#aro otome

[otomedetective]

Aromanticism and Otome Games

I am an aromantic who loves otome games. It may seem incredibly contradictory, especially since the common perception of otomes is that they are wish-fulfillment games for people to insert themselves into a story where they date attractive men. There's definitely nothing wrong with playing them in that way, and many people get a lot of enjoyment out of them, but that isn't the only way to play an otome game. In fact, many otome game players prefer not to self-insert at all and I’m one of them!

My personal experience being aromantic means I do not feel romantic attraction to anyone, and I do not desire or need a romantic relationship to feel fulfilled in life. I’m perfectly happy with my platonic bonds and my perpetual singleness! That’s how I experience it, but there are many different ways to be aromantic, and there’s no one universal experience that defines how all aromantic people live their lives. Some are repulsed by romance and its overbearing presence in nearly all forms of media, and others are comfortable seeing other people experience romance despite not experiencing it themselves (though these, of course, are not the only two groups). I personally lean more towards the latter category. I love romance stories! 

For me, playing an otome game is like watching a romance movie where I get to decide who the heroine ends up with. It's like a shipper's dream! I don’t self-insert because I am not comfortable putting myself in romantic situations, but by observing a fictional couple, I can safely explore the romantic plots and experiences that interest me. And let me tell you, I love a good romance plot. Especially one with drama.

A comparison I like to make when people don’t seem to get it is that I also really, really love murder mysteries and tragedies, but I do NOT want to actually experience them myself. What I want for a character and what I want for myself are two completely separate things, so there’s really no contradiction! 

In fact, playing otome games was a big part of my aromantic journey in the first place. I never had crushes as a kid that weren’t forced or peer pressured. When people talk about the characters in their childhood shows that they had crushes on, I can never relate. To me, there were only interesting characters and stories. I’ve never really wanted anything more than that. 

So when my second-ever relationship ended and I was wondering whether I really felt romantic attraction at all, I decided to try otome games. 

I chose Collar x Malice as my first game because, as I mentioned earlier, I am a huge fan of mysteries and tragedies, and the premise intrigued me. Then, throughout my exploration of various otome games (and as I quickly became hooked on them) I tried some games with less developed heroines, specifically made for self-inserting, and found that I couldn’t handle them. Separating myself from the heroine helped me enjoy the games more as I realized that I didn’t actually want to be in these romantic situations myself, but only wanted to enjoy the story.

So what was the point of this whole post? I guess just to share my own personal experiences as an aromantic otome-lover and address the contradiction. Otome games aren’t necessarily mainstream-popular, but they certainly have their dedicated fans, and I’ve really enjoyed the interactions I’ve had so far with these fandom spaces. 

Sure, the primary focus of the games may be pretty boys who you can date, but otome games can also be so much more than that! It’s a genre I’m glad I decided to try. 

I’m happy to be an aro along for the ride to read some good stories, puzzle out the right route choices, and look at some aesthetically pleasing character designs along the way! :)

[miaookami]

Me, a sapphic aroace, playing otome games because I like compliments and toying with fictional characters feelings

[smol-tired-binch-blog]

everyone thank @elfrootenthusiast for being the reason you get more Felix content

[chickenleafs-world]

Was tempted to put this on the last post ranting about dating sims, but those were more general and these are more specific to me.

I hate how many visual novels/relationship games have sex/implied sex/kissing/accepting a confession integral to the good end, even when romantic love isn’t integral to the plot. It opens it up to the people only interested in one/a few/no love interests. As an Aro/Ace, I sometimes want a story driven game/visual novel focused on building relationships and character study *without* having to use the “make an oc and rp your ass off” method. As much as I don’t want queer routes to be relegated to implication/friendship, I also don’t want all het routes to be locked behind romance. Playing romance games for the plot gets really tiring after the billionth time pretending you want to kiss the love interest so you can see the end of their arc.

It sucks that alloromantics (and to a lesser extent, allosexuals) have the monopoly on intimate stories. Even saying I’m aromantic but a fan of any number of otome franchises makes people doubt either my status as a fan or (more commonly) my status as aromantic. I try not to mention it because it’s awkward to explain how in the world a romance game is appealing to an aromantic. It’s become a meme when people say they’re playing a romance game “for the plot” but some of us genuinely are. I wish I could just say “these are for another target demographic��� and play something else, but there aren’t really many games with the same appeals but no romance.

I know some people are gonna think “why are you complaining that dating sims have dating” but that isn’t the issue I’m having here. Asking devs to just make games marketed solely at Aros is obviously unrealistic, we’re a tiny market that won’t even all be interested. But is it always that hard to give a little bit of optional changed dialogue that lets us have the same experience minus the romance? Again, romance has an unfair monopoly on stories and games about intimacy and relationships. I have to complain about dating sims because dating sims are the closest thing to the genre I want to play. It isn’t fair (and is indeed quite limiting to the art form) to insist that aromantic people aren’t allowed to want representation in the media we consume just because there’s no precedent for representation.

[m-i-n-a-m-i]

I need to speak with my fictional boyfriend rn. I miss him 🤧

[thegreeninyoureyes]

me: I feel like I could die rn

class friend: hey did you see the new love and deepspace cards

me as soon as she mentions her otome game: this little moment is fun and nice all of a sudden?????

[alienaiver]

finished my first route in code realize hihihihi !!! (//u\\)

[happy10thousandyears]

Just had the kylar Christmas event????? Wow ???😭😭

[aro-culture-is]

aro culture is imagining yourself as a personal advisor to the protagonist in self-insert dating simulators

ooh i like that, where's an otome where you're literally the tutorial guy?

[sofiaruelle]

valentines is coming up and i’m planning on some pin ups. 👀 not sure where to take it tho….

Let me know in the comments if you guys also have suggestions on poses 👀👀 my aro/ace sapphic ass doesn't know what to do with these bachelors.

[masteri-0]

Man, I wonder how it'll feel like for an aro/ace person to suddenly be thrown into an otome game, or one of those romance fantasy isekais. Like damn, that'll be all levels of awkward and horrifying, but I want to see one where they just nail all the platonic routes. Why can't people simply exist as good friends regardless of gender? ╮(￣～￣)╭

This thought was inspired by seeing so many fics of Otome AU feat. Cale from TCF. Now don't get me wrong, I love them, but I can't see him having a special relationship with someone, not when there's such major found family platonic vibes.

Also, that guy's denial and inability to comprehend people liking him that way is possibly bigger than his workaholic tendencies, not to mention he doesn't seem like the type to ever give romance a second thought. Guy's already a single mom to... How many kids?

I must say tho, other than the romance aspect, Cake really seems to fit the Otome protagonist to a T (plus minus the tragic backstory and traumatic *waves* everything), just going around fixing all the problems, attracting 'flies' everywhere and causing misunderstandings. Atp I don't even know what I'm saying anym. Anyways I think I also just described like half the Korean novels out there, or maybe I just have a specific type.

Tldr; Cale is aro/ace (tbh the novel barely even touches on romance, which I am quite happy about), he deserves all the love in the multiverse, and we stan his one-sided pining of slacker life-chan

[arataka-reigen]

hello!! i saw the tags on your pinned post abt how shoujo wasn't just romance and it got me curious bc i've read some nice shoujo but really dislike romance-heavy plots. are there any shoujos you like that don't have much or any romance in them? ty and i hope you have a good day! 💛

Oh, there are lots of mangas that are classified as shoujo and don't have romance!!

I am just now beginning my journey through shoujo as well, so I don't have a lot of recommendations for stuff I actually read, but the ones I did read or watch so far are:

Natsume Yuujinchou and basically anything else by its author, Yuki Midorikawa. Sometimes, her works do include romance, but the focus is almost always in the interpersonal relationships and the difficulties her characters go through in life. NatsuYuu is about an orphan boy who can see yokai, and for that reason he acts in "weird" ways and his foster families dislike him, so he keeps going from family to family. The story is about how he finds a good family who accepts and loves him, makes friends, and learns to make friends even with yokais.

There are currently 6 anime seasons out, and a 7th season is on its way, so you can either read the manga or watch the anime.

Akatsuki no Yona - i mean, this one does include romance, but i'll still put it on the list because as far as the anime went the focus is heavy on Yona's actual journey to gather the dragons of legend to be able to recover the kingdom that was stolen from her. It shows how Yona goes from a sheltered spoiled girl to a person befitting the title of dragon king.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom - this one is the og villainess isekai and it truly deserves the hype. It is about a girl who wakes up in the child body of the villainess of her favorite otome game. She remembers that the villainess' fate in the game was always either death or exile, so she tries her hardest to change her fate. This one is classified as a reverse harem, but the main character is pretty oblivious and worries more about farming and eating sweets and generally being the best girl ever than actually worrying about romance. Aro ace queen tbh. And her harem is just happy to be with her and be dragged along for her stupid adventures. Plus, the female members of her harem are taken seriously as well, Mary is a raging lesbian and it is not subtext. I mean, it is a shoujo, so of course the female characters would be important lol.

Usagi Drop - listen to me. You will absolutely not look for anything related to this manga. If you like the premise you can watch the anime. But, please, do not look for the manga. You will only be extremely disappointed by it. That being said, I recommend the anime. It is about a man who returns home for his grandfather's funeral and then finds out his grandfather had an illegitimate daughter who has now become an orphan. He ends up having to take care of her because the rest of the family considers her a shame to the family.

Now, for the stuff I havent seen yet, I'll just write some that are on my "plan to read" list and put their genres next to their names so you can check it out if you think the genre's sound interesting:

7 Seeds (drama, horror, psychological, sci fi, survival)

Requiem of the Rose King (drama, historical, supernatural, gender identity)

Basara (drama, fantasy, adventure) (i think this one has romance, but from what i've heard, the main character's story is a lot deeper as she takes her brother's identity in order to fight against the king who killed her brother, it is pretty famous and considered a classic)

Ghost Hunt (horror, mystery, psychological, supernatural)

Helter Skelter (horror, psychological)

My Stepmother and Stepsisters aren't Wicked (comedy, historical, slice of life)

Ikoku Nikki (drama) (this one is the one i'm currently most interested on, i hear it's about a distant woman who's never had a good relationship with her sister and now has to take care of her teenage niece because her sister died)

Itsuwari no Freya (crossdressing, historical)

Limit (drama, psychological, school) (this one sounds incredible tbh, on a field trip their bus gets into an accident and only 5 girls remain, having to learn to survive and trying to assert themselves over one another because they hate each other.)

Machida-kun no sekai (school)

Mitarai-ke, Enjou suru (drama) (the main character wants to infiltrate the household of the family who blamed her mother for a fire, in order to prove her mother's innocence)

Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You (comedy)

Uramichi Oniisan (comedy, showbiz, workplace)

Usotoki Rhetoric (mystery, historical)

Don't Call It Mystery (mystery)

If anyone has more things to recommend I would also love to hear about it!!

[viviennevermillion]

There's actually a huge discourse(?) about twst otome thing last year on twitter and some otome players gave multiple reasons why twst would be even better if it's otome. They said it would focus more of each character and explore them in greater details.

That might be what it would look like to some people, but given Otome game track record there's a high chance they'd have to drastically reduce the size of the main cast. It'd be Yuu and like 4-7 of the boys but not all 21 of them. Also it always depends what aspects of the characters you focus on. We probably wouldn't get that much focus on the interpersonal relationships in the Diasomnia family if romance with MC would be the main aspect of the game and this is also a level of depth to characterization that we shouldn't dismiss. Ofc you could keep it as it is and just add a romance aspect but then it would not classify as an Otome game.

The sad reality is in any alternate reality where Twst is an Otome Game, it would not be a Disney game (which would already drastically alter the story given that it revolves around Disney villains) and in that case there's a high chance it would not stay as sfw as it is now and MC might not stay gender-neutral or might get a sprite or indicators of what they look like. The very definition of Otome Game involves it being targeted towards women. There's a lot of people who would not be affected by this and I feel like those are the ones advocating for Twst as an Otome Game. But I'd wager a lot of men in the fandom and trans, non-binary, ace and aro people would not take the gamble.

Twst as a Disney game with the set-up that it has now and a gender-neutral, faceless MC who has platonic relationships with the main cast allows for literally anyone to be Yuu regardless of age, gender, orientation, ethnicity or level of comfort towards romance and suggestive content, which makes for an inclusive gaming experience and a very diverse fandom that I would never trade for a romance aspect I can always explore in fanfiction.

[witheringgflower]

being aroace and a hopeless romantic feels like an infinite cycle of unmet expectations and withering dreams.

i think the hardest part of accepting that i wasn't only ace but also aro was precisely burying the life i dreamt for me. burying that one dream that, at some point, i might find someone to love... romantically speaking. being aroace has taught me just why i always take friendship breakups so hard. why i always feel neglected within my friendships because i always put them first, but i will always come second because romantic partners will always come first. and don't get me wrong: i am beyond ecstatic that my friends, slowly, have come to find people that cherish them just like they deserve to be. i am truly, genuinely, so excited to see my friends being loved like that.

it's just also terribly lonely. because i know that's a love i won't ever experience. even if i dreamt at some point of getting married or just have someone i can rely on like that, it's just not happening. and grieving those experiences have exhausted me in many ways—ways that i cannot tell my friends because, even if they tried to understand, they can't. they can only see that i avoid relationships and dates like the plague. that i find comfort in fictional characters, and books, and videogames, and music, but never, ever, on a significant someone.

one of my best friends said to me, while on the subject of visual novels and otome games, that i didn't feel the need to look for a boyfriend because these pixels, these games, satisfied all of my emotional needs. maybe she was right. i haven't played an otome game in almost a year, but maybe she was onto something. we were both fresh out of highschool when she said that. maybe they did satisfy my needs for romance or whatever it is. maybe they also made me feel lonelier. maybe that's why i daydream so much of being in a world that is not this one—a world where someone loves me, and i love them, and maybe, if timing is right, i would love them so much that bringing a kid into this world wouldn't seem so much like a nightmare and more like the right choice. ♡

[stellari-s]

Does Soryn have a love interest with anyone in crown? If not, who are they closest with?

hii, thanks for the question! /g i don’t have a love interest for them — they are meant to be somewhere in the aro spectrum too, as i believe there aren’t many aro, or ace, characters around in general when i wish there were more even if it’s otome genre, haha 🥲

soryn generally gets along with everyone due to their very go-with-the-flow nature, but this in turn makes it hard for them to form very close bonds with others as well. but over time, they grow close to liam, as they started conversing about costumes and styling one time, like how soryn felt wearing what they wore and acting out a character was like a necessity to survive due to their curse, while for liam it was something he could wear on stage as an actor as something he enjoyed doing. eventually though soryn would start playing with liam’s hair (like a stylist), and liam would do the same back. or they would try on costumes together. little things like that end up adding up in the end! i think in a way, liam is sort of a figure, or a means, for soryn to become more connected to that which their curse denies.

soryn’s sheet!