#the possibly aro-spec part of me coming out lmao

[lordsooga]

U thought about your fic "The Inverted Eye" and I noticed something. Nobody is kissing also they're a couple (Gauze and Shok, Kohga and Greg, Kohga and Sooga).

They kiss sometimes! I knew Greg and Kohga kissed in the fic at leas once because the first time it was pretty important to them. I had to check on the other ones just to make sure, though XD but there are a few moments Shok and Gauze kiss and even more where Greg and Kohga kiss too

You're right on Kohga and Sooga, though. Not sure why that is 🤔guess it just wasnt the time

[lokh]

#maybe laios has to have his own awakening <-- I'd be very much interested in hearing what that might look like to you 👀 Shuro pining and stressing over it is the easiest thing to imagine, but I struggle a bit with imagining what Laios' perspective on romance is and his romantic interest in general

OK SO....... realistically i think his view on romance in canon is probably closer to how even though we know his passion is monsters we KNOW he wants to eat monsters So Fucking bad...... his favorite food is still cheesecake. yknow?????? but it's not his Passion.... he mentions having a fiance (somewhat as a point of pride iirc?) but having to break it off when he left his hometown. if he Does experience romantic/sexual attraction then it's kind of secondary to everything else going on with him (see also the succubus thing)... ive always kind of assumed that for him, at the very least before ditching town, that getting married was just a thing you did (were supposed to do) and while he wasn't opposed to it, maybe even interested in it, clearly he doesn't seem to care enough to seek it out afterwards. AS an aroace person i want to believe he's on the aroace spectrum adfvccvvbhb..... aro spec non ace laios is interesting too though.....

BASICALLY it's not a huge concern of his BUT. the question of marriage and succession WILL come up post canon. unfortunately he might not be able to take such a lackadaisical attitude about Who he gets with now that he's such a big deal.... but then again, he's got that rebellious streak and seems pretty good at making situations work in his favor. like who's Really gonna be able to stop him if he decides he wants to marry some guy from the eastern archipelago......

I think he might need an awakening in the sense that taking the view that he's kind of assumed that marriage is just a thing that'll happen to him at some point, he's probably never considered getting with a guy. it's just never crossed his mind. but we know he's open minded and willing to take on-board new ideas...... its less a huge awakening than an Oh! i see i get it moment wjnshdhxbx. actually i can imagine the idea being floated to him and he kinda goes hmmmmmm i don't really get it (for me) but ok i guess. then someone going (perhaps out of pity for an already pining shuro) ok but now imagine you and shuro being that close and him going AH! now I get it.

we know that laios cares deeply about the people close to him but it's hard for us to imagine him romantically and that's probably true for the people around him also tbh. i think no matter how you spin it (that he's aroace but decides to have a relationship anyway, or that he does experience any attraction) that perception will always hold and there might be the concern of does he Really get it though irt a relationship (in this case laishuro). I also think that if he does decide on a relationship with someone he cares about that he WILL care deeply he just might not show it in like. any overtly romantic way...

i will say that part of that perception of him being incapable of romance and sexual attraction, im concerned is because of him also being well. pretty autistic lmao. which is obviously not fair. but romance has never been a huge focal point in dungeon meshi much the same way it isn't really for laios, but it's still there nonetheless....

it's possible also that he has a bigger interest in romance and sex than is apparent but because of how Social it is that he simply won't pursue it. he's aware of his lack of social ability and is pretty insular with his social group (iirc this is kabrus perception of him?) so I dont think it's unreasonable to believe he might have decided it wasn't worth the effort to seek it out. but with someone who's Already a friend and you've already made all the possible social gaffes with and they haven't left despite that..........

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

what qpr ships do u ship that most see as allo & why do you ship em in a qpr/pr way? like what makes them interesting for you?

basically.....every ship to be honest?

tho it is especially bad if you are particularly fond of female characters specifically (✨ misogyny✨)

there are three main reasons why I tend to prefer qprs:

1. I hc a ton of characters as aromantic and while it is theoretically possible to be an aro in a romantic relationship (if you're a happily dating aro-spec more power to you) I personally could never. and thus my version of the characters that live in my soul and love gnawing on my remaining braincells wouldn't, either.

2. fandom and spite. I'm just so tired of all the stupid "there is no platonic explanation" (yes there is, it is called loving your friends) or "a platonic friend wouldn't do that" (yes they would, it is called loving your friends) or (picture of two people hanging out) OH MY GOD CHECK OUT THEIR ROMANTIC DATE FULL OF ROMANCE (<- cannot stress enough how these are just two ppl enjoying each other's company. do allos just hate their friends)

the most annoying part of that is the way it devaluates every friendship that isn't somehow (forcibly sometimes) linked to romance (they only sacrifice themselves for each other because of their *romantic* feelings specifically, everything they do with and/or for each other is basically just buildup for their REAL important relationship - as if, if they never started dating, it would all be "a waste" or "for nothing")

3. we've all seen it. two perfectly fine complex layered interesting characters become a couple and along with their new relationship status they also receive a new personality trait: being a couple. unfortunately for them, that is now also their only personality trait.

but I think that with qprs that is much more difficult to do? when you speak of romance everyone has a pretty clear picture in mind for what that means; qprs however are by definition undefinable. meaning that in order to make a qpr work you are more or less forced to have a little character study (even post relationship): how do they perceive the qpr? how is it different from other friendships and/or past romances? or even: how do they deal with being in a relationship outside of the widely accepted romance/platonic binary? (and that's just off the top of my head)

(though I think that another big thing for me is that for the longest time I thought that "being in love" and "having a crush" were synonyms. my nine yo brain thought that after confessing (regardless of the outcome) these feelings just started fading after a while since theyd outgrown their usefulness. so even if the feelings were reciprocated you just stayed together out of convenience after a while - until you "fell in love" with another person. I know by now that that's ideally not the case but I think that I've thought of it that way for long enough for it to be baked into my worldview lmao)

ft rant below the cut

its probably bc I'm thinking bout her a lot but it's pretty bad with Lucy Heartfilia. I feel like the devaluation and dismissal of Natsu's and Lucy's friendship is so bad (especially considering they are at the core of the show) ,,,,,, I honestly believe that if they were to start dating it would actually take away from their dynamiC AND! UNDERMINE!! THE!!! ENTIRE!!!! MESSAGE!!!!! OF!!! THE!!!! SHOWWWWW (THIS IS LITERALLY THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP MANGA GUYS THEY ARE ALREADY SOULMATES STOP ACTING LIKE THEIR BEAUTIFUL RELATIONSHIP IS JUST A STEPPING STONE IM GONNA START BITING FOR REAL)

anyways. thanks for coming to my ted talk<3

[illfoandillfie]

hi i hope you don’t mind me being nosey but i was wondering if i could ask a few things about u being aro? i kinda just wanted to know how u figured it out? and also do u still get feelings for people but choose not to pursue it? sorry if i’m kinda intruding i don’t mean to, just curious

i dont mind at all darl! (actually...lowkey i love when people are curious about it lmao so feel free to ask more questions) also this is going under a cut cause it got longer than i meant it to lmao

figuring it out wasnt easy and it took a lot of self reflection and like months of questioning and doing research and then worrying i was getting it wrong. Basically i first considered the idea that i could be aro when i was approaching my 25th birthday. A friend of mine (the only guy i’ve had any sort of a fling with) had announced he was engaged and i was completely down on myself wondering why i couldnt get a single date when he was off getting engaged (not that i even Wanted to get married i just would have liked some attention). I figured there had to be something wrong with me or something about me that was broken. And then i saw someone i followed at the time reblog a post about being aro. I’d seen the phrase a little before but never really considered it as fitting me but i’d also never really paid attention to what it actually meant. 

I don’t remember what the post was exactly, it’s probably somewhere in the thousands and thousands of posts i’ve liked over the years but there’s no easy way to check so . Whatever it said it felt relatable enough that I went and googled aromanticism to try and figure out what it was and if it fit me. Because I was already in a headspace where I’d been thinking about my lack of a romantic history already, a lot of the stuff that i read had been stuff i’d been thinking about anyway. Like Reader said in Platonic when she was talking about how she figured it out, I’ve never had a proper crush. I spent months thinking about it after my friend told me he’d proposed. I have very vivid memories of literally deciding to have a crush on a boy in primary school because it seemed like i should (again, i included that directly in Platonic lmao down to the boys name and everything). And every guy I’ve had an interest in since has been either a brief physical attraction that i forgot about as soon as I wasn’t seeing him regularly or something that I deliberately manufactured either in an attempt to fit in with the people around me or because i was kind of bored. Even the cute music teacher at work last year like he was hot and i wouldnt have said no to a kiss or whatever but i just didn’t have any feelings about him beyond that. 

While I was trying to figure out if I was aro I read a lot of websites. The AVENwiki has a page on aromanticism and I think also has pages on some of the aro-spec identities like greyromantic and demiromantic so that was a good starting point for definitions. Google also gave me a few different forums and stuff where aro people were talking about being aro. A lot of aromantic resources are tied up in the asexual community though because that’s where the language and everything was first suggested and what it evolved from. I don’t think that necessarily helped me feel comfortable using the term aro to describe myself because i’m pretty confident i’m not ace but the more I looked into it the more stuff I found from people who were allosexual but aromantic. Anyway, I spent weeks just googling “aromantic” and seeing what came up  and rereading what i’d already read and resisting the fact that a lot of it fit me. Then I spent a while trying to find like a quiz or something that would just give me an answer. I found a few quizzes but all of them assumed at least one previous relationship so none of them were any use to me. But gradually I started feeling okay with calling myself aro. I think part of my hesitation was probably also because knowing I was aro didn’t feel like a solution it just felt my damage had a name. The other part is that romantic attraction is not easy to define which makes it hard to identify if you feel it or not so the part of me that wanted to be Normal kept being like ‘well if you dont know you cant call yourself aro’. But I thought about it a lot and I read any aro related post that crossed by dash and then ventured into the tumblr tag and found some helpful discussion stuff in there and then I started calling myself aro just quietly, only in my own head. It took a long time before I felt okay admitting that I was aro on my own blog but obviously i got there in the end lmao. That friend, the one who got engaged, he’s the only person i’ve told irl though. 

as to your second question....

I don’t think I feel romantic attraction. Truthfully, as i said before, it’s hard to know for certain and there is a possibility that i could form a romantic attraction to someone one day but i think it’s very unlikely. Other forms of attraction are different though. I can be attracted to people physically and sexually. And I think I could possibly be attracted to people in a platonic “man i’d really like to be their friend” kind of way though it doesnt come up very much because im not really one to like meet people. I like my own company. 

But i’ve never really acted on any sort of attraction or feelings for others. I was definitely attracted to CMT but I never acted on it because it seemed like too much work. The was a guy who worked at a pop culture collectables shop a few years ago who i thought was very cute and I did contemplate asking him out but it just never felt like a real option and I sort of just ignored it until he left the job. So yeah I guess I do get some sorts of feelings and then choose not to do anything with them, but they aren’t romantic feelings. But like right now I’ve got no interest in anyone (apart from ben and roger but i guess they dont really count lmao). None of the teachers at work interest me and i havent met anyone else recently and it really isnt bothering me. Theres a guy in IT who i could possibly see myself fawning over a bit cause he’s handsome and has an unusual accent but he’s got the same name as my brother so i’ve already ruled him out as a no go lmao. 

Anyway, hopefully that answered your questions! If there’s anything else you want to know or you’d like me to try and explain something more fully my inbox is always open!

[outoforderaro]

For the Aro Asks: 14, 16, 19, 22, 28???!?!?!?

ty! echo youre great!

14. How did you come out?

so im out to 2 separate friend groups and those went differently. the gaming group i was in, i had told a couple people bc it was part of the convo we were in. I became out to that group at large bc one of those dudes decided to speak for me and out me as ace, and that was the first time i started id’ing as aro really to myself (it was a thing i was wrestling with for a while). it went fine, and people thought i was bi lol, and had to explain a lot, got some uncomfy questions, the usual deal.

Having a queer community and friend group came a bit later, and generally went better. idk it just comes up at some point and it’s a situation where the person should know that? like either a bc this is a cool person or b bc i needed to make something said. the times of coming out and not having to explain it always were great

16. How do you feel about your aromanticism?

Currently: complicated. rampant aphobia has a way of doing that. better than the period of time where i cut myself off of anything aspec, esp the tags, bc it was so prevalent and hostile and i just couldnt deal with any of it. So, not as depressed and destructive as that, but that stuff is still around and still hits, and it always at least just exhausts me. And it’s just a complicated ID? like, not *really*, but there’s not a lot of people or characters to point to. idk i dont want to go on about the shitty side rn. But! i’m proud to be aro, and it’s good and there’s lots of great things about it, and it’s just who i am and that’s not changing. Good but exhausting ig.

19. How did you find out about aromanticism?

Basically a deep dive of learning about lgbtq+ stuff from after i got to college bc my town is a smal town in nowhere, red area of my state. So learned, followed a bunch of people on tumblr, a bunch of those turned out to be ace, learned about that through aven, things clicked, id’ed as ace, with “that’s a problem for future!me”, and then later wrestled with the possibility of being aro and how scary that felt bc of like myths of heartlessness, and loneliness, and brokenness, and what attachment to people was. Tumblr was really the only resource at the time that I had. 

22. What would be your dream representation of an aromantic/aro-spec character?

mainstream, popular show. I’d really love to be greedy and want something that’s gonna show that there’s so many ways and elements to being aro! Like I’d love a show that did a nonamorous, nonpartnering aro, bc that’s important (and if im picking one, then them), but qprs are important to a lot of people too, and that should get treated in a good way too so that it doesnt come off as romance-lite/relationship-lite/some “make it work” alt for some char that was crushing on the arospec char. An arospec char that tries to make it work with the crushing char, but doesnt do the “allo for you” trope. there’s p much everything, but without making it seem like it’s true for all aros, like touch aversion too.

The solution is many many aros lol. 

28. Do you experience squishes?

Yeah! Sometimes people seem really cool and you want to be friends with them and that happens and you want to be better friends with them, lmao. It was something i mistook for crushes in high school bc i just didn’t have the words to distinguish my feelings, and identifying those and the distinction was a big part of identifying as aro. 

[fragilehuge]

sexuality rambling. also holy shit this is long. don’t feel pressured to read it lmao. mostly i’m trying to exorcise some thoughts i’ve been having for a while.

tbh i don’t really understand how people have enough DATA to identify as demiromantic or gray-whatever because i?? probably am?? but i just personally don’t feel comfortable id’ing that way because i just don’t KNOW.

like, i definitely do experience sexual attraction to men and women etc so “bi” is fine and i feel confident about that. but up until i met allie i just??? wasn’t sure if i could even FEEL romantic feelings or want to be in a relationship with a specific person? (like i wanted to be in a relationship IN GENERAL, abstractly--being ~in love~ seemed nice and everything--but i didn’t specifically want to be with any particular person, so it seemed like a non-starter.)

i’ve definitely had crushes in my life, but my crushes have always been such weird like.... idealizations of people i hardly know?? literally every crush i’ve ever had, the more i got to know the person, and the more an Actual romantic relationship seemed possible.... the less i liked them!!!!! like the Thing that seemed to cause me to get a crush on someone was that 1. i found them sexually attractive and 2. i didn’t know very much about them or have a real relationship with them, so they didn’t return my feelings at all. literally every single time that i was interested in someone and they started to mutually kinda like me back, i was like, “whoooaoooooohhhhhh WAIT. let’s Not do this. Goodbye.”

the longest crushes i maintained were with people who i had some kind of sexual attraction to but who i remained emotionally distant enough from that i didn’t ACTUALLY learn anything about them as a person, and didn’t actually have any ~romantic~ contact with. (there was EVEN a case where i had a bad crush on a dude i was hooking up with occasionally, and once he asked me out to breakfast after sleeping over and i said NO and made him toast.... because.... going out to breakfast seemed like a date?? and i ???? wasn’t comfortable??? with something so date-like??? EVEN THOUGH OSTENSIBLY I HAD ““““ROMANTIC”““ FEELINGS FOR THIS MAN AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN INTO THAT IDEA fkjsdfkjsf)

like looking back (and comparing to the Definitely Romantic feelings i feel now with my girlfriend), all of my “crushes” were just me desperately trying to build up romantic feelings out of nothing, whenever and wherever i could, because i WANTED to feel a romantic connection SO FUCKING BADLY. but i just couldn’t. i didn’t feel it!! i wasn’t comfortable!! whenever any of my crushes actually started to pan out in a real way i FREAKED OUT and was SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE because.... i didn’t actually want a romantic relationship with them.... i didn’t want them to feel something for me because i absolutely did not return it.... dljdkljt

and by like.... last year i had sort of started to piece together that i was Not doing the romance thing like everyone else. i know tons of people who have been in relationship after relationship and my thought process was always like HOW????? because..... wowza i had a legitimate CRUSH like once every three years, so how the fuck??? all through college i didn’t really want to think too hard about it (me, desperately: I’LL MEET SOMEONE EVENTUALLY???). but i never ~magically~ met someone in my friend group who i wanted to date who wanted to date me back like everyone else did.... (and in retrospect, if the people i’d wanted to date had actually wanted to date me back?? i probably would have immediately changed my mind)

so then all through the second half of college/the year after i graduated, i forced myself to do online dating, even though i fucking hated it, because i figured if i didn’t try then i was definitely going to be alone forever. but i hated it!! it was so awkward!!! like, how could i want to be with someone i hardly knew??? but you just have to PRETEND and go to DINNER and take WALKS and do all these romantic things with a STRANGER and it’s just.... horrible awkward and weird. i was constantly in literal fear that someone would try to kiss me or hold my hand. like. it was so terrible. but i kept trying!!!! because i wanted to want someone!!!! i wanted to feel something so badly!!!! (do you know how many okcupid dates i’ve been on!!!??? UGH.)

so then by the time i was 23 i was kind of like. okay....... so ...... i really don’t want to keep trying to date. i hate dating. i literally hate it so much. and i was sort of like, maybe i’m aro? like??? that seemed like a plausible explanation for why i’d never felt a sustained romantic feeling in my Life and why dating was so fucking impossible for me??? and i didn’t LIKE the idea that i was aro because i really wanted to want someone!!!! but i couldn’t make myself!!! and i felt so .... ugh. just. sad and lonely and broken. but it wasn’t actually like i could change how i was? as a person?? so it was like. Fine. Okay. It’s okay to be like this.

......but when i met my girlfriend it was just... different? i don’t. i don’t know why. i mean a large part of it was that we were friends first and there wasn’t, like, any awkwardness or fear on my part that it would BECOME romantic. and then when it sort of... already WAS romantic, i was? okay with it?? and when i told her i liked her.... and she liked me back.... and we started doing Explicitly Romantic Things.... i liked it??? i’d never liked those things before???

like literally when we first started dating the biggest shock to me was. that i was so comfortable??? i was literally so comfortable. i liked her!!!! i wanted her to like me!!!! IT WAS SO WEIRD. I’D NEVER EXPERIENCED THAT BEFORE???? is that what happens with everyone??? what????????

????

???

so anyway. i don’t. understand my sexuality at all. i’m still not sure if i’m ~romo~ and bisexual and just... picky? i mean that’s a p simple explanation. it doesn’t feel quite right???

and like i’m plausibly...? a lesbian....? and the reason dating was so terrible was because i was mostly trying to date men?? (i did go on some dates with women!! which went better than the dates with guys!! but only marginally...?). except i don’t think that’s the case because. i am sexually attracted to dudes. i honestly don’t think i could ever date a man, but i don’t want to categorize all of the sex i’ve had with men in the past as like, coerced sex that i had because of heteronormativity, because i don’t think that was the case. y’know? i wanted to have that sex. i wasn’t forcing myself to pretend i wanted it.

so then i’m like, okay, maybe i’m bisexual but just. mostly romantically connected to women (~homoromantic bisexual~??) .... but honestly, even that is thin? because... it’s not like i have had tons of successful romantic connections with women either?? yes, the most successful romantic relationship of my life is with a woman!! i love her!! but she’s... the only person i’ve ever been in love with? and she’s the only person i’ve even come CLOSE to being in love with. so.

like, sure, i have a hard time imagining dating a man, but i have only a marginally less difficult time imagining dating a woman or an nb person?? probably the closest i ever came to feeling ~real~ romantic feelings before allie was with an nb person who i SUPER connected with on okcupid. and it was like, an instant magnetic click? like, friendship-wise, but it was also ~More~. and we were sending tons and tons of messages back and forth for several days. i don’t remember exactly how long? but then i found out they were still dating their old gf, even though they were ACTIVELY looking for someone else on okcupid???? (i mean they were looking for “friends” but.... it was Clear what was going on.) and that. instantly killed my feelings for them. because deciding you needed to break up with your gf and then looking for someone else to date before breaking up with them, just so you could make sure you had someone else waiting, seemed..... so unbelievably shitty that i couldn’t be involved in it. (i get that this person wasn’t, like, THINKING about it that way, and breaking up with someone can be super hard, and the ~connection~ me and them had probably surprised them too!! but. i wasn’t able to see it that way at the time.)

(and also mostly it was just that i really really really liked them and really wanted to date them, and thought that was what was ~starting~ to happen!! and then i found out they were not-single by surprise!!! and that................. hurt a lot. it swear it felt like a physical snap when i realized that they weren’t single. it was like. before and i knew and after i knew i felt completely differently. i couldn’t go back.)

(to this day part of me is like, “you two could have Actually dated” and part of me is like “your feelings were so fickle that they instantly died when they hurt your feelings once?? like?? that’s not the beginning of a lasting connection lmao. you fooled yourself into thinking it was real like all the other times, but it was the same as always.” but who knows.)

anyway..... where all of this leaves me is i’m .... probably? possibly? a-spec. probably demiromantic. probably bisexual. definitely queer. and that’s all i got.