#aro tl

[angleofmusings]

who is the MOST aromantic coded character in ted lasso (NOT ASEXUAL)

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

I feel like Cleo and Etho could be (unknowingly aromantic) friends with benefits in college who had an unplanned pregnancy (Scar) and due to societal/social pressures and internalized amatanormativity got a bit of a shotgun marriage over it, then said marriage inevitably starts to fall apart a few years later because neither of them actually ever wanted to be married or parents and are kind of romance repulsed by the whole situation on top of all the logistical stress and peer pressure of it all, so ofc they pull a "having a baby to try and save the marriage" (Bdubs) that went about as poorly as you can imagine before finally deciding "y'know what, fuck societal expectations" and finally get a divorce

Over the course of the next several years they have the whole messy exes thing going on LimLife-style, with Cleo single parenting and Etho kinda hovering about the whole situation awkwardly, before eventually things start to simmer down over the decade following their divorce as they settle into no longer being forced into a romantic partnership, Etho actually bes a decently supportive ex who pays child support and is available for babysitting and whatnot, and by the time Scar and Bdubs are becoming adults and the pressures of parenting are lifted to some extent, Cleo and Etho have fully divorced themselves from societal expectations, realized their aromantic, become amicable and eventually friends again, and then at some point - probably because of being tight on money? idk - move into with Grian and end up as roomies

Cleo and Etho are far happier back in their initial qpr friends-with-benefits relationship without kids or romance in the way, especially now that they're also older and more mature, and Scar and Bdubs are just sitting there like. We went through a whole childhood with divorce for this. You two just getting back together. wtf

[aro-culture-is]

Romance faourable aroallo culture is being sad that there is not much aroallo and romance favourable aro representation in media and on the internet. We exist. Not every aromantic person is on the ace-spec and not every aromantic person hates romance.

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[astriiformes]

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[agentravensong]

my parents asked if i wanted to go with them to see the new napolean movie this afternoon. i was not interested (espec after looking at the length and average ecritic scores) so i stayed home and finally got around to reading this is how you lose the time war instead. 1000% the correct decision, holy shit

[airbenderedacted]

NO YOU NOTICE IT TOO???? EVERY NICE/OPTIMISTIC CHARACTER IS ALWAYS HEADCANONED AS PAN QND I??? HUH????? Not that there's anything wrong with being pan, I'm mspec myself, but it's ALWAYS the happy go lucky characters and I??? 😭

IT'S,,,.,...,.

[enigmaticvariation]

as a jughead connoisseur for most of my life my view of him is that in the comic universe he's aro/ace, because I really like the chip zdarsky and ryan north comics where this is explicitly canon, as well as the fact that I appreciate characters who do not care about romance at all and have plot lines very disconnected from it. I am not aro/ace, but I am very romance indifferent and I am normally the only single person among my irl friend group at any given point, so I relate to jughead not giving a shit about any of his friend's romance drama. he's winning the idgaf war. however, in the show riverdale he is so disconnected from comic jughead and the show tries so aggressively to make him act straight despite the fact that at this point every single character is gay or has had at least one gay scene (cole sprouse WILL NOT kiss a man!) it's almost comical. to me it comes off like he's definitely into men but he's too busy being the narrator or whatever tf he does in that show to care. the absence of his gayness makes him gayer.

[235uranium]

bangs my head against the wall

[cyberdragoninfinity]

IT'S FUNNY tbqh if you ever see me hooting and hollering about a ygo ship thats a 90% chance ive gotten it in my diabolical aro claws and am doing incomprehensible aro maneuvers to them as we speak. i think the only ships im particularly Deeply Attached To that DONT have someone aro in them (to meeee) are aster/jaden and syrus/mana (<--deranged) but who knows. things could change at any moment. Hurricane Aro Rin Truthism could strike at any second.

anyway my particular favoritest ygo ships ive absolutely sandblasted with my powerful aro beam:

thinking about it right now actually but shrimpship with aro!weevil goes hard as fuck actually. divine visions appearing to me once more

ZATTICUS.... OH MY SWEET ZATTICUS i Love idolshipping but zane is aromantic ive had that one for like 2+ years now and it makes me so emotional.... something about atticus's eternally romantic spirit loving zane enough for the both of them. learning to meet zane halfway and let the closeness they share evolve into something all its own. wah

ZONEPORIA TOOOOOOO AROMANTIC APORIA NUMERO UNO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my precious demiromo wereangel robot and the wretch old bastard he would do anything for... zoneporia is just the epitome of "not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing (so devoted the lines blur)"

yuseiprimo is also here (i love you aro yusei.) i need to think more about them through the aro lens...wah

foilshipping is a yaoi bear trap clamped hard to my leg and when vector is aro it just grips even harder. something something someone so violently assured theyre unloveable in every way vs the unstoppable force of yuma's endless love. OKAAYYY

ggraahh... waaughhhh........denyuri with aro!yuri has been making me sick in the head for months i must say. i need to go bananas on here about them some more. *to the tune of 'teenage mutant ninja turtles'* Problematic Aro Yaoi !!!

THE NEW FRIEND, YUGO AND RIN BUT RIN IS ARO. EMOTIONAL IN DA CLUB OVER THEM platonic life partner 🍏 is going to make me fuckign craayayyayayazzayyyyyy... the bondless love and desire to spend your life chasing your dreams with your eternal closest friend. SNIFFLES. IM FINE.

wanna see me hit a ygo ship with the aro beam. wanna see me do it again.

[angleofmusings]

BARBARA SHUTTING DOWN THE “love is love” AROMANTIC MOMENT FOR FUCKING REAL

[threebooksoneplot]

what draws you both to jalice/makes you so feral about them as a ship?

you should know we had an entire meeting in order to answer this ask. no this could NOT have been an email (unlike new moon) 🤭

Secretary G took notes. they are as follows (read the bolded parts for a tl;dr)

we kind of see it as though jalice got the traits that edbella weren’t allowed to have, either due to their status as protagonists or because smeyer's mormon background causes her to view these qualities as too sinful/negative for her wholesome Waiting Until Marriage main couple. (examples: alice's materialistic, "shallow," hyperfeminine qualities, her character flaws (especially her manipulativeness), and jasper's aura and history of fucked up violence closer to what you'd find in traditional vampire stories/horror/adult gothics/books not written by a mormon author)

in terms of how much screentime the non-main-love-triangle canon couples get, their relationship is kiiiinda given the next-most weight to edbella’s (examples: jasper's extreme overprotectiveness, the New Moon chapter 19 moment where alice prioritizes jasper and bella is like “yeah I get it, I would do the same.”) basically smeyer gives jalice's relationship a lot of the qualities she finds romantic/ideal, (and which are either similarly romantic to us or entertainingly toxic/a good source of drama), presumably because alice is like her 4th-favorite character after the main love triangle and she wants nice things for her

we both really love how, superficially, as presented in the books, jasper and alice seem to have this almost “courtly love” that smeyer has described as "spiritual." yet when you look closer, their relationship has so many darker undertones—the deep codependency bordering on obsessiveness (mutual, but especially the way it manifests on jasper's end—"I will kill this random teen girl who witnessed edward's jean valjean moment™ because any means are justifiable when the ends are Protecting Alice"), the dark sides of both of their powers, the idea that jasper is only a cullen and/or only a vegetarian for alice's sake, etc. hell, even the fact that they're the only Cullen couple who we know had (gasp) premarital sex 😏 (I mean we assume rosemmett did too, but alas, they don't have that hilarious "carlisle convinced jasper and alice to get married" quote from smeyer)

partially summarized: "jasper’s general desperate willingness to sell everyone to satan for one corn chip if it keeps alice safe (carlisle: I know this and I love you)"

we're forever smug that the movies gave us even more jalice screentime (especially remarkable in such a protagonist-centric universe), including jasper being in the same grade as alice/bella/edward, and the extra jalice kisses in Eclipse and BD 🥺

what we wrote down as the “who’s protecting whom" phenomenon, as coined by G in this old ask. (shannon: "jasper is the toddler you've given the PS2 controller that's not plugged in")

we also like the characters individually. jasper is for the girlies with competency kinks—a stoic caretaker who speaks little and mostly expresses himself via acts of service. we also both love the way in which he needs protection from his own uncontrolled violence (slipping up and killing humans, suffering the pain and fear he inflicts, etc.) he is, in the words of our beloved @liceparade, the "line cook trauma boyfriend"

“It’s hot when there’s a fictional violent man who wet babygirl 😌” —shannon

and alice, unlike bella, genuinely loves being spoiled and bossing people around. she's brat-coded, she's confident and secure in who she is, her god complex ("I'm close enough [to omniscient]") causes fascinating conflict, bella eats drywall from sheer horniness at her merest movement, she dresses like a slut in the Mormon YA Novels and yet somehow escapes authorial condemnation, she has a sickass gothic heroine backstory, she's "annoying," aro started a whole war over her (eat shit helen of troy 🖕), she spaces out in public and has to be led around by jasper, she's one of the most powerful vampires in the world, she's in high school getting a C+ on her precalc test 💅🏻

it's appealing that smeyer frequently puts alice in the center of the series' various conflicts (james' singer and "one that got away," the accidental cause of all the drama at the end of new moon, one of aro's secret True motives for starting the conflict in BD.) this is mostly as a consequence of smeyer using alice as a plot device and/or deus ex machina, but it is in fact interesting

is alice jasper's morality chain? we love pondering this question via fic, meta, etc (especially because...alice ain't exactly a model of ethical behavior herself)

together, the two of them exhibit lots of classic tropes. they're grumpy x sunshine, chatty x silent, opposites attract, etc. to say nothing of that height difference 🥵

we love the yin/yang symbolism of a character with a horrific past paired with a character with NO memory of her past, who is focused on the future and all about potential. not to invoke an ancient phrase but POETIC CINEMA

the next note just says “POTENTIAL in general.” I assume we meant how all of the above stuff creates potential for interesting stories, conflicts, metas, art, fic, etc

G has brought this up in the past, but we love the irony of jasper, a character whose chief desire is to be left in peace, being soul-alteringly in love with the one character who will always be a giant glaring target through no fault of her own. hilarious

[aro-culture-is]

Aro culture is not understanding why people break up if they had been swooning over each other.

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[laikabu]

saw someone who hc kabru as aromantic bisexual. thats actually kinda good. i dont necessarily subscribe to it but i could see it. not fully aro but in the spectrum i guess

im now just going to ramble about how i think this would work in my head. also labru bc this is my page

he sees flirting more as a game n marriage as something convenient than something he aspires to achieve w the one he loves

flirting n dating is more of a tool to make friends. he isn’t interested in getting serious so that usually turns them off, so he gets labeled as a ‘player’

he doesn’t return rin’s feelings even though he finds her physically attractive, because he genuinely values her friendship and the way he views romance is incompatible with hers and would just break her heart

ok labru territory turn away now sorry im pulling shit out of my ass atp

laios would fit right in with his preferences, because their relationship would be boiled down to “best friends who have sex” like, the easiest way for them to explain their thing

even if they go on dates, they’d be more interested in talking about a current topic or something they need to do, than super sappy stuff. they still do it! but kabru would kinda get uncomfortable with saying sappy stuff, it’s different from flirting. once laios recognizes this, he tells him he doesnt have to do that

it works out because while laios is kinda sentimental, he isn’t really a romantic person. when they were still figuring stuff out, laios just goes “x is mad at me because they think not doing y makes me a bad partner” but really, kabru doesn’t care whether he does it or not

if laios is saying this about a different partner, kabru would chastise him, but since it’s him, he’s totally fine with none of that happening

when it comes to them becoming spouses, they would rather forgo a real wedding and just do the paperwork to make it happen. marcille takes offense to this n thinks its an “affront to romance” esp since kabru wants to plan HER wedding, but neither of them think it’s a big deal

laios has a very hard time distinguishing his platonic feelings to his romantic feelings. he’s just very happy kabru that wouldn’t leave him or get bored of him. getting to kiss him and have sex with him is just a nice bonus.

kissing and cuddling is more of an emotional recharge or comfort etc for kabru than a romantic activity. his friends don’t get it at all.

even in my stupid baby universe its just “kabru wants to have a baby with me for the kingdom? he’s such a nice guy. he told me he wants utaya to live on too… thats so thoughtful.” their relationship is ‘blunt’ and ‘convenient’. the marriage was just to legitimize the heir and otherwise it was just a regular wednesday.

they love each other, but kabru expresses it to the extent that he could, and that works out for laios.

tl;dr basically someone who views romance as a performance than something ingrained w him x someone who struggles w romance. its totally fine if you dont see kabru on the aromantic spectrum, i don’t necessarily see it that way either! i just want to think about how it would work in my fanworks. what do u think. i should add more but im just going off at the top of my head LOL

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Okay, I saw your post about marriage legality and why the ability to get married is important. I 100% agree and fully support the idea that marriage is first and foremost is a legal decision and appreciate you spreading awareness.

I was thinking that one such instance of where getting married may be important was in a Queer-Platonic Relationship (QPR). If I were in one, I’d almost certainly want the legal benefits of marriage.

Is it true that you have to “consummate” a marriage? I feel like I’ve heard that brought up before, and if that’s the case a marriage doesn’t protect someone in the case of a divorce if they’ve never had sex with their partner, right? They could just get an annulment? QPRs are very common among aroace people, so they may not want that. Are their other options for a circumstance like that?

Consummation is not necessary in any state in the US, as far as I am aware. There are some states where you can have your marriage annulled on the grounds of physical inability to consummate, but that's extremely archaic and very rare. You do not need to be in romantic love or have sex in order to be legally married.

Marriage is a legal decision with specific benefits and drawbacks. It is not about how much you love or care for or have sex with the other person. The ONLY thing that you should be thinking about when considering marriage, IMHO, is whether you want those benefits and drawbacks (or would rather the benefits and drawbacks of NOT being married - those also exist!).

Honestly, I think that the decision to get married should be approached as if you were in a QPR, even if you're not ace or aro. Like, if you ignore all of the cultural expectations of marriage – as a demonstration of exclusivity or commitment or love – do the benefits still outweigh the drawbacks? If yes, then you should consider getting married.

tl;dr: You can absolutely get married if you're in a QPR. (And frankly I'm a bit pissed at that one person who replied to my original post and made it seem like marriage is antithetical to QPRs, because that was kind of the exact opposite of what I was getting at)

[batnsonswrites]

if I could marry a post it would be this one

Here me out. Ted. Rom-com loving Ted. Not discovering until he's well into his forties that he's aromantic.

Not realizing that what he liked about those movies all these years was the promise of being loved and the possibility of closeness and the idea that one day everything was going to make sense.

Not realizing until long after the divorce ink dries that part of why he tried so hard to hold onto Michelle was that he knew deep down that something about the way he loved was different, but he never knew why or how, so he just kept trying to fix it and make it work.

Ted not realizing anything until he's about to leave Richmond, when he tries to have a parting conversation with Jamie and Jamie is the one who puts the idea into his mind. Because Jamie, who's been working on himself, has finally realized what he wants, and it's like a nuclear bomb has been dropped on Ted's whole world.

Ted panics. Ted goes through all the stages of grief. Ted cancels his flight back home - temporarily - because he is too afraid to look at his ex-wife with this knowledge rattling around in his head. Because despite the fact that it's got nothing to do with how much he loves his son, in some ways it feels like it has everything to do with how much he loves his son because it's about how Ted loves.

(And then while Ted remains in Richmond he ends up officially in three separate qpr with Beard, Rebecca, and Trent. It does not fix all his problems, and he still has to figure out how to be closer to Henry, but it helps and he is loved The End)

BOY WILL I EVER HEAR YOU OUT ON THIS ONE

you say aro character and im already criss cross applesauce on the floor listening intently and boy this is SO GREAT im completely in love with this concept. what a story you’ve painted here, what a trajectory of ‘I didn’t know that was possible and now im re-evaluating everything in my life and that i thought i understood about myself

im literally giggling with delight walking home from the bubble tea shop thinking about this oh my gd. your mind.

(also the Aro Epiphany Contagion is so real ahsjsbsj Jamie And The Accidental Ripple Effect He Has No Idea He Caused-)

[sheyri]

My Triple A experience at Pride

I love going to Pride. Being among fellow queer people, loud music, blocking traffic with our demonstration, and just vibing. I try to attend as many as I can and travel for hours on full trains if necessary.

Big Prides are great, but I especially love smaller ones in rural areas. It's less of a party and more of a demonstration, as it should be. Unfortunately rural in my area means risking confrontations with nazis, but that's a different story.

But no matter how much I love being at Pride, there's always this underlying feeling of being excluded.

Even at smaller Prides, I'm usually not the only person with an ace flag. Occasionally you can find someone with an aro flag, sometimes even an aroace person. Rarely someone with an agender flag. Though there are more people with those as pins or other accessories. But hey, most people just have the rainbow flag and no one has to disclose their sexuality or gender. In short, the people in the demonstration are great!

But from the organisation side? It's almost like the A doesn't exist! Stage discussions? Nope, at most they name asexual when they go through the list of labels. Info material? I saw one flyer about grey asexuality. Stickers? Yeah, okay, those exist in the mix, but mostly ace.

On the other hand you see lesbian and gay, trans and bi everywhere. I love penis/I love vagina, love is love, love who you want, etc. Great to see that political parties don't look past the LGBT. Nice that discussions include non-binary people as an afterthought.

When talking about love all the time, is it too much to ask to mention there are different kinds of love? That love doesn't have to be romantic to be valid? That it can be whatever you want it to be? Mention the split attraction model in info material? Have info material about aromanticism at all? Some parties actually have an aromantic sticker, but those are even rarer than ace ones.

This year there's a lot of talk about legally changing your gender, because they finally changed the law in Germany to make it a lot easier. The stage discussions are all about how it used to be and how much easier it is now. I'm not sure if I heard mention of non-binary and intersex people in this regard. If, then it wasn't much. Would've been nice to hear them mention that "diverse" is an option for your legal gender, or that you can have it removed all together. And why and for whom that is important. Especially since some federal states banned gender sensitive language from schools and government places, to "protect the German language". (They criticised that and it's a whole different rant.) Come on, gender isn't a binary, some people exist somewhere in the middle, or outside of it, or don't have a gender at all. That's not new information and queer organisations like Pride should be well aware of that and speak about it! But I guess that topic is too risky and too uncomfortable for a stage in a public place.

TL,DR Pride is great, but as an aroace agender person I often feel excluded and unseen at least to some extent.

All that said, I have to end on something positive: my favourite Pride so far - CSD Göttingen 2023.

Organised by the community, for the community. No political parties were present, because they were not invited and not welcome. Instead we had queer organisations talking on stage and manning booths. Including the local asexual and aromantic network.

There were banners along the demonstration route, saying love is love. They were put up by the city, independently, without asking the organisers if those banners were wanted. They were not. (The organisers said that.)

Out of 15 Prides I went to so far, this one was the one where I felt most at home. Unfortunately it's quite far from where I live and this year it shares a date with another Pride I want to attend, so I can't go there again. Hopefully next year. And hopefully they can keep going like this. Independent from politicians.