#romance neutral aro culture

[recipromantic-culture-is]

Recipromantic culture is being strictly romance neutral aro before someone you're close with asks you out, and the feelings(tm) hit like a truck

(I literally just figured this shit out today, I'm still having heart palpitations)

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[charmixpower]

Here's a version with no bg! And under the cut imma explain my hcs!

Going in order;

Tecna: Nonbinary Flag cape, Aro and Ace belt clips, Transfeminine pin, and Autism pin

Tecna doesn't really care about figuring out what her exact gender is because that doesn't affect the happiness she experiences in her life so she uses the macro label of Nonbinary and Transfeminine, and was very happy simply socially transitioning to being more feminine

She uses She/He/They pronouns, and doesn't actually care which one people use for her. Since magic is a very female dominant field and because she's transfeminine most people just assume she only uses she/her and she honestly doesn't care enough to correct them

She experiences no type of attraction, but isn't repulsed. She's completely neutral but is very much interested in not participating

She's very autistic. She experiences shut downs, takes things very literally, is like aggressive sincere bc not doing that never occurred to her, can't read others emotions to save her life—people on Zenith usually keep to themselves and have a extremely straightforward culture that very autism friendly so Tecna never noticed she was different until she left

Aisha: Lesbian Flag, Demi aro ace pin, and that's the Pride flag in her bag

Aisha is exclusively attracted to women and only experiences attraction after knowing someone well. Additionally, Demi people have different amounts of time for when they feel attraction and for Aisha they have to be at the very least good friends before any attraction can develop

Musa: Bisexual jacket

Musa is bisexual with a preference for men. She figured out she was bisexual after watching the world's shittest romance movie and wished she was dating both of them. She is the most disastrous of bisexuals. Shes never had a crush on a normal person, that or it's another straight girl. Someone pray for her

Bloom: Omni Flag cape, and Autism pin

Had a friend describe Omni as being between Pan and Bi, where gender plays a role but not as big and it really fitt the way I see Bloom so here. Bloom experiences attraction differently based on gender but has no preference, so she's Omni. I genuinely think Bloom would like and use micro labels, she just comes off to me as a "I need to find the perfect word to decide my experience" girlie

Bloom's autism is all in the sensitivity, being easily overwhelmed and wanting to process in a safe place, complete lack of understanding of danger, and huge special interest baybeee. Also her complete inability to express empathy without filtering it though her own life experience but eventually she figures out how to just express empathy and sympathy without doing that XD

Stella: Pan dress, ADHD purse, and three different Polyamorous pins

Stella is pan "because I can't deny any gender a shot" - Stella of Solaria

That's a real quote. She told me herself. Yeah but she's pan and thinks everyone is hot. Shes our Combined type ADHD queen. Bow down. The three different polyam pins are because there're two different popular flags, the most common really ugly one and the redesign so I used both so people would understand and the new polyam symbol. If she and Brandon met someone they wanted to date there would be no question if they tried to bring them into the relationship. Only when

Flora: Bisexual dress, Pride belt, and Pride earrings

Flora is bisexual with a preference for women. She has no clue she was into men for a little while, primarily bc she finds femininity the most attractive so it was until she saw a gnc guy and couldn't stop staring that she realized she was bisexual. The distinguished bisexual to Musa's utter disaster

[aro-culture-is]

Aro culture is figuring out you're Aromantic and finally being comfortable with your romantic orientation, then immediately afterwards having feelings for a fictional character while not being able to properly feel, process, convey or understand romance as a concept, leading you to start questioning again, only to find out you're still Aro; you're just romance-neutral and are completely valid.

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[aspecpplarebeautiful]

Hey, i read a lot of romance and I date a lot, at college I made out with boys at parties, and now I'm two-ish months into dating someone. But I think I'm just chasing a feeling that I'm never going to have, and I broke up with someone last summer because of it and I think I'm going to have to do it again and it's just shit, why can't I have that feeling. I don't even know what it is that I'm missing, but it just feels empty, like I'm going through the motions. But maybe it's my antidepressants... Or maybe the guy just isn't right...

I don't know how to be, and I thought I would have figured it out by now. How can I just string this guy along knowing this

We live in a culture that tells us that we're supposed to want certain things to be happy, including a long term romantic relationship. The reality is is that people are actually really diverse and while romantic relationships may be important to some people, others may be more neutral or even find romantic relationships aren't right for them at all.

It is possible that this could be related to your anti-depressants, another possibility is that either this relationship or romantic relationships in general aren't right for you. No matter what someone's identity is or ends up being though, I always think it's a good idea to explore who you are and try and ask yourself honestly and with an open mind, what would make you happy? What way of living your life do you think will make you feel fulfilled?

It won't hurt to explore aromanticism and aro identities just to see if that is what's going on with you. Some aromantic spectrum people do like to date and make out, but don't like serious long term relationships (this is common for freyromantic people for example, which is someone who experiences romantic attraction, but only to people they don't know well and it fades or disappears as they get to know the person they're attracted to).

If you're not sure where to start, I recommend Arocalypse (an aro themed forum with a good faq), and Carnival of Aros as a good place to find aro people talking about their experiences being aro.

If you are concerned about your antidepressants that is something to talk to your doctor about, but be careful that sometimes medical professionals (including mental health professionals) aren't always informed about aromanticism and it's still not uncommon to mistake that on its own as a symptom of a larger problem. Pay attention if there's other concerning symptoms, like feelings of numbness, lack of energy, etc. If the antidepressants are the issue, it likely won't manifest as disinterest in romantic relationships and nothing else.

Hopefully this is helpful and gives you some direction, but feel free to ask if you have more questions or want more information on anything.

All the best, Anon! Good luck!

[flock-from-the-void]

1, 2, 7 for the pride asks?

Hi Frost!!

The question is from this pride ask game :3 Answers below the cut because it ended up being a bit long...

I'll answer for And May the Moon Shine Over Your Ways and my depressed child Tiv

1. What's your oc's gender identity? What's their relationship to their gender?

Ok, so it's important to mention that this world does not really care about gender, especially Noverentos, Tiv's culture. Everyone dresses sorta similarly, there's little pressure for having kids (this is an elvish culture, so very long lifespans, and the inheritance works a bit differently than irl), the language does not differentiate between genders etc. More important thing is for example social status or place of birth

In English and Polish - two languages which use gendered pronouns - I usually describe him as he/him, purely for convenience. I'm still deciding whether or not I should just switch everyone's pronouns to something gender neutral (describing everyone with the same pronoun is a bit problematic hah)

Having said all that, there are still people who would identify as what we call man or woman. I think in our terms Tiv would be a demiboy. Still, in-universe gender expression is very limited (at least in noverentos culture) and now that I think about it, trying to be masculine or feminine would be more rare than the opposite hah

2. What's your oc's orientation? (Romantic/sexual/platonic alterous ect) Do they have opinions about it?

Oh, he's definitely aroace. He released it when he was really young and made his peace with it. Firstly it was pretty hard for him because his family is kind of unusual for noverentos – his parents stayed with each other for reaaalllyyy long time and had three children together, when typically a couple would have one child and separate after their coming-of-age ceremony. Tiv wanted to be like his parents - he loved the peace of home, the soft familiar love and warmth of parents' hugs. Now he gave up on the dream

Of course, one can make a family being aroace! Tiv just haven't got that idea yet, haha. Noverentos culture separates the romance and the friendship with a wide red line, making it hard for aros and aces who want to make a family. Aplatonics have it even worse tbh, because generally friendships are regarded as more important

I struggle so much to not end up infodumping here

7. Is there something that could cause your oc to question their identity? What?

I think just seeing a family with parents who are friends or just friends living together would send him into a spiral of thoughts. He would both question his aroaceness and his definitions of romance and friendship. Everything in shambles. I would go more into that but that's a spoiler territory I fear...

[majachee]

Your cat ocs are like the embodiment of the warrior cats artist fan style /pos

Anyways whats the sillys name and why does yew look like roadkill ❤️❤️❤️👀

1. THANK YOU WAAAAHHHHH

2. OH. OH I THINK YOU MISUNDERSTOOD WHAT I MEANT... Yew is his name! His story takes place during the late Viking age, so his Norse name would be Ýr!

Everyone uses he/him for him in-universe, but personality-wise he wouldn't care what pronouns you use for him. So, if you want to give him neo-pronouns, go right ahead! I think it's charming! So yeah, bevause you've opened my eyes to the potential misreading, his pronouns are now "any + yew/ýr"

As for his scars? Grins...

Yew was born in a feral cat colony, one where the males (instead of being completely chased off like in IRL cat colonies) are instead trained to ward off predators like dogs, birds of prey, lynxes, wolverines, etc. They're also taught to go after aggressive, non-colony tomcats who pose a threat to the colony's kittens. Despite such expectations, they do have the choice of leaving the colony completely and going rogue.

The mollies also engage with fighting, but theyre more focused on hunting and going after trespassing cats/invaders trying to take territory. Both mollies and toms go after aggressive cats threatening their kittens, btw. The combat is all based more on defense than offense.

It's a very matriarchal colony, with a very rigid way of life and proud military values surrounding strength and honor. Mature toms and mollies without scars are seen as lackadaisical, as scars are seen as proof of victory rather than defeat or injury. If you're an outsider wanting to join, you have to win in a fight against several of the colony's strongest fighters. Not a fight to the death, mind you, all claws are sheathed during the initiation trials.

Killing is looked down upon and seen as a desperate, last resort when necessary, as all life has meaning. Maiming is definitely on the table for them, though.

Some of Yew's scars come from his life in this colony; he's very protective of his family, especially his mother, younger half-brother, and sickly cousin. The rest of the scars came from when the colony was attacked by a larger, merciless group of cats who partook in ritualistic war and bloodshed. This larger group are the main antagonists btw.

... they're also cannibals. But I won't talk about that in-depth here because that is a very touchy subject for some.

Yew was moderately lucky, despite his serious injuries, as he managed to get his cousin and brother out mostly unscatched. Now the three of them wander as nomads, going where life takes them and trying to live peacefully. They avoid other groups of cats like the plague, no need to be needlessly aggressive when you have no territory to defend and all that.

So Yew's scars come from a history of throwing himself into danger to protect his loved ones, he is a very skilled fighter due to his size (very large, even for an early norwegian forest cat-esque breed) and is very, very protective. His half-brother is also a kitten for most of the story, so he takes on a stereotypically motherly role when raising his brother.

Despite his battle scars and the culture he grew up in, he is a soft pacifist at heart and doesnt agree with some of the colony's ideals. Example being he doesn't see scars as an indicator of someone's physical strength, he views them quite neutrally actually. He doesn't like to make judgements based on appearance, rather one's actions. Spoiler but he ends up finding himself adopted into a found family-esque colony and lives the rest of his days as a kitsitter alongside his cousin and bro. He's aro/ace too btw, so he has no interest in romance. He'd absolutely adopt every orphan he sees though!

[romance-evil-aro]

self-indulgent poll because i'm curious

[pinkrangerv]

hey, I don't mean to be rude by pointing this out at all, but I wanted to say that I do think you are responding in a very combative way to OP of the gay supernatural post. I think what you brought up is simply a different headcanon than they have, and that's why they asked you, neutrally, to make your own post. they probably don't want to get notifications for your different headcanon on a post they created. it isn't something they can necessarily control, but isn't so unreasonable or uncommon that they want to avoid it. it doesn't seem like a big deal to ask you to make their own post where you could just reference what they said when you discuss your own thing and spare them the notes on their post. you're acting like they were originally mad at you or that they have some biases against aro/ace identities and for what it's worth I just don't think that's true about OP.

The thing is, 'make your own post' culture is inherently not neutral.

When you post something on Tumblr--or Facebook, or Twitter, or Myspace, or pick your site--you are legally considered to have done the same thing as if you published it in the New York Times. It can be criminal evidence. It can be used against you at a job if your name is attached.

And, the important part: Other people get to reply to it.

If you only want some kinds of replies, you can ask nicely in the post for that (although no one is obliged to listen to you). You can turn off reblogs altogether. But that's it.

Telling people to 'make your own post' is saying that you can make your own rules about how someone interacts with a post, and other people have to obey you. No, they don't. Demanding other people treat you as some kind of rule-maker is ridiculous; you have no right to demand other people go beyond basic civility for you.

Consider the post I made. It didn't even disagree with OP; I was discussing extra parts of the interpretation, and those parts do actually need consideration in gay-specific headcanons! Because OP wasn't wrong about subtext often involving aromantic and asexual implications, so yeah, that is part of the conversation. It's not 'my headcanon'--OP flat-out said that Dean slept with women but never wanted romance, and Castiel never had either. That's aro\ace TEXT. That's been there since E1. If you're not discussing that, you're no longer discussing SPN, you're talking about another show.

OP didn't say that they didn't want to talk about canon, though. OP didn't say that there were rules. And for that matter--what rule did I break? You're generous in saying they only wanted discussions about gay people...but let's consider this reblog claiming that, apparently, to say that me pointing out asexual text--CANON TEXT, mind you, everything I quoted IS LITERALLY IN THE SHOW--is homophobic.

I can't help but note that this didn't break OP's rules.

There was nothing 'neutral' about what OP said. And there's a hell of a lot of aphobia implied in OP deciding my post, specifically, breaks their rules. Yeah, I'm being snarky--but why wouldn't I be? OP demands I follow rules that never were stated, and then complains when I don't, and this rule seems to mysteriously only apply to a discussion of aro\aceness.

Tl;dr: This is the reblog site. If you're complaining that someone's reblogging you, that's rude, and kind of stupid--this is the REBLOGGING site, not the 'we all post in silence and never interact' site. OP did that with some pretty damn aphobic implications. Yeah, I get to be snarky when someone's rude.

[aro-culture-is]

romance neutral aro culture is loving games with dating/romance options especially if the route is well written, but being all NOPE NOPE NOPE whenever someone asks you out in real life

[shiutsu]

I swear I'll get a bunch of offended idiots, but I feel like it's needed.

Don't read if you can easily get offended (cw:aphobia,s3x mention,misantrophy,abus3)

I'll go from a representation to..bitching about the aro community,cuz it needs to be said.

Kinda ironic how aspecs are mad that media portrays the specific part of community,but not the one that actually feels the attraction. But they themselves shit at or forget about those repulsed ones and make spaces for the positive ones instead.

This may be stroke 4 you,so I'll say it in the specific cases:

Attraction positive aros/aces are getting mad that media is portraying only the repulsed ones and they act like those aspecs don't exist and they themselves make aspec content for their attraction type and they ignore those repulsed ones.

I mean,they could go like "Oh I'm ace and I don't like s3x, but there are other aces that like it, be neutral to it and are indifferent to it",but since it's quite a new term,it's gonna take years that this world is going to properly learn it.

Like.. Why are you complaining about being called nonhuman?.. Aren't nonhumans cool and more interesting than humans?.. Why do you think that everyone is this "Uwu I love this overpopulated fucked up world,let me be nice to everyone,even those who deserve to get slapped and fall off a bridge"? Are you saying that anger issues or anything like that doesn't exist?..

While aces are kinda starting to be better in this (Like they're being more accepting),aros are horrible in this.

They spread the "y'all must love platonically" bullshit and get offended when someone's repulsed and they're being arophobic towards them and they think that they're gonna change or anything.

Like bruh,have you heard of fake friends or domestic abuse?.. That that friend you always loved platonically can dump you and then treat you horribly?Do you know that family members can be disgusting fucks? Have you forgotten that something like physical,emotional or verbal abuse exists when it comes to family??

And if someone tells you they don't love, you go"we all can love"?.. And then basically say that you can feel some attraction to a stranger that has only like..told you a direction?

And if someone is selfshipper/ficto and they tell you they feel an attraction to someone who doesn't exist, you get offended and then start to shit at them cuz according to yourself, everyone needs to be attracted to this fucked up species?

Why does it bother you?.. Are you jealous that fictos can't get into abusive situations with their f/os while you can with your '"""interests"""""?.. Hmmm???

Like again,what is this community??.. Why don't aces have problem with accepting other types of attraction and that someone is into it and someone isn't.?..

[anthonynotgreen]

Just realized another aro thing in DMs

[questioning-aspec-culture-is]

questioning arospec culture is knowing you're romance-neutral, but not actually being able to pin down if you're strictly aromantic, or greyromantic, or cupioromantic, and being so freaking confused over it.

<3

[romance-evil-aro]

Romance neutral aro culture is being bored when you see romance in movies. Like, I’m not disgusted or repulsed by it, I’m just bored.

[questioning-culture-is]

Questioning culture is loving romance and not minding sexual references in cartoons or my imagination.

But then I see a couple just hugging in real life and I'm like, ugh.

Maybe I'm romantic repulsed or something...

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[aroflux-culture-is]

aroflux culture is loving cute fictional otp’s but only when they’re not overtly romantic

[eclaire-went-bam]

i said nothing about us being oppressed compared to other aces & i said nothing about other aces being better off than us !

i do believe that there's an experience those on different ends of the spectrum have that those on other parts are probably never going to understand or personally experience — i myself am never going to experience something like being excluded from our own community, because i'm what someone would see as the Posterchild Aroace™

but i can simultaneously acknowledge that our world & many fandom spaces are extremely amatonormative & generally speaking are going to be more open to those who can, or are more comfortable, integrating with cultures on sex & romance.

i think we can all agree that shipping culture alone has the power to make or break a fandom. i also tend to notice like i mentioned in tags, that many people, even within our own community, who are not repulsed aroaces, tend to treat us talking about our community experiences with apprehension, or tend to make assumptions in what we're saying/misconstrue our words to make what we ask sound unreasonable. again, i know that there are different kinds of aphobia on other ends of the spectrum & it's not fun being on the internet with a marginalised identity within a marginalised identity, but it's also not like it's untrue that those who are romance & sex repulsed may feel unwelcome participating in fandoms with a heavy emphasis on those things. especially when most people's response to that is to dismiss us by saying to simply block tags & accounts, not taking into account that a lot is untagged & blocking everything just makes community comparatively wayyy less available

i'm not trying to put one end over the other or cause infighting & i apologise if it seemed that way ! when i said "minority" it was more of an acknowledgement of what i have personally seen (in my Personal™ experience, i've noticed it's much more common to identify with one or the other, ace or aro, or a microlabel, than it is to be aroace. & even in aroaces, more common to be at least romance neutral, while rarer to find someone repulsed by sex & romance. but yes i admit this is entirely anecdotal !) that doesn't really include other connotations that come with the word. i'm not tryna like ... One-up other acespecs lol

it's my fault for most of my actual post being on the tags, but the meat of my post wasn't that we are small and oppressed compared to other aces — the point i was trying to get across is this one specific experience that i find annoying as apothi aroace. but yea the driving point i was trying to make was not "minority," just to be heard more

although i think it's important to acknowledge the complexities of aro & ace identities, & to be welcoming of aroace identities that may be sex/romance favourable/hypersexual & seek those relationships, i think it's still important to acknowledge that completely romance/sex repulsed aroaces are still a minority in the ace community despite being the stereotype. & we should still listen to those voices,