#thats the only reason i made a hc about him being not aro

[shayberri789]

Also a lot of his interactions during the books to me read as.... forced allonormativity?

Like with Laral - he has always been good friends with her, and she was his ONLY friend. Sure he could acknowledge she was pretty (aesthetic attraction is confusing when you don't know it can be separate to sexual/romantic attraction) but none of his internal dialogue about her reminded me of how romantic/sexual attraction is depicted in other books - cosmere included.

He generally seems utterly baffled by romance and sexual inpulses. Sure he'd prudish, and knows socially somethings are sexual, but he's never really been all that interested in romance OR sex.

With Tara - we have ABSOLUTELY no idea what their relationship was like except it was the only one of its kind he's had, that they kissed sometimes and he loved her. How this fits into my aroace kal hc is that either he was hit with a random bout of attraction (which happens) or it was platonic/queerplatonic attraction and they formed a qqp with some kissing involved bc that's what Tara wanted.

I was never convinced about his relationship with Lin either. They weren't compatible, and she always seemed more interested in him than he her. In all honesty, I thought he looked at the absolute happiness of shadolin, looked at his depression, looked again at how everyone always says romantic relationships make you better/happier, saw Lin was interested in him, and decided to give it ago to chase that happiness. Didn't work out bc he wasn't actually interested in her and she could tell.

As for company; he's always been just fine with bridge 4 and his friends. A lot of the 'attraction' he's felt for me reminded me way more of emotional 'crushes' or squishes (platonic crushes) based on my own experiences. Plus, many comments he makes strike me as aroace because I have deadass said or thought them myself, or my other aspec buddies have.

And as said above: I am so desperate for rep (the list of aro characters Wikipedia page is depressing) that I will take this character who even hints at my experiences and I will fucking die on the aroace!kal hill

Many a fandom person have made fanon of characters being gay (not even bi - fully gay, but that's a different can of worms) when they're shown as being straight or non interested in romance on screen with far less evidence than we have. If they can do it, why can't we have an aroace character without getting shit for it? (Not you OP - it's other people I've had to argue with and gotten shit from, I can tell you're genuinely curious).

Anyway I'm home for the break and my cosmere books are back in my flat so I can't go searching for quotes, and I haven't read the books in a few years (no time) so I can't list my points off the top of my head, but I vividly remember annotating aroace kal lines. There's also a meta analysis floating around (that I would find if the tumblr search function wasn't an oxymoron) about aroace kal and also aro adolin thats very compelling

In conclusion: aroace people still date for a variety of reasons, from compulsive allonormativity/amatonormativity/heteronormativity (they often go hand in hand), to confusion, to just making people happy, and it doesn't detract from their aroaceness. Additionally, I'm unconvinced hebwas ever actually rom/sexually attracted to the women he was 'interested' in, and he shares a lot of aspec experiences and thoughts, and I will die on my aroace kal hill and we deserve to get no more shit for it than people who hc other characters as gay or bi. Have a good evening

Ngl I don’t really get why people are so set on Kaladin being aro/ace when he has dated several people throughout the books. We don’t see a great deal of the relationships but he actively sought them out. Genuinely confused by this particular headcanon if anyone wants to explain it to me…

[enpassants]

The more I think about it, the more i become convinced about aroace cameron <3