#aro symbolism

[aroworlds]

This Aro Week, I've made cross-stitched card designs perfect for gifting to your favourite slightly-snarky aromantic.

The free tutorial includes patterns, card and fabric dimensions and a materials run-down as well as instructions on attaching an aida swatch to cardstock and other border techniques.

[alloaroworlds]

[image description: five sets of two lockscreens featuring a design of repeated arrows banded in the colours of various allosexual aromantic spectrum pride flags. The left lockscreen features the arrows set against a gradient background matching its respective flag colours; the right features the arrows set against a plain white background. Flags included are: allo-aro (green/light green/white/yellow/gold), allo-aro spectrum (green/aqua/bright pink/light blue/white/yellow/gold), loveless allo-aro (dark to light grey gradient/light green/yellow/gold/light to dark grey gradient), allo-aro agender (green/light green/white/light green/white/yellow/gold) and allo-aro aplatonic (gold/yellow/white/light green/blue).]

Allo-Aro Arrow Lockscreens, Part One

Flags: Allo-Aro, Allo-Aro Spectrum, Loveless Allo-Aro, Allo-Aro Agender, Allo-Aro Aplatonic.

I’m gathering my allo-aro lockscreens (mostly because I can never remember if I’ve reblogged them here!) for easy viewing in the one post.

All backgrounds/wallpapers are available for free personal or non-commercial use. For flag creator credits, please see @aroflagarchive​.

[it-is-only-a-novel]

Aspec symbols

So I've been trying to gather a list of aspec symbols! Old and new, widely accepted, but also more obscure. Here's my list so far, including links and explanations (in italics) where possible. I've tried also to add in the specific labels that the symbols "belong to" where relevant/possible.

Arospec:

the color green (and anything green)

white aro ring which is worn on the middle finger of the left hand link

aro flag

archery (bow & arrow)

arrows of any type

frogs they are green (this is a more general queer symbol as well) link & link

yellow roses (& yellow flowers in general, seems to be more for alloplatonic aros, since yellow represents platonic love) link

sunflowers (aroallos) aroallo flag colors link

aardvarks link

anglerfish link

manticores link

rats link

nandays and caiques link

griffins link

phoenixs link

anatomical hearts distancing ourselves from the regular outlook on love, and/or love in general may be more for loveless and/or heartless aros

<2 link

succulents green

cacti green & many do not want romantic partners and can be seen as prickly, or want to be prickly

plants in general green!!

"no romo"

hummingbirds (aroallos) link

pineapples (aroallos) link

pizza & ice cream link

kiwis link

the emojis:🫀, 🏹, ↖️, ↗️, 🌻, 💚,🍍, 🍏, 💘 explanations: link

paper crowns references jughead jones from the archie comics link

Acespec:

dragons link

cake cake is better than sex link

garlic bread

the color purple

black ace ring which is worn on the middle finger of the right hand link

ace flag

space

pirates "Ace pirates aren’t interested in your booty" link

wolves

ghosts (demisexuals) link

axolotls

denim vests

cryptids

AVEN triangle

ace cards suits: spades-aroaces, Hearts-Alloromantics, Diamonds-deamisexuals, Clubs-grey-asexuls link

the emojis: 💜, ♠️

some of these are based off this post, and this master post

Aplspec:

the colors blue & yellow in the apl flag

apples (green apples can be geared toward apls that are also aros)

blue heart 💙

bees

iridescence

apl flag

blue roses link

Blue apl ring on the thumb link

based off of this post, explanations are there.

Aspec:

aliens & robots reclaiming stereotypes about dehumanization link

Artemis goddess in Greek mythology focused on her passion for hunting. Represents finding fulfilment in other aspects of life not only sex, romance, friendship, love, and so on. Also used a bow & arrow link and also my own interpretation from reading about her

Many thanks to @merely-a-caricature, @the-big-gayheart, @heartless-aro, @arosunflower, @saffigon, @crab-in-progress, @aroace-thoughts, @apl-aro-narc, @entropy-sea-system, @dateademisexualpersonwho, @legally-x, @askanaroace, @aroace-people-are-lgtbq, @the-amber-droid-dreams, @foolishfynnesse and @itsnotasecret20 I used their posts/reblogs/comments to compile many of these symbols (and I've linked the posts). If I've missed someone, I apologize, it isn't intentional!

Last edit: 23/2/2024

I also want to add, that this post doesn't include all aspec identities, such as agender, afamilial, asensual, and more. They are important parts of the community, but I'm only informed on some, so couldn't include them.

[kissimirrit]

i drew this back in 2016, 7 years ago, during the height of anti-aspec hate going on.

there's a lot i could say about that time; the harassment i faced, the cruel things said about me and those like me, the erasure and the pathologization of our existence, etc. but what i remember most profoundly is the burning kinship i felt for other aspecs, and the desire to fight for us.

and, in my spite, i was determined to love and take pride in my asexuality and aromanticism in the face of all that hate, because i refused to succumb to feelings of self-flagellation any longer.

i think about this time often. how it was the catalyst for me to learn to love myself. i loved my asexual and aromantic siblings, because i loved asexuality and aromanticism. because i loved myself. because i loved what i am.

because i'm aroace.

happy pride month.

[117-opossum-teeth]

<2 hand symbol anyone ??

[redysetdare]

Y'all realize garlic bread started as an asexual symbol first right? The whole start of it was in reference to "garlic bread is better than sex" idk where the idea came about that it started as an aromantic symbol with "bad garlic breath saving you from kissing"???

Not saying garlic bread can't be a shared symbol but it's super weird to hear ppl claiming it was an aro only symbol and completely ignoring the roots it has as a symbol in the ace community??

[our-arospec-experience]

DND IS BETTER THAN AMATONORMATIVITY SO REAL. You’ll have to kill me before I stop making my PCs acearo. “Oh you’re a bard? That means you want to date all of the NPCs right??’ WRONG I am just a silly little man let me play my silly little lute in the corner.

:D

[heartless-aro]

A list of emojis that are aro to me:

🫀 - anatomical heart. using this as a substitute for other heart emojis is pretty aro tbh

♠︎/♠️- spade. more of an aroace symbol than a general aro symbol (because of the ace card suit symbolism). i mostly use it because i like the way it looks aesthetically tbh but it also is a pretty significant symbol for aroaces

🏹 - bow and arrow. need i say more?

⬅️⤵️↗️ - literally any arrow emoji. because ar(r)o(w)

🥒 - cucumber. looks like zucchini. zucchini = slang term for a partner in a queerplatonic relationship

🥀 - wilted rose. because red roses represent romance, and romance is dead (i killed it myself)

💐- bouquet of roses. this one is a bit aro because it contains yellow roses, which are aromantic culture.

🌻 - sunflower. i just think yellow flowers (yellow roses especially, but also just yellow flowers in general) are aro

💚 - green heart. it is green. that is aro.

🍍- pineapple. since pineapples are an alloaro symbol.

🍏 - green apple. for apl-spec aros because green is aro and apples are apl

🫁 - lungs. as a cold, loveless aro, i have no heart to wax poetic about as alloromantic people often get to do. because of this, i have chosen the lungs to be the internal organ that i glamorize. it just makes me feel included

💘 - heart with arrow. it has an arrow in it, which is enough for me tbh.

[rouge-the-bat]

♠️♥️ Aspec Symbol ♦️♣️

had the idea for this a while ago, and just now finally put it together! the card suits are common symbolism amongst the aspec community, so this design of combining all the suits together popped in my head one day, and i think itd be a perfect symbol to represent all aspecs and the various aspec identities!

and here is the symbol colored with the ace and aro flags, with two aro varients:

(see the layer components here)

[waambles]

When you’re starving, you’ll eat anything.

“Starving” Waambles, 2023

I posted this elsewhere but didn’t give my explanation so I thought I might aswell say it here hehe

This is a response to my dislike of the metaphor of cannibalism for love/romance. Showing something so violent and all consuming in a positive light as a metaphor for love rubs me the wrong way. This is also a piece about my aromanticism + romance repulsion. Where love HAS felt like cannibalism to me, where the idea of being tied to someone romantically feels like losing myself and my autonomy. Romance feels like a loss of self for me as an aromantic person, cannibalizing my soul and my body for your enjoyment. So Everytime I see alloromantic people post about cannibalism as a metaphor for romance all I can see is the consumption and it confuses and scares me lmao. I feel other forms of love and I’d never want that love to feel like I am being consumed or consuming someone else. This isn’t a diss towards anyone who likes that metaphor but this is my response to it. Really tried to capture the horror and terror with this one lol

[romance-evil-aro]

petition for the 🫀 emoji to belong solely to aromantics

[aroworlds]

[image description: six elongated pixel-style text reading "aro" striped in the colours of three pride flags. A brown arrow shaft runs across the centre of the letters, forming the horizontal strokes of the letters "A" and "R". A grey arrowhead sits in front of the text; flag-stripe fletching sits behind it. Each image is available in two versions with black or transparent background.

Stripes are coloured in the following pride flags: allo-aro (green/light green/white/yellow/gold), aromantic (green/light green/white/grey/black) and non-sam aro (cyan/light cyan/white/light green/green).]

Aro (with Arrow) Pixel Art Stickers

Flags: allosexual aromantic, aromantic and non-sam aromantic.

This design is created from the cross-stitch patch variant of my freehand embroidery motif (originally designed for doll T-shirts). Both patterns--cross-stitch and freehand embroidery--are available on the Aro Worlds website and Patreon.

All banners/stickers are available for free personal or non-commercial use with credit to one of my accounts.

[alloaroworlds]

[image description: ten digital, simple images of long arrows with grey triangular heads, brown wood shafts and green fletching. Repeated bands sit along the shaft, alternating between the green/light green/white/yellow/gold allosexual-aromantic flag and other aromantic spectrum and related pride flags. From top down, the other flags are: acoromantic, aegoromantic, allagiromantic, arospike, asensual, demiromantic, loveless aplatonic, lusiromantic, partfictoromantic, proculromantic .]

Aro Spectrum and Other A-Spec Allo-Aro Arrows

Flags: Acoromantic, Aegoromantic, Allagiromantic, Arospike, Asensual, Demiromantic, Loveless Aplatonic, Lusiromantic, Partfictoromantic, Proculromantic.

Here’s to my fellow allo-aros, wherever we are under this green and gold umbrella, and the pride we have in all our a-spec identities.

All arrows are available for free use with credit to one of my accounts.

For (aro) flag creator posts, please see @aroflagarchive​.

[entropy-sea-system]

You know what? I'm actually so fucking sick of people pretending that all aros can be included in asexual symbols. Alloaros and non-ace aros deserve to be included and not have it implied that we all are comfortable with ace symbols being used for us, or assumed that we are 'forgetting' the aros for whom asexuality is a major part of their aromanticism when they're so overrepresented and the rest of us hardly get represented, and aromanticism had to become its own community. They make it all about their own feelings and talk over aros who are uncomfortable having it implied that all of us want asexual symbols used for us. We have to try so hard to be seen as not asexual just because we are aro and here you are shoving us into that box again.

[hajihiko]

ur blog gave me a reawakening i think. im still arospec; i’m certain like 99% of the Feelings i Feel are not romantic. but i realized i dont have to ignore The Overwhelming Platonic/Queerplatonic Emotions because they’re Not Inherently Romantic! which is amazing. i forget when it was but you said something about how everyone should smooch ‘cause that’s the coolest form of affection and like a thousand buzzers went off in my head. i was like OH MY GOD 🤯 shit was crazy. your blog is aro heaven and also hell because i Want this and i Desire it. i Need it. the inherent homoeroticism of trauma bonding and the queer-platonic gestures in Every Post is so me

🥰🥰🥰 I'm very happy whenever I can help someone out with the Epiphanies!

[aroacettorney]

"[...] the spilled water could not be collected back on the plate." this amused me greatly because its such an interesting choice of words. of all the metaphors ludger could have picked to describe something that cannot be undone between him and casey, he chose the one related to water... the only element she can use and has absolute control over.