aro-but-not-ace

[aro-but-not-ace]

Back up but with some revisions.

Working on not deleting things randomly.

[aro-but-not-ace]

Just explained to my crush what being greyromantic (and particularly romance neutral/favorable) feels like in the best analogy I have ever used:

So, if you’re familiar with battery health on phones, then you know how if it says your battery is at 80% capacity, it only charges up to 80% of the original charge. So your phone will say it’s charged to 100%, but it isn’t the most it can be compared to when you first got it as a brand new phone.

Being greyromantic is like having a romantic attraction capacity set at 80%. When you’re charged to 100%, that’s the most you can feel and have ever felt. To you, that’s a lot.

However, by alloromantic standards, your 80% capacity means you feel less than their 100% capacity. You feel 20% less attraction than they do. Which is fine! To you, that’s the most you can experience, and that’s still enough for it to mean something. Just because you have less capacity than the people who feel romantic attraction at a 100% charge doesn’t mean you care less than they do about a partner.

[aro-but-not-ace]

🌈 Happy Pride Month! 🌈

May I interest you with some light queer reading in the form of a PDF comic zine? It's an autobiographical comic about living by myself, partner-free, with posi vibes! 24 pages!

PDF available in my ITCH.io shop in English and in Finnish!

[aro-but-not-ace]

I haven’t posted in a while but I just wanted to say I still love being aromantic

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By the way "some aroace people still date and have sex" and "it's weird how internet spaces makes every single aroace character romance and sex favourable" can and should co-exist. Sincerely, an aroace person

[aro-but-not-ace]

Aquarius thinks of Leo - Submitted by Vissy

#D5D0EB #887B83 #504E4F #69864C #314D32 #181B1A

[aro-but-not-ace]

I'm not alloaro but I wish I was solely bc you guys have an awesome flag. Oh I love it when there's yellow and green.

Beautiful, stunning 🍋

[aro-but-not-ace]

made some clown designs based on the aro, ace and aroace flags!!

[aro-but-not-ace]

i always thought romantic love was the plague and i was a plague doctor.

so here's an aro-colored plague doctor

me oversharing beneath the cut about how amatonormativity has screwed me up in ways I have never been screwed up before.

(rant beneath the cut is full of negativity, triggering, but perhaps relatable. idk. read at your own risk)

okay so let's have a mini story telling time about how romance plagued every aspect of my life until now.

My bestfriend in high school treated me of less value after she gets her boyfriend. This experience was what drove me into drawing plague doctors during valentines. These doodles were captioned with "Plague is in the air", because my friends in my circle told me to not hang out with her on that day because it's valentines day. So cool, I thought I should avoid them like they were the plague.

For the first half of college, I've been a wingman for way too many of my friends for my only female and best friend.

It has gotten to a point where the meaning of my companionship with my male friends had become solely for providing a connection to a girl they want to date.

In the long run, my bestfriend, who my 'friends' were pining for, actually has been pining for me. She asked if we could be a thing, I said yes because I thought that, romance isn't probably as disgusting as I think of it.

To protect tradition and to protect the feelings of the men she rejected (who I also wingmanned), we kept it hidden.

For the entire time, she emphasized how I was dense and oblivious about romance. For the entire time I was confused, disoriented, and even repulsed. I didn't know how to reciprocate and I certainly did not have THOSE feelings either at all.

Of course it didn't end well.

After that failed attempt at romance, I have been involved in three more encounters after that. Men suddenly started talking to me out of nowhere. Initially, I thought that they were just trying to make new friends. I didn't realize they were hitting on me but when I did, I cold-shouldered them out of my life.

The last one was the most traumatic. I have explicitly stated that he shouldn't attempt to romance me because I've admitted that I'm way too tired of dealing with it, but he was stubborn. He has also gone as far as sexualizing me against my will.

So yeah.

Amatonormativity made me lose faith in the meaning of my friendships.

It made me realize how friendship is easily overshadowed by romantic relationships.

It made me worry that my kindness is misread as a romantic gesture.

It made me constantly hate how friendship is only seen as a stepping stone for a romantic relationship.

And because amatonormativity has rendered all my significant connections meaningless, I'll spend every second of my life hating amatonormativity. I will always be repulsed at the concept that destroyed every goddamned friendship that I had. Nothing has ever made me feel THS sick. I will always think of it as the plague.

[aro-but-not-ace]

"You're not actually aromantic, you just have a fear of intimacy"

It's both actually so fuck you

[aro-but-not-ace]

Some much needed info for pride month

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Quick reminder that you don't need a solid sexuality! You can just be in love! Or not be in love! Or have a gender! Labels are a choice, not a requirement. All you need to do is be someone you like being! If labels help with that, great! But they are not required. You don't owe it to anyone, so don't feel pressured to choose labels if they aren't your thing!

[aro-but-not-ace]

hello, tumblr user. before you is an aromantic character. they have never expressed any hint of asexuality. your task is simple: do not refer to them as an "aroace" or get mad at people writing smut about them. the duration of this task is the rest of your life. if you fail at any point in the future, i will personally shoot you.

good luck.

[aro-but-not-ace]

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[aro-but-not-ace]

Partnering aromantic writing advice

The topic of aromantic characters dating is a bit of a contentious one in fandom spaces, but I think that it can be a great way to represent partnering aros if you do it right. I'm not an author, but I am a partnering aro, so I want to give some advice (or at least food for though) to those who may want to pair aromantic characters with partners in their fictional works.

1. Start with their aromanticism first.

This is very important. Do not slap their aromanticism on as an afterthought to their relationships. Develop their aromanticism first.

How do they feel about traditionally romantic activities? Do they enjoy them? Do they feel indifferent to them? Are they averse to them? Do they perceive those actions as inherently romantic in nature, or do they not? Does it depend on the action?

How do they experience attraction? Do they experience some amount of romantic attraction, or none at all? Does it happen only under very specific circumstances? Do they experience other forms of emotional attraction, like platonic or alterous attraction? Do they experience physical forms of attraction, like sexual, sensual, or aesthetic attraction?

Why have they chosen to be partnering? Are they doing it to fill an emotional need, in a world where friends often don't prioritize each other enough? Are they doing it to fill a physical need? Are they doing it because they enjoy traditionally romantic activities, regardless of whether or not they personally view those activities as romantic? Are they doing it for financial, social, and/or medical security? Are they doing it out of social pressure? Are they doing it because they perceive no inherent difference between partnership and friendship, and don't object to either?

Are they romantically partnering, or are they partnering in a different way, such as queerplatonic partnership? Are they partnering in multiple ways? What does that distinction look like for them? Is there a distinction at all?

Do they ever feel burdened by their aromanticism because they feel like it "get's in the way" of their desire for partnership? Tread very carefully if you go this route. Do not "cure" their aromanticism. Try to build towards self acceptance.

Aromantic people can date, but our aromanticism can and often does impact how we date, and how we feel about dating. Even when aromantic people are in committed relationships, or want to be, we are still aromantic.

2. Explore how this impacts their relationships.

Being aromantic often makes dating/partnering more complicated.

Did their partner(s) know that they're aromantic when they started dating? If not, do they know now? How did that conversation go?

Did the aromantic character know about their own aromanticism when they first started dating, or did they realize it later? How did they come to realize that? If they were in a relationship at the time of realizing it, did the realization spark anxiety over the future of their relationship? Did it spark relief?

Do they experience difficulty finding partners? Is it because people are less willing to date aromantic people? Is it because of highly limited attraction? Is it because the aromantic character has very specific needs when it comes to relationships, such as needing a less common (e.g. queerplatonic) relationship, or having a lot of strong boundaries around traditionally romantic activities? Is it because their orientation is difficult to explain to potential partners? Is it a combination of factors?

3. If you're writing fanfiction, respect the aromantic character's canon identity.

If an aromantic character is canonically non-partnering, romance-averse, romance-repulsed, or similar, keep it that way. Hands off.

[aro-but-not-ace]