#but loveless aros just Get Things

[lovequeerindigo]

i’m not a loveless aro but i agree with their beliefs

[weepingfireflies]

no love is literally worthless and the people who act like it has any kind of value are stupid, is it not prove enough that people can go there whole life never feel love or never being loved

I do have to disagree with that a bit tbh. It's really fucking annoying when people act like love is the base of all human development and interaction, and I will bite anyone who tries to peddle that shit, but it's also an Emotion Some People Feel and has inherent worth in that sense. As much as I hate to admit it, alloromantics and non-loveless aros do have a right to meaningful love - the problem I have is when they try to push those ideals onto me. I have emotions, personhood, and relationships beyond love, and no one has the right to tell me my life is "less than" because I don't experience love. At the same time, I don't think it's fair to say love - or any emotion - is worthless because it has value to the people who experience it, even if I'm not one of those people.

And for the record, I do believe most - if not all - people have been "loved" in the mainstream way, or at least have people who care about them. It's obviously not all there is to life, but I guarantee someone cares for you in some fashion (whether it's "love" or not). And it's completely fine to not see this as love, even if the person who cares for you does, but I think it's important to recognize if "not being loved" is something that is just occurring or is actively hurting you. This may not be applicable to you, but I don't want you to feel like you're "alone" in the bad sense.

[snowstories]

[Image: Tumblr tags reading '#the feeling was friendship but neither of them had ever experienced it before'.]

what is it about the least canon-compliant aromantic headcanons that makes them the best. like when a character shows no romantic attraction okay that is pretty awesome. but when romance is a big part of a character/plot? oh now we're fucking cooking

[halfdeadwallfly]

how much of my perpetual and intense longing for a romantic relationship is really just a need for emotional closeness + me being touch starved, rather than actually wanting whatever romance is

anyway i'm thinking about QPRs again

[ceilidhtransing]

I've cropped out the username because I have absolutely no desire to start drama or make a personal “callout” or have people go harass someone or anything like that (and if you take this kind of thing as an opportunity to go and be horrible to another Tumblr user then that is terrible and you should stop), but wow, I have never seen such a clanging example of amatonormativity. I don't think OP necessarily meant it this way, I don't think they meant any harm, I don't think they're consciously arophobic or something - it's far more likely that they're simply unfamiliar with aspec issues, and I always prefer to assume good faith - but I want to talk about this post anyway because it provides a really good and explicit example of the way society just sort of... asserts the centrality of romantic attraction and entirely forgets aromantic people exist.

I do want to first say that I actually agree with the initial point this post is making. Romance as a genre is unfairly derided as some kind of “lesser” form of art, and this derision very frequently comes with generous helpings of misogyny. I totally agree that romance is not at all an unintellectual or superficial thing to write about, and it's bad that it gets treated that way and that readers and writers of romance get so often mocked and condemned. Romance is a totally valid genre and enjoying it doesn't make you vain or stupid or superficial.

HOWEVER. As an aromantic person I find the rest of the post just... I don't know, it's just so perfect as a probably unwitting expression of baked-in cultural amatonormativity. It's brilliant. It's so funny to me. I can almost do a line-by-line breakdown of the way it so completely forgets the existence of aromantic people. In fact, let's do that.

It is so fundamental to us. The issue here should be pretty obvious. The assumption that romance is some integral part of The Human Experience and that it's fundamental to All People is pretty much amatonormativity 101. It reinforces the idea that people who don't experience romantic attraction are “lacking”, forever sitting apart from The Human Experience, and possibly in some way not quite fully human, since we don't experience the thing that is apparently so fundamental to humans.

To want to love and be loved. The post seems to be incorrectly equating “romance” with “loving and being loved”, when in fact there are many people who don't experience romantic attraction yet absolutely love and want to be loved. (And of course loveless aros, aplatonic people, various folks who don't “want to love and be loved” also exist, and it's important to emphasise that this desire, just like romantic attraction, is also not necessarily integral to all people.) “Love” is not automatically “romantic love”, but this post seems to imply that romance is the only, or default, form in which love can exist.

If you don't think every great work of literature. philosophy. metaphysics. was ultimately about romance. I don't think you were paying enough attention. OK this is the line that elevated this post from “sigh, more casual amatonormativity to scroll past” to “I just have to respond to this”. Where to even begin with this assertion. This is a level of “assuming romance is central to everything humans ever do and ever create” that I've almost never encountered before. It feels like a manifestation of the tendency for alloromantic people to declare that, because romance is very central for them, it is thus central to Everything. And I'm homing in on “romance” because the post doesn't say “ultimately about love” - which would still be a reach, but less of a reach - it specifically says “ultimately about romance”. As an aromantic person who is an academic at heart and highly educated in the humanities and social sciences, the idea that my ability to understand literature and philosophy and metaphysics is somehow greatly hampered by the fact that I don't experience or relate to romantic attraction is just... what??? This idea is really very funny to me but also genuinely pretty insulting, even though I'm sure it wasn't meant that way. Not only does it feel like the summation of every patronising “oh, you couldn't possibly understand” directed to aromantic adults who are, in fact, entirely capable of understanding, but it also flattens the incredible breadth of human intellectual experience into “being about romance”. I sometimes find myself wishing that alloromantic people would peak outside the bubble of amatonormativity and realise that actually, there is an enormous swathe of human experience and intellect and creativity and expression that has nothing at all to do with romantic attraction and romantic relationships. And no, stating that, I don't know, the Book of Job is not actually about romance has nothing to do with our society's misogynistic denigration of romance as a genre; it has everything to do with the fact that the Book of Job is not actually about romance. (And if you aren't familiar with Job or for some reason don't consider it a “great work of literature”, replace with whatever other example you can think of; there are many.) It's insulting to imply that aro-spec and/or ace-spec people are somehow less able to participate in art and literature and philosophy etc because we might bring a perspective that doesn't include romance or sex at all and we're just not capable of understanding that Actually Romance And/Or Sex Is Central To Everything. It's genuinely absurd to argue that all the pinnacles of human intellectual achievement really, at their core, come back to romance, and it speaks to our very blinkered society's tendency to declare things like “everything is really about sex” or “everything is really about romance” or “everything is really about breakups” or whatever and then look at aro-spec and ace-spec people like we're aliens and go “but like... how do you even live?” Newsflash, there is so much more to life than romance and love and sex. You can live an entire, very fulfilling, very meaningful, very thoughtful life without these things being at all relevant to you. That's not to dismiss those things as minor or unimportant - they are indeed very central to a lot of people's lives, and they're not “dumb” or “shallow” or whatever - but they're not central to everyone's lives, and they're hardly The Only Things In The World.

And if your response is something along the lines of “well OK there's a tiny minority of people who don't engage with romance and/or sex, or relate to it in the same way most people do, but that doesn't mean that romance isn't still at the core of humanity, or that all the most important things don't still have romance at their heart”, imagine telling a woman that “well, you can focus on a career if you want, but what's really fundamental to being a woman is being a wife and mother - in fact, motherhood is the most important thing in the world, it's fundamental to women, it's what all women's literature is about”. Or, hell, telling a person of any gender that “parenthood” is the central pillar of all of humanity and that every great work of art ever produced is ultimately about parenthood and obviously parenthood is fundamental to everyone's being - forgetting that actually some people will never be parents, and implying that their childlessness makes them less able to understand The Human Experience. That might give you some small idea of what it's like to be an aspec person and be repeatedly told that feelings you don't experience and relationships you don't have and attractions you don't relate to and acts you don't engage in are somehow Fundamental To Humanity and are what lie at The Core Of Everything: how excluding that is, how alienating that is, how oppressively stifling that is.

Feeling that love and/or romance and/or sex are very important to your own life is totally valid, but I wish alloromantics and allosexuals could be more capable of opening their minds and imagining and empathising with an existence for which these things aren't central. Our lives aren't lesser, or emptier, or sadder, or shallower for lack of romance or sex. Our experiences are part of The Human Experience. Our perspectives on art and life and relationships and philosophy and humanity and everything else are just as valid. We are just as capable of profundity, of creativity, of insight - because romance and sex aren't “at the core” of any of these things. We are here, and we're tired of being forgotten, ignored, sidelined, dismissed, erased, talked over, talked past. It would be great if society at large actually remembered we exist once in a while, and that our lives are just as beautiful and important as anyone else's.

[aplarotape]

shoutout to the reminder of The 14th of February showing up on our main's dash because now i know to filter some tags in advance because as someone who's apothiromantic and the current syshost. i don't want it being shoved down my throat if i can help it bc i struggle to leave front often and i know i'll be stuck fronting that day via negative fronting trigger lol

(i mean. what i'm concerned about the most is discord related solely bc i'm an oc fictive and whatnot but. it's the little things that count ig because i still wouldn't wanna personally have to constantly see it either way)

[celtrist]

This was a planned thing I had around the time I had this little rant (appreciate everyone who's bothered reading that thank you!)

Seeing as we have three canonically Asexual characters, I thought each of them having a different romantic orientation (and varying asexuality on the scale) would be fun and neat to show the variations to the orientations! But I was really stumped on Mammon since I was pretty set on Alastor and Octavia, but Mammon not being any form of aromantic didn't feel right, not terribly ooc, just definitely felt a bit more like "he's the leftovers" sort of thing when divvying up the romantic orientations. But lo and behold, the new episode of Helluva came out and helped solved that little quandrie. So here are my thoughts below on each!

Alastor (Loveless Aromantic) If you've seen my rant, you probably have a good idea why I labeled him as a "loveless aromantic" (meaning in this sense I'm talking about, he just wouldn't have any form of romantic affections or go into something like a QPR or the like). And I do genuinely think he would be! But I know there's A LOT of bias for Alastor NOT being aromantic (or at least open to some sort of relationship), and I will admit I might've been a bit biased here too! I've just seen a lot of love for only specific parts of the aro spectrum that "allows" Alastor to get with someone, and I wanted to give some love to the aro spectrum that gets little to no appreciation (plus I do just genuinely think he'd be this). If you don't agree, all is fair ദ്ദി（• ˕ •マ.ᐟ The point is, I realize I'm probably in the minority here. Plus, it's all a guessing game more or less until something is officially stated, which probably will never happen for any of these three.

Anyway, like I said, I just don't see Alastor really getting as close to anyone even as a QPR. At the VERY LEAST, not in a QPR that has a lot of romantic parts to it (kissing on the lips, cuddling, etc.). My man wouldn't have any interest in marriage or anything romantic, he's very happy on his own and probably gossips about OTHER people's love lives. Then again, he seemed pretty close to cracking when he heard Charlie ranting about her own love life... With that said, I do think he DOES like the company of others, he's VERY social after all. But actually, getting intimate with someone? Mmm, that doesn't feel right for him to me. A kiss on the cheek or PERHAPS a cuddle here and there at most, but nothing like bathing with someone or kissing with tongue. He's also a man of the roaring twenties, so you KNOW how he thinks about intimacies that might have no romantic/sexual connotations by themselves (like bathing with someone) are romantic on their own just because being that close to someone was seen that way in his time. Plus again, I just don't think he'd be interested in that stuff as is (potentially he could be both touch-starved and touch-aversed. And oh boy, wouldn't that be a conundrum!) On one hand, I like and can see Alastor being sex-repulsed, on the other I can also see him just feeling nothing towards it. Considering Angel's "advances" in both the first episode and the pilot, he does have a bit of a strong reaction towards sex, but nothing crazy either. I can see him being lukewarm to the subject (so he could read a book or read a script out loud with sex in it), but he could be repulsed when it actually INVOLVES HIM. I can definitely see him somewhat annoyed with the subject for how everywhere it is though.

Octavia (QPR Aromantic) It's a little hard to pinpoint, but I can personally see Octavia getting into a close QPR sooner than Alastor, but maaayybe only be a hair. Octavia could possibly get into a platonic relationship with someone that would have remnants of seeming romantic. I do think she's probably the most sex-repulsed of the three, if in part because of her father's inclinations that he doesn't seem to hide even when she's around. Honestly, I feel like we still haven't seen enough of her to get a good grasp on this aspect of her character in if she would be interested in getting as close as to a QPR with someone. But I'd certainly like to think so, because damn does our girl need it. Her falling into some sort of relationship would probably be hard seeing as how her parents' relationship was so awful. So she could be hesitant about doing something like that.

Mammon He was the big toughy! And while his advances on Leviathan might have been meant in a more platonic way or just for show to go against Ozzy's and Bee's romantic relations, I'm going with what's there! So Mammon seems like he could be straight or bi/pan. But I don't have a hard grasp on which so I'm tossing that in the air. I don't think he'd be sex-repulsed just because of how "sex makes money". Like, there's no question that sex appeal is a big part of business even if something isn't even that sexual. So while I think he's not largely interested in doing anything sexual, I can see him being okay or even lukewarm to the subject, maybe just not getting the appeal entirely. Maaaayybe he's sex-favorable? Of the three I would imagine he would be the most likely to be sex-favorable, but I dunno.

I like the idea of Octavia being the only one aware as to what her orientations are. Alastor is... well he's Alastor, and Mammon doesn't seem like he'd be too interested in the details of things. Just that "there's straight, gay, and the between area".

[lovelessrage]

I am once again humbly requesting that aros [although it's an everyone issue I especially see it with others aros] drop the direct link between aromanticism and enjoying platonic intimacy, being friending, wanting familial relationships, loving in other ways, and loving in general [because, reminder, you can be loveless and still have attractions]. It gets really aggravating to constantly see aro identity blanketed and compensated for with "softer" attractions. Not to mention how exclusionary it is to other aros around you.

Aros of all kinds deserve respect. If you value these things and want to share, absolutely do so! Do keep in mind, however, what you label as an "aro thing", and ask yourself if what you see as an "aro thing" is actually just being alloplatonic or allofamilial. It isn't a bad thing to prioritize friendship, family, or other relationships; it just isn't an "aro thing", it's a "your personal happiness".

[nekropsii]

Wild how when I call Shipping Culture oppressively pervasive and awful for any Aro/Ace with the gall to enjoy anything on the Internet, I get called a Fun-Hating Killjoy and told to just shut the fuck up or off myself, no matter how mild or polite my comment is. Wild how when I say a character either is textually Aro/Ace or is easier to read as Aro/Ace than Alloromantic/sexual, people start talking down to me like I'm a child who doesn't know anything, saying "Friendly reminder that Aro(s)/Aces can Date/Have Sex too, just like us Normal People!". As if I don't know anything about my own identity. Wild how when I do either of these things or even just say I'm not into a pairing or uninvested in shipping in general people call me fucking homophobic, even if the (at least popularly perceived - let's be honest, people are wrong half the time) genders of the characters is never once made relevant. Even though their reasoning for me being homophobic is lack of investment in a gay pairing they like, and nothing more. Wild how people throw little baby tantrums at even the gentlest criticism of Shipping Culture, or someone choosing not to engage heavily in it. Wild how they have the audacity to ask, with hostility, what the fuck Aro(s)/Aces are talking about when they say Shipping Culture is hostile to Aro/Ace fans, or ask what's wrong with them when they say that they aren't into Shipping.

It's almost like Bigots don't realize they're being Bigots when they do Bigotry, so just saying you're not a Bigot isn't enough. It's almost like Aro/Ace people know what the hell they're talking about. It's almost like we have a fucking point. It's almost like we're valid in expressing contempt and frustration with the constant expectation to engage with Romance and Sexuality at every waking moment, even if we're Romance and/or Sex Favorable. It's almost like we're tired of getting our identities erased, and we're tired of expecting to "act normal", and we're tired of just taking it when Allos use the Favorable members of our communities as a scapegoat for why they should be allowed to totally erase any of our representation just for their "Harmless Queer Fun" - deliberately, and I mean DELIBERATELY, failing to recognize or acknowledge the character's orientation, and how an A-Spec's personal relationship with and expressions of Love are going to look drastically different from an Allo person's - and call us the Bigots when we even glance in the direction of objection.

It's almost like Allo/Amatonormativity are oppressive forces.

Alloromantics/sexuals are constantly looking for any reason they can to call Aro(s)/Aces unloving, unfeeling, frigid, soulless, cruel. Inhuman. They're looking for any reason they can to call us whiny children, stupid, people who "just haven't found the right one", addressing us only as "Works in Progress", or someone who can have their sexuality corrected with the right stimulus - Conversion Therapy and Corrective Rape are okay when it happens to us, after all. Any reason at all to call us heartless monsters. AlloAces are confused children. They can be fixed. AroAllos are manipulative, unfeeling sexual predators. They can't be fixed - just kill them. AroAces are frigid, mean bitches. They can be fixed. God forbid you're Aplatonic. God forbid you're part of the Repulsed spectrum. God forbid you're one of the Loveless. God forbid you hold any pride in your identity, God forbid you don't keep your mouth shut, God forbid you critique the overinflated importance Allos place onto Love as a concept. God forbid you critique something as asinine and juvenile as fucking Shipping Culture. Do any one of these and you've put a bright red, blazing neon target on your back.

Wild how the only real humans amongst us are the Romance, Sex, and Friendship Favorable who put their head down and mask as Allo, and side with the Allos when their fellow A-Specs get too loud for the comfort of their Allo friend's delicate little fee-fees. After all, Vitriol and Harassment are warranted when an Allo's feelings get slightly hurt that an Aro person says, on their own account, to no one in particular, that they're sick of every tag being 80% Shipping Content. Which is a vehemently evil personal attack, clearly.

Wild.

[creation-help]

The more I engage with the aro community online, the more I feel that we just need.

More.

There's so many different flavors of aromantic and what that means for each person and it's sad to see infighting over what is and isn't valid representation and my advice to upcoming creators is to just.

More. Have more.

Aros who partner Aros who don't, Aros who like sex, aroaces, loveless Aros, loving Aros, Aros who focus on non romantic relationships instead Aros who focus on no relationships and find their own thing. All kinds. The microlabels too - did you even know of some of them? I bet you didn't. There's aromantic people who feel rom attraction only if it's reciprocated and vice versa! There's Aros who can't tell the difference between different types of attraction and so don't label anything. There's aros who only feel attracted after forming a deep bond. Who only rarely feel attraction. Or only under specific circumstances. There's so much variety in aromantic world. Have more representation. Just more.

I'd honestly say this for almost any type of minority rep (though there are nuances to approaching it). Bc when you have more, it's not so much pressure on getting it quote on quote "Right" at once and all your rep isn't riding on one character. Variety is always good. It avoids tokenization and coming across stereotypical

[prototypesteve]

You are your visibility. I know that’s unfair.

Representation matters but representation isn't the end or the beginning.

You can't just post 1,000 Alastor memes and expect banks to make fair mortgages for single people, or expect care professionals to stop trying to cure asexuality.

Representation takes time to execute.

TV seasons take longer to develop than they used to. Books take time to write. Character arcs can take years to play out.

Representation can be deliberately or accidentally misinterpreted.

“So asexuality is when you're bi or gay, but sex-averse? That's what I think I saw in that Heartstopper episode you sent me when Isaac kissed the guy.”

Representation can be deliberately ignored.

“I've never heard of that. I've never seen that in real life.”

Representation can be maliciously dismissed.

“This is a thousand people on the internet telling themselves they're a real thing.”

Representation is a right-place-right-time-right-platform lottery.

“I don't have Netflix or Prime. Never heard of this Has Been Hotel or Heart Starter. I did get that copy of Loveless you sent me, but I've got 17 books ahead of it in my queue.”

Representation can't be exhaustive.

The demisexuals and the aro-allos, and the GenX aces who took decades to discover asexuality was even an option, and the hundred other nuanced expressions of aspec identity that I deliberately didn’t represent here are all sifting through the catalog of ace representation and implied aro representation, looking for something… any evidence they exist.

Representation matters but representation isn't the end or the beginning.

We also need boring old education, advocacy, and presence. You have to keep talking. You have to keep explaining. You have to keep being there in front of real people, with your real life that erodes their bullshit-takes on aromanticism and asexuality.

You are your visibility. I know that’s unfair.

It was unfair for every misrepresented equity-seeking community. The good news is many of those equity-seeking communities have paved the way for us. They taught advocates how to listen, and how to lend their advocacy as long as we’re out there to be listened to, and not waiting around for a critical mass of representation.

[genderqueerdykes]

in honor of aromantic spectrum awareness week, i thought i'd take the time to talk about how much my personal life and feelings improved after coming to terms with the fact that i'm aromantic. before i accepted this, i found myself in several romantic relationships where i was deeply unhappy, uncomfortable, and made to feel like i wasn't a good enough partner because i just couldn't do or feel certain things.

i've never enjoyed kissing, and cuddling gets uncomfortable for me within the first few minutes of doing so. even hugs are deeply uncomfortable to me unless i really know and care about someone, and even then, hugs only come when that person asks for them. it never occurs to me to touch people this way, the most you'll get out of me is a pat on the shoulder, back or knee.

i ended up dating several people who were very much romantics, and heavily focused on that aspect of our relationship. it kind of felt like torture to me, i felt like i was being forced to live every day like it was Valentine's Day- every day had to be filled with hours of cuddling, kissing, and telling the other person how much i loved them. while not all romantic partners are like this, it wore on my psyche quickly to be paired with folks like this, because i understood how important it was to them, but i just couldn't keep up the performance.

i thought something was "wrong" with me for years and that i just wasn't in touch with my emotions, or that i was somehow embracing some toxic aspects of my masculinity without realizing. it took me ages to remember that i came out as aromantic when i was much younger, but after criticism from my friends, including a friend who was asexual, i stopped identifying with the label, because i was told that aromanticism wasn't real, and that that just made me an asshole.

nearly a decade and several uncomfortable romantic relationships later, it finally clicked that there wasn't something wrong with me, but there was something wrong with the situations i was getting myself into. sure, i love being partnered- i have a queerplatonic partner that i've known for a decade and have only gotten closer to over time. but we've never been romantic. we don't exchange romantic platitudes, and i realized; i've never been happier with someone else than i am with this person.

why is that?

oh. because they don't expect romance from me. they are also on the aspectrum and don't have a romantic partner, either.

this relationship has brought me more joy than any romantic partnership i've ever attempted to pursue. that doesn't mean there's something wrong with me- i was just looking for happiness in the wrong places. i was miserable not because i'm aromantic, but because i was getting into romantic relationships.

romance can be a source of misery. romance does not inherently make everyone happy. we are not all looking for romance as a species. in fact, chasing it makes many people miserable. too many people spend their lives looking for "the one" that they can kiss, cuddle, hold and say all of those mushy things to when they may not even want that to begin with.

i've never been more at peace with myself since finally, fully accepting that i'm aromantic. i love who i am, and i love how i love. i am not loveless, i experience platonic, queerplatonic and other forms of love. but loveless aromantics aren't miserable, either. we are all embracing ourselves in a way that's true to us. we are refusing to warp ourselves to a society that tells us that we all must have homogeneous feelings.

i am aromantic. i am here. my aromanticism is queer in a society that expects and demands romance of me, and this is true of all aromantics, cis, trans, gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, and otherwise. we are here, we are not going away any time soon, and we will not be silent because our identities make some people uncomfortable. we are happiest being who we are.

happy aro week, this goes out to every last arospectrum person out there, appreciate yourselves this week. you deserve it.

[aromanticmina]

The 5 common questions people have about aplatonics

so, I've seen so many blogs on the aplatonic tag having to answer the same questions over and over again, so I figured I could make a list so that people can have an easier time getting to the answers they are looking for! (and apl people can just link back to this post if they're asked one of this questions, if they want to)

What does aplatonic mean?

Aplatonic is a term that refers to the lack of (or experiencing little) platonic attraction or platonic love, it can also mean having trouble forming platonic relationships due to trauma or being neurodivergent.

2. Does that mean aplatonic people don't have friends?

Not necessarily, there are aplatonic people who don't (desire to) have friends or wouldn't label any relationship they have as friendship (even though, to an outsider, some would seem as one), for numbers of reasons.

However, there are some aplatonic people who do have friends, but they're not really close to them/don't feel love for them.

love and care are different things, you can care for someone and want the best for them even when you're not close enough to them to love them.

3. But if aplatonic people don't have friends, does that mean they don't socialize with anyone?

Nope! friendships aren't the only way you can socialize with people. Family, classmates, coworkers, lovers, neighbors, those are all people you have have nice conversations with!

4. Are all aplatonics also aromantic?

Not all of them, while it's true that there are a lot of people who are both aro and apl (see: me), there are aplatonics who are alloromantic (feel romantic attraction) or just don't label their romantic orientation.

(fun fact, the original coiner of the aplatonic label is an alloromantic asexual!)

5. Are all aplatonics also loveless?

Again, not all of them, there is a great overlap between the aplatonic and loveless community (shout out to my loveless apls!), but not all aplatonics identify as loveless.

Some love in a romantic way, familiar way, alterous way (if you don't know what alterous attraction is, I recommend looking it up!) or just in a completely unique but ultimately queer way (hi, it's me, I'm lovequeer).

I still don't really get it...

That's okay, you don't have to understand something to respect it, if you're still curious and want to learn more about us, there are multiple blogs on the #aplatonic tag sharing their different experiences with aplatonicism, you just have to know where to look!

And remember! the Aspec includes the aplatonic spectrum, you can't say you support aspecs if you don't support aplatonic people as well!

[aromanticasexualandppop]

I hate that in the place I am from, the PHILIPPINES, some of them do know what aromanticism is but the first thing they say is that "aromantic people can still get into romantic relationships"

Tell me, why did I just pass a TikTok saying that it's over for them because their crush told them they're aroace after they confessed but the comment section is filled with "maybe you still have a chance! some aros can still fall in love! try again! ask him again!"

Of course, this is in no way invalidating that demiromantics and grayromantics and anyone else under the aro spectrum exists. But like isn't the whole point of being labeled aromantic is that person doesn't feel romantic attraction? Like if you don't have basic understanding of the sexuality, you'd at least understand that it means not having romantic desire or something because it's literally "a" (having none)+ "romantic," but the first thing you say is completely opposite of that? Especially since the OP said that the person they confessed to turned them down?

I'm sorry if this comes off offensive to others especially in the aromantic spectrum (well, to be fair, I fluctuate between sapphic aroace and loveless aroace). But it just makes you realize and UTTERLY dread that this world is so catered towards romance. At the very least, PLEASE. DO NOT assume aromantic people's identities or place in spectrum unless they EXPLICITLY said so because it just comes off as INVALIDATING and COMPENSATORY.

[unnecessarilygrandiose]

this is something important about heartstopper that i think needs to be said, to aspec people specifically:

please be kind to isaac and the aroace representation we'll get come thursday.

aroace rep is something we get very rarely, especially on the screen. i can think of exactly two shows with aroace characters, and one of them is heartstopper. so it's not unfair of us to hope that we each get to see our experience represented in isaac.

but like. that's simply not going to happen.

isaac is one character. he can only represent one kind of experience about what being aroace entails. and every single aspec person has had a different experience with realising their identity and coming to terms with it. everyone has a different relationship with the complexities of their sexuality and labels.

and y'know, it could be disappointing to expect something from a character you thought was representing you and see them be something very different. hell, i can bet anything that at least a few aspec people will be completely disillusioned with whatever we'll get.

but 'i didn't like this' doesn't automatically mean 'it was bad'. maybe it means that 'this didn't represent me, which was sad, but it did represent some people, and it was a cornerstone in aroace representation in mainstream media as a whole, which is good.'

(i mean, i'm not saying there's a zero chance it'll be objectively bad and harmful rep, but the chance of that is extremely low, since alice is aroace themself. also, loveless is an amazing book)

i feel compelled to say this because we know that it's going to be a while before isaac is comfortable with his identity, which can be upsetting to watch because the 'you can't be happy without romance and whole without sex' is pushed pretty hard onto us on a regular basis, and there's this sort of defensiveness where we kind of want any fictional aroace characters to be immediately accepting of themself because no, we're actually very happy and completely whole without those things, thank you very much. this was the main criticism of loveless by many aspec people— that it didn't represent them because georgia struggled so much with her identity.

but. just because you personally didn't have to face that (and good for you!) doesn't mean it's not a very real experience many aroace people go through every day.

just because our first mainstream media rep of being aroace isn't an easy, feel good story, doesn't mean it's not important.

be as disappointed with isaac as you want if he doesn't represent you—but please still be kind to him. if we're too harsh in our criticism, the creators who worked on this story might feel discouraged from creating more aroace characters and stories.

more aspec rep, especially aro and aroace rep, is important! more rep means more variety! it means a greater chance of all of us finding stories we love and resonate to! but if we don't get everything we want the first time, please let's not call it bad and demotivate the very people who can give us more.

[furst1ded]

Thoughts on Shipping Alastor from an AroAce person

(this entire thing is copy and pasted excerpts from a Discord rant so if the grammar is funky, that's why, I just felt like giving my 2 cents on the topic)

Aroace people can still participate in romantic and sexual interactions. All being aro/ace/aroace means is you don't feel romantic/sexual attraction upon seeing other people. You can feel it later on or in waves or could never feel that attraction but still can participate and love others in a fulfilling way. Some aroace people are fine performing intimacy onto others but dislike reciprocation, others are the opposite where they're fine receiving but not giving. It's a spectrum.

The nuances of asexuality and aromanticism aside, you can be in a relationship without being in a relationship. Platonic relationships beyond friendship are a thing (QPRs for example). But like, I get it. Not everyone who ships Alastor keeps it confined to a QPR. And his character seems pretty sex-repulsed and romance-averse. But here's the other thing. He's fictional. As long as his character remains aroace in canon, fans taking the silly radio man and making him kiss the devil isn't taking away from aroace representation.

This next bit is coming from me as an AroAce person myself. I ship Alastor. I write/read him kissing people and fucking and acting romantic. And guess what? It's related to expressing my sexuality. Alastor is one of my favorite characters in anything ever and I love that there's a character that represents a facet of myself in a popular media. I relate to him so goddamn much and that's why I ship him. He's a fictional character I like that I project onto, so I use him as a way to navigate and explore romantic/sexual relationships that I'm never going to participate in myself. He's not real so I just puppet him around to live through vicariously in the scenarios I don't want to be a part of myself but find super interesting. It's not anything new, I do the same with my own characters in the stories I write them in, it's part of storytelling, I just use him for a specific type of story for a specfic part of myself.

It's not like we're hurting anybody by shipping him. We're not drastically effecting canon and making him an alloromantic. I've seen plenty of fics that ship him that either make it a QPR or they thoroughly explore the nuances of his asexuality and what subtype of sexuality he is and how he navigates it and I love those fics because they speak to me on a spiritual level. Grayromantic Alastor, demisexual alastor, sex-repulsed but romance-favorable Alastor, sex-repulsed and romance-averse Alastor in a one-sided ship fic, etc they're all so important to me because it helps me live out my own sexuality and romantic orientation and explore myself.

I get it. Not everyone is respectful. Not everyone feels the way I do and use characters in this way. It can suck seeing people just ignore his sexuality when asexuals and aromantics don't get much in terms of screen-time. But you can't control everybody and what work they put out. And trying to censor stuff like that does more harm than good. I just explained why fics involving Alastor are so important to me. They normalize QPRs and aroaces being in relationships. That's probably what pisses me off the fucking most. If we're not allowed to write about aroaces being in relationships or romantic/sexual situations, you put aroaces into a box. A box where every aroace is perceived as sexless and loveless, which just isn't true. A box where aroaces are prudes or infants who can't handle hearing the word "sex". It's just so frustrating. You can be mad at fics that expressly rewrite or stomp on his sexuality, sure. You can't stop them, but you can disapprove of them. But let the rest of us have our fun making the literal devil and TV head man have the hots for a man whose teeth are yellower than the sun, Jesus Christ.

TL;DR: asexuality is a spectrum, I'm aroace and use shipping as a way to explore and express myself and I know I'm not the only one, trying to suppress works where an Aroace character is seen participating in romance or sex can actually be harmful in that it promotes only one idea of what being aroace is, and at the end of the day the character I'm talking about doesn't even exist.