#in any other context I’d wholeheartedly agree with ur hc it’s really interesting to me

[sontrini]

Hi! I wanted to apologize for the ask I sent earlier. I was talking about headcanons for Michael Afton, and said that I didn’t think he liked being called “Mikey”. I’m sorry, I was being rude and didn’t realize that was something you called him. I should have checked before and I didn’t, and that’s my mistake. Your headcanons for Michael are wonderful and I didn’t mean to come across as if I don’t think so.

Hi anon! I’m working on answering the ask you’re talking about but I figured I’d answer this to ease ur mind lol. It’s no problem! If anything I really like your head canon on how he feels about being called Mikey. I never took any offense to it in any way, don’t worry! :)

[pundeserving]

tell me about aro reigen and ritsu pls i'm interested in ur take owo

Oh yes bless lol okay. So I’ve never really done any sort of meta writing or whatever, but this topic really interests me and I wanted to kind of look back and figure out why exactly I gravitated towards those two as being aro (as opposed to other characters) 

And the interesting thing is, despite acting totally different and having such varied personalities I can still totally see both of them sharing this trait. Maybe it’s because they both kind of subvert the typical… expectations of aromanticism? I guess (honestly there’s not actually any typical expectations because there’s hardly any actual representation, but that’s… another issue)?

I’ll put the rest under a read more because it got a little long!

First of all, we have these two characters who are seen as conventionally attractive and “popular with the ladies” 

Students at Ritsu’s school clearly have a high opinion of him and think he’s handsome. Presumably, he gets a similar amount of attention that Teru seems to (minus the psychic powers). But while Teru takes advantage of the girls who find him attractive and seems to date around before he meets Mob, Ritsu never seems interested in pursuing any relationships like that. In fact, he doesn’t seem all that concerned with Anything outside of his desire to have powers like his brother. Romance isn’t even a blip on his radar. 

Of course, while Ritsu makes his apathy towards popularity apparent, that doesn’t mean he thinks it’s necessarily a waste. When he sees that Mob is “becoming popular” (and thus sees how happy his brother is) he’s excited for him. Sure, he doesn’t get the hype, but he supports Mob wholeheartedly. This isn’t exactly relevant, but uh it’s cute lol 

Another big characteristic of Ritsu’s is his detachment to his childhood. Everyone seems to find him to be a paramount of maturity and responsibility, and he himself is no exception. While talking about other middle schoolers, he seems to distance himself. Certainly He isn’t the emotional one, he never acts rash (ha ha)

It definitely wouldn’t surprise me if he considered crushes and romance to be… somewhat childish or a waste of time. He has bigger fish to fry or maybe bigger spoons to bend. 

And sure, anyone can make the argument that he’s just not interested in girls, or is too young to think seriously about romance, which is fine (honestly Ritsu and Shou would be a hilarious/chaotic disaster couple and I’m all for it), but I also like the contrast of Ritsu’s narrative arc to his brother’s. Assuming that he feels no romantic attraction at all is such a good antithesis to Mob’s crush on Tsubomi and how his dreams of love fuel basically his entire story. 

That brings us to Reigen and oh boy. Just like Ritsu, he’s also seen as a handsome character (in universe. irl it’s a debate, but ONE seemed to design Reigen as more attractive than other characters so I’ll go by that) (Also, Serizawa agrees)

Now, Reigen’s a bit of a different case than Ritsu. He’s a bit older, and at a point in his life where he’s definitely more expected to be settling down. On his birthday, his mother even sends him an email asking what the deal is

(thanks, mom)

During the separation arc, we get a look at Reigen’s personal life. Up until this point it is only speculation of what kind of shady things he gets up to when Mob isn’t around, but we see very quickly that Reigen is… lonely. Unlike Ritsu, he isn’t admired by peers his own age, and he doesn’t have any friends. He comes to terms with this fact pretty roughly, but decides to venture on in his career alone. Reigen’s loneliness could just be attributed to him not hanging out with anybody outside of work (since his only employee is 14). But, being aro, one of the most prevalent downsides is a sort of hollowness felt when people you’re close to move on in their lives, finding partners, getting married, moving in together and spending time with each other. Romantic relationships take priority over friendships so I don’t think it’s unfair to say loneliness is something a lot of aros experience to some degree. 

Personally, in the context of Reigen not feeling romantic attraction and not being “normal” and settling down like society thinks he should, the “What am I?” really strikes… I don’t know, but something. 

On a lighter note, though, there are some instances where Reigen just seems flat out oblivious about love. It can be played off for small laughs, but knowing how suave and knowledgeable about things Reigen usually is, it’s actually even more hilarious and even more proof this guy wouldn’t know romance if it hit him in the face. From googling basic, childish advice for how to confess feelings, to offering “love consultations” in the form of having people fill out what’s most likely some sort of Cosmo teen girl who-should-you-date questionnaire, he’s definitely not the first person I’d go to for any serious relationship advice. 

I’m sure if I actually dug deeper I could find more examples of both Reigen and Ritsu showing off characteristics of being aro/ace, these were just a few things I remembered or found in a quick skim of a few chapters of the manga. These are just my personal headcanons, but I still love all of the other lgbt hcs that people have for these characters! Hopefully this was at least a little bit coherent, I’m not always the best at getting thoughts out in an intelligible way lol