still catching up with @mcyt-aro-week ! hoping to double up tomorrow to be back on schedule <3 day 2 - loveless / au

some aro tangtho writing from an old 3l/traffic au of mine ^_^ I will note that tango is referred to as a he/it phoenix, etho a he/she fae !

words: 681

-/-/-

Tango was angry at a lot of people, but he wasn't angry at Etho. For a simple reason, because at least it'd been able to get back at the fae for the firing range. But for more complicated reasons, too. Etho was trustworthy, is all. When Tango had been unfairly shoved into the line of fire, Etho'd had the decency to look sorry, at least. And when the phoenix's arrow had been able to find her heart, something was forgiven in that moment. But the others?

Tango was wondering how long it'd be until it found itself in the Crastle's line of fire again, but by his own choice.

It couldn't leave Etho though. It wouldn't. And other people might make whatever conclusions they wanted about that, but it couldn't be explained away in other people's words. They just trusted each other. They were on the fringes of things, but they were there together, they understood. The fae understood the phoenix's fires, and Tango trusted him with it.

At the moment, Tango was standing alone in its solitary, hidden base. Secret, except for Etho. It made it feel less lonely. It was easy, knowing he and Etho were the same in this kind of thing, in solitude and in easy expectations. Never betray the other. Never ask unnecessary questions. So often, they would only have to look at each other to know what the next course of action was. It was so easy.

So if Etho trusted the king, well... Tango knew Etho would never force it into the Army. But maybe the phoenix wanted to join the fae.

---

"Are you sure about him, Etho?"

Their postures were casual, but the fae knew better than to slip around the Red King.

"I'm positive Ren."

Martyn shifted with a frown nearby, but neither Ren nor Etho paid attention. This was between them, and really wasn't a situation where Etho would use all the "highness"s and "your majesty"s. It wasn't her style, anyway. And it was important to stay consistent.

The dog-king crossed his arms and gazed off into the distance, in thought, as he mumbled. "The phoenix would be a powerful ally indeed..."

"We can trust it. Tango's wanting a change anyway, he and Bdubs are..." Etho faltered, but quickly picked it back up. "There's an opportunity, if we let it in now and don't leave him high and dry."

Ren considered, and then chuckled. "You and the firebird a thing or something?"

Etho's stomach pinched, just a bit. Ah.

"Er, well not--"

"Yeah, you're real eager to trust that guy!" Martyn chimed in from his leaning against the wall. "Got a crush, Etho?"

"No, ah, I don't do that. Neither of us do that, we just--" Etho reached back and rubbed the back of her neck, his eyes flicking down to the floor to a moment. "We're not the romance types, I'll put it that way. It's just..."

What is it? He and Tango, they weren't easy to describe. They weren't romantic, and never would be, and weren't really anything else in particular either. After romance people were likely to assume queerplatonics like Bdubs and Cleo, but they weren't like that either. There was something other than friendships that were simple though, it just... evaded description. Etho knew Tango. Tango knew Etho. That was all.

"I trust him. I'm willing to put my head on the line for it, it's a good ally. We should invite it to the Red Army."

The king eyed the fae for a long moment, then nodded understandingly. Decisively.

"Then offer him a banner, Sir Etho. The phoenix shall fly red!"

Under the mask, Etho grinned in a way he knew would only get more prodding from the highly romantic king and hand if they could see. But they couldn't, and who could blame her for being excited? The fae wanted the phoenix to join. Etho would never force Tango to join the Army, but he knew it was too enticing to have the two of them together again.

Free, unkempt and indescribable, and fighting side-by-side.

Hi hello I (an aroace) have been thinking about aromantic representation (or lack there of) in media and fanfiction and all the things I wish I could see out of what little we have so here goes.

I want to see the wider spectrum, and the fact that it's a spectrum in the first place. I want to see both the struggles and joys of aromantic. I want to see relationships that aren't bound to the societal norms of platonic and romantic relationships

I want to see characters who struggle to tell the difference between platonic and romantic attraction.

I want to see them be comfortable and happy being aro and having close friends.

Lets have characters who do experience romantic attraction, but have no desire to be in a romantic relationship, and have that be okay.

Lets have the reverse, where characters don't experience romantic attraction but do want to be in a romantic relationship.

Lets have characters who's experience of romantic attraction fluctuates.

I want to see aro/allo and aro/aro and aro/ace stuff

I want to see stories of family and friends struggling to understand non traditional or romantic partnerships, and sometimes they come around and sometimes they don't, but you are never alone because your partner and your friends and your family who care are there for you

There should be stories about the struggle of the societal expectation/normalization of putting romantic partners over friendships, and the people who get left behind because of that

There should be stories of people who are in a romantic relationship, and realize that one or both of them is aro, but love their partner in a platonic sense or Secret Third Way and who work through it together

Let there be cute little domestic slice of life fics about platonic life partners or qprs

Let QPR representation be different in every iteration, it's a queer relationship that isn't defined by anything other than the people in it. Let them resemble platonic relationships or romantic relationships or both or neither

Give me characters who love their person deeply and violently and intrinsically but it's a little to the left of platonic and a little to the right of romantic

Give me characters who are greyromantic and demiromantic and aroflux (ect.) navigating the struggles and highs and lows of being those identites

Give me relationships that are a mix of platonic and romantic but not necessarily either one

Give me platonic life partners who love each other and live their lives together

Give me non-traditional relationships in general TLDR; there are so many options for representation of aromantistim and non traditional relationships and I want to see them all

The way I crave more aromantic tropes will never be satiated, these were just off the top of my head while word-vomiting, there are so many more ways to do this kind of representation, so don't be afraid to add on your own thoughts in the reblogs and comments! I just wanted to share some of the silly little thoughts rattling around in my skull. Hell I might come back with more in a week, who knows lol

Even if you do add asexual, ace or aromantic to the search there's gonna be those "no fictional thing should ever have to present anything accurately or respectfully ever" people like "as an asexual you have my permission to do whatever you want with alastor's asexuality!" like... who tf asked them? they have an agenda they're trying to push, they do not speak for the ace community as a whole 🙄

Yeahh, even with the aro and / or ace tags we're not entirely safe unfortunately.

Such things do annoy me, I'm not gonna lie. I can understand that romance positive aros, sex positive aces or those who still have sex / are in relationships/ etc use the "aro/ace people can still date / have sex" or remind people that it's a spectrum and some still feel these type of attraction because yes, that's true.

But what annoys me is that saying that to people annoyed about the constant sexualisation/ shipping of Alastor is basically siding with the non aroace spectrum people using that "aroace people can still feel that/ do these things!" who saw that and ran with it purely to be able to continue with what they want to do.

Yes, asexuality and aromanticism are spectrums. Yes, some feel the attraction. Yes, some don't but still engage in these activities. And if you're on the aroace spectrum and it's your case obviously I'm not going to shame you for putting alastor in such scenarii because you're using a character like you to relate, and still acknowledging his aroace identity. The problem is that most people putting him in these situations totally disregard his aroaceness. And when as an aroace (spectrum) person, you say "people can still ship him, I do! Aroace people can feel these things or do them!"... You're basically enabling their erasure of his identity. Deep down you're right, but non aroace people don't care about that, and don't do these things the same way you do.

That's why, to non aroace people shipping alastor, I will remind them that he's aroace. And clearly not on the part of the spectrum where he still feels those things, nor is he interested in pursuing them.

And to the people on the aroace spectrum, I will just say, please, don't mistaken their words for a reel need to showcase the variety of our identity, because most of the time that's not what they want. You don't forget his aroaceness in the way your ship him, they do. Ship him all you want, because I know your heart is in the right place. But please don't defend the others.

As a loveless aroace, it pains me to see him constantly shipped and sexualised by everyone (even though that's clearly not what he'd want), and these things being defended.

I thought I had found a character I could relate to, that I could search stuff about him peacefully without seeing all kind of romantic and sexual stuff. I've been proven wrong, and it hurts. And the excuse they use hurt even more, because it feels like we're only palatable or interesting if we can still feel these attractions sometimes or engage in those things. As if alastor being a loveless aroace is a disappointment, that they *need* to ship him to be satisfied, for him to be enough.

Sorry for the rant, I definitely repeated myself, but I wanted to take the opportunity this ask gave me to give a bit of my opinion on this.

Tldr: I have no problem with aroace spectrum shipping him because I know they keep his aroaceness in mind. I have, however, a problem with non aroace spectrum people doing that because they erase his aroace identity completely AND use the diversity of it as an excuse to continue doing so. And it pains me to see fellow aroace people defending that, because I feel like they don't realise how those people ship him.

prompted by a reply on another post, abt the aromantic manifesto. the more i think about it, the more it seems like the authors' definition of "the queer community" and "the queer rights movement" is not in line with the actually queer community and queer rights movement. it seems like they are using "queer" as a stand-in for "all lgb cis people" which is just definitionally not what the queer community is. the queer liberation movement goes back decades and has always been championed by trans people, particularly trans people of color. so for the authors to assert things like "the queer rights movement prioritizes gay marriage over everything else" seems to betray a lack of experience and knowledge about the actual queer community and the actual queer rights movement. also the only time trans people were really mentioned was to paint cis (allo) lgb people as overwhelmingly transphobic (which is a whole other can of worms.)

and like. on one hand i think there is an issue with marriage equality for cis gay people being considered Thee Most Important Thing by mainstream lgbt advocacy groups (though i really need younger people to think about why people older than us considered it to be so important - hint: it has to do with surviving the aids crisis). but also i feel like responding "yes, but" legitimizes their assertion that their uninformed and incorrect definition of the "queer community" and the "queer rights movement." and then we just get stuck in this feedback loop of "well y'all only care about gay marriage" "who is y'all" "you know. queers" "lgbt advocacy groups?" "yeah. queers." "actually this is what the queer liberation movement is about." "yeah but these groups only advocate for marriage equality." "right but those are lgbt advocacy groups, not queer liberation groups." "yeah. queers."

and then even outside of that is the whole point of why i started this ramble in the first place, which is: why does this manifesto structure queerness only around lgb identities? why does it not include transness? does this framework assert that transness is not inherently queer? i think it does, which is another point against them actually understanding what the queer community and queer liberation movement is. so by asserting that the "queer community" is overwhelmingly transphobic, only cares about marriage equality, and does not inherently include transness, you are essentially giving ownership of queerness to cis people, which only seeks to reinforce the hierarchies in queer spaces the manifesto claims to condemn.

so yeah like tldr i think this manifesto sucked for all the reasons i already talked abt in the other post, but also because it tries to assert its fundamental misunderstanding of what and who the queer community is as True Fact, and then uses that misconception to be homophobic. it's just very weird and i think the people who wrote it need to talk to more trans ppl.

@uraynuke I am glad to see you bring this book up, because it's the very book I read excerpts from two days ago, and since I wanted to reply to you, I picked up where I left and finished it.

I really did approach it with the best of intentions - I was especially glad to see prof. Brake bring up gender and race right at the beginning of her study, for I truly held hope that the many amatonormativity preachers on tumblr may have simply misread the point of the concept which Brake may have envisioned the same way I did - as an intersection of preexisting axes of power. However, I found myself severely disappointed the moment I ran into this segment

I can see that Brake is, at the very least through reading, aware of patriarchal, racial amd colonial dynamics as well as statistics on LGBT discrimination. However, she insists on presenting the discrimination of non-partnering (and non-monogamous people, which is a separate can of worms but I began to find the amount of times she brings polyamory and urban tribes up tedious) individuals as an entity separate from misogyny, racism and classism and so on. The like race class and sex is incredibly jarring that she fails to see her precious "amatonormativity" where it rightfully stands within the causality of oppression. I found myself yawning as she went on for dozens of paragraphs explaining that marriage is a faulty, falsely celebrated and highly mystified institution that holds no inherent value - we know this! It becomes incredibly apparent here that Brake is a self-identified political liberal. Any leftist, no matter how mild, is clearly aware that marriage is as it is, and was essentially established in order to be so; a way to control women, a way to curry favor and wealth, a tool of control. It retains today many of the insidious characteristics it held at its conception. Brake does mention that there existed and still do exist non-white societies that viewed partnering vastly differently from the western lens, but in the typical way of a liberal philosopher she does not pause to consider that this is tied to how different societies perceived women, and the amount of colonial power they held. She does not pause to confess that the form of marriage prevalent in the world today is a white christian's marriage - naturally dyed in ugly patriarchal, racist, capitalist colors. She continues to write as though society's insistence on exclusive romantic coupling exists in a near-vacuum, even though she admits it does not. I essentially agree that marriage ought to be demoralized, deconstructed and potentially reconstructed. However, I don't particularly intend to fight for its reconstruction for the sake of throuples, urban tribes, asexuals and aromantics. I wish for its reconstruction to be centered primarily on the autonomy of women (because they continue to disproportionately suffer marital abuse), gay, bisexual and transgender people, people of color and especially Black people, mentally and physically disabled people (who still largely cannot afford to marry). When this is established, I assure you that one half of aromantics' and polyamorous people's issues will have already been alleviated, and should those people contribute to the fight of our society's most oppressed, they will surely have a voice in building a new model of partnering.

TLDR, a well-intentioned but very frivolous book. I find Brake to be a very moderate liberal who does not particularly look farther than her own discomfort...

I will reply to you in the same vein you did to me: though I didn't glean much, this was a fun read! Thank you.

Tw I think there's a hint of aphobia somewhere down this ask

But tldr :Hello arospec gang. I found specific orientations within the aro spectrum and they are on point. I like to use multiple of them, is that normal or okay?

Lo and behold below is the unabridged version:

Anyways. I, on the most unfortunate of fates, realized I was aromantic right after I got into a romantic relationship. It's very recent, but the identity clicked with me almost instantly. The more I read and dig about it, the more I find myself thinking, wow, this is so me.

Eventually, after doing more digging I came across different orientations under the wide range of the arospectrum. And I relate with more than one of these.

The problem though is that when I did come across some sort of info graphic thingy that included the most flags in it, the comments (reddit) were kinda dismissive of these labels. Anyway some comments (and the comments are coming from aros and aces alike) are complaining about the micro labels being too specific and unnecessary. I think they're wrong because, for me, finding these specific orientations and learning how my experience isn't an isolated case is definitely a necessity. If not for these specific arospec orientations, I'd probably still think that I'm alone.

Anyways the question though, is that am I the only one who could relate to multiple of these arospec identities? Like I could specifically relate to, alloaro/aroallo, frayromantic, lithromantic. So that's three. And counting.

While I do identify as those, I still use the term aromantic as a catch-all term to explain myself to my friends (much like in a defensive fashion, because they think I'm monstrous for having limited romantic attraction). Then it dawned on me that I behaved just like the redditors who were roasting the specific aromantic orientations. So I'm rethinking my life decisions now and I guess I should, next time, use these terms even if most of my friends are proudly homophobic. Welcome to the brogrammer industry boys this place fucken sucks

Anyways sorry for the extremely looooonglonglong text thank you so much for your service

Ps the relationship that served as my aromantic awakening is a frozen dumpster fire. I literally can't do romance. Being affectionate with her under the friends label and role-playing as her favorite fictional men was way easier than when she admitted to having feelings for me instead of the fictional men. Like. Wait. That's illegal.

Of course you can use multiple microlabels!!! For example, I am aromantic, fictoromantic, and cupioromantic. It’s definitely normal and valid. microlabels are great for people who want to define how they feel more specifically, and don’t feel like the generic term quite fits them properly. I’m sorry to hear your relationship didn’t work out (unless you are happy about that, in which case, congratulations). Sometimes it’s best to ignore what other people think and just do what is right for you. remember you are valid, and no one should make you feel stupid for who you are :)

Okay I'm thinking about Neuvillette being ace again and like, hear me out.

Neuvillette not being interested in physical relationships, aside from when it's mating season for dragons. Even then, he doesn't want to partake in such activities because, well, that's just his instincts talking for him. He's not denying that he has sexual urges, and it's not even that he hates the idea of being intimate. It's just that the only time he has these urges is when his body just starts releasing the hormones that make him want to mate, and that's it. He's only ever truly in the mood a few times a year because that's just how his body works, and he's not the type of man to just use someone to find his own release. He can manage on his own.

Still, it's not as if he doesn't want connection. He's just not in any rush to find it. Humans and their emotions are complicated, so he'd rather not rush in before knowing what he's in for. He has a job to do, and the friends and family he's met along his journey give him enough love as is. Sure, romantic love sounds nice, but he's fine with the platonic and familial love he gets right now, and isn't that enough? Love is love, regardless of how it is presented or perceived.

Because Neuvillette struggles to understand people, he figures that's just him. It makes sense, seeing as he's not human, so naturally he doesn't crave things the same way humans do. Imagine his surprise, though, when he finds out that not only are there people who have the same feelings he does, but that there are enough people like him that they have words for them. Asexual, demisexual, graysexual, aromantic, just a plethora of phrases that can apply to how he feels, not to mention how these people express and experience these feelings. It's eye opening to him to say the least.

Tldr: it's my asexuality and I can project it on whichever fictional character I want to

Yo so I am confused. I can't tell if I'm aromantic or of I'm just terrified of other people. Like I love sex, big ole slut 10 out of 10, and my friendships are deep and expansive. But when someone wants to hold my hand or does I become physically nauseous. I've been like this since I was 17. I have had long term relationships where I was comfortable holding hands but that hasn't happened in 5 years. Non sexual affectionate touch makes me so uncomfortable and claustrophobic.

And in my past relationships where I did finally feel comfortable holding hands and cuddling, I have been cheated on, sa, given a sexual transmitted infection because my partner was cheating on me, promises never fulfilled, taken advantage of financially, ect.

How do I tell if I'm like this cause I don't trust people or because I'm aromantic? Do I need to heal more or is this not a changeable thing? How do people tell?

hi!

i think this is a fairly complex question, and the answer is going to be similarly complex. to start with, I'm glad that you are comfortable with your sexuality and know yourself so well! I am also so incredibly sorry that you have experienced the trauma of a bad relationship.

As far as your questions go: I think it's restrictive to phrase it as two options,

I am aromantic and not traumatized by other people

I am traumatized by other people and not aromantic.

I'd strongly encourage you to consider that it is not only possible, but entirely normal to be both aromantic and to have experienced trauma around other people, even to have become aromantic due to trauma, and that whether or not one "stops" being aromantic during trauma healing is generally a question as complex as the trauma itself.

I think the only way to know if trauma has influenced your orientation is to allow yourself the time and space to heal. If it is at all reasonable for you, find a therapist. The majority of individuals have had some level of traumatic histories, and it's really important to have a neutral 3rd party that can help you untangle your thoughts the way a therapist is trained to. If you find that you don't click with something about your therapist, practice articulating that to them. It's normal and expected that not every patient and therapist click, and you can absolutely ask to try something different, and failing that, transfer to a different individual.

Due to the complexity of trauma therapy, we can't offer you a simple answer, or a simple question to ask yourself. We grew up in an emotionally abusive family, and as we've learned to heal, we've become more and more certain in our aromantic identity. Others find themselves able to let others be closer, and may find themselves experiencing attraction in circumstances similar to or different from before their trauma. Others still will find themselves feeling stronger attraction than before their trauma, and may even accept that they may have repressed more attraction before the trauma they knew of. I can't tell you where you'll fall - only time, space, and patience will tell.

However it goes, I think it's valuable to enter therapy knowing it is normal to experience worries around trauma and its impacts on you, and it is likewise hard to admit that perhaps you've never really learned how to heal. Your therapist will likely ask your goal in therapy; don't worry about having a perfect answer. You can just as easily say "I am struggling with my identity due to past relationships, and I'd like to explore my identity without feeling so weighed down" as "Some thoughts have been weighing me down, and I don't know how to handle them. I'm hoping for help, and I don't know what that looks like yet." This isn't graded - this is just an initial chance to understand why you came in, and how you think.

the tldr really comes down to, "right now, you are probably aromantic and have trauma. With a therapist, you can work through that trauma and explore yourself without trauma weighing you down."

I hope this helps! this will be filed under both "am i aro" and "advice".

do u have more to say on aro michael cuz i’ve ALSO considered this for him before it’s like ur reading my mind w these posts

me and you.. 🤞🏽 this made me smile evilly actually because i do in fact have more to say. it’s a little hard for me to coherently group my thoughts together though so walk with me here

this may be a sliight reach but my one of my main basis’ for it is that one conversation he has with franklin where he says that his marriage happened purely based off physical attraction, meanwhile it’s very clear after reuniting the family (and even after did somebody say yoga. that man was tweaking out without his family) that he does have feelings for amanda that aren’t sexual. they just aren’t your “typical” super strong romantic feelings that you see other people talking about

michael is a movie guy and bases most aspects of life off what he sees on the screen. and in every movie where there’s a love interest there’s always some big expression of love. yknow. butterflies, sparkles in your vision, intense longing and super lengthy speeches. now i don’t think michael is incapable of romantic attraction, i just personally believe that his version of it is a lot more muted than the type you see in movie couples. there are no sparkles in his vision, what the hell. and of course to him, that means the attraction isn’t there at all, because vinewood told him that that’s what love is supposed to be like and vinewood is always right

again very hard for me to word (so sorry. really hope this isn’t too confusing to read) but tldr i think he visibly expresses aromantic tendencies and whatnot, except it’s somewhat overshadowed (? if that’s the right word) by the fact that he’s the one expressing it, because he doesn’t know what those tendencies stem from. he loves his wife just not in a purely allosexual way and that makes him immensely conflicted because, again, it’s There. just not in the way he thinks it should be

i’m going inactive on this account for awhile on here i’ll be deleting app off my phone, i’ve come to a place in my life where i don’t really feel like i have anything else to add to the conversation around being aromantic, i’m just really content at the moment with being aromantic and that’s expressing itself by not having much to say about it, i’ve tried branching out and talking about my BPD but i’m really in a place in my life where i’m the in the healthiest mindset i’ve ever been in in my whole life and while i relate related to the symptoms people talk about on here but i’m doing better right now, my meds are working atm and i’m just more at peace (which is crazy because i wouldn’t generally label my life as peaceful)

i guess the tldr is that i’m just in a really different place than i have been and it’s a good place and for me that expresses itself in not having much to talk about or add to my page, i’m not deleting my account at least right now, about i’ll be going inactive immediately

Alright, since the discourse has started, let me restate a section from my "Thoughts on Kerry" post a while ago so everyone knows where I stand on the debate:

Tldr at the end

"I do support the idea that Kerry should have been bisexual like in the source material. I absolutely get that bi erasure is a big problem, ESPECIALLY with male characters. However, I respect that in the game you can only romance him with a masc V; I'm not going to mod him to he bi, I'm not gonna ship him with women. I see it the same way I see Cullen from DAI: he is canonically bisexual, just not attracted to my male Inquisitor (in Kerry's case, fem V). Maybe Kerry had such a traumatic divorce from his ex-wife that women just kinda scare him right now. We can see high heels and bras and blush littering his house, so we can assume that at the very least women are still getting naked for some reason or another at his parties. Maybe he prefers men romantically, or maybe he's just not ready to date women again, and we as players should respect that just like we would a real person."

Adding to that, I'm not saying you can't ship Kerry with a femV, but I myself don't.

So let's talk about how attraction can work IRL: Bisexuality is NOT always a 50/50 split. I always just assumed this was the case with Kerry. We see women's clothes and underwear scattered around his house, and I took that to mean he was still having sex with women, just not interested in dating them. That could be due to his unresolved trauma from his divorce, or the unresolved trauma from never processing Johnny's death. Both of those things could make him more inclined toward men.

I feel like the romantic attraction angle is something most people have been overlooking thus far. Just like how there are asexual people who aren't aromantic, there are bisexual people who aren't biromantic. Even if he wanted to have sex with femV, he doesn't want to date women at the moment, for whatever personal reasons. At the same time, he seems to want something more than casual sex.

So, it stands to reason that if Kerry is sexually attracted to either gender, but only wants to date men at that time, and is looking to have sex with someone with the goal of forming a romantic connection, Kerry would only have sex with a man.

Kerry has been with women before, so I'm not saying he never wants to date women. What I'm saying is that DURING THE TIME FRAME THAT THE GAME TAKES PLACE Kerry doesn't want to date women. So, if femV met him before the time of Cyberpunk 2077, then yes they could reasonably end up together.

TLDR: It's not about IF Kerry is sexually attracted to women, we know canonically he is. It's about respecting that he's not looking to date a women romantically at the time of Cyberpunk 2077.

Teacher Dot, I learned about LGBTQ labels in middle school and eventually started identifying as aroace. But for a while now I’ve been living a very solitary life, to the point where I’m questioning whether it makes sense to use that label when it doesn’t really affect me either way. Have you ever had periods where you questioned whether the label was right for you, and if so, how did you get past them?

Lmao, I think that's a common Aro ace experience. That's why I say I'm aromantic, and biromantic. Labels aren't a strict set of rules. They are supposed to just be what feels right for you. So, if you decided you wanted to drop a label for a while, or pick up a new one, that's fine. If later you're like, nah, I'm aro Ace again, you can always start using the label again.

For me, personally, the ace label is solid. That's not one I question, because there's so many factors that go into it. With aromantic, especially since I started playing romance games, I question that sometimes. And in those times, I try to be open. I try to see if I feel any attraction to anyone. I try to listen to what my heart is trying to to say, if it's trying to say anything.

There's also just a level of being nice to myself when I'm in those phases. I know what I'm like. If I ever do end up romantically attracted to someone, it's going to have to be someone who is okay with the fact that some days they are just my super cool roommate. But even on my most aro days, I wouldn't hate the idea of a partner.

(side note...fictional characters help a lot 😂 they're the only reason I'm suspicious that I'm, like, a fluid aro)

I will say...I learned about the beautiful world of queer platonic relationships last year, and I realized that a lot of what I want when I think I want a romantic relationship...is actually that.

Tldr: I deal with these periods by keeping an open mind, and being nice to myself. I also try to keep in mind that I'm not trapped by a label, because labels are meant to be freeing. Gender and sexuality are a construct, bruh ✌🏼 😎

Idk, I'm sleepy, and I'm not the most eloquent, so I hope this made sense, or was good to hear or something.

Aspec Manga Rec: My Astilbe

A one shot so the post will spoil most if not all of the plot. A piece that debates the nature of aromantic and asexual identities directly. There are some gatekeeping sentiments around the nature of labels and the spectrum of both identities, but, I believe if this was written with the knowledge of the labels of being demiromantic or demisexual, the story would be much more conscious of them, so trigger warning for that sentiment.

Despite this, I think this warrants a rec for the fact of acknowledgment. Mentions of sexual themes and aphobic themes of society.

Authored by Amupaka, the story follows two women, Kanade and Aoi. Aoi has been struggling to connect with others as she cannot seem to make herself fall in love with others despite pushing herself to conform and dress to appease potential partners. On another night of this routine of trying to find someone that she could love she meets Kanade, who after hearing about this mentions that Aoi might be aroace, just like Kanade.

This identity seems to be very freeing for Aoi, letting herself be free of expectations and norms and living life how she wants to. The two of them very quickly become friends and confide in one another their life problems and stuggles of a love expecting society.

The story turns when Aoi begins to have a crisis of newfound identity as she begins to fall in love with one of her coworkers after learning to trust and care for him. After telling Kanade telling this, she expresses:

She feels betrayed by her friend falling in love when she couldn't.

A Sidebar about This

In a more aware context, I think that Aoi's character is incredibly a textbook example of a demiaroace. She only forms a romantic and sexual connection with her coworker after a deep emotional connection with them. The author introduces some context of possible romantic trauma in highschool towards Aoi, but it is never made clear if she was the one denying herself love or if she fits the labels. Either way, the sentiment that Kanade expresses here is incredibly divisive nowadays and has been the source of much online discourse. While the two characters reconcile, this should still be addressed and acknowledged as a reductive view of aspec identity. People can fall in and out of labels because they are just that, labels. They create a meaning for self that doesn't need to last forever.

Sidebar Over

We are shown Kanade's attempts to fall in love all met with failure of herself, even experimenting with her sexuality assuming that she wasn't straight until she is met with the revelatory introduction of the words asexual and aromantic. We don't spend much time in the conflict as Aoi expresses that she wouldn't have been able to be happy without Kanade's influence and that Kanade would always be a part of her life no matter what.

I think that this isn't the best representation of aspec identity, but it is a welcome step in the right direction of acknowledgement of the pressure and assumptions that society puts on aspec people.

TLDR:

Direct addressing of aspec identities and the pressure that society places upon them to conform to concepts of romance and family life. While there are some ideas that are reminiscent of past ace discourse, a modern lens makes the story read differently than it is written.

Believe it or not, when I was originally writing this, there was a structure and a coherent point, but it actually ended up being all the transgendered thoughts in my brain that I can’t share with anyone irl, because I’m closeted. TLDR: what’s gender even? and why am i scared of coming out to a trusted ally? Enjoy!

It took me a while to figure out I was trans, but eventually the final nail in the coffin was when I realised I never liked (romantically) any of the men that I’d thought I’d liked, and it was gender envy or platonic attraction. That was the same day I realised I was aromantic, so that’s awesome!

The problem is that I don’t know what “flavour” of trans I am. I don’t feel particularly like any gender. I’m not a boy, I’m not a girl, but I’m also not non-binary, if that makes sense. Logically, that would make me agender, right? Except, I still don’t identify with that label. I also don’t identify with gender-fluid, demiboy or demigirl, multigender, or any other microlabels. Even on a larger scale, the only label I’ve been able to put on my gender identity is “trans”. Not genderqueer or anything else. I just like he/they pronouns (which I haven’t told anyone about yet, but I’ve avoided making other people and myself use she/her whenever possible) and I go about my day (I say, as if I don’t have gender dysphoria). When I have the resources, it would be cool to have some surgeries and a little bit of hrt, but since that’s a while away yet, I just have to wait.

I am planning to be out at school by the end of the year, so I can go for senior council as myself, but that does mean that I need to come out to people. Funnily enough, I’m nervous about coming out to my friend, but I have literally no reason to. He’s cool about trans people, and he’d accept me being trans.

Submitted March 2, 2023

not a vent post but idk if anyone actually wants to listen to me talk about romance and my gf and. my confidence in my romantic attraction shattering right in front of me lmao. anywho

tldr: hmmmmmmmmmm hey i might be lithromantic. but first let’s go on several unrelated tangents that only barely go together to prove whatever point i was trying to make??

ive kind of felt like i feel romance. wrong ? like i know there isn’t a wrong way like this and whatnot but it’s still just. idk. first of all like,,,, i just don’t get the concept of falling in love (romantic). what being in love would even feel like. but most definitely not in an aromantic way, no, i 100% do have crushes. i am. extremely sure about that part. but that’s just liking people. i feel like im too young to be in love, but everyone else announces such. last time i used the word love romantically was fucking forever ago when i was in 4th grade with my very first crush. that, in fact, was not love. love is just a strong word.

(after writing everything else im unsure where to put this where it fits, but also, I haven’t really been able to imagine myself in any sort of long term, romantic relationship. i don’t want to get married, and i can’t see myself dating someone for, like, life.)

but i love my friends. because that’s platonic. love is a perfectly acceptable word to use for platonic or familial things in my mind. just not romance, at least not for myself? like i get the thing of having a partner and being able to say “i love you” and i mean. cmon. with all the ships i have I’ve imagined that with characters plenty of times. but like

i love my best(?) friend so, sosososo much more than i “love” my girlfriend. because, with dating, i just like her. romantic . and she knows that and the feelings mutual because love is just too strong a word for a relationship both of us know isn’t forever. but. do i even like her (romantic.)? i think so? i had a crush on her for like. half a year. and i know that was a crush, for sure. and that day on Halloween when we started dating i was happy, i was excited. but something about calling her my “girlfriend” felt so. weird. ive never dated anyone before, not even a shitty 3 day long elementary school “dating” kinda thing, so i just kinda chalked it up to that. i still can’t pinpoint what it is but right now. yeah, okay, we’re dating. whenever i think about that fact—I like the thought of it but i don’t like that it’s real. that it’s happening. the thought of being ‘romantic’ or holding hands or anything feels genuinely uncomfortable if i think about it now, even when it used to be a nice idea. and in practice, before either of us knew the other liked them, and we had all sorts of “fake” flirting bullshit, i was also perfectly fine and even happy (and flustered) by the closeness because. i liked her. and now with a relationship, even if the idea makes me really uncomfy, in practice I don’t really mind. it’s just, kind of, neutral.

speaking of which, I’ve made several “if you say that again im breaking up with you” or when she does something dumb/silly and goes ‘oh yeah? what you gonna do? break up with me?’ “yes” jokes. and like. she’s fine with that and we both think it’s funny but. i genuinely don’t not mean it, like, the idea of breaking up with her doesn’t bother me (well, it does a bit.) and the idea of staying with her, still dating, also doesn’t bother me (well, it does a bit). again im just completely neutral on it, and she knows this. but i feel like im only here because she likes dating me more than i enjoy it. i cant tell if I like this or not.

it’s like, knowing my feelings were reciprocated and being able to date her like I wanted to, made my feelings go away or at least. lessen (cause i still, I guess, do like her? sort of?)

anyways i guess I might be lithromantic then ? i already know of that label AND I’d considered it before.

for long as I can remember now, I guess, whenever I have crushes I can get over them really quickly. it’s just having that closure that’s fine. hell, earlier this year I liked one of my friends so i told him, got confirmation he didn’t like me back, and then got over it the next day. that was just a few months of crushing though—a couple years ago, i had a crush on one of my main friends at the time for one whole year. December to February of the following year. my feelings didn’t weaken over that time, either. then i got peer pressured into confessing, got confirmation it was a no, and the VERY. NEXT . DAY. i was over him. i knew it was a no so I didn’t dwell on it.

it’s just always been like that, I guess. i can get over anyone if I have the closure.

but nobody’s ever liked me back before. what happens if that ‘closure’ is a yes? i thought about it one time maybe a year or so ago and thought that, yeah, maybe I’d stop liking someone if that was the case. and now it… sort of is. i don’t know how I feel about my gf or what to do about it and I don’t know how to talk to her about it. i know she’s understanding of that so it’s not that im scared she’ll think im weird or wrong for it, just. idk. i dont even know what I’d say, but I might try tomorrow.

im fine dating her, i honestly don’t mind it, i just feel like being able to. express how i do feel about it at least haha. and i feel really guilty that this might be mostly one-sided on her end.

i have another thing to say actually but I’ll rb and add it on cause I want to end this specific thought here

aplatonic isnt an arospec identity. its an aspec identity. one can be aplatonic without being aromantic.

So I realize that my laziness in not putting a clarifier in the first place is going to cost me in having to reexplain myself so I'm gonna pin this at the top of the page for a minute (/not upset, /neutral tone)

(I'm also not upset with you at all, this is a fair clarification, you are absolutely right, it is just one that I honestly didn't think need stated because this isn't really an education tumblr)

So to quickly sum this up, you're absolutely right! And I want it to be known I'm not stating you have to be aromantic to be aplatonic, and claiming otherwise is incorrect as it was actually an alloromantic who coined the term in the first place. Any orientation can be aplatonic.

The reason I included the flag in the arospec identities was because I myself am arospec and aplatonic and I have known a lot of other aros, not all, just a decent amount, have also happened to be aplatonic. I was creating arospec icons in support of arospec week, but because even in support of aromantics people sometimes push the "Aros can still experience love and attraction! It's just platonic or sexual!" which can make loveless aros and aros who are also aplatonic feel excluded, I wanted to ensure I had those two flags included. So I have the loveless aro flag, and I included the aplatonic flag even though it's not actually an aro identity but rather another aspec identity.

I should've put a specifier that I was aware aplatonic was not arospec but that I felt many arospecs would appreciate the label nonetheless. I didn't because I was honestly working against the clock, and because I was tired honestly. I'm doing these like literally on top of writing, having a full time job, caring for my dog, etc.

In the future I will ensure a clarifier is put on any posts that have the aplatonic flag shown with arospec flags, but honestly I was tired and these posts aren't meant for education, they're meant to literally be icons people can grab.

TLDR; anon is correct aplatonic is an aspec identity itself but you do not have to be another aspec identity (ace, aro, aroace, etc) in order to be aplatonic, I was aware of this but I felt aplatonic arospecs would enjoy seeing an aplatonic option as well, I will put a clarifier in the future

Thank you for the ask anon! (/gen)