic restaurant) (everyone they meet thinks she's method acting)

they end up crashing at ruth's place absolutely DRAINED. they all have imprints on their arms from carrying around an absurd amount of merch. pete nearly started a fistfight in the parking lot with a bakugo cosplayer. max nearly finished it.

they all agreed that it was one of the best things they've ever done and also to Never Do It Again

richie had a brief phase where he was obsessed with black butler and he regrets it to this day

grace and max both have scary dog energy but in different directions. max (post-transition) looks really intimidating at first glance but she's got golden retriever energy. grace will stare at you with the scariest fucking eyes if you're mean to retail employees

steph has always wanted a pet, but her dad never allowed it. when he moves out and gets an apartment with the nerds, they all agree to rescue a pair of bonded cats for his birthday. steph doesn't stop crying for at least an hour

steph and pete named one of the cats, while ruth and richie picked the other one's name.

Mittens is the Lautski baby, a black and white girlie who is incapable of mischief. she's like the disney ideal of a cat. she's a cuddle monster and will be so sad if you have to get up and do things without her

ruth and richie are the proud coparents of Sir Jotaro Gooberton (the Third). he is the most stupid tabby you will ever meet in your life and he has made the crime rate in the household go up tenfold.

a very common Lautski date night is going to the candle section of walmart and just sniffing every single one of those bad boys until they get a headache

i watched heartstopper s2 because i was an avid osemanverse enjoyer in my early teen years (back when alice oseman still had anons on rip) and owe some of my aspec self-discovery to their writing. i knew they had written an aroace storyline into this series and wanted to see it because whilst i knew as an aroallo lesbian i wouldn’t totally resonate and might be a bit cheesed off by aspects of it, i enjoy aromantic crumbs, and i enjoy discussing aspec Stuff even more. it was……. an interesting experience? has certainly given me a lot to think about. gushy rant below the cut :)

i will say, i think that the amatonormativity is still strong, and rigid in this show. it’s like, isaac is the exception to the rule and his true love is books, and he gets to yell at his friends for all being so damn couple-y and romance-obsessed but there’s no resolution to that. is that realistic? yeah, sure, allo friends can fucking suck, but heartstopper is the kind of show aiming to do certain things for queer kids where id expect a dialogue about this. you know, charlie & co coming to understand aspec identities and becoming more conscious of how amatonormativity affects them, interrogating it in such a way that these queer couples can also be liberated from its trappings. juicy shit like that. didnt happen tho. isaac gets a book about asexuality (no mention of aromanticism on its cover!!! the word is used by the artist who vaguely explains both terms to isaac, but there is a much greater focus on asexuality, so much so that this morning i saw pink fucking news celebrating isaac’s asexual storyline without a mention of his aromanticism) and that’s it.

a lot of that criticism is arguably coloured by my experience as an aroallo person, because i just want aromanticism to be engaged with as aromanticism. you know aroaces we are besties in arms solidarity and all that, and im so fucking happy you got some great asexual rep that frequently used the word asexual, as well as your flag and iconography. like fuck yeah!!!!!! let’s go!!!!!! however, aromanticism is not a subset of asexuality, is not an ‘extreme form’ of asexuality, does not necessarily have anything to do with asexuality. im sure the aspec folks know this, but allo fuckers dont and that means that this canonically aromantic character who was emotionally affecting to me is one that im gonna be barred from resonating with again and again.

you know, moments of isaac’s story were so profound and moving for me. i cried at the kiss scene in episode 5, it was probably the single most relatable moment of tv (related to my experiences with sexuality) that ive ever seen. its certainly not my favourite tv moment of all time lol, relatability ≠ quality, but when youre part of a marginalised group and experience a lot of loneliness and alienation surrounding your identity it is great to see it reflected. i honestly loved that shit!!!!! ive been there!!!! that’s me!!!!!! the wanting and the not wanting!!! the jealousy and confusion and alienation, the longing to be able to feel what you can’t just so you don’t have to be so lonely, the knowledge that you’re just not that person…… oh it was great. it was fucking great. so you can maybe appreciate how upsetting it is for other people to neglect the aromantic facets of this canonically aromantic character, when we dont get shit.

having said that, asexuals also dont get shit; my issue is absolutely not with isaac being aroace, but rather with how mainstream understanding of aspec identities is still so piss poor that people neglect the aromantic aspect of that identity. i found isaac to be a relatable character and i enjoyed and appreciated that about him; i wish more people would talk about him being both asexual and aromantic, because aromanticism does not get talked about enough as anything other than an ‘extension’ of asexuality, an idea which only diminishes the complexity and vastness of both (fucking awesome and beautiful) identities. love and light and solidarity forever with all other aspec folk <3

Happy Ace Week!

I've done this for a few different visibility awareness days/weeks/months and now it's time for everyone on the aro/ace spectrum to shine! Happy Ace Week friends. 💜 While searching for books that I could recommend that featured Ace characters I realized I was DRASTICALLY missing Representation of the ace community on my bookshelf. Which was... depressing. So what I'll be doing is sharing the few I have read and would recommend and then sharing the books I've found recommended by others that I am adding to my library waitlist as I am making this post!

Book Recommendations with Ace Representation for Ace Week! 💜🤍🖤

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

🔹️Ace biromantic MC

🔹️SciFi/Fantasy/Supernatural

🔹️Trigger Warnings are so important

🔹️Morally Grey or just bad? Lol you decide!

🔹️No romance in book 1 at all, I loved this duology, the ace rep is coded, not explicity stated but has been author confirmed. Been debate among the community over if this counts as ace rep or not, but im included it anyway since it was author confirmed, willing ti be corrected if needed! It was a ton of fun, fast paced and high stakes, kept me at the edge of my seat, in my opinion

Loveless by Alice Oseman (same author who wrote the beloved Heartstopper books)

🔹️Ace MC

🔹️Overall good and would recommend but it does have its own set of issues with some problematic stereotypes over bi/pan sexualities. Overall the message Is a positive one and one worth reading still in my opinion.

Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie

🔹️bisexual and Ace Bi romantic MCs

🔹️YA Contemporary

🔹️Adding to my TBR!

Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann

🔹️Ace Biromantic MC

🔹️YA Contemporary Collage Romance

🔹️Adding to my TBR!

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

🔹️Demisexual MC

🔹️New Adult Contemporary 18+

🔹️Adding to my TBR!

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

🔹️Demisexual MC

🔹️New Adult Romance 18+

🔹️ was actually originally Reylo Fanfic lol

🔹️ fake dating trope

🔹️Has its own set of problems again lol its not great writing, but it was fun. Enjoyed myself for the most part while reading even if I had some moments of cringiness. Lol

My Heart To Find by Elin Annalise

🔹️Ace, Demi, and Gray-sexual rep

🔹️chronically ill rep too

🔹️Adding to my TBR!

The Poppy War by RF Kuang

🔹️AroAce Rep for one of the MCs

🔹️Epic High Fantasy

🔹️If you read this book without reading the Trigger Warnings it's not my fault

🔹️Very Graphically violent but I throughly loved this book and am looking forward to finishing the Trilogy

Heartsong by TJ Klune

🔹️Book 3 in GreenCreek series

🔹️Ace MC, mlm relationship

🔹️Trigger Warnings for Violence mostly

🔹️again, has its problems, but I love this series ALOT lol and this book and relationship were SO CUTE and I would recommend them!

^ and from this author above, he has a new book coming out next year called "In the Lives of Puppets" and has already confirmed Ace Representation

Bonus mention to the Stormlight Archive as well, for minor Ace rep in a sort of side sort of main character. Author confirmed, Jasnah is Asexual heteroromantic.

Happy Ace Week friends! And Happy Reading! If anyone else has any other good recs to share with Ace Representation that I (or others) should check out, please share!

heyo! im someone who actually experiences romantic atraction, but my main character of my ocs is aroace, Are there any traits or pet peeves to avoid while writing/ representing aro characters?

oh wow, thanks for the ask! honestly aro experiences are hugely varied and there’s no one thing that you absolutely should or shouldn’t do. like, obv aro doesn’t equal villain/alien/robot and that shouldn’t be all of the rep but also it can be fun sometimes and aro ppl can relate to those characters too

I guess my main advice is to figure out that character’s own opinions on romance in regards to themself and others. If they see someone doing a romantic gesture are they repulsed and look away or do they think it’s cute? Are they interested in having a qpr/platonic life partner/romantic partner? Are they insecure or loud and proud? Do they experience aesthetic or tertiary attraction at all? And if they’re still confused and figuring out those sorts of things, that’s also super common. they might have a least favorite trope they’re willing to rant about or a thing about romance they’re eternally confused about or something like that. I spend a lot of time just utterly befuddled by how romance and crushes are supposed to work since it just doesn’t compute. Pretty much every aro I know gets struck with some shitty feelings about their identity every now and again, even if they’re happy with it most of the time, just because of the world we live in. It sucks.

the one big bad no no is not to “fix” them but you can probably guess that much. you can’t really go wrong as long as you respect the character and flesh them out well

but I’m just one aro and we’re a varied community so take this with a grain of salt lol!

Couple hours late but here’s aro questions for you

2. 4. 5. 9. 15. 16. 25. 27. 32. 35. 38. 44. 45. 50. aaaand 53. :] enjoy

Oh my gosh so many!many!! YES yes I love oversharing and talking about aro stuff ty so much for giving me the opportunity and don't worry about it ^-^!

2. How would you describe your identity?

I'm pretty happy and content with the label of aroace agender to describe myself! Really I'm just vibing and gender is a mystery to me so that's just part of my identity now lmao

4. Are you romance favorable, neutral, or repulsed?

Oof, this one is slightly complicated but I would say I lean slightly more on the repulsed side as I just can't see myself ever being in a straight up romantic relationship and tbh, I don't want to SJSJSJ

5. What kind of attraction do you feel?

PLATONIC!! PLATONIC, with a little dash of queer platonic to spice things up but im a big old sucker for platonic affection and love over literally any over kind of love lmao. Call me your friend or just friend terms and I'll be falling over myself

9. What made you realize you were aspec/arospec?

Okay so, funny story about that, I unironically figured out that I was aro thanks to techno. I found it out cause I kept reading queer platonic em duo stuff and every time techno talked about his love for philza but zero romance attached to it I was just like....... Oh....... another thing is that weirdly the dsmp fandom is just the only one that I've ever seen actual aspec rep IN the fandom content itself

15. What made you realize you wanted a queer platonic relationship?

I think the one thing I do like in the idea of romance is the loyalty and commitment attached to it which is how I began wanting a queer platonic relationship. That type of love that feels like home but without the romantic expectation and just creating your own definition of love with your partner is the dream for me :]

16. What confuses you about typical romantic relationships?

So many things you have absolutely no idea. I've never really understood the whole physical longing thing and having someone take up all of your thoughts and decisions to a worrying degree. I've never got wanting to act in an idealized way so that your crush might like you cause what's the point? I've never got how love confessions are this big relationship changing thing cause I just don't care and never thought of romantic love as a concern. Grade school was hell man SJSJSJ

25. Are you good at flirting? Do you flirt often?

I don't really think I flirt?? Idk if compliments can be seen as flirting as I love being nice and complimenting people but I, don't think that's flirting?? Im hopeless at this whole flirting thing just throw me to the curb

27. Do you enjoy seeing romance irl/online/in media/etc.?

Irl it's kinda impossible to avoid romance so I've just gotten really good at ignoring it in that context! But in media and online? I'll fully admit that my romance repulsion comes out really hard and I don't like seeing or reading romantic content if I can help it. God the amount of blocked shipping tags that I have in my filters SJSJJS

32. Come up with the stupidest way to ask someone out, right now!

Hey baby wanna find out how I can make this heat wave even worse?

(was that good? I have absolutely no fucking idea SJSJSJS)

35. Do you enjoy valentine's day?

For the sweets and chocolates? Yes, for the romance? Oh god no, I always end up staying completely offline for that entire day cause I get so annoyed that it's just better for me to play video games or something sjsjsj I do enjoy the red, white, and pink aesthetic though, it's cute! ^-^

38. How many arospecs do you know irl/online?

Fun fact! My wife is actually on the aro spectrum herself! :DD I love her so much she found out she was aro a bit after me and its been great lmao. All in all I believe I only know two aro people overall? Which is a crime I need to make more aro friends but making friends is so hard sjsjsj

44. Do you have an aro ring? Do you want one?

I don't have one yet but I've been thinking about getting one! :D it's just a really pretty and lovely idea so I genuinely might do it, that is if my brain allows me to wear a ring lol

45. Do you have an ace ring? Do you want one?

Gonna get both so I can give the simultaneous finger to both sex and romance SHSHSJ

50. Any arospec headcanons

YES, LIKE YOU HAVE NO IDEA. Loz wise I strongly believe oot link and hyrule warriors link to be on the aro spectrum!! ^-^ I mean, oot link literally ignored a whole ass marriage proposal so hard that I half believe the fact Ruto was interested didn't even REGISTER. hw link is so extremely funny to me cause the IDEA of him being aro and being chased by an evil sorceress is the embodiment of my poor aro meow meow. He didn't ask for this, he didn't want it, he doesn't even understand what's the big deal about romance WHY is she destroying REALITY FOR IT!!!

53. What is the best part about being aro?

The relief of knowing that I don't have to force myself to find or force myself to pretend that I feel romantic love. The relief that I can be my genuine self and be happy in the different forms of love that bring me happiness instead of what society expects of me. The fact that I have a name to explain what I've been experiencing my entire life and the fact that people reflect my thoughts have brought me more comfort than you can imagine. It's the relief of knowing I don't have to act or sell myself for a nonexistent partner and instead pursue the queer love that I've always dreamed of. It's the fascination of exploring the very foundation of love and how I interpret it by having a complete absence of romantic love but so much love for other things. For me being aro is comfort, acceptance, and living with the fact that you are not lesser for not experiencing something that a large amount of people, it's finding happiness in that absence as it allows you to instead fill that space with what you choose to love. It's carving out a little space for that queer love whenever it arrives and it fits perfectly within all the other things you've given love to, so much so that you never even think of how you may be different or may never experience something that everyone else cause you're so incredibly happy with what you have! That you could never think or want anything else, that's what being aro is for me and I've been much happier with my identity ever since I realized that ^-^

hi there, im an ace who just recently figured out that im most likely aro and ig i just wanted to ask some other aro ppl like... how do you come to terms with the idea of never having romance? yeah i know friendship is as meaningful as romance and is amazing and i can live a life of romance and that i and many aro ppl are valid.

but. sometimes, i just... whenever my other friends (who are not aspec) gush about their romantic interests and how happy they are with their crushes and such. it just makes me feel broken? it makes me feel sad and just think... what am i missing out on? i want to feel having a crush. i want to feel how being romantically attracted is like. i want to feel whatever my alloromantic friends and those romance fiction describe. because all that sounds so happy and exciting and wonderful. and im scared that im going to be alone bc the world around me is telling me romance > friendship.

don't get me wrong, i love being aro. i cried when i finally figured it out because YES, im not broken. there are people like me. im not wrong. it's fine to had never had a crush on anyone in my entire life.

but then it's just sometimes... some of the old feelings of "there's something wrong with me" just flashes back to me and i want to stop feeling that bc it just sucks.

and sometimes i feel like my yearning for a romantic relationship is kinda... invalidating for me being aro? idk. is it fine? is it wrong?

i just want to get rid of these ugly feelings because the aroace label is really comfortable for me and it just feels right and these feelings just make me feel wrong and broken from time to time.

I know for me, media really helped. There was a lot less aro content 10ish years ago when I was figuring this stuff out than there is now, but I remember re-reading a lot of my old Archie comics for Jughead, and Jeeves books by PG Wodehouse for Bertie at the time. (Both characters show a heavy disinterest in romance in most of the stories they’re in even if they weren’t written at the time to be aro.)

These days I’d probably recommend more deliberate rep, like the Jughead 2015 run from Archie comics, Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, Loveless by Alice Oseman (this one though might be a bit difficult for people still processing emotions around being aro, but very affirming eventually). In general books and podcasts are the best places to look for new media with aro rep too.

Getting away from people gushing about romance for a bit can help a lot too. Even if it’s just redirecting friends’ conversations or avoiding media that really plays up love as the most important/best thing in the world. And maybe focusing on more found family type media. Eventually you’ll get passed these internalized feelings and be able to enjoy media with a heavy focus on romance more, so it’s not forever, but it can really help to get away from it for a while.

Check out aro communities, there’s a lot of discord servers around, and arocalypse is a big aro hub, but there’s lots of communities around on various sites. Even if it’s just lurking, it can still be really helpful to just be exposed to a lot of people who don’t see romance as that important a thing.

Personally I always think of things like romance like chocolate, people always say chocolate’s the best food in the world, but there are some people who just don’t like the way it tastes, who’ll probably never like the way it tastes. Sometimes something just doesn’t appeal to a person, and that’s OK. There’s other things to care a lot about.

All the best, Anon! And good luck!

Do any other aros want to give advice on how they got over feeling like they were missing out on romance/romantic attraction?

mid-year book freak out tag

no one tagged me, i just wanted to to this haha the questions are taken from here and i know it’s past mid-year already but idc

1. Best Book You've Read So Far in 2020? So far i gave 5 stars to two books only: one is Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King and the other one is Gillian Flynn’s short story The Grownup. I still haven’t read anything this year that would transfer me to another plane of existence like The Secret History and All For The Game did last year.

2. Best Sequel You've Read So Far in 2020? That’s definitely The Wicked King by Holly Black.

3. New Release You Haven't Read Yet, But Want To? Loveless by Alice Oseman. As soon as I finish what I’m reading now I’ll take that sweet aroace rep and gobble it up.

4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2020? The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi Lee. Also I’ve just found out that another The Folk of the Air novella is getting released in November and as far as I understand it’ll be about small Cardan, and usually I don’t care for prequels but... small. Cardan. with a small tail. alright next question

5. Biggest Disappointment? Almost all fantasy books I’ve read this year were disappointments: Six of Crows, The Raven Cycle, Vicious, The Blade Itself and Wolfsong frustrated me especially. Maybe it’s because all the hype that surrounds them gave me unrealistic expectations or maybe I just have to admit that fantasy is not my genre and give up trying to read it.

6. Biggest Surprise? I guess it’s Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate. I read this chiefly for aroace rep but it turned out to be such an interesing book I just binged it in six hours on a sunday afternoon. I think it deserves more attention, so if you like high school drama definitely check it out.

7. Favourite New Author? That would be CS Pacat. I read Captive Prince last year and loved it and in May I finally found her Fence comic on Scribd during that delicious free month. I remember I once said that if slow burn were a violin, Pacat would be Paganini, and I do stand by that after reading Fence. Can’t wait for her Dark Rise novels, maybe she’ll make me love ya fantasy after all.

8. Newest Fictional Crush? I’m afraid it’s still those murder lacrosse junkies who keep me up at night. 

9. Newest Favourite Character? Complex characters are the most important thing in a book for me, so naturally all the books I liked this year have good characters. But I will admit one thing: if Adam Parrish were in a better book, he’d give them all a run for their money.

10. Book That Made You Cry? The beginning of Fangirl made me cry like a lil bitch. Also that time Adam goes through Ronan’s house and compares his childhood with his own. Also Radio Silence made me cry several times. A Little Life that I’m reading now will definitely make me cry until my eyes hurt. What book didn’t make me cry would be a more realistic question.

11. Book That Made You Happy? *zuko voice* I’m never happy. The book series that made me laugh out loud several times though is A Charm of Magpies by KJ Charles.

12. Favourite Book To Movie Adaptation You Saw This Year? I guess I’ve only seen one this year and it’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. It looked very good and was definitely more bearable than the book.

13. Favourite Review You've Written This Year? I don’t write reviews but I guess a giant rant about The Raven Cycle that I had in our chat with Sarah while we were buddy reading it must count.

14. Most Beautiful Book You Bought So Far This Year? I wish I had money to buy physical books haha.

15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End of The Year? Basically everything on my extensive TBR, but especially Circe by Madeline Miller, Loveless by Alice Oseman and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

I tag @minyardx @icanheareternity @mrs-storm-andrews @sir-see @figuringthengsout @writingpuddle @im-booksmart @manic-andrew @nneiljostenn @foxsoulcourt @moonsandstarsaregay

if you guys want to indulge my need to talk about books :)

I think I'm aromantic so your aro/ace party drawings and hc made me really happy

hell yea!! i’m an aroace person myself and we don’t tend to see a lot of us in media lol. i can think of maybe two characters off the top of my head that are literally confirmed in canon or in interviews to be explicitly asexual, and most of the time they’re not aromantic. which is fine, cause aces who experience romantic attraction do exist! but when there’s already so few of us in media to begin with, i’d like to see more variation on people who’re aspec, yknow? it’s a big gray area, not all clear-cut.

so yknow if we ain’t gonna have a ton of good rep we might as well make our own. i like the idea of party poison being the exact opposite of some of your typical aroace stereotypes. they’re loud, they’re chaotic, they’re charismatic, they’re socially savvy, they’re an introvert who behaves in a very classically extroverted fashion. they’re a sex-positive person even if they don’t experience sexual attraction, and know how to use flirting to get what they want (or to straight up just annoy someone lmao). idk i’ve seen the occasional aro and/or ace hc floated for some of the fab four but i dont remember seeing poison get that a whole lot, though im relatively new to the fandom so who knows! maybe it’s cause they’re pretty? but hell, aros and aces can be pretty. party poison is the prettiest aroace around.

🍓 pls love me even tho im mean 2 daniel all the time

@mutuals send me a 🍓 and ill compliment u!

   oh please i love you BECAUSE youre mean to daniel all the time asdfafsdf. i cant believe how long we’ve been pals!! everytime i see you post or in my inbox it makes me happy. julie is another one of my favorite ocs not just because of the depth, but because shes so completely unique and has developed more and more over the years but still retained that core character that makes her so interesting. julie is a character all her own that i would read about in any situation, and your writing flows so smoothly, reading it is a joy. the way you handle her powers, her personality, her interactions with other characters is perfect and i enjoy reading pretty much ... all your stuff with her.

      we also gotta get back to rping more because i love reading about her kicking daniel’s scrawny ass. their antagonistic relationship blossomed so naturally between us and its timeless without being too much push on either daniel or julie like some antagonistic interactions are. its the perfect back and forth if that makes sense? i love it (and you!!!) so much and i hope you stick around in the rpc for a long long time <3 also quality aroace rep woot woot

I hate riverdale. I can’t find a god damn jughead post that isnt riverdale without digging 10000000000000000000 years into the god damn jughead tag. Honestly I hate straight people and their heteronormative bullshit. I was so happy to finally have (positive) aroace rep from the jughead comic and now it’s just shat on. It’s dumb but so much in the jughead comic resinated with my own experiences and I know if I’d seen that stuff back when I was his age I would have been, like, ecstatic, and like just.......I am going to come out and say it, being ace/aroace played into some of my suicidal thoughts and at least 1 of my attempts back in highschool. I faced actual shit from it at school after I was outed and comments from “FRIENDS” and just society making me feel broken and not a person and unlovable, and my dad forcing me through medical tests and telling me it was out of love for me because he just wanted me to be happy which wasnt possible apparently if I was ace/aroace and referred to me as broken and lacking something human and just wants me to be able to love because apparently I’d never be able to be truly happy unless I found a romantic partner and romantic love is not possible without sex apparently and screaming at me that he’s doing this because he cares and for my own good and okay sure, everything panned out in the end and when he forced me to come out to my therepist then asked for him to evaluate my meds to see if some changes need to be made to stop whats causing this or give me something to fix this or maybe do therepy to fix my so broken brain and figure out why I am apparently inhumane and broken my therepist was all what the fuck dude your teen is just asexual back off that’s a thing, and what you are asking for is conversion therepy, which is not ok, and my dad was all whoa no im not thats a BAD thing they do to not straight people im cool if my teen is gay or bi or something I think she is maybe she has internalized homophobia maybe you can fix that and my therepist was all no dude you are being an ass and if you preach acceptance than actually accept your kid just because you are doing something because you are concerned doesnt make it actually doing something out of love (and I am so god damn lucky I have this therepist, I know how completely opposite that could have gone if I’d been seeing a different therepist I know the stories and there was a reason I hadn’t come out to him yet, that being I already knew the stories and very possible results)...........in so many words. But yeah over time my dad went from trying to fix me to intermediatly telling me how sad I made him to saying he doesnt get it but whatever makes me happy and even to this day I dont know if he fully believes me but well at least he is being supportive but at the same time really would have been nice without all that trauma (I mean he caused more trauma besides just that)....................Point is, that, plus all the crap I got at school (I mean I got crap for tons of other stuff but being outed just added to it...or in some cases just changed what they were saying), and heard from “friends” and the rest of society........it would have maybe been a little easier if there was someone I saw in the media who I liked that was like me and was happy being like me and had similar experiences to me (both in “relatable” thoughts and in...negetive stuff) who was explicitly aroace like Jughead is in the new jughead comic (and not explicitly stated in the old but still obvious.......but like, like I said, explicitly stated is nicer)......And in the comic goes through experiences I’ve had (though not the super way heavy ones) and says things relevent to me....Just...............It might have made things easier. Like....seeing someone go through that stuff but then still be happy with who they are and being like no many this is me......and just seeing someone say the words that I felt.......it might have made me feel a bit better about myself.....like maybe a few less suicida thoughts.....Not as broken feeling........Knowing what others feel about me doesnt matter to who I am as a person (and maybe would have made me not have double back on the aro part of myself or have stopped rejecting it sooner because it would have been so obviously me that not only would I feel comforted and less reason to feel ashamed for it but also just like no way I could deny it if I read the comics as a teen.....being who I was and who I am).....I mean it wouldnt have stopped the stuff that went beyond words or the physical parts of actions against me beyond just what they represented but....it would have been comforting. Especially since he gets happy endings. Just....there were so many moments when I was reading the comic earlier this year where I was just like “Wow I remember when that happened to me” “Wow same jughead” “Yes those are my words. Exactly. Perfect.” “Those are the positive descriptive words that would have made me happy with who I was in my younger days (not so long ago)”............And now I cant even find content for those comics or older ones. 

I mean there is still the guy from bojack horseman but.....I would like to have MORE THAN ONE character????????? And having rep stripped from you fucking stings???????

IM SORRY I DONT CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS I SUPPORT ARO ACE SPONGEBOB

We (the aro aces) need representation. Like duh obviously. That kinds goes withiut saying because right now the only aroace kiddos we have is Alastor from Hazbin Hotel, sadly though almost every shipper forgot that 99% of the time they dont actually care about the true sexuality of characters they ship and are trying to avoid the fsct that he is aro ace at all costs (to the point that vivzie wanted to avoid mentioning it and i didnt find out until last month purely because i wanted to see some aromantic alastor works). And then we have jughead in the comics (and then not at all in riverdale because someone was thirsting over betty and jughead so wooo... T-T).

Dont get me wrong i am beyond happy that we have these two. But clearly they havent been super effective in being a strong continuous form or representation.

And okay, sure there's the whole "you're a plant/robot" thing thats goin around. Personally i find it hilarious like "boi yes i wanna be an android, and nature is hecka cool, so if that's what you see when you see me then thsts rockin". Though of course theirs the whole "ha can u hush child im trying to explain this to you"

But that doesnt mean that spongebob would be *bad representation*. Or that we shouldnt continue with it because reality check theres always been a downside to every aroace character we've gotten in mainstream media and the day we get a perfect one i'll be spamming my poor followers posts of them via my blog in shock and awe.

Spongebob, as silly as it sounds, would be the closest to perfect representation we could get right now. Alastor (despite how much i love him for his personality and just everything) is a conving murderous demon who hates to be touched and tends to make connections purely for his own interests and entertainment. But we need rep that shows that aroaces also arent "heartless" beings who "hate to have contact" (like sure maybe but lmbo yeah no.)

Im an aroace who adores my friends and family. Who wants to hug them and talk to them and express how much i love them everyday.

Guess who else does this? Hmm? Yeah thata right: Spongebob. He's happy, weird, funky and loves his friends to an incredible amount. That definetely doesnt mean it has to be a *romantic love* (and my rant on romantic love not being "better" than platonic love is not what this is about so before i get too invested in that imma move on) but if anyone thinks romsntic love is better than platonic they can suck it okay karen.

Anyways. In short, we need a hapoy go lucky, practically opposite of all the rep we have gotten so far, funny, optimistic sponge kiddo to join in on the representation of Aromantic Asexuals and i stand by that.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk-