#to the point of being not just aro coded but aplatonic coded

[variousqueerthings]

do think it's funny that nine is like "ew no domestic stuff h-hate it don't even... don't even like it even a little bit pls don't invite me to your dinners, i'll just start crying- I mean, dying because i hate it so much, because family and things... stupid..." [next regeneration based on having imprinted so hard on their companion that their whole sense of self is tied to that relationship and being a part of her family]

meanwhile eleven whenever they're faced with being included in the pond family settled-down life in any material longterm way is kicking and screaming and running up the walls with boredom

[kyanitedragon]

Hey! I saw you reblogged the post about Saiki and Kris. I was wondering, do you have any HCs yourself about them being Aplspec or Aspec? 😊 Or do you know any other characters or media?

Yeah, I do!

I headcanon Saiki as demi-platonic, since he starts the series as extremely asocial but ends up warming up to and appreciating his friends a lot by the end. But he still keeps his feelings to himself and retains quite a bit of his asocialness. All-around he's super relatable as an aromantic aplatonic myself! (I also headcanon Saiki as a non-partnering aroace.)

As for Kris, I think them being aplatonic-spec makes so much sense with what we know of their character. They care about Susie and view her as a friend, but they're not the type of person to show grand gestures of affection. Or even to show any sense of affection in ways that would be easy to see or pick up on. And there's a lot of underlying subtext of Kris being the Weird Kid and neurodivergent-coded, and the term Aplatonic was originally coined by a neurodivergent allo. I could see Kris being an apl with 0 platonic attraction, or in the grey area with little platonic attraction and not much desire to act on it. I'm not sure yet where on the aplatonic spectrum I see them. And actually, now that I think about it, even Kris' relationship with Noelle makes sense from an aplatonic point of view. Noelle viewed them as having grown apart, but Kris seems to very quickly go back to being good friends with her. I remember being surprised that your only options when asked were "yes we're friends" or "no we're something else." But now that I think about it, a lot of aplatonics don't really feel that time changes their relationships, so it makes sense that an aplatonic Kris would have considered them friends this entire time. (I also headcanon Kris as aromantic.)

I've also seen a few aplatonics mention Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic! It's been a while since I watched the series, but I do remember that Twilight Sparkle started out the series with not many friends and not desiring any either. Now, the whole series' lesson is basically to prove her wrong and show her how "magical" friendship is, so it's not really an aplatonic-friendly series, but Twilight Sparkle is still pretty relatable as an aplatonic.

I have a few aplatonic headcanons for Tokyo Ghoul characters. The author Ishida Sui tends to write introvert characters that actually feel like real introverts to me, and they don't ever have any character arcs about growing out of their introversion.

The main character of Tokyo Ghoul, Kaneki Ken, I see as aplatonic. At age 18, he's only ever had 1 friend, and it never seemed to bother him or make him lonely. And despite making tons of friends and found family throughout the series and getting better at social interactions, none of those relationships came from his own desire to make friends and instead came from outside circumstances. By the end of the series, he's still very introverted and closed-off, despite having gone through a lot of other character development. (I also headcanon him as a biromantic asexual!)

And his best friend, Hide, I headcanon him as grey-aplatonic. He's an extrovert and he's the kind of person you would assume has a million friends. But really, you find out that Kaneki is his only real friend. Everyone else he interacts with he seems to just view as an aquaintance, classmate, or coworker. I can't think of another extroverted character in media like that. (I also headcanon him as a lithromantic pan allo-aro!)

And finally, Tsukiyama I headcanon as demi-platonic. His whole main arc is actually about growing up being disconnected and alienated from others, a lot of people push him away and he's insecure about it but always deflects, and he learns that he actually likes having friends and people around once he joins a friend group. But it takes him half a year to warm up to his eventual friends and realize what they mean to him. (I also headcanon him as quoiromantic and quoisexual!)

And Ishida Sui actually has a new manga out now, Choujin X, which has a main character named Tokio with a similar introverted nature to Kaneki. One of the last chapters released actually talked about how Tokio doesn't have any dreams or ambitions in his life, and wondering if that's weird or bad. And that hit me quite hard, not just in a "i don't know what I'm doing with my life yet" kind of way, but also because i'm an aplatonic loveless aro and i don't always feel the same kind of desire or ambitions for my hobbies that other people do. So, I think I now headcanon him an an aplatonic loveless aro.

[uniquelyaro]

Living a Lovely Loveless Life

I am a creature of contradictions.

I love swimming at the beach, but you couldn’t get me out in open water for love or money. If I can’t see land, if the ocean is so deep I can’t even imagine the bottom, I am terrified.

I admire the raw power of storms and adore the smell of rain, but I flinch when lightning flashes, because I’m petrified of the loud crack of thunder that always follows.

I love the cold, because it means I can wrap myself in the warmest clothes and take my showers boiling hot.

I am aromantic, and yet, I am in love.

I never expected to fall in love. I’ve never had anything against the concept, but I was fairly sure I wasn't capable of it. I'm still sure, actually. But, I'm also in love.

If that sounds confusing to you, don't worry, I'm confused too.

I’ve been confused for most of my life. I spent the first 21 years of my life confused about my feelings, and about why I never seemed to feel the way my friends did. I was confused why I never seemed to experience things the way the media and society told me I should. I stopped being as confused when I found the aromantic label and community. Finding a word to describe myself felt like coming home. For the first time I had people who understood me, who helped me understand myself.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for me to realise that in some ways I was still the odd one out. The aromantic community is simultaneously both very anti-romance and very pro-love. Contradictory and confusing as that as that sounds, it makes a certain kind of sense. We reject the expectations of romance that society forces on us, while simultaneously reminding people that love doesn’t have to mean romance. Aromantics aren’t heartless or cold. We can love just as intensely and deeply as anyone else.

Well, other aromantics can. Me? Kind of a different story.

I honestly believe that I have never felt an emotion I can comfortably point to and call love. Not romantic, not platonic, not even familial. It feels like such a terrible thing to say, that I don’t love even my family, but it’s true. I care for them, for people, and I often care deeply. But I'm not sure I love them. Most people seem to think that’s sad. Even other aromantics have told me how sorry they are for me, how difficult life must be without love, but I don’t know any different.

Instead, the difficult thing for me is seeing how much the aromantic community likes to focus on love. They reject romance, sure, but instead other forms of love, such as platonic and familial are placed on a (very high) pedestal. Queerplatonic relationships are a big thing in the aromantic community, and it's treated as the pinacle of aromantic relationships, the thing to strive for. It’s very common to see an aromantic say things like “love doesn’t mean romantic love/romance”, “aromantics still love their friends and family”, or even “saying aromantics can’t feel love is a harmful stereotype.”

These statements aren’t wrong. On their own, they are very important things to point out because the ‘heartless cold aromantic’ trope is a harmful stereotype, and should be combatted. However, all too often it comes at the expense of aromantics like myself, the aplatonics and ‘loveless’ aros. It feels much too similar to the old “asexuals can still feel romance” for me. As a stand alone statement, it’s not wrong. For some people it’s even an important argument to make. However, it’s usually coupled with the harmful implication of “see, we can feel X thing just like normal people do. There’s nothing wrong with us”. It just moves the goalposts of acceptable differences, at the cost of people like me. It's a different bus, but I’m still being thrown underneath it.

That isn’t the only way I feel like an outsider in my community however. While aromantics can be very focused on the idea of platonic, queerplatonic or familial love, they tend to push romance to the side. Even when they don’t outright hate it, romance isn’t usually seen in a positive light within the aromantic community. It’s understandable, because amatonormativity and the pedestal it places romance on is a problem. Society’s expectations and views of romance as the be all and end all of existence is damaging, and the main reason I thought I was broken for so long. But you can reject toxic romantic ideals without rejecting romance altogether, something it doesn’t alway seem like the aromantic community understands.

I don’t feel romance, but I don’t hate it. It’s the opposite actually, because I like romance. I enjoy dating people, as long as they are aware of and respect my identity. I like romantically coded actions, and I seek out emotional intimacy. I’m completely comfortable with people feeling romantically about me. Strangely, I had more romantic partners after coming out as aromantic than I did before, most lasting for at least a year or more. I was even engaged to be married last year, and I'm hoping to be engaged again in the near future.

In fact, my planned future follows some fairly traditional romantic goals. My partner and I plan on getting married, having some kids, and settling down to live our lives together, although not necessarily in that order. It’s the kind of life I thought I wouldn’t be able to have after I realised I was aromantic. I convinced myself it wasn’t what I wanted, both because I thought it wouldn’t be possible for me and because the aromantic community tends to be very focused on the rejection of traditional romantic scripts. I thought that because I was aromantic I should be smashing through amatonormative expectations, a shining beacon of why traditional romance was overrated and wrong, why it's expected goals are harmful.

My partner changed everything for me.

We met through our online Dungeons and Dragons game. A friend of mine invited me after I complained that I hadn’t played in years (also about my very poor social life). Turns out, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

At the time most people in my life (myself included) thought it was a risky one, for a multitude of reasons. I had previously had bad experiences with long distance relationships and he lived halfway across the country. I was already engaged and although I was polyamourous he had no experience with those kinds of relationships. His name started with J, and I already had (at least) 7 evil exes all starting with the same letter, two of which even shared his name. I was skirting close to 30, he was barely 21, and my previous (traumatic) long distance relationship had also been with a much younger partner. Each of those reasons alone should have been enough to give me pause. Combined, it very much felt like the odds were stacked against us.

Yet, we’re still together over a year later. Our relationship survived him moving here just three months into it, the first time we met in person. It survived the fact that he arrived just before the state borders closed and lockdown started properly, so we spent a lot of time unable to leave the house, stuck in each other’s company. It survived the breakdown (and breakup) of my engagement to my fiance, and the rocky transition as we learned to live as exes and housemates rather than partners. It survived the late nights, larger workload and infinitely more stress when I got promoted to a higher position at work. It survived, and more than that, it grew. It grew into something different than anything I have ever felt before, because in the middle of it all, I fell in love with him.

It wasn’t a sudden thing. There wasn’t one particular moment when it hit me, because I couldn’t even make sense of what I felt at first. I just knew I felt very strongly, and that it was a different feeling then I had ever had before.

Oftentimes when I ask alloromantic people what love feels like, the answer I get the most is “you just know”. Not the most helpful answer, but I don’t really blame them for it. Love is difficult to describe in a singular way. The truth is I could ask five people to describe love and get twelve different answers. Everyone has a different view on love, and it changes with each person you love. How you love them, why you love them, it changes from day to day. How could you ever properly describe the shifting nature of something that never stands still? Something that grows and changes with each action, each word and look and touch.

I don’t feel love, but I think I understand it. I sit on a very unique intersection of aromanticism and love, an experience not often seen and very seldom shared. I don’t feel love, but I’m also not romance repulsed. I don’t hate romance, or reject it. I participate in it, seek it out, even crave it. Now, I get to experience it.

Does my love feel the same as the love an alloromantic person would feel? I don’t know, and quite honestly, I don’t care. Love isn’t something that can be compared between people, because no one else can feel love the way I do, just as I can’t feel love the way someone else does. My love is as unique as I am, as unique as the person I love is. The love I feel right now will never be replicated, whether I never love again or I love a hundred thousand times.

What I do know is falling in love let me make peace with myself, and all my contradictions. I don’t have to feel love to surround myself with it, to give and receive care and affection and intimacy. I can hate amatonormativity and fight against it while also wanting traditional romantic goals for myself, because this time I chose them. I can feel at home in a community while simultaneously being an outsider, because sharing a label doesn’t mean we share all the same views, opinions and experiences. I learned about myself because of what we shared, but I also learned because of what we didn’t.

I am aromantic and I don’t feel love. I am aromantic and I am in love. Both statements are true at the same time, because humans are messy and confusing and full of contradictions. I embrace mine as part of who I am, what makes me, well, me. And there’s no one I’d rather be, than me.

[miseriathome]

I have some complicated thoughts about aro discourse I saw today and I think that some people with good intentions still need to work on respectability politics and amatonormative biases.

Lowkey bad discourse shit:

One of those “aro folks can enjoy romance-related things!” posts. Somebody included this whole thing about how preferring one night stands doesn’t inherently make somebody aro, and in fact demonstrates a dislike for commitment over anything related to romantic attraction. They even included the phrase “serial sexual partners” which is basically crime-coding sexual freedom. And it seems like such a double standard to me that the same person can support platonic non-romantic sex practices but scorn non-platonic non-romantic sex......... so really, their support of aro-spec folks is contingent upon whether or not their sexuality is rooted in some form of deep interpersonal relationship (as deemed by the observer). Which I’m sure not only paints aplatonic sex-favorable aros in a bad light, but also splashes negatively onto folks who desire both deep interpersonal relationships and also sex, but without overlap. And given that I, myself, am an aspec who greatly enjoys the one night stand life but is understandably limited to a potential pool consisting almost entirely of some type of allo folks... I can think of tons of reasons why a hypothetical aro person might not want to entangle any sort of long-term emotional relationships with their sexual doings (for example: I have been stalked before by partners who grew feelings). So at the end of the day, this person’s whole thing about one night stands and commitment just perpetuates the “arohet frat boy Chad” image except Chad isn’t explicitly aro; it’s swerf shit wrapped up in respectability politics, where throwing undesirables under the bus makes the aro identity easier for the public to swallow.

Also:

Another “aro folks can enjoy romance-related things!” post. This time, it’s about how an alloromantic (or otherwise romantic attraction-experiencing person) can date an aro/spec person, and the latter--despite not reciprocating the attraction--can engage in the relationship in a way that still satisfies their partner. However the poster included a bit along the lines of “as long as everybody in the relationship is aware and consents, it’s okay.” Which I feel like is pushing the whole “you have to tell your partner you’re aspec” agenda that aphobes have, through the implication that not informing the attraction-having partner is manipulative or otherwise abusive. Moreover, that puts me and quite a few other (questioning or label-fucked or attraction-experiencing arospec or closeted) folks in a difficult boat by placing an onus of responsibility onto us, even though we may not realize or be sure ourselves what’s going on with regards to attraction. After all, romantic attraction is a subjective social construct, and thus incredibly difficult to pinpoint, define, or identify for some people. So not only is it not my responsibility to announce if I’m questioning my attraction at any point, or if I’m unsure what kind of attraction it may be, but it’s also not the responsibility of any other queer person to out themselves or their questioning status before they’re ready, and expecting aros to do so sets a really bad precedent in that regard. In my opinion, “we both enjoy the dynamic we have, even though we might interpret what’s going on a little differently because we haven’t discussed every last nuance” is good enough, even though it might seem dubious to others. Like I honestly don’t think “withholding” a potentially arospec identity is any more abusive than “withholding” information about being mspec or trans (read as: none of the above are information that partners inherently have a right to). And so to that degree, this is another double standard that aro folks are being held to.

I’m sorry if the posters of these things see this as an unwelcome vagueblog; they’re pretty old posts and I don’t want to dredge them up--especially since I don’t follow either person and would have no idea what kinds of character development they might have undergone since then. I’ve also found that people tend to be incredibly unfriendly to anything that even resembles confrontation, even if it’s prefaced by “I agree with literally everything else you stand for” (true story), so honestly I’m just vagueblogging for my own sanity.

Writing that second recap, it occurs to me that “allo is not useful terminology” might have some merit as an argument, if only in the (rarely-explored) sense that it cannot be used synonymously with “attraction-experiencing” without sanitizing all respective aspec identities into “pure” ace/aro-ness, spectrum and nuance be damned. Allonormativity is absolutely a useful concept, but any use of allo to refer to a group or identity has to allow for the vagueness of proximity, much in the same way that perisex doesn’t exactly mean “not intersex” but “close enough to meeting the social criteria of normative biology that intersexuality cannot be reasonably suspected” (or rather, this is how I understand the distinction between perisex and dyadic). So rather than being “attraction-experiencing” or “not ace/aro,” it should be “experiencing normative attraction to such a degree that adopting an aspec identity provides no benefit” or something which acknowledges the existence of “almost indistinguishable from allo, but still aspec in some way” identities.