#aromantic rep

[bookshelvesandtealeaves]

💚AROMANTIC SPECTRUM AWARENESS WEEK🖤

QOTD: Have you ever read a book with aromantic representation? If not, I highly recommend giving one a go!

If anyone has any recs where a character realises they’re aromantic a bit later in life, I’d love that. I’ve known I was ace since I was 18 and I didn’t realise I was aro until my late 20s.

[instagram]

Books featured:

Slide 2: Aroace

- Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao

- Loveless by Alice Oseman

- City of Strife by Claudie Arseneault

- The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

- The Isles of the Gods by Amie Kaufman

- Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

- The Spider and Her Demons by Sydney Khoo

Slide 3: aro-allo

- All You Want For the Holidays by Quinton Li

- A Grim and Sunken Vow by Ashley Shuttleworth

- Something Extraordinary by Alexis Hall

- Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White

- Everything Under the Moon: Fairy Tales in a Queer Light Anthology

Slide 4: On my tbr

- Baker Thief by Claudie Arseneault

- Being Aro anthology

- Cinder by DN Brynn

- Goddess of the Hunt by Shelby Eileen

- Aces & Aros: Volume 1 by Jeremy Whitley, Kat Calamia and Phil Falco

- Common Bonds anthology

- Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

- Not Your Backup by CB Lee

[loveless-arobee]

Something that annoys me about a lot of guides on how to write aromantic/AroAllo characters is when the poster/author puts an endless list of "Don’t"s that are… like 99.9 % just real people who exist. In real life.

So I wanted to talk about those "Don’t"s, and discuss why that's bad advise, and also give some (hopefully) better advise on how to navigate these issues.

This got kind of long, so I put a cut here. Enjoy.

Some examples of what I mean, and why they’re wrong:

"Don’t write your aromantic characters as loveless! Aromantics still love! We’re still normal!"

I hope I don’t have to explain how this is erasing and dehumanising loveless aros. If you’re interested, I wrote a whole post about how to write loveless character. If you're interested, you can check that out here [link].

"Don’t write your aromantic characters as having low empathy! We still care about people! We’re not emotionless monsters!"

First of all, empathy ≠ care. Second of all, empathy ≠ all emotions. Most importantly though, that is a bunch of ableist bullshit. Emotions, including lack of emotions, are inherently morally neutral. Aromantic people with low/no empathy, or with shallow/blunted emotions deserve to be respectfully represented.

"Don’t have your AroAllo character be interested only in sexual relations! We still make friends! We’re not sex-crazed whores!"

Some people are only interested in sexual relationships, or only relationships that contain sex in some way, and that’s not a bad thing, either. Not everyone wants or needs friends. There’s nothing wrong about any of that.

And I could go on and on and on, but I think these examples suffice.

Now, I do know why those things are said, and why a lot of aromantic people are so adamant about the points mentioned above. There’s actually two reasons for that: Number one is, plain and simple, respectability politics. "We’re just like you, we’re normal, we’re not like those people", you probably heard all that before.

The second is a bit more sensible, though that doesn’t justify the harm done: All those points above are stereotypes used to harm, demean, and dehumanise aromantic people, and people who’ve been hurt by them who don’t fit the stereotypes will try to distance themselves from them (which, tbh, does lead back to respectability politics in most cases), in an attempt to fight those stereotypes. But the solution is not to deny the existence of people who fit those stereotypes, which in turn furthers the abuse and dehumanisation, as well as the exclusion from aromantic spaces, of aromantic people who fit those stereotypes; those with low/no empathy or blunted emotions, aplatonics, or AroAllos who are mainly or only interested in sexual relationships, by basically saying "yes, you're right, those people are freaks and disgusting and inherently evil", even if they don't mean that (typically because they don't think people like that actually exist),

I, personally, believe a list of "Don’t"s is not helpful here at all. All of those points can be easily addressed by some more "Do"s, including the worry of stereotyping and demonisation:

Do know what you’re trying to write, do your research, do listen to aromantic people all over the spectrum, including those who fit the demonised stereotypes. Do keep in mind that aromanticism is a spectrum, no matter which part(s) you choose to represent, and respect the people you’re writing about and those you’re not writing about.

The only "Don’t" I can actually think of that fully applies would be "don’t generalise", but that is both obvious and also should be covered by doing your research. Even something like "don’t write your aromantic characters as a villain" has nuance; you can do it well. Of course, when you have an aromantic villain who is miserable all the time and abuses alloromantic people left and right "because that’s what aros do", and gets defeated by ~the power of love~ of your all-alloromantic main character group in the end, that’s arophobic, and there’s no saving that. But if you make your villain aromantic to, for example, further explore their emotions, and give them more depth, while also not writing it like their aromanticism is the reason for their villainy, that wouldn’t be arophobic; it can become arophobic, depending on how you write it, but it’s not as simple as aromantic villain = arophobia. It does require a lot of care, of course, especially from non-aromantic authors. But it’s not impossible to not make a book with an aromantic villain arophobic.

So, long story short: Instead of just listing a long list of "don’t do that", that is often mainly made up of real people's experiences, it is a lot more important to talk about why those ideas, or the concepts behind them, may be harmful (if at all), and how to write them without falling into that harmfulness. In a lot of situations, of course, that does require more care than in others (like with the aromantic villain), but if you’re willing to put that work in? It could turn out great.

Thanks for reading!

[roseredsnow]

This is your week till Acolyte reminder that Vernestra Rwoh

Is canonically aroace and she was been confirmed aroace since 2021 by her main writer Justina Ireland, the tweet doesn't work for me but the article and a link

Star Wars Confirms Another Asexual and Aromantic Character

In Out of the Shadows, Justina Ireland confirms that a key Jedi Knight is aroace, expanding asexual and aromantic representation in Star War

Please do not ship her, you can have any other characters in Acolyte and any of the at least 13 confirmed sapphic characters in the High Republic, let us have our rep for once.

Edit: Forgot to include the word aromantic was also used in the character encyclopedia.

[whollyshimmeringsword]

My roommates each have partners over and I was feeling some kind of negative way about it. You might think it's jealousy but I realized it's thinking about doing that myself and feeling uncomfortable lol. Like, sex? Lol no. Cuddling with a partner? Lol I want my own bed space. I think back to when I was in relationships and I just hate the thought completely.

I'm happy for my friends! but ain't no way I'm going back.

[weepingbarbarianfury]

IS HOWL LITHROMANTIC REPRESENTATION OR AM I LOOKING TOO FAR INTO THIS

[semi-precious-stoner]

Hello! I made a survey about aromantic representation in media! It’s not that long, only a couple pages. you’ll be done in a jiffy (unless you have adhd, then clear your calendar for the next week /j)

I’m a story-teller and I want to create an aromantic story, but I am nothing but one person with one personal experience so i need other people’s brains to help me.

uhh, please do it and i’ll send you a picture of a bear sitting oddly on a rock if you ask nicely <3

***SURVEY HAS BEEN CLOSED***

PLEASE GO TO @all-of-the-aromantic-characters FOR MORE CONTENT

SUMMARY OF RESULTS WILL IN ALL LIKELIHOOD PROBABLY BE POSTED SOON (most likely in 2022, yes i have adhd)!!

[idkbinko]

Amatonormativity can fuck itself.

[plueylover9]

toby fox definitely seems more happier at his fans falling for spamton than sans, isn't he