My thoughts on the new ace flag as an aroace person
🖤🩶🤍💜 -> 🖤🩶🤍💛🩷💜
I am going to preface this by saying I mean no hate to the creator, these are just my thoughts. I also know nothing about the process of creating pride flags or how any of this works, so if I get any of that wrong please (gently) correct me. I acknowledge that I am a flawed human being who is influenced by her experiences and biases. Please be civil and understanding. I am simply expressing my opinion, and if you don’t have anything nice to say, please don’t say anything at all.
I didn’t even know the meanings behind the stripes until today. Is it weird that 25% of the flag is dedicated to allies? Yes, that is undeniably odd, and I can understand why people would want to change it. But what I don’t understand is why we can’t just change the meanings of the stripes while keeping the original design. Again, I know nothing about the process behind creating pride flags, so if this isn’t possible then that’s fine, but it’s not like the colors have to mean the same thing. There are many pride flags that use the same colors with completely different meanings. Heck, all of the original colors’ meanings changed going from the old design to the new one. So if the meaning behind the stripes was the biggest reason for the change, then why can’t we just change the meaning and keep the design?
I personally don’t like the addition of the yellow. I like what it stands for, but to me personally it just feels like it looks too similar to the nonbinary flag. I also think the yellow clashes with the rest of the colors aesthetically. The black, grey, white, and purple all look good together (see the original flag) and the pink doesn’t feel too out of place because of the purple. If they had only added the pink I would probably like it more but the yellow throws the whole thing off for me.
These next few critiques don’t apply to everyone, I know not everyone who’s ace is aro and vice versa, but my opinion on the ace flag is going to be impacted by my identity as an aroace person.
Pink is my favorite color, always has been and probably always will be, and as much as I’d love to have it included in the flag for my sexuality, I don’t love what it stands for. Yes, love is important, but aromantic and asexual people so often have to “prove” that they aren’t broken because they don’t experience traditional feelings of love and attraction. Yes, love can be powerful. But love and sex are so central to our society that aromantics and asexuals are ostracized and treated as different. It’s the whole reason we’re queer! It also feels disrespectful to loveless aros, apltonics, afamilials, or other identities under the umbrella that don’t experience certain types of love. They are just as valid and important as those of us who DO experience love, in any way, shape, or form. And I understand that this isn’t an aromantic flag, but there is such a huge overlap and connection between these two identities as well as aspec identities as a whole. I like the way these people put it: this post in their tags, this post, and this post.
I also really love how the aromantic and asexual flags look together. I like the inverted design and the fact that they both consisted of black, grey, white, and one color (either two green stripes or one purple stripe). These flags have a history together, and people were combining them in various ways for years before we had the sunset aroace flag.
Just look how cool these two designs look!
I understand that may not be a very popular take, but it’s my opinion. The ace and aro communities are tied together, and it feels a bit like this new flag ignores that. Below is a comparison of the aro flag with the two versions of the ace flag. One compliments it WAY better. And this also shows how much the yellow stands out (at least to me).
You can make this same argument for other aspec flags. The agender flag has a similar color scheme and vibe as the aromantic flag, the afamilial flag looks like the original ace flag with a dark red stripe instead of people, and one of the aplatonic flags looks the same but with yellow (I found multiple aplatonic flags when googling but didn’t know which one was the most widely accepted so sorry if that flag is offensive, not used anymore, or anything like that).
While we’re talking about other aspec identities, what does this new flag mean for the micro labels within asexuality? So many acespec identities (aceflux, aegosexual, apothisexual, caedsexual, cupiosexual, demisexual, fictosexual, graysexual, myrsexual, etc.) have flags that are based on or include a similar color scheme to the original ace flag. Will they also get redesigned flags? What would those even look like? Who would be in charge of designing them? The people in those communities? Ashabi? Someone else?
If I didn’t have the original flag to compare it to, I would probably like the new flag well enough. But for so long, this flag has represented our community. The ace flag is so iconic and beloved, I don’t see why we needed to change it. We’re already a smaller queer identity that isn’t as recognizable as say lesbians or trans folks. I literally have to explain what asexual means when I come out to anyone over the age of like 25, and adding another flag is just going to confuse people.
Again, I mean no hate to the creator or anyone who prefers the new flag, people are allowed to have their opinions and disagree. I’ve even seen art incorporating the new color scheme that looked really cool. And who knows, maybe it will grow on me over time. But, for now, I’ll be sticking with the classic design.
To those of you who are defensive of the new design or the creator, please don’t assume anyone who voices a negative opinion of the flag is being racist or misogynistic because the flag was created by a black woman. There may be a minority who feel that way, and they should absolutely be called out and shamed for being bigots, but most of us don’t like it for completely innocent reasons or because we’re simply too attached to the old flag. People don’t like change. Let them adjust. I don’t think the old flag is going anywhere any time soon, and I think both flags can peacefully coexist.
Found an open call for submissions for a short story anthology with the theme ‘space ace’ and I hadn’t heard anyone talk about it. There’s compensation (£0.02 or about $0.03 per word) and its from an indie press focusing on queer/lgbtq+ works.
It seems really cool and I might join myself, but I also figured theres a few people on writeblr who this would be pretty perfect for so i wanted to post it!! Also its just cool to see an anthology specifically focusing on aro/ace characters.
The rules/guidelines are listed here: https://www.farlandsfiction.co.uk/submissions
what are your thoughts/opinions with senku being extremely aroace coded? (thoughts about representation, and such)
This is such a cool question, and I've been thinking about it since I saw it in my inbox but I've been too lazy to get on the computer until now.
I don't know that we can call Senku aro ace representation, actually. He's never called aro or ace or both in canon, and from Inagaki's comments, the fact that he is seems to have been entirely unintentional and not actually something he wanted.
Now, that doesn't really matter to how Senku reads. I've gotten into arguments on TVTropes about the fact that an author doesn't actually have to intentionally put something into a work for it to be a trope or whatever, and that was part of the reason I fully quit the site a while back.
Senku is pretty clearly aro, ace...kind of by default, I think, but I would agree he probably is. I think there's an argument to be made that he's gay, since he's never actually rejected a man because, well, Weekly Shonen Jump.
But a representative, or representation, actually has to be declared to stand in and/or speak for a group or person. If I place a meeple on a board, it is representing me because I declared I would be the black meeple on the game board. If I didn't say that...okay, my family would know because I always take the black meeple, but still, it needs to be clearly indicated that That One Is Me. A representative for a group has to actually declare or otherwise made clear they are standing for that group.
But Senku is aroace not because he is a declared member of or for a community. He just. Is. People recognize those things in him, because he displays the traits and indicator signs of being aro as shit.
I love that Senku is aro ace. I am also aro ace, and Senku getting to do what he loves, being recognized and respected for being fantastic at what he does, and hanging out with an enormous group of Best Friends Ever who adore him without having to have a romantic partner is the dream. He gets to live the dream and I am so happy for him.
Senku is someone I would point to as being aro ace to explain to some people what it looks like, maybe. He is someone I enjoy in part for those reasons and share with my friends for these reasons. I think he's a fantastic example of what an aro person can look like and what I want people to think of: he's emotional, he loves people, he cares so hard, he is dedicated to his friends, he's not exactly romance repulsed and supports his friends' romantic relationships. But he doesn't want any himself.
But I don't know that I'd actually call him representation, because he does not purport to speak for the community in any way.
So basically: this is a really interesting question that made me refine exactly what I think even is representation.
Thank you for the question! I hope kind of going off on a tangent is okay with you!
