#and i think the show does posit that this hatred is in itself harmful bc someone like anthy will Know and Recognize it

[palms-upturned]

I see, thank you for explaining! I think Kanae's feelings of dislike are understandable because she's definitely tried her hardest to love Anthy and it must be upsetting having a woman you're supposed to get along with and love hate you for reasons you have no idea about. The fact that Kanae wasn't raised to deal with her dislike of others properly and recognize her negative feelings are valid doesn't help either.

Hmm well I think that’s ultimately one of the things that the show is trying to say about these sorts of situations. Neither Kanae nor Anthy are the villains in this scenario, and both their negative feelings toward each other are understandable in context. Akio is the villain because he has a broader perspective (and just generally more power) than the two of them, but chooses to use that against them and engineer scenarios in which he can turn them against each other.

[aroworlds]

i'm a mod on an aro-ace blog which, if i am not there to reblog aro posts, mostly focuses on the experiences of aces and the ace community. i'm scared of reblogging aro posts even though no one (of the mods) has said anything about what i should post/not post. i think maybe i'm scared of inconveniencing aces (and aro /aces/) with aro content. i haven't contributed with aro content in a whole year bc of this fear even though i want to be aggressively and unapologetically aro

I wish I could sit a few well-known ace community bloggers down and show them the asks I get on this blog–sit them down at my desk, hold their heads straight so they can’t look away and then make them scroll down this Tumblr to see what you’re all saying. I wish this so much, anon, and it pains me that the best I can do is support and validate. Our conversations do matter, but these words remind me that our fight will be won in tiny, grudging steps, not the sweeping change we desire and deserve.

Anon, your feelings are not irrational: this isn’t an overreaction to attitudes that don’t exist, and I think it’s important to hold onto that. It’s too easy to feel like our fears aren’t valid, that it’s our own anxiety holding us back, and that isn’t the case here. This has happened because the ace-spec community as a whole has failed in its support of most folks who identify solely, predominantly or significantly as aro-spec. (Essentially, anyone who doesn’t or can’t centre the ace as first and foremost.) This failure to support doesn’t need to be explicitly voiced as antagonism–a silencing of aromantic and aro-ace experiences and conversations versus the centering of alloromantic ace experiences and conversations in ace spaces does this with remarkable effectiveness, no individual person needing to voice explicit aro antagonism or erasure. You’re afraid because ace-spec and general a-spec spaces, at least in recent history, have not been encouraging and supporting of unapologetic aromanticism.

In fact, because this isn’t explicit hatred, much of the time, it’s so much harder to answer. We feel like we’re responding to something that isn’t there; we feel like the anxiety is irrational or unsupported. If we are included at all, it’s only in ways that don’t threaten the narrative of alloromantic asexuality being centred and paramount, and when we question this centering and the resulting forms of aro erasure, we don’t get hate from much of the ace community–we just get ignored.

As someone who had my sister refuse to talk to me or look at me or treat me as a human living under the same roof for six months and more, being ignored isn’t a kindness. It’s damaging and traumatising. It’s just damaging in ways that are less visible and less understood, ways that lead to anxiety and uncertainty, ways that make it so difficult to step up and speak. When you have no assurance of an audience, you learn not to speak at all, and finding your voice after such silencing (especially while such silencing continues) is a difficult thing. I’m still struggling with it, and that might not seem real, given the words I spend on this blog, but I’ve spent three weeks now not publishing a finished story in part because I am so afraid of speaking and so afraid of the consequences.

Anon, if you don’t feel safe in being aggressively and unapologetically aro on the blog you mentioned, don’t. Your safety comes first, always, before activism and community building. You aren’t causing other aros harm by first looking after yourself: this situation is not of your making and you are not contributing to or enabling it. Activism–and this is activism–never comes before your comfort and safety, and it is truth that engaging in it opens us up to harmful responses, often lacking the ability to easily bear them because of the pain that drives us to activism in the first place. Not all of us, for thousands of reasons, have the ability to bear this, and that makes nobody any less of a person or an aro-spec. In a world where to be who we are is a hundred shades of wrong, just existing is a radical act, and I swear to you that is always, always, enough.

You are not less boldly, defiantly aro because you have been forced into a situation where it is unsafe to express yourself. Your aromantic pride is not less because you can’t speak it, and I have no time for anyone who believes otherwise.

If you’d like to start increasing the aro on this blog, though, start small. Start with really safe pieces to reblog like aro-ace characters, pride art or positivity, and introduce these more slowly onto the blog–one each day or every couple of days, say. Start with media least likely to be deemed objectionable and slowly get your followers (and co-mods!) used to seeing this content. You can then, still slowly, start throwing some aro-specific pride media and positivity, some allo-aro media, some aro-spec identity posts, some aro experience posts, etc, still focusing on content that leans towards positivity and pride. At the same time, you can start increasing the frequency, balancing out the more aro-specific works with pride and positivity pieces. When this has become normal blog fare, you can try a few of the less overtly frustrated-with-allo-ace posts about aro-ace erasure (if appropriate for the blog, of course) and work your way up towards real aro-spec community conversations (if appropriate for the blog). The same applies for your original content, anon–start small with pride art or positivity posts, let your followers grow accustomed to these and then start slowly feeding in posts that address aro-spec identity and experience, like stories or creative non-fiction posts, later building up to conversations on erasure.

A shift straight from everything ace to posts about aro erasure in the ace community risks ruffling feathers amongst followers and mods. That this risk is real says how much aro erasure is accepted and unconscious (oh, amatonormativity!), and nothing about the approach I’ve suggested is right. This is another case, anon, where we’re looking at a long, slow battle, inching our way towards progress. It involves a great deal of patience and hand-holding, both of which are so difficult, but I think it’s the best way of making change with the least (not none, just least) chance of hate or antagonism.

(If you never want to post anything difficult and just stick to media and characters and positivity, that’s also appropriate. You get to draw the line, always, on the kind of media you reblog and the conversations you have. Promoting positivity or identity exploration is absolutely an act of activism and it is no less empowering or vital an act than those of us who talk about erasure. I don’t get to have conversations without the work of folks who, through promoting positivity and 101 content, allow people to understand they are aro-spec; I’d be nothing here without those bloggers.)

I’ll stress again, anon, that if you can’t do this, for whatever reason, that is absolutely fine. You are no less aro-ace for keeping yourself safe. Your comfort and safety always becomes before activism. If you feel able to take that first dangerous, difficult step, though, this is how I’d do it. I’ll mention that this blog, today, has a very different timbre from its beginning; I never imagined having community conversations of the sort that we’ve found ourselves needing. Starting with safer things like media content or positivity is an important part of allowing bloggers, mods, followers and the blog itself to grow and develop–gradually and organically. I see no reason why this can’t happen anywhere else.

Good luck, and please know that whatever you do, anon, you are already and always aggressively and unapologetically aro. You wouldn’t have sent in this ask if you weren’t.