The seven days after valentines day are aromantic spectrum awareness week so I drew a little guide for people who dont know about arospec :)
I wish there was more representation in books, tv and movies, so that it could be normalised a bit, and more people would know of the existance of people who don’t fall in love all the time and at first sight and so on.
It took me so long to realize that nothing was wrong with me, I was just part of a minority that doesn’t follow the norm.
“You just havent found the right person yet.”
Yeah, well, that might be true for some arospec people, but as I am both aromantic and asexual, I think I’ll just go home and enjoy baking a cake with my cat, and leave the romantic-love-finding to others :)
As I am an author in my spare time (pastors don’t have much spare time, but I manage 😘) I write fantasy, and I make sure to include representation of many different groups.
It is hard to balance and make three-dimentional characters who aren’t cardboard cut outs and whose character isn’t just their sexuality for example. Some times a side character just doesn’t have much screen time, and sometimes it just isn’t plot relevant to make someone’s orientation explicit in canon.
“Reporting for duity, sir!”
“I never fall in love soldier!”
“... ok... but what has that got to do with this war, where the bad guy is trying to achieve world domination?”
“Nothing! I just wanted to make that clear, so noone will argue about wheter I am just to busy with war to fall in love, or if I’m aromantic.”
“Well... noted sir. But about this upcoming battle...”
Well, that’s the hard work we authors need to do, write it a bit more smooth than this 😆 and that’s what I try to do in my character driven epic fantasy series UNTO THE END OF ARETZ.
It’s in Danish, but you can read the first chapter in English here:
www.christinaebbesen.dk/unto-the-end-of-aretz
One of my main characters, Robin, is openly gay, and it might turn out, that he is grey/gray and or demiromantic. It takes him half a book to get enough of a deep connection with the other main character, Gavin, to start falling in love with him :) It hasn’t been plot relevant to examine why the 176 year old elf only ever had 5-6 relationships. But well, in the story we don’t know yet, if it’s because his relationship lasted a long time.
My story is an: odd-couple-goes-on-a-quest-road-trip-bromance-that-might-turn-into-a-romance.
So, yeah. Let’s all strive to get some GOOD and nuanced representation out there :)