Queerbaiting sucks... but

I find it so affirming as a person who struggles with their romantic orientatation. I just live for that state of not quite friends/not quite lovers.

Like yes, they are partners, yes, they live and die for eachother, yes, every other relationship they have loses all meaning compared to them. But also no, they haven't kissed, and they don't want to kiss, and yet, somehow, every single word, every single glance, every single touch carries so much meaning and conveys so much love because this amount of platonic love is usually unheard of and they don't want the other to misunderstand. And I just- aaah, it gives me so much hope and reminds me that romantic love isn’t the only type of love worth experiencing and showing on screen/paper.

I do wish it was done intentionally and wasn’t just a product of homophobia and capitalism. Like I really, really hate the reason I get this representation. Like, it also leaves a somewhat sour taste in my mouth, because I can see that if the world was more accepting, it would probably be a romantic relationship.

(I sometimes see people calling queercoding queerbaiting, and just to make it clear, that isn't what i'm talking about)

i wish there were more stories that used typically romantic tropes in a platonic manner

fake dating, but its just two mates who find it hilarious that everybody thinks they’re into each other

only one bed, and its two emotionally inept people who end up cuddling and get very embarrassed in the morning that they actually have human feelings

soulmates, because YES they can be soulmates without falling in love and getting married, but just be friends or queerplatonic partners instead??

love triangle but its just three aroace ppl pretending to have crushes, and they all end up mates instead

i just had this vision of arthur constantly glaring at anyone who tries to flirt with merlin

and people assume he must be in love with him or whatever

but in reality merlin is aro and arthur is adorably supportive and doesn't want him to feel uncomfortable

There's something so beautifully Aro/Ace coded about the Merlin fandom and low key the show.

Like it's the most beautiful love story ever told and it's not romantic in the least.

Obvi Merlin LOVES Arthur more than anything. But it's never shown to be romantic and a good portion of the fan material keeps that same vibe.

I just really like how it's a piece of media about friendship (and destiny and a dragon) being the driving force behind such strong feelings.

"Id dye for you (platonically)" vibes

My aroflux ace self in real life: Romantic relationships are kinda weird. Like you find one person and like stuff happens. Feels kinda awkward and weird. Like I'm not gonna go looking or pursue one but I don't know what will happen if someone brings it up in relation to me Me talking about fictional characters: THEY ARE IN LOVE. Did you see that intense eye contact? I do not care if they have only shared one conversation they 👏 are 👏 in 👏 love. OTP, OTP, OTP. I ship them so much. keyboard smash and inaudible fangirl noises

Maybe this is selfish but I’m glad Merlin was made over a decade ago and not now. We are starting to see a renaissance in queer tv (mostly mlm admittedly- shoutout to the wlws, aros, aces, trans, intersex, enby & gnc folks) that previously was never dared touched upon explicitly beyond flirty banter and group fandom headcannons. I am absolutely delighted by this. I am one of those people that rewatched Heartstopper season one, fifty thousand times as if my physical life depended on it. However this also means that the more explicit a queer relationship in media is, the less room there is for alternative interpretations. For me, merthur is a queer platonic relationship and Merlin is my little aromantic comfort bean. And until we get to a stage where we have a variety of aromantic characters and qprs portrayed, which is a long time coming let’s face it when Issac Henderson (Heartstopper) is the first human (ie not animated) aromantic character we’ve had canonically in tv (for just over a week also), and yet people still fail to mention his aro identity because everyone’s uneducated and clumps asexuality as a one fits all type of scenario (I digress), arospec and aro alined experiences will be pulled away from any potential comfort to baby aros. The level of comfort Merlin gave me when I first got into it of him just causing chaos, doing magic, laughing at Gaius, being rude to Arthur, eating bread, being besties with Gwen, and just living life fairly relationship free, was and still is massive. I just hope there is more content that can provide that for people. ~~~

(I’m not really sure where I went with this but the point is kinda there in essence. I saw someone wrote a Good Omens post of a similar nature and I wanted to add my thoughts.)

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*There may be a niche kdrama that has non animated aro rep but I’ve not seen it.

**Equally when I mention animated aro rep I’ve not seen most of it either but there are references to some on the aro wiki page. How explicitly aro vs headcannons they are idk and thus can’t confirm.

im aroace and hit all your faves with the aro beam and ace beam guess what's happened now

aroace Crowley

aroace Aziraphale

demiromantic asexual (sex-neutral) Doctor

demiromantic asexual (sex-repulsed) Master

aromantic Sasha James

frayromantic Tim Stoker

asexual (sex-neutral) Martin Blackwood

aromantic Helen Distortion

aroace Michael Shelley/Distortion

asexual Jonny D'Ville

aromantic asexual (sex-positive) River Song

aroace Saiki K (honestly this one is canon but i see people ignoring it all the time so im adding it)

demiromantic, greyromantic Arthur Pendragon

demisexual, demiromantic Merlin

demisexual Gertrude Robinson

greysexual Agnes Montague

Aroace lesbian Morgana has a special place in my heart.

That’s it, just wanted to share :)

People going on about how "not everyone can be queer" STFU

ALL MY CLOSE FRIENDS, EVERY SINGLE PERSON I'VE COME OUT TO HAS TURNED OUT TO BE QUEER

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 🫂💚🤍🖤

here's a little arospec!merlin edit 🫶🏽

recently realised i ship merthur so hard not because i feel romantic attraction between them, but because romantic relationships are the only type of relationship which is socially expected to be committed and exclusive. that's why when i write merthur myself, i never write kisses or any other romantic shit and still tag it as merthur. because it is. even without romance. i write cuddles and snuggles and "i love you" but never "i'm in love with you". it's just different. i am a sad little aro who wants to have exclusive, committed relationship.

in honor of aromantic day pls reblog with your favourite aro/ace headcannons in the tags it's for science

Bracket 2 Round 1

Gwaine (Merlin) vs. Li Lianhua/Li Xiangyi (Mysterious Lotus Casebook)

I don't want a storybook ending. I don't want a white picket fence life. No partner. No friends except that one friend I text occasionally. Just me, alone in a sunny apartment with a balcony, gauzy white curtains, a dog, some plants, and my arts.

🐾------ ╺⃝⃤☆ Sage's Intro eeeee!!☆╺⃝⃤ ------🐾

☆ . 🐾 ; 𝙽𝚊𝚖𝚎: Sage [they/he] ┆ ⌗ . 🌱 𝙽𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚜: masc/neutral terms only, I love nicknames! ▒ ~🐈 . 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚝𝚢𝚙𝚎: Calico cat psychological therian ≽^•⩊•^≼ 🍄. ✦ ˙ ; 𝙰𝚐𝚎 𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎: minor (under 18) . 🐾🌿; 𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛: transmasc enby :D 🍂🌳 . ; ※ 𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚜: archaeology, fantasy, bbc merlin, small cats 🏳️‍⚧️🎧 . ! ✦𝙾𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛: I'm catholic, queer, aroace, autistic, disabled, mentally ill, anxious, and listen to music all the time -⃝⃤ — 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄 𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃 !! 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼 ; ✨🌿 𝙳𝙽𝙸: No p3d0s, z00s etc. No proshippers, anti-recovery, sh/ed/s@/nsfw blogs. No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, therianphobia, aphobia, ableism, anti age regression, terfs, radfems or anything that involves hatred or discrimination of specific groups of people.

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