aroacecharacters

[aroacecharacters]

Hello, I hope you and your family are well. Can you please help me recycle the post on my account? 🌺 And help rescue my family from the war in Gaza? 🙏 Thank you.

https://gofund.me/1a1829cd

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[aroacecharacters]

In honor of asexual awareness week, this is your reminder that if you're writing ace characters into your book, don't make them all fall on the exact same point of the spectrum. Some aces are sex repulsed, some sex positive/favorable, some aces are aroace, some alloace, let your characters have variety. Representation is supposed to be multiple nuanced characters, don't try to shove all possible ace traits into one character either.

[aroacecharacters]

Hello 👋

Writing tip (and general life tip):

I know it's obvious but there are all different kinds of A-spec people.

Honestly you could write an aspec character almost anyway and it be a valid and good representation of somebody.

Also don't be afraid to make characters complicated or "mean"/"weird" Everytime I hear a character say "I need fans, not friends" I'm like me fr honestly 😎 (aplatonic)

Being here and looking/asking for advice about writing is already a great improvement and it's good to not be afraid to ask and make your characters better.

Also little tidbit from me before I go because I want to see myself represented in media one day: I don't feel platonic or familial attraction and as you might guess that was a very isolating feeling. All I wanted was romance because that was the love I could really FEEL. I still have friends that I... talk to(?) no entirely sure how to phrase it lol. But ya hope this helps, I'm also definitely not the majority of aplatonic people.

This

[aroacecharacters]

So.. Might make a webcomic / og story,

While I am Aro-Spec myself, I wanna make the protag Loveless, which I am not,

She also helps her best friend even if it gets her in a lot of trouble and cares a lot about her

So.. Is that something someone who's completely aplatonic (along with aromantic and asexual) may do? /genq

I don't mean to be aplphobic, just, would you do that much for someone who you have 0 attraction to? (Also like 20% sure I'm demiplatonic myself)

Thank you!! <33

Sorry it’s been a minute since this was sent in.

Aplatonic folks any advice?

~Mod Ryn

[aroacecharacters]

thank you, thats much better. <2

Glad I could help!

-Mod Ryn

[aroacecharacters]

hey just telling you, its a bit uncomfortable how your bio, banner, handle and pinned imply that aroace is synonymous with aspec. im sure you didnt mean to imply that but its probably putting away a lot of non-aroace aspecs like me. i cant tell if you account is actually for writing aspec characters of if its just for aroaces, and id be anxious to ask questions about different aspec identities in case i get shut down.

aroace =/= aro and/or ace =/= aspec

/nm

Hi anon! So the goal with this account was to be as inclusive as possible. We apologize if there was a misunderstanding. I have changed the AroAce in the bio and pinned post to say Aspec instead.

However, the blog name was purposely chosen to hopefully make this blog easier to be found by someone who might only have a surface level understanding of the Aspec community.

In the same vein, the banner and profile pic were made just to showcase the most identifiable flags for Aro, Ace, and AroAce spectrums.

-Mod Ryn

[aroacecharacters]

Mod Atlas reblogging while I’m on rq just to say I LOVE HELLUVA BOSS OMG

Thanks for trying to help!

For some more clarification, (for funsies) I'm making a rewrite of my hyperfixation [Helluva Boss] [You don't need to know about it to help, it's a rewrite and all relevant rewrite info will be here]

So.. Millie is Demiromantic and a Sex-Neutral Asexual Moxxie is Alloromantic and Allosexual

The two of them are married by the start of the series [both in cannon and the rewrite, though may write how they started] and have recently left the honeymoon phase in the relationship.

What I'm concerned about is how to give them chemistry, what is chemistry? Not really helped by everyone fighting over whether a ship has chemistry or not 🙄

Also I'm considering making Loona Aplatonic, although I'm not entirely sure how that works in the slightest.

[For more info on everyone, Blitz is Aromantic Allosexual (Pansexual), Moxxie is Bisexual, I'm honestly unsure whether I want Millie to be Bisexual or Heterosexual, and Loona is Bi and AroAceflux]

~💖✨

Hey sorry we didn’t post this yesterday, the mods were a little busy. Here’s a link to an article about writing chemistry. Hope this helps!

[aroacecharacters]

Hi! I’m writing a story and I want a character to be AroAllo but I’m AroAce and I’m not sure how to portray it properly. I do plan on the character having a relationship but I’m unsure how to show it’s not a romantic relationship. I’m also uncomfortable writing sex scenes so I don’t want to focus on that. Any advice?

Hey anon!

Thanks for the question! Sadly, neither I nor Ryn are able to answer this question from personally experience, so…

Followers and other readers! Do you have any advice on writing an AroAllo character? Any help is appreciated!

- Mod Atlas 😊

[aroacecharacters]

Thanks for trying to help!

For some more clarification, (for funsies) I'm making a rewrite of my hyperfixation [Helluva Boss] [You don't need to know about it to help, it's a rewrite and all relevant rewrite info will be here]

So.. Millie is Demiromantic and a Sex-Neutral Asexual Moxxie is Alloromantic and Allosexual

The two of them are married by the start of the series [both in cannon and the rewrite, though may write how they started] and have recently left the honeymoon phase in the relationship.

What I'm concerned about is how to give them chemistry, what is chemistry? Not really helped by everyone fighting over whether a ship has chemistry or not 🙄

Also I'm considering making Loona Aplatonic, although I'm not entirely sure how that works in the slightest.

[For more info on everyone, Blitz is Aromantic Allosexual (Pansexual), Moxxie is Bisexual, I'm honestly unsure whether I want Millie to be Bisexual or Heterosexual, and Loona is Bi and AroAceflux]

~💖✨

Hey sorry we didn’t post this yesterday, the mods were a little busy. Here’s a link to an article about writing chemistry. Hope this helps!

[aroacecharacters]

I have the opposite problem. As someone who's quoioromantic I don't know how to write alloromantics correctly. I know both of you are Aro-Spec but please post this so others can, thanks!! <3

~💖✨

Okay let’s see if I can help a bit…

So I believe allos start out with some form of attraction, usually aesthetic which for them combines with romantic and sexual attraction. Though appearance isn’t necessarily a factor when they feel attracted, it seems to frequently start with thinking the other person looks good.

That usually leads to them getting to know the other person a bit before deciding to be partners. Sometimes this can be casual, or sometimes this is going on dates. It’s best for them to have a few things in common. This is sometimes called the “talking” stage.

Then they agree to become partners and this is the “dating” stage. This has its own “honeymoon phase” where at first the characters are excited to be together. They are still getting to know each other more and figuring out boundaries and things.

Then after dating they get engaged and married but those are usually after a good amount of time.

So when you are writing these romances you want to give readers a reason to want these characters to end up together.

Give them chemistry. Give them reasons to want to be around each other. Develop their friendship along with their romance.

When they start “having feelings” for each other describe how it makes them feel. Butterflies in their stomach, they blush more around them, they get nervous just talking or being near them. But they always want to be near them.

(For example: If I like someone, I don’t care what they are talking about, I just enjoy watching them be passionate about something.)

There’s a lot of things people do when they have crushes and it takes some work, but just sprinkle these things in, and that’s a start.

Also, just like in your plot in general, throw in a little tension. Relationships aren’t always sunshine and rainbows. But please have your characters communicate! (Unless you really like the miscommunication trope. Also, that advice applies to real life.)

I can’t cover everything, and I’m hoping I’m not too redundant, but just like other topics you’re writing, it’s best to do some research. And there’s a lot of media about romance.

I hope this helped a little, I only have a tiny amount of experience dating someone but I do like reading romances.

-Mod Ryn

[aroacecharacters]

Hello

[ID: A simply drawn face with a little smile. /end ID.]

I have a post that I think could be a helpful resource for asexual characters? Idk maybe somebody would want to check it out.

I'm looking foward to seeing this blog be boosted! Thank you for your iniciative and have a gorgeous day!

Forgot to share this! Here’s some information about asexuality in general to give some insight into being ace!

-Mod Ryn

[aroacecharacters]

Writing Loveless Characters

(Pt: Writing loveless characters)

Because I want to see more of them but non-loveless people often don’t have any idea where to start, or how to write them respectfully.

Loveless / heartless people are welcome to add their opinions! This is by no means a complete post, I'm just trying to give a starting point.

I’ll also discuss the decentering of love in stories a bit, even if there’s no explicitly loveless characters present. So if you’re interested in that, read on!

Definition

(Pt: Definition)

Let’s start with the simplest bit. What does it mean to be loveless (or heartless)?

Being loveless means not experiencing anything that could be described as love, feeling a disconnection from the entire concept of love, and/or it refers to the rejection of the idea that people need to experience love.

A lot of people who use the loveless/heartless labels are also neurodivergent and may feel a connection to this label because of that, but not all.

Being loveless can mean multiple things for one person, too. If you want to read more about the meaning of being loveless from a loveless person (me) you can read this post (link), or scroll a bit through the loveless aro and heartless aro tags.

What is love?

(Pt: What is love?)

Because we can’t go on without clearing up what this word actually means.

Love is just a label for an emotion. Nothing more. Love is not an action, actions are actions. Love is not a choice to care for some one, that is simply the choice to care for someone. This choice can be made completely without love, for example out of compassion, or because of a feeling of responsibility.

So, in short, "love" is just a label that a lot of people have decided to use for a specific emotion, and that label might not fit everyone.

Building a character

(Pt: getting started)

For this, I can’t give a 100% conclusive answer, obviously, because all loveless people are different. Here’s just some things to keep in mind:

To respectfully write a loveless character, you should just throw out the idea that feeling love is necessary to be a good human, to care for other people or animals, or that not feeling love makes one immediately an asshole who doesn’t care for other people’s feelings.

Being loveless, in and off itself, says nothing about how a person acts. It only means that they don’t experience love (or any other part of the definitions above).

Things to avoid:

I can only think of two things you should definitely avoid doing, and that is connection lovelessness to being evil in any way, shape, or form. Also, avoid making your loveless character non-human if the rest of you cast is human (if all your characters are fantasy-races, that’s fine, probably just have a character, even just a minor one, of that same race who isn’t loveless, just to show that this isn’t a trait of this species that differentiates them from others, or make that very clear in the narrative.)

Yes, your loveless character can be evil, or morally complex, but you shouldn’t explain their villainy with them being loveless.

Yes, your loveless character can be emotionally distant, cold, or un-empathetic. Those words mostly describe me in some way. But again, you should decouple all of those things from being evil. Empathy doesn’t make a good human, and not experiencing empathy doesn’t make a bad person. Same with having shallow emotions.

But with all of this, you should still think about why you want to write them in this way. For example, do you want to write a loveless character with low empathy because you want to represent people like me, who are neurodivergent and don’t experience much empathy, and are also loveless? Or do you want to write them because those are things that make them more unlikable, or show their villainy?

Do you want them to experience shallow emotions to represent people who feel that way, or to explain away their lovelessness with "no normal person would feel this way"?

Do you want to write a loveless villain because it makes them more complex, and allows you to explore their emotions to a deeper level, or because you equate not feeling love with being evil and being evil with not feeling love?

Because there’s a very big difference, and your intentions matter a lot here, because the way you think about your character influences the way you write them.

Things I’d like to see / ideas to include

Besides "really, any loveless person who isn’t demonised" ofc.

- characters being open about not experiencing love, and not being judged or "fixed" for it.

- The narrative not treating lovelessness as a bad thing, and other characters just simply respecting their boundaries.

- A character with boundaries around the word love in general, doesn’t have to be loveless, and them being respected. Some people just don’t like hearing "I love you"s all the time.

- Just generally decentering love from the narrative (see more below)

- ND loveless people who fit the "bad stereotypes", turning them on their head (like me, hi.)

- not repeating respectability politics ("I might not feel love but I still care for people, I’m just like you!") This is not to say that loveless people don’t care for other people, just that it shouldn’t be shoe-horned in as a way of "showing that they’re still a good human being, despite not feeling love". They can just care for other people normally, without making it seem like something special or strange because they don’t feel love.

Questions to ask

To get a better understanding of your character:

- Why does this character identify as loveless, or could be identified as loveless? What does it mean to them, personally?

- How does being loveless affect their relationships?

- How does being loveless affect their view of the world, and other people?

- How important is their lovelessness to them? Is it something they’re proud of and show openly, or just something that’s a part of them that comes up when it gets important, but is otherwise just "background noise" for them?

- How do they feel about being the "target" of different kinds of love? Does love in general make them uncomfortable, just specific kinds, or do they not mind other people’s feelings towards them?

- Adding to the point above: Do the other characters respect their boundaries? If not, why? Does it add something important to the story?

That’s the most important points I can think of rn.

Decentering love

(Pt: decentering love)

Even if you don’t have a specific loveless character, this can still be done and often times make for some more interesting stories and characters that mostly haven’t been told before.

What do I mean by that?

Well, first off all, almost everything in most modern books is about love, contains love, or centers love in some way. There’s barely any new books coming out that don’t put the main characters in romantic relationships, even if they’re not in the romance genre, and if they don’t, these books are usually about the importance of platonic (or familial) love instead.

Im not saying these books shouldn’t exist. What I mean is that not everything has to center around love when there’s so many more emotions and experiences that could be written about, but instead we have millions of books that basically have the moral "You’re only worthy of humanity in the context of you relationships to other people, your only importance comes from finding people who love you / who you love, or character finds happiness through love (either their ~one true romantic love~ or platonic love)", because they obviously couldn’t learn to be happy with themselves, or that they didn’t need to center other people in their life constantly, or that they can be a complete and happy human on their own, too.

People can exist without basing their whole self worth on other people’s emotions towards them, and their emotions to other people.

To decenter love, you need to take the concepts, and ask "Why?" Why does this character need to be taught to accept themselves by falling in love? Why does this character need love to be happy, why can’t they just be happy as they are? Why should not loving make their life miserable, and why is the only way to fix it to find love, possibly even change themselves to finally be accepted by other people, instead of accepting themselves as they are, and finding community, if that’s important to them, as that?

You can even write about human connection without centering love, or about love without centering it, and portraying love as this universal, perfect good thing that makes us human and that everyone experiences. That is completely possible!

It can be just simply making sure that the narrative makes clear that this is these characters experience, and not a universal one. That there’s people who don’t feel this way. People who don’t love, don’t need love, and feel happy as they are, without relying on other people to make them happy.

Decentering love can also be about finding other ways to explore human connection. Relationship that are deep and emotional, but the characters don’t use the word love do define it; characters who are looking for community, for support, and giving community and support to others even if they don’t love them, maybe just because it’s the right thing to do, or because it’s the way they’d want to be treated, or because they have a deep seated care for humanity as a whole that they don’t describe as love.

There’s so many more emotions, so many more types of relationships, that deserve to be explored. Don’t limit yourself to just love and romance, or just (queer)platonic relationships as an aspec writer. You can write about sexual relationships, or about completely non-typical relationships that don’t really have a good term to describe them.

Write about relationships based on compassion, on sexual attraction, on mutual interest in the same topic, on what ever other emotion you can think off. I’ve once read a fantasy book where two off the main characters were different species, and mostly interested in each other to find out more about these species, and that was interesting; wonderfully written and it’d be awesome to have something that focussed on such an absolutely non-normative bond.

Don’t limit yourself to just "love", to just what society has put on a pedestal as the best and solely most important thing that connects everything and everyone. Think of all the other things that exist. Be creative.

Have fun creating!

(pt: Have fun creating!)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

Thank you for reading this. Have a good day, and happy writing!

[aroacecharacters]

Hi!

I have a MC who's aroace.

I would like her to be loveless aro, but I'm not sure how to portrait that well.

For context, she's a litteraly ray of sunshine, and she makes friends really easily.

I don't want to fall into stereotypes while writing her, do you have any suggestions?

Hi anon! So I tried to do some research to help you with this question, but as someone who is not loveless, I feel like I can’t really give good advice on how to portray that in a story. The most I could give you is a definition.

Hopefully any loveless aros on here would be able to help. Good luck!

-Mod Ryn

[aroacecharacters]

Hi! I saw your post on another blog (I think it was an aro culture blog?) and I was wondering if you are a blog specifically about aroace characters, or if you also cover characters who are just aro (and just ace). Also, are you still looking for mods?

I made another post about this but I’ll answer this too. This is for all aspec identities. If either of the mods don’t have an answer, we will post it and hopefully someone who does have an answer can reply.

Also at this time we are not looking for any mods. If this gets bigger we might in the future so we will make a post about that.

-Mod Ryn

[aroacecharacters]

So funny thing, I originally had a little note in the intro post about this but I took it out because I thought using Aspec was clear. Totally my mistake. /gen

This is for questions about all aro and ace identities. Asks can be submitted for the other a-spectrums like aplatonic and atertiary but the mods don’t fall into those categories so we will have to have those for followers to answer.

Also I titled it AroAcecharacters just so if people are searching generally they can find it easier.

I’m going to update the intro post with this addition asap.

-Mod Ryn

Frequently asked questions.

What are some basic questions people might have about Aspec characters that we could add into a FAQ post?

[aroacecharacters]

Frequently asked questions.

What are some basic questions people might have about Aspec characters that we could add into a FAQ post?

[aroacecharacters]

Intro Post

Hello everyone! 

This is a blog for writers who are interested in writing aspec characters but may have questions about the identities. The goal of this blog is for writers to be able to submit questions and hopefully get some advice. 

If you aren’t a writer but you are aspec please feel free to follow as well, we would like to have a whole community of aspecs to give advice as well since this blog only has two admins.

As I said before, this blog is run by two admins. We are both arospec asexuals.

Mod Ryn is 23, uses he/they, and is amicusromantic and asexual.

Mod Atlas is 24, uses they/he, and is arospec and asexual.  

Now, here is how this blog works. 

If you are a writer looking for advice, please submit an ask. We will do our best to answer and if we don’t know we will still post it for others in the community to answer. 

If you are aspec, feel free to reblog or comment with your own advice for the questions. 

This blog is for all identities that fall under the aro and/or ace umbrellas. You can also submit questions for other aspec identities such as aplatonic or atertiary, but since the mods don’t fall under those categories, they will just be posted for follower advice.

If you have a question that may need a follow up ask or two, feel free to use an emoji to identify yourself if you are on anon. Just don’t use a purple or blue heart because those are reserved for the admins. 

Due to the admins being adults, we have busy lives so our posting days will be on Sundays and Wednesdays. Depending on how many asks we get we will try to get as much posted on those days, up to ten a day. 

As soon as possible we will try to get a post set up for frequently asked questions to cover some basics. 

Last but not least, please be respectful, we are all trying to learn here and one person doesn’t speak for the whole community.