#quoiromantics got a special place in my heart still

[arodabi]

So many people talk about all the labels they had to go through and how long it took them to figure everything out and it’s just so different to my experience bc i basically went cishet > cisace (bi/pan???) > nb (demigirl?????) quoiroace > agender aroace

There were times where i considered lables like pan and demigirl but i was never super confident in them and never identified with them ig. The only time i ided as smthn that i wasn’t was when i used arospec lables bc i was still coming to terms with being aro and those really helped me dip my feet in so to say, and when i ided as just nb. Like technically i still am but i like agender as a lable Way More than nb

[grin-and-fox-it]

yoo I got tagged by @neurofish thank you so much bud!!!

name:

Too many names? At this point I don’t really have a single name anymore. It’s weird but I don’t mind it? Fits my flip floppy identity well enough.

nicknames:

lmfao wowee there’s a bunch [stars counting on fingers] Nar, Narz, Lost, Casey, Salt, Spiral, Forest, Grin, Echo (and that’s not even all of them)

gender:

mmmmm masculine nonbinary sums it up well enough

starsign:

pisces I’m pretty sure

height:

5′7 last I checked but I still wish I was taller

orientation:

quoiromantic / demiromantic / omnisexual / really gay?????

Meaning, I have next to no idea if I’m romantically attached to someone or not. The entire attachment thing is very confusing for me, personally. I can only be romantically or sexually interested in incredibly close people I’ve known for actual years. Would bang any gender and just about anything, even (fantasy wise) non-human entities. Sadly though, sexual arousal almost entirely attached to fiction exploration and has next to no reaction in real life sexual scenarios unless I’m doing something to hurt myself by taking sexual risks. Would all around prefer to just not have sex majority of the time. Can only really derive pleasure from BDSM acts but even then cumming isn’t really something that occurs for me even in those extreme scenarios. Sexually stunted?

hogwarts house:

Ravenclaw, I believe

favorite color:

I adore purples, especially red shade mixed purples. A huge fan of brown tones, oranges, greens, and silver color shades. Dusty golds are a lovely aesthetic too when mixed with reds, browns, and blacks.

favorite color to paint the walls

usually light shades of green the brighter wall colors help the room feel sunnier since the tones of my living spaces quickly impact my mood swings, the brighter the room the easier it is for me to stay in an upbeat mindset

favorite color of lipstick:

eeehhhhhhh I don’t wear lipstick but I do sparkle lip-gloss sometimes

favorite animal

if we’re talkin’ about non-extinct, non-fantasy animals then I’d say.. hm

jeeze there’s a lot of these but........ foxes, fossas, genets, horses, tapirs, jellyfish, skunks, porcupines, crocodiles, leopard seals, cheetahs, tigers, german shepherds, greater kudu, elephants, sea turtles

time right now:

7:23am

cat or dog person

I used to say dog person but..??? I have this thing with smells because I can be fairly cleaning intense? Dogs always seem to be smelly. I’m almost tempted to say cats? But I love the excitable companionship dogs can give you

favorite fictional character

Almost the entire Hunter X Hunter, I’m not even exaggerating either, ha. (Gon, Killua, Alluka, Kurapika, Netero, Komugi, Meruem, Kite, Morel, Knuckle, Knov, Hisoka, Neferpitou, Bisky, Melody, Colt, Welfin, Palm, Canary, Gotoh, Tsubone, Squala, Ikalgo, and the entire Phantom Troupe.) 

The whole One Piece Strawhat crew plus Whitebeard / Edward Newgate, Smoker, Law, both of Luffy’s brothers, and Caesar Clown.

The whole main cast of Gravity Falls? Both the older Stan brothers, Mabel, Dipper, Bill Cipher, Soos, and Wendy.

There’s more but I’d go on rambling for ages about shows I’m not as hyper about at this current point in time. v__v;;

number of blankets I sleep with

around three but I roll around so much everything gets tossed off lol

favorite singer/band:

Shinedown (ever since I was a kid; they hold a special place in my heart)

dream trip:

I’m so unenthusiastic about the real world uuuhhh...... Traveling in general? A trip to Italy might be nice?

dream job

well, my gal and I are discussing starting up a game program with her brother Joe so we’ll see how that turns out

Dream job would likely be something in the botany field, a marine biologist, working with animal rehabilitation, or a groomer job??

when this blog was created:

oof I really do not remember I could guess two years but that’s very likely way off base

when did your blog reach its peak:

[insert shrug emote here]

what made you decide to get a tumblr:

you know.... I don’t really remember actually uuhh...... huh

wow I literally have no idea why I started an account to begin with

why did you pick your url:

It’s a play on the phrase “grin and bear it”. Especially with the tie in for the fox known in legends for putting up a smiling front to fool. Basically because I often feel my life can be summed up in the whole thought of: Well, okay. That sucks. This sucks too. Huh. Oh well. People need you to be happy. You have to function or else. Grin and bear it or else you might as well give up already.

last movie you watched

I watched The Raid with Andi recently and I watched Mirrormask with Quinn a few days ago. o:

last song you listened to:

I’ll be honest, I’ve been switching back and forth from this Meruem “Hail To The King” AMV and back to this Killua “The Legend of Godspeed” False Flag AMV since 2am so................ I remind you it’s almost 8am now as I type this lol

last book you read:

Err, does fanfiction count? >_>;;; [cough]

last thing you ate:

an almond joy candy bar

if you could be anywhere right now where would you be:

..... Probably far away somewhere spending time with Quinn maybe. Right now that feels like a comfort thought. [shrugs] It’s been a crappy night. Unless we’re counting fantasy insert escapism? Then I’d be in sooo maanny places.

what time would you travel to:

I’m not really sure what this question is asking?? You mean, if I could go back in time? Eh, probably not.

what fictional character would you hang out with for a day:

I....................... Huh. Just one.... Uh. Um......... Maybe the 9th Doctor?

@blackenedmoss  @witchlockmonsterfox  @freepudn  @nlhil  @bpdzoldyck  @patch-of-shore @grovyle  @paradoxsys  @northernmockingbird  @altairrr  @akaia  @hyposensitivity

Tagging majority of the peeps who pop to mind. Anyone else who’s interested is free to pick this up if they want to~!

[arodabi]

Whats an aromantic flag and why you should include it in your pride posts

disclaimer: i know theres fighting every year about who should and shouldn’t be included in pride posts, this isn’t to argue with people who just hate aspec ppl, this is an informational post. don’t send me bullshit about it

Why should you include aro flags?

many people believe that aromanticism is covered under the asexual flag, so if they include that they’re including aros, however that’s not the case. aro and ace people share the aspec community, but one identity does not fall under the other. It’s less like using the trans flag as an umbrella for all trans and nonbinary people even if there’s a separate nonbinary flag, and more like using the transmasc pride flag to represent all transmascs and transfems. Aros are just not covered under the ace flag because both groups are separate identities. people can be aro and ace but not all aros are ace.

aro is also an incredibly important identity for a lot of people, something we take a lot of pride in. we get relegated to “minor or add on identity” all the time because people keep thinking of us as the -romantic version of asexual. we have multiple terms, multiple flags, and a huge array of different aro experiences, we are not a subset of asexuality and many of us wish for that to be more respected.

last on the reasons of why you should include aros in pride posts is that we have no larger umbrella flag, unless we’re counting the rainbow flag. the aro flag is the umbrella flag for arospec identities. if you don’t include it then we aren’t being included. and this isn’t me telling you you have to include an aro option for everything you make (tho that would be nice) ppl have the right to choose what flags they want to include. but theres been many times when i see people add  flags representing all parts of the community except aro, and then add on smaller more niche flags. i don’t want this to come across as another post like “how dare you include X flag but not Y flag!!!” because i think everyone should have the joy of representation, i just think many people don’t realize they’re even leaving aros out. either through lack of awareness or lack of knowledge on what the aro flag actually is, and that’s what i wanna help with this post.

What even is the aro flag?

Let’s start with what it’s not:

[ID: a flag with four horizontal stripes. from the top down they are green, yellow, orange and black. End ID]

This was the first proposed aro flag. We do not use it anymore for a couple reasons, the main one is that it resembled another countries flag too closely and was getting confused. I’d think this one would have died out by now but i literally just saw a post include it today.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, yellow, grey, and black. End ID]

This was the second popular aro flag. It is very close to the main aro flag now except the middle stripe is yellow. That stripe was changed due to causing some people sensory problems. This one is sometimes still accidentally used, probably because it looks very close to the main flag, but it’s not the main aro flag either.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are black, grey, white, light green, and dark green. End ID]

I’ve actually seen this flag used a lot by people not very knowledgeable about aros. This is a flipped version of the aro flag. I also for the life of me can’t find an example of this but i’ve seen more than once a version that is flipped and removes a stripe of green so it looks like a recolored ace flag. These are pretty common, enough for me to have seen multiple people selling merch with this incorrect flag. I think it comes from people thinking the aro flag is the same as the ace one which does start with black at the top and has only four stripes.

[ID: A flag with seven horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are black, grey, white, green, white, grey, and black. End ID]

Yeah, this is the agender flag, not the aro flag. I see these get mixed up all the time. It’s not hard so see why with similar colors and a white grey black gradient, but as someone who is agender and aro, it kinda gets on my nerves when people mix these up. Also no this is not the same color palette as the aro flag. I’ve seen people make designs labeled as agender/aromantic that just use the agender color palette. The aro flag has two greens and they’re both different than the agender green.

[ID: Two flags next to each other. The first one has five horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are orange, light orange, white, light blue, dark blue. The second flag has eight horizontal stripes. from top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, white, grey, black, grey, white, and purple. End ID]

These are two common aroace flag designs. These flags are used by a lot of people and you might see them included in pride posts. These are good flags, however, they should not be used to represent all aros. Including an aroace flag does not mean you’re including all aros and all aces, it means you’re including just aroaces. There’s plenty of aros who aren’t ace and aces who aren’t aro. It’d be like putting a gay trans flag in a post and saying its there to represent all gay and all trans people, when the flag is usually used to represent only people who are both gay and trans. Again, these flags are not bad, and them being included in pride posts is good actually, but they should not be used to represent all aro and all ace people.

Now let’s go over what actually is the aro flag:

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, white, grey, and black. End ID]

This is the main aro flag. It’s the one most widely used and recognized. The color meanings are dark green and light green representing the spectrum of aro identities, white meaning friendship, and grey and black representing the spectrum of sexual identities in the aro community.

But wait there’s more!

The aro identity is a spectrum, meaning theres more identities under aromantic, and they have their own flags too. If you really wanna go wild and include some other aro flags heres some more. (this is not a full list of all arospec identities, just some i see around the most. feel free to look into more arospec identities and flags! also all of these definitions are coming from me and my personal knowledge of aro identities, i do not identify as any of these though, only as aromantic, so if i give the wrong definition please tell me so i can fix it!)

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are dark green, light green, white, yellow, and dark yellow. End ID]

This is the alloaro flag. Alloaros are aros who aren’t ace. They deserve more support and attention because they’re really amazing members of the aro community.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are dark green, grey, white, grey, and dark green. End ID]

This is the greyromantic flag. Greyromantic means someone who feels romantic attraction rarely. The term greyromantic is also sometimes used to mean aro identities that still feel some form of romantic attraction.

[ID: A flag with four horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are black, green, aqua, and grey. End ID]

the quoiromantic or WTFromantic flag. It means someone who can’t or doesn’t want to tell the difference between platonic and romantic attraction basically. It’s got a special place in my heart bc i used to id as quoi.

[ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. From top to bottom the colors are red orange, orange, yellow, white, and black. End ID]

This is the Lithromantic flag. Lithromantic means someone who feels romantic attraction but doesn’t want it reciprocated, or may no longer feel romantic attraction when it is reciprocated.

[ID: A flag with a black, sideways triangle on the left side pointing right and three horizontal stripes. The first stripe from the top is a thick white stripe, the next stripe is thin and dark green, and the bottom stripe is thick and grey. End ID]

The demiromantic flag. Someone who is demiro doesn’t feel romantic attraction until they have formed a deep emotional connection with someone.

And there’s many more arospec identities!

I hope i’ve helped to clear up some misconceptions about aros and our flags! We’re not under the ace umbrella, we’re our own community. We all have different experiences, different relationships to our identity, and I hope to see more people represent aros this year!

Have a happy pride month!