Since I’m not able to run a proper themed event this year, I thought I’d put together a list of categories and prompts for creative responses to Aromantic Awareness Week. As a media blog, I wanted something that has space for pieces by our wonderful aro-spec creators and aro-spec folks who want to support their favourite creators, discuss their favourite media pieces or share with us their hopes for future aro-spec representation.
Folks who want to participate can @ mention me on their posts (or submit content right to this blog) and I’ll do my best to reblog everything here during the week.
Please note that all prompts are open to original and fancontent responses alike, can be explored through characters both canon and headcanon, and are open to any aro-spec identity or combination of identities involving one or more aro-spec identity. I’m really just offering a little direction for folks who might be wanting to contribute something this week but aren’t sure where to begin.
If your response doesn’t fit any of the suggested options but still merges aro-spec identities and creative media, please don’t let that stop you from letting me know about it. Older and already-posted content is more than welcome, as are new chapters for works you’ve already shared with us. Basically, if you have something you want to share, please let us know about it.
(I’m going to be showing off an aro-themed dollhouse display I’ve been working on, so when I mean anything that’s aro-spec and creative, I do mean anything.)
Apologies for the extreme last-minute nature of this, but I hope folks find this list useful anyway. And I very much look forward to seeing the wide and wondrous creativity of the aro-spec community on display!
Visual Art
Responses can include:
Posting your own aro-spec visual artworks, like paintings or drawings
Listing or linking to your favourite aro-spec visual artists
Listing or linking to your favourite aro-spec visual artworks
Creating moodboards around aro-spec themes, identities, experiences or characters
Poetry
Responses can include:
Posting your own poetry or links to poetry collections
Listing or linking to your favourite aro-spec poets
Listing or linking to your favourite aro-spec poems and works of poetry
Reviewing your favourite aro-spec works of poetry
Posting YouTube videos of folks reading aro-spec poetry
Plays, Podcasts and Film
Responses can include:
Posting your own scripts for current or future aro-spec TV episodes, plays, podcasts or films
Posting fanfiction concerning aro-spec characters (or characters headcanoned as aro-spec) in visual/auditory creative media
Posting meta discussions concerning aro-spec characters (or characters headcanoned as aro-spec) in visual/auditory creative media
Posting moodboards or fanart concerning aro-spec characters (or characters headcanoned as aro-spec) in visual/auditory creative media
Posting YouTube videos about aromanticism or aro-spec characters
Listing or linking to your favourite aro-spec-friendly TV shows, TV episodes, plays, podcasts or films
Reviewing your favourite aro-spec-friendly TV shows, TV episodes, plays, podcasts or films
Comics and Manga
Responses can include:
Posting your own comics, be they pages from a larger comic or a short webcomic, concerning aro-spec characters
Posting fanfiction concerning aro-spec characters (or characters headcanoned as aro-spec) from comics, webcomics or manga
Posting meta discussions concerning aro-spec characters (or characters headcanoned as aro-spec) in comics, webcomics and manga
Posting moodboards or fanart concerning aro-spec characters (or characters headcanoned as aro-spec) in comics, webcomics and manga
Listing or linking to your favourite aro-spec comics, webcomics and manga
Reviewing your favourite aro-spec comics, webcomics and manga
Pride Craft and Merch
Responses can include:
Posting photos of your own pieces of aro-spec pride craft and merch
Listing or linking to pieces of aro-spec pride craft and merch you wish to own
Listing or linking to creators of aro-spec pride craft and merch
Reviewing favourite pieces or creators of aro-spec pride craft and merch
(Note: this can include plush, jewellery, clothing, keychains, accessories, home decor pieces, stationery, stickers, anything.)
Music and Playlists
Responses can include:
Posting your own music relating to aro-spec themes or experiences
Listing or linking to songs or playlists that are aro-spec friendly or concern aro-spec themes or experiences
Listing or linking to songs or albums by aro-spec musicians
Composing playlists that are aro-spec friendly or concern aro-spec themes or experiences
Posting meta discussions and reviews about favourite aro-spec musicians or music
Books and Fiction
Responses can include:
Posting or linking to your own books or stories concerning aro-spec characters and experiences
Listing or linking to your favourite aro-spec writers
Listing or linking to your favourite aro-spec books, stories and fiction pieces
Reviewing your favourite aro-spec works
Posting fanfiction concerning aro-spec characters (or characters headcanoned as aro-spec) from books
Posting meta discussions concerning aro-spec characters (or characters headcanoned as aro-spec) from books
How to Participate
Submit a new post to @aroworlds
@ mention @aroworlds in your post
Please don’t just tag me: if there’s links in your post, Tumblr won’t show it. @ mentions are the most--but not completely--reliable way to get my attention short of a submission. If I miss it, which is quite likely given Tumblr and its frequent inability to alert me to @ mentions, please send me a message with the link to the post.
I just want to let you know that I’ve been struggling with family issues, to the point where I had to have my psychologist come around today.
I haven’t been okay for many days and I’m still not okay. Today I learnt that the reason Mum doesn’t say anything positive to me about my writing is because she thinks it’s “too gay” and my psychologist phrased this judgement as a good thing I should take on board as important feedback--that, for my own benefit, I should consider being a lot less queer in what I write.
It will be better for my financial benefit, because we live in a world that often doesn’t financially reward queer indie creators.
For my emotional benefit, though? For my sense of worth as a person? How do I find any sense that I deserve to exist as the person I am if I’m editing myself out of my own work? How do I find the courage to have pride in my identities? How do I exist as a real person if I cannot be real in my own creativity?
It’s so hard for LGBTQIA+ people to find pride in who we are. I grew up in a house where my lesbian cousin was The Person We Didn’t Talk About to my Dutch Catholic grandparents. My grandparents died not knowing who I really am because I am something we didn’t speak aloud to them. Those are scars I still carry, this sense that I should not be bold and proud and defiant about who I am, and both the message and the damage it causes all the years after isn’t something the world likes to acknowledge. As aro-specs, in a world where we’re not even seen to exist and our existence is contentious even within spaces that should be safe (like parts of LGBTQIA+ Tumblr) we’re not free from this, even before we consider what amatonormativity says, more directly, about people who live and feel the way we do.
Before now, I’d been feeling positive about being really fucking aro in my writing. I’d been enjoying this process of expressing experiences that I’ve never seen in fiction. Of making myself a little more real, each story at a time, in a world where my existence feels intangible, impossible or undesirable. Of validating my feelings, of doing the radical thing of treating myself as the person I am as though I deserve to be a hero in a story about my identities and experiences, using my words and identity terms.
Privileged people have the privilege of not making their works appear centred on being cis or heterosexual or alloromantically-heteroromantic--in the sense that while their works always centre on these things, that centering isn’t treated as anything but normal. It’s just as obnoxious (depending on how much you like identity centred in a work); the difference is only one of true acceptance. Writing a story about a cishet couple is “normal”; writing a story with a non-binary aromantic character who uses aromantic terminology is “too queer”.
Today, I am being asked to be less of myself in my creativity by two people who think they are being accepting of me in saying this.
Please, please--support your aro-spec creators. Please let them know that they’re loved and appreciated. Please let them know that they’re needed. Please let them know that we’re grateful for the steps they take in making worlds that depict us--both as we are now and as we wish to be in the future. Please let them know that we are grateful for their courage in creating works that depict us even when the world is telling them that they’re only valuable, artistically and financially, when they limit or diminish their aromanticism and/or their queerness. Please let us make sure, as a community, that we can stand together, strong and proud, against an onslaught of messages that demand their erasure and silencing.
Please support your aro-spec creators so they can stand firm in the face of what I heard today and continue to write (or tell or draw or sing or however it is that one creates) the stories we need.
(I don’t know when I’ll get back to normal blog-running. I’m sorry for everything ignored and not responded to, but I’m struggling in pretty epic fashion. Every time I manage to get online for a moment, something seems to go wrong shortly after, and my moods are all over the place.)
I don't think I'd be suitable or able to perform an editorial role for anyone, but I sincerely hope you find someone you can work together with to both improve! I am, however, curious about something you said, about not putting much visual description in. Why do you think you do that, and how come you link it to autism? I'm curious because I find myself doing a similar thing - most visual things are metaphorical for me - and I've noticed that I connect with some things you link to your autism.
Thanks so much for your best wishes, anon! For me, it comes down to three different factors, although not all autistics will have these in common, many autistics will have a different arrangement of primary senses, and neurodiverse folk who aren’t autistic or neurotypicals may have some or all of them! With this sort of thing, when folks connect to my experiences, I usually consider it an indication that autism may be worth exploring if you haven’t already, but because neurodiversity has so many similar expressions attached to several diagnoses, not to mention the possibility of comorbid or accompanying diagnoses, it doesn’t mean others should be excluded, either.
(I’m wary of making the yes, you’re absolutely autistic because I am pronouncements, because neurodiversity is such a broad and complex field and the only experiences I can speak for, at the end of the day, are my own. In me, they’re attached to this label; in others, they may not be.)
The first is that I have almost no ability to visualise images inside my head (aphantasia). I have more of an abstract knowledge of what things are--for example, I can tell you that Mum has wavy blond hair and crinkles around her eyes and she looks now like Oma (my grandmother) did in my early childhood, but I have no corresponding image of what she (or Oma!) looks like inside my head. I don’t have any visual sense without looking at her right in front of me. I don’t see a red apple in my head; I sort of think that it will have a brown stalk at the top and green shading around the stalk and the apple curves in at the bottom. The best I get as a mental picture is a red, circular blob, and for non-simple objects or scenes, not even that much. When I think of my room, for example, I list the things within it and their details rather than imagine them.
(I also have prosopagnosia, difficulty recognising faces, and while I can make eye-contact if I feel safe, I’d much rather not. It feels … it feels uncomfortable and rude and painful all at once in ways I struggle to describe. This makes fictional descriptions of people difficult for me, because I tend to interpret mood based on movement, word choice and tone of voice, not facial expressions or arrangement of facial features. As for distinguishing features, like size of nose or lips? I just don’t notice these at all.)
For this reason, when I attempt to write a scene, I have no picture of said scene in my head. None. I’m building it instead from an abstract knowledge of small details and how I think they might fit together, and while reference pictures can help, I’m rarely able to put it together the way allistic critique partners have asked of me. I’ll note that I know a few allistics with aphantasia, including one of the people who frustrated me most about wanting more description, so other people don’t seem to find it so much of a problem.
The second is that, like many autistics, I have more of a small detail sensibility–in other words, I see small details before I see the whole scene together, if I do at all. For me, a busy street scene is footsteps clattering on the pavement, the smell of petrol and perfume, music blaring from shop doorways, the screech of breaks as a car stops, the reflection on the wet asphalt as the lights change. It’s not the larger structure of the street and shops or the amount of people and cars occupying the street. The whole is suggested, for me, by the way the pieces of the small fit together.
Many allistics have read my work telling me to “describe more”, and I’m baffled, because I described the smell of the smoke and the rust of the metal and how the lift-cage creaked! How much more description do they want? Do I have to describe the shape of each flake of rust or something? I suspect it has to do with their passing over the smaller details I’ve provided in search of a missing big-picture description, while I’m just adding more and more smaller details to paint the scene, not realising that there’s anything missing–and to this day, I have no idea how to provide what they want. I don’t experience the world that way.
The third is that the world I experience is shaped more by touch, sound, taste, movement and smell than sight, more than is normal for most abled allistics. I’m better at non-visual small details than I am visual small-details. In a world where film and television have changed so much about what is expected from prose, especially genre/non-literary prose, this means my work isn’t as accessible as expected–it lacks that easily-visualised sensibility. I tend to describe how people move over depicting colour, for example, as this is something I’m more sensitive to as a stimmer. The feel of a cloth is something more natural to me to describe than its pattern.
All those things together means that my work describes things that aren’t expected to be described while leaving a lot that is expected to be described undescribed, and so far no writing teacher or crit partner has been able to explain precisely what they mean by describe more. It’s obvious to them; it’s a mystery to me. In the last couple of years, I’ve been slowly working on trying to build my descriptions and setting in ways that feel real and meaningful to me–to write how I think is natural as an autistic. There’s a lot of rules of prose to work through to try and find whatever my authentic autistic voice is underneath, though, and I’m nowhere near finished in this process.
So it’s important to me that someone else understands that my goal isn’t to make my work fit allistic expectations of description. It’s to try and better use tools of description to paint the world as I know it, so allistics can peer in and see how things look like to me–even if that image is focusing on the feel and smell of a soft wool blanket against a blurry, vague background. So I suppose my challenge is one of learning how to better convey that these gaps in my description are not a mistake but are instead the nature of my worldview–to give them a more easily-perceived sense of intentionality. I am absolutely not yet there, but I’ll keep trying.
I hope that gives you some idea, anon, from where I’m coming, but it’s worth keeping in mind that this is the combination of autism and writing for me. Just as there’s so many different shapes of autism, there’s so many different shapes of how autism interacts with writing, too.
It’s very likely that people who aren’t autistic will also relate to this, which I think makes it more important that we consider what we lose when we try to force all creatives into a singular approach on what is described. We celebrate differing approaches to how we describe, in terms of metaphor and simile and creative use of language, but allowing that difference for the what should be just as important, for both writer and reader. Yet, in non-fanfiction works (fanfiction places so much less importance on visual description!) I’ve always felt the pressure to reach a certain level of visual description to make my writing worth reading, and that’s a hard thing to carry for us creatives who cannot, for whatever reason, reach it.
What is your opinion on characters who have no love at all (not just romantic love, but all kinds)? Obviously, they're often demonized (*cough*Voldemort*cough*), but if they aren't could they work without being inherently arophobic? I (an aro) am thinking of writing a story where a character loses their ability to love and Doesn't React Well, but eventually learns to accept it. Should I go through with that? If so, are there particular arophobic tropes to avoid?
I am somewhat biased in that I’ve written an aro character who means “all love” when he says he doesn’t love (and this is explored further and more explicitly in his future stories) so, as someone who has a complicated relationship to love myself, bring them on.
I am so tired of seeing “love” billed as the ultimate indicator of a “good” character while “inability to love” is the ultimate indicator of “evil”–despite the fact that some of the most difficult things I have endured came about from someone else’s love. If relatives bullied me and friends-who-wanted-to-be-boyfriends stalked me despite and because of their ability to love, why should an inability to love mean anything when love just as often motivates cruelty? In my opinion, there is nothing inherently misrepresentative of aro-specs in a character’s inability to love–just the social tangle of ableism and aromisia and amatonormativity from other people in unquestioned assumptions that ability to love makes a protagonist. Why should it?
I talk more about autism-coding than aromisia in the following, but a lot of negative/stereotypical autism-coding is applied to aro-specs (or characters coded as aromantic) because Western society in its unquestioned ableism deems autistics as a handy pre-existing representation of “heartless” and “inhuman”. I’ve also got a second ask on a similar subject that talks about idealised representation in writing a single character versus writing multiple characters of that identity, anon, so please consider this the first half of my response as opposed to the entirety. Everything I say in response to the second ask will be relevant to you as well.
Ableism is an element here: autistic folks are often deemed unable to love, often just from an inability to perform love to allistic (non-autistic) expressive standards. There’s also an unchallenged, subtle antagonism towards survivors of abuse from family members/close partners, in that our possible questioning or dismissal of love can be a sign we haven’t “recovered” enough or are even resisting “recovery”–only when we “learn to love again” do stories award us our happy ending. Love, tied to very narrow experiences/performances (and so often amatonormative ones), is seen as the end goal of being or becoming a non-monstrous human, and while society needs to question romantic love as being the marker of a worthy hero, it also needs to question all forms and expressions of love as being said marker. If love has the capability to be as damaging and violent as anything else, why do we persist under the illusion that it still makes those who can more human than those who can’t?
I do agree with you that, if this loss of ability is sudden, your character shouldn’t react well, unless they live in a world where love just isn’t socially prized. They shouldn’t, because we’re exposed to millions of narratives that say an inability to love (or perform love to appropriate allistic standards) is to make us monstrous, and that’s a hard thing to bear. (How many aros do we see insisting that they still love platonically? That they still have close friends and adore their family? That their love makes them human and undeserving of hate, not any other quality?) I would make sure your character has a sense of these narratives and show their responses to them, because I can tell you that they’re constantly running through my head! They’re going to have a hell of an internalised tangle of what makes a good person to work through, and I’d try as much as possible to show this process as your character’s arc to acceptance. Even kind, considerate friends and relatives, used to love as a marker of being human, may treat your character’s inability as monstrous (especially if they attempt to talk about it). The more you can show this, the more you can challenge this idea of love as universal.
(For example, your character might try even harder to be empathic or supportive or compassionate, absolutely breaking themselves on their service to other people to prove they’re not a hateful person, because there’s no narrative about love not being a requirement for decency. Their character arc might be learning to look after themself, to accept that they don’t need to hurt themself by excessively performing compassion for others to “make up” for their lack of love. Acceptance, for this character, could be allowing themself to withdraw to a better balance of compassion that also acknowledges and values their own needs and limitations.)
I would be cautious in how you show this lack of love in your character, especially if you’re leaning towards indicating it by flat effect, lack of facial expressions, difficulty connecting with others, a tendency to withdrawal or isolation, difficulty with empathy, monotone voice, etc. All of this, of course, is stereotypical autism-coding (in addition to stereotypical aro/ace-coding) because that is the unquestioned, unchallenged ableist narrative we are taught–that we autistics cannot love because we don’t perform it same way allistics do. (I would argue that autistics have the same potential for love as anyone else; we just show it in very different ways.) There really is no reason to assume that any of these behaviours inherently indicate a lack of love besides ableism. You may not be thinking of this at all, but it’s such an unquestioned assumption in Western society that autistic-coded, robotic, distant behaviours are symptomatic of inability to love, so I mention this just in case.
I’d recommend taking the time to ask yourself: how does love impact our behaviours and relationships? Does love drive us to drop a few dollars into a homeless man’s hat? Does love drive us to modify how we speak and behave for the comfort of strangers or acquaintances? Does love make us laugh at a work mate’s not-funny joke or praise a casual friend’s creativity? Because I will posit, as I have for a long time, that love is (and should be) less important in driving us than compassion, and that is vital to recognise in writing a sympathetic character who does not/cannot love.
In antagonists like Voldemort, love isn’t the only thing thrown out the window in determining his villainy. A whole tangle of things like compassion, sympathy, empathy, kindness, consideration, acceptance, an unwillingness to violence, an unwillingness to hatred, tolerance, respect and appreciation are tossed out with it, all unthinkingly bundled together under the one word. In sympathetic characters or protagonists, we need to be aware of all the things usually and erroneously associated with love, because we can’t throw all of them out the window.
I suspect that a carefully-written sympathetic character who doesn’t love will show this inability less through actions and behaviours readable to onlookers and more through internal narrative and responses to other characters’ assumptions that love drives us all. I am looking at writing a character who comes to acknowledge that he doesn’t love but still acts through compassion or respect so, from the outside, it’s difficult to tell the difference. Inside, though, there may be a mess of pain and self-hate at losing something we’re supposed to have to be (according to the stories) a non-monstrous human. This approach, especially for allistic/non-autistic characters, will avoid any unfortunate implications or coding.
When or if other characters find out, you can show how they differently treat the character before knowing they’re unable to love and after, because I suspect a stated inability to love may go far, in the eyes of some characters, to erase the protagonist’s acts of compassion and respect. Conversely, I’m also having side characters tell my protagonist that he does love because he’s helping his brother remake the world, which is another cross he’ll have to bear despite his position that love isn’t something he feels or desires. One approach is to dismiss a character’s humanity even though their behaviour proves it; the other dismisses a character’s right to understand and identify their own feelings and experiences.
If your character is autistic, the approach will be different in terms of how allistics read them and associate behaviours with capability of love, but this will need careful handling. I will also say if a sudden inability to love is related to enduring sexual or familial violence, this too should be handled carefully. Even without either element, there is a good chance that readers who have not questioned the idea that “love is what makes us human” may take a non-magical/futuristic reason for abruptly losing love to be sending a bad message (and even more so if your story does reference either). I’d be sure to communicate the fact that society’s assumptions about love being the marker of a good person make it easy to excuse a whole lot of violence wrought in its name–in other words, break down the assumptions about love for your readers so they can contextualise your character in this light.
(When I start specifically talking about my protagonist’s pondering of love, there’s a lot of reflection on the damaging acts he and his family wrought in love, where love for him drove his people and whether it is something he should desire or value going forwards.)
If you keep all that in mind, though? I think you’ll be okay, because I do not believe that writing a character who doesn’t love is any expression of aromisia if we discuss and discard the assumption that we must love to be human.
I have a desperate want to see characters more like me in fiction, anon. If you hold tight to the ways your character expresses compassion, respect and tolerance, and keep an eye on the risk of autistic-coding (and consequent negative aro-coding) in how their behaviours may express their lack of love, and work to break down your readers’ assumptions about love as primary, I don’t think you’ll have a problem. We definitely need narratives that end with acceptance–that show a character’s realisation that we are not monstrous because we cannot love.
This is an important, valuable message, and in this area I do love without complication or hesitation: I’d love to read it in a story, anon.
Could you talk a bit about amatonormativity and how it related to you? I know the 101 (aka the definition), but I have trouble identifying it in real life, discussing how it permeates in fiction, etc. and this is kinda weird but I think an informed discussion about it would help? IDK feel free to ignore it if you don't have the spoons for it, but if you want to it would be a huge help!
Anon, I told you this was going to be long, but … well, it’s long!
The problem is that amatonormativity is a wall I keep hurling myself against, as an aro and as an aro creative, and there isn’t much conversational space where I am permitted to go all out in talking about it. I fear discussing this with too much vehemence, to go beyond the hand-holding 101 conversations about being aro, in case I alienate the alloromantic folks who do support me. Alloromantic people aren’t interested in conversations that undermine their sense of the world, and aro-spec spaces are small; both things together result in silence.
Because of this, I think it’s reasonable that this is something hard to grasp, for aro-spec and alloromantic folks alike: the educative conversations are hard to find or don’t exist. When you add to the fact that for the last two years a-spec people have been fighting targeted hate, that our conversations have fallen back to claws-out defence or the shield of validation, how the hell are we supposed to understand our own experiences, especially something as-yet-unquestioned as the practical impact of amatonormativity?
I hope you don’t mind, but because this is so long, I’m going to concentrate on amatonormativity in media and its impact on me as a creative.
In terms of fictional media, I think amatonormativity shows itself most obviously in the concept of a happy ending–that two people in a romantic relationship is by far the most common variant. No, not all stories end witha romantic happy ending, but so many do, even if it’s only a romantically-happy-for-now ending. Think Disney films; think action films shoving in an unnecessary romantic side-plot because the hero gets the girl once the explosions are over; think every story where the guy got the girl for reasons we the audience are expected to accept without question.
Likewise, a film with a tragic or unhappy ending is often shown by a protagonist not falling in romantic love or the dissolution of a romantic relationship. While there are other forms of indicating tragedy, the lack of a romantic paring for a character expected to be in one is common. There’s a reason Romeo and Juliet has long been framed as a tragic romance even though the tragedy, I’d argue, lies more in the impact of feuding families on the next generation, not the death of two young people in a “star-crossed” romance.
Even genres that aren’t romantic in the sense that romance isn’t the focus of the plot will still include sexual and romantic tension between characters: many of the crime and thriller novels I’ve read, supposedly less romantic because they target a cishet male audience, devote a great many pages to depicting romantic relationships nonetheless. The majority of YA novels depict the development of romantic relationships (which is why I kept reading middle-grade books even when I was too old for them) and even low-romance adult fiction still has the protagonists having had or desiring a romantic relationship at some point. So many literary works deal with the breakdown of romantic relationships, affairs, being single, unrequited love, or the way dangerous or alien environments, or the tyranny of distance, places stresses on romantic partnerships. These often won’t have purely happy endings–often tragic or complicated–because they’re Literary, but they’re just as obsessed with romantic love as any romance novel. In constantly going on about romance’s failure without ever making the point that someone can be happy and self-fulfilled without it, literary works are as amatonormative as anything else.
Romantic love and relationships don’t have to be successful: we just have to show a character desiring these or struggling with these, just so the audience knows that the protagonist is human. Characters who are shown as disdaining romance, or being uninterested in it, are usually antagonistic characters who are beyond redemption, are aliens or robots, or are coded as robotic–characters who are literally inhuman or portrayed as such. There’s a reason that The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper becomes a kinder, more “normal”, less-autistic-coded man the more he falls in romantic love with Amy, despite being introduced as extremely aroace-coded, and it’s called amatonormativity.
This is the point in the post where we aro-specs are giving the world that long, pained stare, and for good reason.
Romantic love as a marker of human worth is the most succinct way I can describe the impact of amatonormativity. It’s not a flawless summary, but so often romance is treated as a universal concept, relevant to all, because Western society uses the possession of or desire for romantic love as an indicator of a person’s humanity. Romantic love makes us human, and so romantic love is everywhere, unquestioned and unassailable.
Elements of a more expanded sense of amatonormativity include:
- The idea that romantic attraction, love and relationships are universal to the human experience (predominantly a relationship encompassing, exclusively, one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromantic cis man and one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromanticcis woman).
- The idea that romantic love is the primary form of love and all other forms, once one gains a certain level of socially-acceptable maturity or adulthood, are naturally secondary.
- The idea that romantic love and relationships are relatable to and attainable by all, and any failure to relate to it or attain it is a personal or moral failing.
- The idea that people who do not experience, attain or desire a romantic partnership are, after a certain age, childish or childlike, immature, robotic, alien, inhuman.
- The idea that sex (especially non-heterosexual or non-vanilla sex) is only acceptable, for a person of high moral character, when it comes paired with romantic love. (Characters who have sex without romantic love are often coded as grasping, hateful, calculating, predatory.)
- The idea that the attainment of romantic love and relationships is a marker of character development, growth, adulthood or redemption.
- The idea that because romantic love and relationships are universal, to not depict them in media is to render one’s work childish or uninteresting. (Every aro-spec creator of narrative media knows the impact of this one.)
- The idea that the lack of romantic love or relationships, or the desire for these, is an indicator of a person of low moral character.
- The unquestioned idea that romance sells, accompanied with the assumption that the inclusion of romance in a work (or the story-arc of a protagonist) is a necessary part of making that work (or character) appealing to all audiences.
- No comprehension that romantic attraction can be felt and experienced in a diversity of ways and strengths, particularly with regards to fluctuation, intensity and circumstance.
- Very little comprehension of the difference between romantic attraction and romantic behaviours.
- An assumption that there is a certain set of behaviours that are only or best experienced with romantic attraction. (Engaging in these behaviours without romantic attraction is also often coded as predatory.)
Please note that all these discussions of romance are based on an alloromantic model: romance in and of itself is not inherently amatonormative. Aro-spec people’s experiences of romantic love and relationships do not fit the above because they do not and cannot assume that everyone fits this assumption of romantic attraction being a universal, unquestioned human. If your depiction of romance doesn’t assume that romance makes us a worthy human and everyone experiences it, it’s probably not amatonormative.
There’s heavy overlap with ableism, misogyny, heterosexism, whoremisia, etc, and this must be acknowledged. Amatonormativity hits hard on its own, but it seldom hits alone. More often it’s paired up with another form of oppression, which means people who better fit its norms can deny its existence by claiming the problem is due only to amatonormativity’s current partner.
Additionally, most mainstream amatonormative works are going to be about cishet romances (the romantic relationship between a cis heterosexual man and a cis heterosexual woman, presumed to be perisex and both alloromantic and allosexual). Women are far more subject to the need to be shown in romantic relationships than men; men are more often allowed to travel through the narrative without being subject to a romance, although most are shown as at least desiring it. Each experience of marginalisation is going to shape in different ways how amatonormativity impacts us, and this needs to be discussed (especially because if we don’t, antagonists deny the existence of amatonormativity altogether).
(I will say that amatonormativity and misogyny have a strange relationship in that excessive romance is treated as feminine and emotional, and denigrated because of it. We all know how literature is valued and respected over fanworks and genre romance. Cishet men, meanwhile, have a long history of treating the having of a romantic partner as a trap–phrases like “ball and chain” with regards to a wife, for example. Despite this, there’s still an unquestioned social expectation that men experience romance attraction and have, will have or want a romantic partner.)
I’ll use my experience as a trans aro to give an example of this kind of overlap.
Amatonormativity in LGBTQIA+ media is coloured by the fact that LGBTQIA+ folks have been denied romantically-happy-endings until recently; the rise of fandom and LGBTQIA+ genre media has done much to change this. Yet both are, predominantly, romance narratives, to the extent that there is little space for anything else. This history leaves me in an awkward position. The need for love stories featuring trans characters and trans bodies as worthy of romantic interest and desire is profound. In a world where romantic love is seen as the only kind of love worth talking about, powerful and primary, it’s natural many trans/NB stories are about just that.
I feel like I’m walking on thin ice if I talk about how depicting romance as the only acceptable trans happy ending defines my experience of gender by romantic experiences--and yet that is exactly what I feel. Furthermore, this is a narrative many alloromantic trans people need and deserve. In trying to tell stories about me, an aro trans person, who isn’t a target of romantic love, my stories are seen by alloromantic trans folks as mirroring the narratives that have long harmed trans people, treating us as unlovable. My work cannot provide the validation–that they are desired and loved romantically–alloromantic trans folks are looking for.
The amatonormativity isn’t in the existence of trans romance stories, but the fact there are fewer publishing options, and smaller audiences, for non-romantic/aromantic/gen stories about trans love and identity. The amatonormativity lies in the fact that romantic love for trans characters is the love on which trans genre media centres.
As a reader, I need stories that talk about different kinds of love, love for myself and my own body, a radical self-acceptance that isn’t tied to someone else’s romantic interest in me. Instead, I get stories telling me that I am accepted, as a trans person, if my identity is tied up in experiences I don’t have and don’t desire.
The intersection of amatonormativity and cissexism results in its own peculiar oppression for me as a trans aro, one that I find impossible to navigate in a world where it isn’t understood that romance doesn’t have to be the primary form of expressing love and acceptance for trans characters and even trans bodies. I’ve seen so many posts on my dash about people proclaiming a want for trans storytelling while getting no benefit from this movement because I’m writing about aro trans characters. That’s more than a little disheartening.
This kind of intersection does a lot of damage to aro-spec creators who are otherwise marginalised (so many marginalised experiences come with a heavy dose of we are lovable, our love is important, we deserve the right for our love to be accepted and protected and acknowledged, much of this conversation centred on romantic love) but just being an aro-spec creator who creates aro-spec narrative media comes with an inherent disadvantage that is difficult to surmount.
I’ve got some numbers for this disadvantage, actually. My latest work, The Wind and the Stars, has had fifty downloads in its first month, and I’m actually excited by that, because everything else I’ve posted with the tag “aromantic” has gotten approximately twenty downloads in their first months. A couple of works didn’t break the fifty mark until three or four months in! By contrast, with the same amount of promotion but published under a brand new name with no back catalogue to help (unlike my other works), my explicitly queer paranormal romance story got three hundred downloads in its first month. How am I supposed to provide representation for my community when I don’t have enough interest in my work to justify the work of its production?
The tag aromantic helps guide aro-spec readers, but it actively discourages most alloromantic readers (who exist in far greater number) from reading, and most of them won’t have any comprehension of why. They just see romance as normal and interesting, and anything that subverts this, be it specifically aromantic or just gen, undermines this worldview. It happens so subconsciously it’s near impossible to challenge.
In a way, one of the most damaging aspects of amatonormativity is its lack of recognition. Most people have some understanding, now, on what misogyny is and what harm it might cause, even if one disagrees with it or has a 101 understanding at best. There’s a social model for beginning to understand this. Amatonormativity, on the other hand, has no such basis. It’s so unquestioned that few people who aren’t aro-spec recognise it or need to, and it’s often seen as a lesser problem. As someone who is struggling as a creator because of amatonormativity, to the extent that I don’t know how I can possibly survive as a writer, it angers me to see this treated as less important than other forms of normativity. No, nobody will beat me up on the street as an aro, but if I can’t keep a roof over my head because only a small number of people are reading my free books and I have no belief they’ll buy my next book, how does this distinction matter?
Amatonormativity silences, erases and oppresses aro-spec people. It substantially disadvantages us in how we are seen by others and how we interact with the world around us. And almost nobody outside aro-spec spaces wants to acknowledge it.
Sorry for the rant at the end there, anon. Does this give you some idea on how amatonormativity is demonstrated through media and how it impacts aro-spec creatives?
Our next aro-spec creator is Shell, already known to the aro-spec community as @arosnowflake and the author of the awesome short story Seducing Trouble!
Shell is an autistic, ADHD, non-binary aro-ace person who writes short stories, original fiction, fanfiction and essays. You can find eir fanworks on AO3 under the username spitecentral, writing for the Voltron: Legendary Defender, Fullmetal Alchemist, DC Universe, Batman and Batgirl fandoms, and we’ll hope ey posts more pieces from eir original Coffeeshop Project!
With us Shell talks about how ey writes romance as an aro-ace, depicting relationships in fiction, the impact of amatonormativity on creativity and eir alienation from current aro-spec community conversations. Eir words bound with enthusiasm on authentic creativity and the growth of the aro-spec community, so please let’s give em all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.
Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?
I never thought I was anything other than straight, although I did start noticing that I was different from other people when I was as young as twelve (for example, I remember being asked to pick the handsomest guy in a boy band, but to me, they all looked the same). However, I simply put this down to my autism, and since I was already desensitized to differences with peers, I pretty much ignored it. That is, until I repeatedly saw the word ‘asexual’ used online, and I began to wonder what it was, so I googled it. After reading the first paragraph on the Wikipedia page, I basically slammed my computer shut and did my very best to convince myself that no, I was overreacting, and also straight; after all, I was already autistic and ADHD, so any more diversity would be implausible.
Past me was so naive.
Anyway, I came to terms with being asexual at sixteen, and openly started identifying with it without adding ‘I think’ when I was seventeen. When I learned about the SAM, I initially dismissed the idea of being aro because I had a couple of crushes when I was a kid. However, after learning more about aromanticism and after some conversations with aromantic people, I decided to adopt the label since it really fit me. I mean, I was like nine when I had those crushes, and I don’t feel like they counted. I’m fairly sure now that I was just having them because it seemed like the Thing To Do, and, even then, all of my fantasies involved a more platonic ‘best friends forever but with shared pets’ lifestyle than a romantic thing. So while I may or may not have had crushes before, I don’t think I ever will again, and I don’t want to either, so I’ve adopted the aromantic label. I know it sounds weird, but oh well!
Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?
I don’t remember exactly why or when I began to write. I know it happened when I was around twelve, but that’s kind of it? It’s not really a spectacular story. As for how I began to create the things I do now, that’s slightly more interesting. Really, everything centers around one thing: spite. No one writes autistic characters, and no one writes stories with no romantic plotlines, so I guess I’ll have to do it myself! That’s my literal thought process behind my writing at any given moment, honestly. Even when I’m not writing about autism or other marginalized identities, I write obscure and sometimes absurdist fantasy with magic types or settings that I haven’t seen used before, because I find writing that fascinating, or because I’m annoyed that no one else has used that particular idea. I’m fairly sure that was the reason I began writing originally, too: I had stories I wanted to read, and no one was writing them, so I guess I’ll have to do it.
Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?
Well, first and foremost, I never focus on romantic relationships. Even when they appear in the story, they are not the focus. I’m so sick and tired of reading romantic plotlines, and I am not planning on ever contributing to that trend, thank you very much. So platonic relationships, worldbuilding or character development are often central to the story, instead of romance.
Second, I have this habit of interpreting tropes differently than allos because of my aromanticism. Name soulmates, for example. I know they aren’t a very popular trope in the aro community, but I love them. However, I have a different definition of them than most: I’ve always interpreted a ‘soulmate’ as someone who changes your life (for better or for worse), not your ‘other half’ or whatever nonsense we’re on today. I didn’t even realize that wasn’t a widespread thing until I heard aros complain about soulmate tropes! Stuff like that happens on a fairly regular basis, so I think my aromanticism definitely affects how I write certain settings/tropes, too.
Third, if I do write romance, I feel like I do it in a different way than allo creators. First, I suck at it. Badly. I used to try and write it in the same way that I always heard about it, bold and dramatic and mushy, and my mom (my loyal proofreader when I was a kid), always looked at me awkwardly and was like, ‘No, that’s not how it’s done.’ Since I don’t experience it, I honest to god don’t get why people insist that it’s the best or most important feeling in the world. The way characters in fiction always put their friendships or anything else on hold when that person walks by just … baffles me. I can’t write romance that way. I just can’t.
Instead, I tend to write romance in a much quieter way. If two of my characters are in an established relationship (and it’s always established because I still can’t write ‘coming together’ stories for the life of me), they are casual and comfortable with each other. In any relationship I write, platonic or romantic, I find open communication and trust to be very important. I kind of give all my relationships that same base, and then I add little flavours that I think are unique to that type of relationship. For romance, this is soft love and PDA. PDA is usually quick kisses on the cheek, holding hands, etc. The love is the type of thing where they fondly smile whenever the other does anything, really. I think that more subtle way of writing romance works decently, although I have gotten a lot of people telling me that I often also write friendships as romance, which is weird because I don’t think I do? I add a louder sort of love to friends, generally, and when they do have a quiet moment, it’s usually more serious rather than fond, and I think that’s different. But maybe I do write friendships as romance but I haven’t noticed it? Or maybe it’s amatonormativity making people read it like that?
I don’t know. I have no clue what I’m doing. Save me.
What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?
I can only talk about what I face as a fanfic writer, as I don’t really post my original works because I lack the platform for them. (I sometimes post stuff when there are events going on over on larger blogs than lil’ old me, but that doesn’t happen consistently enough to really be talked about.)
As a fanfic writer, well. I’m sure you’ve all heard it before: no one reads gen fic. Although I tend to have a pretty high kudos-to-hits ratio, that means nothing if you get less than 100 hits. In my case especially, as I tend to write for niche audiences, usually picking unpopular characters or friendships to write for, or writing specifically about autistic experiences. Not having the added hook of romance really hurts me in my exposure. Almost always when a story becomes kind of popular (as in it has 40+ kudos), it’s because it’s been recommended by someone with a bigger platform than me, or when I write about popular characters.
(There’s other reasons my stories don’t get popular, of course, like not knowing how to self-advertise and the fact that I have the charisma of a rock, but that’s not what this section is about.)
How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?
Not at all, honestly? I said before I talked to some aromantic people, but that was mostly by anon asks, and the few I did actually message, well, I remade my blog so now I don’t have any contact. On top of that, the aro community (to my knowledge) doesn’t really have a central tag? Like, the autistic community has the #actuallyautistic tag, but I think the closest we have is #safeforaro, which (to my understanding) is more a reaction to discourse than anything else.
Aside from that, the aro community is really small, and mostly focused on making younger aros accept their identity. While that’s great, as someone who already has accepted their identity, it distances me a bit. And the few blogs that don’t focus on this, while absolutely lovely, are always so … sad? A large part of the aro community is depressed and bitter, worrying about losing their friends, worrying about their future. While that’s absolutely valid, I’d already moved on from that when I was younger, when I accepted the fact that because I was autistic, I would have trouble connecting and staying connected to people. It’s disheartening, sure, but I’ve accepted it and moved past it, so seeing the aro community still hung up on it saddens me. I can’t really give advice because, well, their worries are legit and they just need to come to terms with it at their own pace, and I’m bad at comforting without advice, so I’m just kind of stuck listening to it. It drains me a lot, so I distance myself.
I feel like we, as a community, can do a lot to dismantle amatonormativity, but since we still haven’t figured out what it is exactly, and we’re still grieving over the way we’re impacted by it, we’re not getting anything done. I’m bad at connecting with communities when I don’t know how to contribute to them, so I don’t really interact with it. And outside of the internet, there seems to be no aro community at all (or at least I haven’t found it), so I feel very isolated.
Wow that got real dark real fast. Sorry for being such a downer, but I did feel like it needed to be said.
How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?
…speaking of being a downer.
It’s well known that fandom isn’t a safe space for aro/ace people. It’s a very ship-centric place, to the point where it’s almost impossible to escape romance, and I hate it. I’m here because I like expanding on stories and characters and playing with established narratives, not because I want to see two people kiss. Because my wants and needs are different from most of the fandom, I tend to be isolated and unpopular, and while that’s mostly fine with me (it creates less drama), I really wish I had people to talk to.
As for being an original writer, I’ve already mentioned that I don’t post my work because I don’t have a platform. Now, granted, it’s rather difficult to create a platform as a writer, especially if you’re not that social and don’t know how to market yourself (hi), but I feel like being aro also helps to distance me. Romance is a rather large hook to any work of fiction in the publishing industry, to the point where some publishers will demand a romance subplot in your book. I write obscure things that I myself enjoy, and as a result, my stories aren’t very marketable. I doubt that I’ll ever get published, simply because I’m, well, weird.
I totally understand the publisher’s perspective of not wanting to pick up books or stories that simply won’t sell (and experience has told me that my stories will indeed never be popular), but it still saddens me. I could probably learn to write more popular stories, but I don’t want to do that, since writing for me really is about expressing myself (though I’m not judging anyone who writes popular stuff for money; we all need to eat).
So, to summarize, I’m not marketable or interesting either as a writer or as a fandom member to either communities, which isolates me, which sucks, but it also enables me to really stop giving a shit. Sounds weird, but once I figured out that I’m not gonna get published or be popular, I really felt free to do whatever I want. Because ultimately the only person that really likes my writing is me, I’ll make myself happy first and foremost. While this sounds kind of depressing, it’s actually motivated me to keep writing, and it stops me from getting too depressed or anxious when a story I post only gets a dozen or so kudos/notes, so I think that’s a positive thing. Because ultimately, to me, the most important thing about writing isn’t the community, it’s having fun and creating something new, and as long as I can do that, I’ll be happy.
How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?
The obvious answer is read my stories and reblog/leave kudos/comment, which is also true for every other writer, but I feel like that’s ignoring the underlying reason romance-free stuff just doesn’t get popular. The reason my stuff is unpopular isn’t because of the aro community, but because of the alloro people being more numerous and not caring.
Instead, I’m going to say that I would be helped if the aro community started focusing more on what it means to be aro, expanding on the meaning of amatonormativity, and spreading the word to allo communities. Amatonormativity is something that hurts all of us, especially fellow LGBT+ members, and I think that once more people start to realize what it is and how it’s harmful, they would try to examine their own biases and help us dismantle it. That way, gen stories will get more popular in fandom spaces, and stories without a focus on romance will have more chance of thriving in the publishing industry. It’s not a foolproof plan, and maybe I’m just too optimistic about my fellow humans, but it’s worth a shot and better than doing nothing.
Can you share with us something about your current project?
I have several current projects! My ADHD always makes me bounce dozens of ideas around in my head and start even more works, but very few of them ever get finished. However! One story I’m fairly sure I’m getting finished is an original piece about a universe in which everyone needs to buy a heart on a necklace in order to feel love. It’s an old story that I’m reworking to contain less aromisia, since I was still rather ignorant when I wrote the first draft, but I think it has a lot of potential to examine love in its entirety, and I’m super excited about it!
The only thing I don’t like about it is the incredibly melodramatic writing style I’m using; unfortunately, my writing always seems to be needlessly dramatic and I cry every time I read it because I just hate it so much. Since this is a fairly serious piece, it’s even worse than usual. I’m toying with the idea of starting a humorous and light piece to offset it, probably about an aromantic witch and her familiar who con people into buying fake love potions.
And of course, my Coffeeshop Project is always ongoing!
The Coffeeshop Project is a project I started when I badly needed to de-stress. It’s been my go-to comfort project ever since, meaning that I try not to put pressure on myself over the quality of it, and that I don’t do any research specifically for the project (although I often incorporate research that I did for other things).
The Coffeeshop Project is a series of stand-alone short stories in the same universe centred around the shenanigans of the crew of Café Nowhere, a café with a supernatural clientele. (I’m afraid I have a soft spot for supernatural shops.)
The story I wrote for the aro prompt on this blog was actually part of it! It was set a couple of years prior to the current ‘canon’, and introduces Ethan, who is now 22 and is infamous for taking down an intergalactic smuggling ring. There are more crew members, but listing them would take forever, so if anyone is interested, feel free to just ask!
Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?
I have several ideas about forthcoming works that may or may not get written, including the above, a role reversal AU for Fullmetal Alchemist (for which I have to research a lot about blindness, and since I hate research but don’t want to compromise on an accurate betrayal of disability, that might never get finished – I’m sorry y’all, but I’m doing this for free and only have so many spoons), an in-progress work for Batman about magic that I just cannot seem to pace correctly, a fic with a respectful portrayal of an autistic Black Manta as a passive-aggressive middle finger to DC comics, an analysis of FMA and/or Harry Potter from an aromantic perspective, etc. But with my ADHD and my gazillion ideas it’s always a 50/50 chance that something actually gets finished, so I don’t like to promise anything.
gloriousmonsters replied to your post “Ah thank you K.A! Forgot to mention I'm autistic too, so I think I do...”
it's so cool to see other autistics talking about learning stuff about themselves from things they write?? I haven't run into it before and always felt kind of weird that most of my self-knowledge has come from looking at stories and characters (esp one specific one) and going 'oh dang I didn't know that about myself.'
like that one character in particular I wrote as trans before i realized i was trans, had an ED before i realized I struggled with one, was autistic before i knew I was autistic, etc etc etc. it’s gotten to the point where when my sibling asks me something about myself I’ll sometimes joke ‘let’s see what 'name of character’ says’
Forgive us for the side conversation, fabulous followers! I’m tagging anything like this as #off topic, so if you’d rather blacklist this tag in favour of aro-spec awesomeness, by all means do so.
I don’t see it discussed either--maybe because there’s not a lot in the way of blogs focusing on autistic creativity, which leads to these sorts of conversations and revelations? There’s a lot more conversations on autistic experiences and identity, but not so much on particularly autistic creativity and narrative. I’ve never seen anyone else voice this before now, but it feels so birthed from my inability to easily identify what I feel outside my writing it can’t not be an autistic experience.
(Side note: I was excited to see another autistic, trans, aro-spec creator in the artist profiles! We exist! *flaps hands*)
Everything significant about my life, experiences and identity was written into my works before I knew they applied to me. Autistic characters. Characters with sensory processing disorder. (I thought I was basing my story on the experiences of a friend, and it took me several months to realise I was describing me.) Trans, pansexual, aro, aro-ace, non-binary characters. Characters with mental illnesses. Some of it was more of a case of me writing out an experience and then recognising that happened to me and this is how I feel about it, even though I’d identified it as something else at the time; a lot of it was prophetic, part of my brain knowing things before the rest of my brain.
I think that my brain is pretty decent at subconscious analysis, but the bridge between said analysis and conscious awareness doesn’t exist--it can’t communicate this knowledge (especially not in real-time) to the part of my brain that recognises what it is I know. So a lot of my creativity in narrative is me talking to myself, a process of forming that bridge. It’s just that because it’s indirect communication, until I finally realised what was happening, it was so easy to miss. Now I’m aware of it, I pay more attention to it (although I’m still surprised by emotional revelations) and acknowledge it as a method of understanding who I am.
One day I’ll write about an autistic writer who experiences this, but I very much doubt we’re alone in this--and I honestly find it one of the cooler autistic qualities I have. Sometimes it’d be nice to know things about myself in a more allistic fashion, but being blown away by unexpected discoveries in my writing is a pretty amazing feeling, and when my writing is so personal this way, that can be incredibly motivating in terms of keeping going with it.
