#aro media

[ale-arro]

YOU 🫵🏻 read this webcomic that's been bouncing around my brain like pong it's really funny and cute

[selachii-dragon]

"Societal norms are so messed up no one can really fit them without hurting themselves" is... certainly an underlying, ever present message to have in your slice of life media with aromantic/aroace main characters...

[yannig]

Thought I'd add some real ace content for reprieve in the middle of this bot war

So let me tell you about my current favorite show:

Koisenu Futari / Two people who can't fall in love

It's a Japanese show centered around two AroAce characters who try to make a life together and support each other in the face of society's expectations!

It's 4 hours long (8 ep - 30 minutes each)

You can find it on Dailymotion (here) or Myasiantv.ac (here). The English subtitles aren't perfect (mostly a lot of gender mix-up between he/she, boyfriend/girlfriend, ...) but they do the job well enough!

I'm halfway through ep 2 and I fucking love it, this show is so good!!!!

I love both protagonists so much, and they feel so lively! Witnessing Sakuko discover the AroAce label brought me to tears from sheer joy and relief for her!

Any aspec media is really hard to find, but it's especially the first time I see a story centered around two AroAce characters and I'm so happy!!!

Anyway go watch it, it's worth it!

(content warning just to be sure: they face a lot of amatonormativity. That's basically the point of the show, so it happens often. Nothing violent, just the usual pressure and expectations from literally anyone around them.)

[unnecessarilygrandiose]

screaming crying on my knees begging for aro media. ace and aroace media is already in such a limited amount in this world, and we need much more of these two, but just aro media is even less in amount, it's practically non existent. and i know i could find some aro media, i know there's something about everything in this world, but god, i wish i didn't have to scour the depths of the internet for it. i wish such media was common. i wish it was something many people had heard about. i wish there were shows with aro protagonists trending on tumblr for weeks, i wish it was something that everyone posted about, i wish there were gifsets and screencaps and analyses. i wish there were movies with aro protagonists about which people wrote twenty paragraph thinkpieces that got 27k notes. i wish aromanticism was so common in media that media about it got popular, that it became profitable, that we became sick of it. i just wish aromanticism was something that was acknowledged more.

[disasterdemi]

Do you know of any books / other media w allosexual demiromantic characters that dont end up in qprs or stated to be nonsexual romance, and don't emphasize friendships? (bc Im very repulsed by those things - I do understand its very unlikely to find media with no friendship - something i struggle w a lot as a plato repulsed aplatonic)

Ugh I've been trying to think of / find answers for this and frustratingly I've come up short!! The only allosexual demiromantic rep I can think of is Fire Becomes Her but that is very much about friendship & QPRs so I wouldn't recommend it in this case.

Going to throw this out to my followers and the aro crowd, hopefully they'll know of some more options??

Maybe @aro-who-reads might have something too that I missed?

[arovolutionary]

RomoAlert

So, I’ve posted before about the website I’m making. It’s essentially a searchable database of movies, books, TV shows and video games. It’ll allow you to search by different relationship types, content warnings, genre, protagonists, romance level etc. It was initially just a way for find romance free or limited romance media (or get warning in advance when you plan to watch something), but I’ve realised all those other things could be helpful.

I’m far enough in that I want some specific thoughts as I continue. I’ve done some bolding to try to make it easier to pick info out, hopefully it’s clear. Under a cut for length.

First up: what content warnings do you want to see as options? It will be possible to enter your own, but obviously things already submitted won’t have had that info requested by default. For each one you can select [don’t know/maybe/once/some/lots/], and search by the different levels (either at least, at most, or exactly). Does that seem good enough? Is it a good idea to have a further text input so you can describe what happens and when - and should it only show the selected CW at a time?

Is [no/low/some/significant romance] good enough for romance level? There will be other options that are more specific, but I plan for that to be the go-to simple filter.

I will allow people to add relationship types per submission. This will include relationship type, genders involved, and if it’s a protagonist/secondary/background relationship, and be entirely searchable. So far I’m including Sexual, Romantic, Romantic and sexual, Friendship, Strong Friendship, QPR, Mentor, Found Family, Sibling, and Parental as options. There will also be a section for a relationship overview, and for TV shows there can be an entry per season. Should I also have the ability to mark them as healthy or dysfunctional/abusive? Or are content warnings the place for that? Any other requests? Suggestions?

For protagonist identity, I will have the ability to select gender, trans/cis, race, sexuality, disability, neurodiversity, and romantic orientation. So then people should be able to refine by such traits, as they want to. I’m thinking, for race at least, that it would be a good idea to be able to select between white/PoC, and further have options drawn from previous entries as well as the ability to type your own. Maybe I should do similar for the other options? I don’t want to provide inadequate options/miss any out. Is having this category helpful? It’s easier to store as separate tags, but for multiple protagonists it could turn up a result with an ‘x’ character and a ‘y’ character, rather than one who’s ‘x’ and ‘y’. Is that a problem for people?

Finally - the submission process. This is what I’m having the most trouble deciding. I want it to be as open as possible, but I also want to make sure it’s accurate. Should submissions be members only and accountable to a username, or something anyone can do? I can potentially have submissions be unverified by default, and have either a manual verification process (through mods or myself), or through user votes. They would still be searchable, but you’d have to manually select to include them. Thoughts? For editing - should people be able to edit their own submission at will (or until verified)? I also plan to let people suggest changes - I was thinking of relying on a voting system to verify them (so - a certain number of votes get the change made). Does that seem appropriate?

And, of course, suggest anything else you can think of! Be it a change of name, feature you want that I haven’t mentioned, or anything else! This is a very new thing for me, so I want to hear anything you have to say.

[aromagni]

A World Without Amatonormativity (Carnival of Aros, June 2019)

In a world without amatonormativity….

A little boy and a little girl could play together on the playground at school, without worry of their peers teasing them about cooties or sitting in trees “K-I-S-S-I-N-G”.  People of all genders could genuinely be friends without scrutiny.   First could come friendship and even love, without marriage and a baby expected to follow after.

In a world without amatonormativity….

Kids could grow up watching more movies with happy endings not depending on a wedding. They wouldn’t be taught falsities about love before they can even grasp the concept; they wouldn’t be fed the myth of “soulmates”, where happiness is attained from meeting someone destined for them, erasing the reality that healthy relationships of any form take work. They could grow up with movies about living “happily ever after” based on finding themselves, rather than some arbitrary “one true love”.

In a world without amatonormativity….

Relatives wouldn’t always ask about “When you’ll get a girlfriend/boyfriend”, because it wouldn’t be assumed as the default eventuality for everyone. And people would say “If you get married..” rather than “when”. Better yet, perhaps there wouldn’t be marriage at all.  Romance and marriage wouldn’t be seen as the only relationship model worth pursuing; more people would actually care about building intimate friendships instead.

In a world without amatonormativity….

Maybe people would see that queer rights don't begin and end with marriage equality and "love is love", ignoring trans people and the need for protections from discrimination in general.  The nebulous concept of “Love” wouldn’t be elevated on a pedestal above all else, and the worth of a person wouldn’t be measured by their capacity to “Love”.   Love is love is love is NOT what makes us human.

In a world without amatonormativity...

People would acknowledge there’s more than one way to love. “Love” wouldn’t be such a narrowly manufactured and hollowly commercialized concept as it is today, instead it could actually be meaningful with individual nuance to everyone.  People wouldn’t uniformly prioritize one form of love, condemning all others as inconsequential or inherently wrong.  Friendships would be valued more, and relationships in general would be healthier for it. 

In a world without amatonormativity, we could define happiness and love for ourselves, unclouded by the rest of the world’s expectations.  We could more freely build the relationships we want or not build them at all, but either way our worth and humanity wouldn’t be judged by it.  In a world without the chains of amatonormativity, we would all be freer.

[readingrobot]

aro jams

hi, okay, so a few-ish months ago i looked up "aro" on apple music to see what came up. a playlist named "Aromantic Anthems" by Emily R came up and i enjoyed quite a few of the songs .anyhow, i made my own playlist, several of the songs on it come from her playlist, but i added some of my own

Never Been In Love- Will Jay

New Romantics- Taylor Swift

Single-Minded- Anna Mae

Without Love You Can Save The World- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Cast

Love Myself- Hailee Steinfeld

Don't Ask Me To Explain- of Montreal

This is Home- cavetown

Crush Culture- Conan Gray

Haze- Amber Run

Don't Bother Calling- Moses Sumney

i'm so tired- Lauv & Troye Sivan

Solo Dance- Martin Jensen*

A Diamnod and a Tether- Death Cab for Cutie

Sunnyland- Mayday Parade

(*the opening lyrics might be talking about assualt, but it's really unclear, just thought to let you know about that)

a few of my favorite bands are MCR, tøp, The Paper Kites, Mayday Parade, Paradise Fears, Hollow Coves, and Amber Run

there aren't that many songs that really relate to the aro experience but, hey, here are a few and i always have an eye (or ear) out for others.

also, if you're into soft, atmospheric music- CHECK OUT MOSES SUMNEY!! he has a WHOLE ALBUM called Aromantism.