#mod kaladin

[arocharacteradvice]

Why you shouldn’t avoid using the word ‘aromantic’ to describe your aromantic characters

We get a lot of questions on this blog that mention a difficulty conveying to readers that a character is in fact aromantic, and I feel like I need to point out, as nicely as I can, that ‘aromantic’ isn’t a bad word. 

It’s not impossible for there to be a scenario where using the word aromantic isn’t necessary. What is necessary is erring on the side of caution, because aros are still very much an invisible group. You cannot say of an aro character ‘they don’t date’ and have readers know what that means in the same way you can say of a gay character ‘he only dates boys.’ 

Aromantics can guide you on how best to describe our orientation without saying the word aromantic, but it is not helping us for you to try and use any euphemism you can before you call us by the actual term for what we are. 

I understand not wanting to use modern terms in a fantasy setting, but using an orientation term won’t take audiences out of the story the way saying ‘twitter’, or ‘nuclear power’ will. There aren’t equivalents of twitter in (most) fantasy worlds. There can be a word for aromantic, and your readers will just assume that’s been translated from whatever fantasy language your characters are speaking into whatever language they’re reading the book in. 

Everything in fantasy is translated. Unless they wouldn’t have a version of the thing you’re talking about, please just use whatever words you like. Don’t let a warped idea of accuracy get in the way of an underrepresented group seeing themselves in the media. 

(Especially when, as pointed out many times to male writers who use ‘accuracy’ as a reason not to let women fight, fantasy isn’t realistic. You have dragons in this book, you can have aros. Please don’t be that male writer everyone hates.)

Historical fiction is a little different, but unless you’re writing something with zero anachronisms that is meant to be completely serious, I’d rather an ahistorical term be used than aromanticism be erased.

I know I’ve reassured people before than canonising a character’s orientation via word of god is always possible, but I also want to stress that that should really be a last resort. The few aro characters we have are erased 99% of the time even by people who already know about their canonical, word of god, aromanticism. We need the most explicit canonisation possible, because people do not respect us. Unless you’re willing to personally argue with every fan online making ship art of your word of god aro, please consider that route to be a cop out you take when there are literally no other options. 

I know that sometimes, it is genuinely difficult to make a character’s aromanticism clear, especially in cases where access to the word might be difficult or inaccurate. But the amount of asks we get about how to make it obvious a character is aro, when in the context the asker has given about their story it wouldn’t be necessary to go without the word, is worrying. 

Please don’t act like ‘aromantic’ is a word to be avoided at any cost. It allows us to be erased even when we should be represented, and frankly it makes me feel like even our allies don’t want to support us explicitly. 

- Mod Kaladin

[arocharacteradvice]

hi i just found com/post/611807427248242688/ and while i plan to be very open about every label and all that, i was planning on a similar situation, ship-wise. a lithromantic romance repulsed character is in a qpr with an aroallo character. being aplatonic (and aroace) i found out while writing, that i don't really have a grasp on the difference between a romantic relationship and a sexual qpr. could you enlighten me? ^^

Hi,

So, from an outside perspective, qprs can look identical to romantic relationships, because they’re defined not by what actions and relationship staples they’re made up of, but by how the people in the relationship want to see it. Qprs are fundamentally pick and mix platonic relationships, so if queerplatonic partners enjoy ‘romantic’ things like kissing, holding hands, living together, those things can be a part of their relationship. Likewise if they don’t enjoy that kind of thing, the relationship may look more like a traditional friendship. 

This also extends to sexual activities, which are not tied to romance, and many people aro or not enjoy in a platonic context. Since it’s a societal norm to experience both sexual and romantic attraction and to experience them together, many people will imply that a typical romantic relationship is pretty much synonymous with ‘friends plus sex’, so I get why someone might struggle to differentiate between a traditional romantic relationship and a platonic one incorporating sex, but queerplatonic partners having sex doesn’t change the nature of a qpr. It’s just one of many activities that can be part of one.

Basically, qprs are whatever the people involved want them to be, so whether we’re comparing them to friendships, romantic relationships, friends with benefits and etc., there is no identifying mark to differentiate them. The way your characters’ relationship is specified will just be how the characters choose to label it!

I hope that helps.

- Mod Kaladin

[arocharacteradvice]

i know this is kind of the opposite of this blog's purpose, but, aro to aro, do you have any tips on writing alloromantic characters?

Hi!

So, first off, my advice is to stop wherever you feel uncomfortable or weird, whether that’s writing an in depth romantic arc, or just writing romance at all. 

That said, I do have a couple of tips.

1. Treat romantic relationships like any other! Obviously the characters will have romantic feelings for each other, but try not to overthink the differences between how two people who are dating would show they care for each other as opposed to people who aren’t, especially since society really equates love and romance so readers are unlikely not to get ~romance vibes~ from any characters who are written as loving each other. 

This is a curse a lot of the time, but a blessing in this context. Basically, don’t think ‘what would make this scene more romantic’, but ‘what would be nice/sweet/caring’. It will probably create romantic dynamics that feel very fresh to alloromatic readers too.

2. Don’t worry that your alloromantic characters are ‘too aro’ in their thinking. You’re allowed to write characters that would accept you, even if that feels selfish, or single characters if you don’t want to write a romance. Just because someone Can date or be amatonormative doesn’t mean that have to.

I’m not saying never to write an arophobic character or an alloro who sees things very differently to how aros would, just that alloromantics aren’t some monolith any more than aros are, so it’s fine to write the kind of character you’d like to rather than thinking ‘oh they’re alloromantic, they’d never think to comfort my aro character like that’ and then upsetting yourself by writing a character you don’t actually agree with for the sake of ‘accuracy’.

Good luck!

- Mod Kaladin

[arocharacteradvice]

Hello, I am writing a character that is asexual and aromantic but has a child. The situation is one of her students (it's in college and hes in his mid 20s while shes in her late 30s) wants to start a relationship with her and states he will be a great step father. What will be her thought process and emotions during this situation?

I mean first thought from any decent human being is going to be ‘yikes’ because you shouldn’t date your student? You don’t have to be aro to see someone you have a position of power over as off limits and not someone you could be attracted to.

I’m going to assume you sent this ask in good faith and weren’t trying to imply that dating your student would be ethical, but I can only really answer this by addressing the rest of your ask independent of the student/teacher context. ie. I’ll talk about how an aro ace person might feel being asked out by someone in a general setting.

First off, not every aromantic feels the same way. Some are actually open to relationships (providing there is good communication and the partner respects their aromanticism), some would feel indifferent, maybe a little akward, and some would feel distressed and uncomfortable. I can’t tell you more specifically how your character would react with what information I have, so it’s probably a good idea for you to do your own pondering on how she feels about romance past her lack of attraction.

As for the child, if someone said something like that to me I would probably assume they were trying to use the argument that they would be a good step father as a way to get me to date them, and I’d probably feel annoyed and a little condescended. A single parent, especially an aro tired of the assumption they need a partner, might also feel like this was a judgement on the child not currently having a father. Can’t speak for everyone but it feels skeevy and I reckon most people would be at least a bit dubious of it.

- Mod Kaladin

[arocharacteradvice]

Hi! I'm an aroace writer, who's basically any-attraction-repulsed. Still I want to write alloaro and demiro characters. The thing is. No aro person can properly explain romantic attraction and that one answer I got so far was "When i did fall in love (being a demiA person) there was some spark to my attraction. Nothing more." And HOW should I write that? Is the difference from romance to platonic, queerplatonic and alterous attraction really just some "spark"? Sounds fake but ok. :p

Hi!

First off, sorry for the late response. 

Sadly attraction is not really something that can be described, and you’re unlikely to get an answer past ‘You Just Know’. However the literary world is full of metaphors for that kind of thing that you can use or be inspired by. People won’t be reading a book expecting a perfect, realistic, step by step description of attraction, they’ll just need either the bare fact that a character has a crush on another character, or depending on tone a flowery description of that. 

The other thing that helps is that, as I think most aros know from personal experience, there can be little outward difference between how someone shows romantic feelings and how they show platonic ones. It’s also true that people tend to lean towards interpreting close relationships as romantic which is shitty, but sort of helpful here because it means you really don’t have to put much work into portraying something as romantic for people to read it that way.

My practical advice is to write a romantic relationship, and romantic attraction, just like you would any relationship and desire for closeness, just specify if needed that character A has a ‘crush’ on character B and wants to date them, or that characters A and B are girlfriends or etc. 

Good luck!

- Mod Kaladin

[arocharacteradvice]

I'm demiromantic and recently wrote a sci-fi novel with an aro main character. I partially based his experiences off of my own, but I'm worried that it's not clear enough that he's aromantic. He's gay aromantic and has had a number of romantic/sexual relationships, but values his platonic bond with his best friend more. He realizes he's aromanitc during the book as he's in a romantic/sexual relationship, but there's a mismatch between his and his partner's (who's allo) feelings. (1/2)

(2/2) He's social and physically affectionate, so he thinks of romantic relationships as friendships with sex where you're allowed to be more affectionate. It's the difference between his and his partners feelings that makes him realize that isn't how it is for everyone. It hurts their relationship. His partner and others accuses him of being cold and he faces arophobia, but later he gets an apology and people around him validate him as loving and aro. Are there pitfalls I should be aware of?

Oh, this is another one of the two-part ask about the aromantic main character in my sci-fi novel from the demiromantic writer! I was hoping to make this a series and have him end up with the partner I mentioned in the last ask at the end, but with the understanding that he's aromantic and while he does care about his partner its not in a romantic way. They go into it openly knowing their feelings are mismatched. Do you think it's okay or still amatonormative to have him end in a monogamous qpr?

Hi!

So, first off, I really love that the character eventually gets an apology from his friends. I’m sure lots of us on the aro spectrum will find that very satisfying to read, myself included!

I also think your story has potential to be a really interesting portrayal of an aro piecing together how he’s different to others, as if I’ve understood properly it’s not a lack of feeling but a difference that makes him notice his aromanticism, and that’s another thing I’d love to read because we’re in desperate need of coming out stories and media that examines how aros question seeing as we’re realising a lack rather than a differing attraction. As you’re someone on the arospec who does experience attraction, I imagine pulling from your own experiences will be very useful in this case, though you can of course always ask aromantics to compare and contrast experiences if you need to.

As for making it clear your character is aromantic: I’ve written a post about this topic here, but the tl;dr is that you can just use the word. Explaining what this means for the character in the text is always good, but don’t feel like there’s anything stopping you from hitting your readers over the head with the specifics of what your character is and isn’t. 

It’s difficult to think of specific pitfalls with what you’ve described. That doesn’t mean your writing has no awkward phrasing or dodgy implications, because I haven’t read it, but it seems like you’re covering bases by doing things like actively presenting arophobic characters as wrong and needing to grow. If you’re asexual, I would recommend following a few allosexual aros and maybe asking for further specific advice about writing a gay aro’s experience of a romantic/sexual experience, but that’s about it.

Whether or not it’s amatonormative to have an aro end up in a monogamous qpr is really about the specifics (again) of that situation. It’s far from inherently arophobic, as it’s the reality for lots of aros, but I agree that it’s something to be handled with care.

 The biggest things that stick out for me are that a) the aro character is intended to end up with a previous partner who was arophobic to them in the past, and b) that you describe the two as having mismatched feelings. The first thing here means that you’re going to have to put a lot of work into showing how the alloromantic partner has grown and made it up to the aro, because otherwise as a reader I would struggle to feel convinced that the relationship would be healthy for the aro, and would likely have my romance repulsion triggered.

This isn’t to say it *is* unhealthy to write a relationship like this, just that I’m on high alert for situations that might trigger an aro character’s repulsion, especially as they are the character I’m likely to identify with, and I imagine that’s the same for a lot of romance repulsed people. If you decide you do want to write this relationship, I think you just need to sit down and go over the eventual relationship dynamic you’ve written like it’s a contract, and look for ‘loopholes’ that might lead to a reader not being convinced the aro is safe. And then fix them. 

The second thing just concerns me because you can take ‘mismatched’ to mean they have different or unequal feelings towards their relationship. I think you may just have meant they have different base feelings about each other (romantic/platonic), and if so that’s fine and obviously fairly standard, but if not you may need to tweak a few things to make sure both characters are going into this relationship with the same intentions and ideas about what they want it to be.

Really, what I think you need to do is consider *why* you want the characters to end up together, because reasoning and intent are I think very important aspects of what makes something amatonormative. Does the idea of either character ending the series single make you feel sad or guilty? Do you feel that their relationship is just how your story would be expected to end? Do you not actually know why you want to write it? If yes to any of these, it might be amatonormative. Hopefully you figure out what’s best for you and your story.

Best wishes,

- Mod Kaladin

[arocharacteradvice]

[image description: an anonymous ask reading ‘what are some of you & your followers’ favorite aro-related tropes & situations to see in writing? (I personally am a sucker for almost anything under the found family trope umbrella involving an arospec character; allo characters actively choosing their arospec friends over romantic interests is also Very Good, imo’ end description]

(Sorry it took us so long to get around to answering this one! We forgot to queue it after we'd all drafted our answers, oops)

I'd kill and die for literally just any found family, arospec character or none. Found family is my lifeblood and the mcu owes me financial compensation for found-family-baiting me. Really though, I don't have any other favourite aro-related tropes. I'm not someone who finds much appeal in making tropes for aro-specific situations so that may just be a me thing, however. I just want romance tropes to die tbh.

- Mod Atem

I’m also a big fan of alloro characters choosing their friends, or even alloro characters who still date genuinely valuing their friends just as much and making a life around them. Also I love friendships that are like, embarrassingly tender and loving WITHOUT being written as ‘closer’ to romantic relationships. Tbh I just think the two kinds of aro projection fodder fantasy that need to be in all literature ever are ‘friend tells you how much they value you’ and ‘people who set off an aro’s repulsion get made to feel awful about it’. The crossover is ‘someone sets off your repulsion and a loyal friend screams at them for it.’ I just think that would be neat lmao.

- Mod Kaladin

My personal favorite aro tropes are 1. aro characters (or, more commonly, characters who just don't have a love interest because Nobody Wants To Actually Call Them Aro) who are unapologetically weird and don't fit in with Conventional Norms, but still have a fulfilling life and meaningful friendships and are treated as unambiguously human by the narrative, 2. like basically everyone else said, alloro characters prioritizing their aro friends over love interests, and 3. found family that stays a family, and isn't treated as just a precursor to pairing off all the characters in the found family.

-Mod Ollie

Followers feel free to add your own favorite aro-related tropes!

[arocharacteradvice]

Aro writer here. My current gen fic has two villain protagonists, and the story is about them being best friends while doing crime. They're both reformed in the end, and their friendship plays a part in their reformation. I’m worried that this uses the arophobic "love or one's ability to love makes people good and not evil" trope (even though it’s not romantic love). I feel stuck. How can I redeem a villain whose arc heavily involves platonic love without being arophobic?

Hi,

I think the main problem with the trope you’ve described, at least in my eyes, is equating a villain caring about one person (often for selfish reasons and without respecting them) with them caring about other people in general and having had development. So, avoiding equating the two, and showing explicit evidence of the latter even if your focus is on the former, is the best way around playing into any kind of arophobia. 

Essentially, the friendship can be what prompts the characters to do nice things, like rescuing each other or offering gestures of affection, but it can’t be where the redemption ends. It should be the gateway into starting to think about other peoples’ feelings and the consequences of each of the villains’ own actions.

I’d also recommend showing how the friendship ends up a respectful one, where both parties respect and make actual sacrifices for each other, even if it starts off with them simply using each other or collaborating on some kind of villainy. It’s important to present the effort they make to be genuinely good to each other, rather than just the fact that they enjoy each other’s company and have ‘feelings’, as the reason they can be considered redeemed.

I’d especially love to see the two characters guiding each other on matters outside their relationship that would aid in their redemption, for instance one persuading the other to do the right thing even if it inconveniences them. This would help present the friendship as the reason they are able to grow as people rather than as evidence that they have grown. 

Good luck!

- Mod Kaladin