Jade

...is anyone here into homestuck? The reason I ask this is that I'm heavily jaded to traditional romantic shipping but I love shipping people in different relationships, and homestuck provides a neat system for that (kismeses/auspices/moirails) that I use to ship people in basically every fandom I'm in. I do some ~romantic~ shipping too but not much, and even when I do, it usually has an element of dysfunction for me to explore. Traditional romantic shipping (these characters love each other romantically so much, they get together/have sex/are happy) is incredibly boring to me most of the time, although there are one or two characters who I ship that way, but "the relationship between these characters is so interesting" is something I enjoy a lot

I'm very physically affectionate I'm very sexual! a lot of people are surprised that aromantic =/= asexual the combination of those two means that I would enjoy kissing, hand-holding, and sex in a lot of my relationships (even though I don't do any of those because most of my friends don't like doing them, especially with someone they're not dating ) I've never faked crushes, or dated someone out of a feeling of obligation I never doubted the strength and existence of romantic feelings I'm okay with kissing scenes in movies, and with well-written romantic subplots My feelings for my friends and especially my QPR are often assumed to be romantic because of the strength of the feelings and how I don't see any particular actions as inherently romantic I do feel like I'm missing something because I'm aro, and being aro made me sad, not relieved

More aromantic character headcanons! This time, musical-themed, because of reasons. G(a)linda from Wicked is aro; she idealized the idea of romance the whole life, and forced herself to try to have a crush on Fiyero, but when it came down to it, she didn't really feel it--Thank Goodness is basically all about this (so i couldn't be happier/because happy is what happens when all your dreams come true/well, isn't it?) Jean Valjean and Enjolras from Les Mis--neither has any sort of romantic interest; Enjolras is outright said to not be interested in girls (just the revolution!) and Jean Valjean has a whole storyline about love despite never having a romantic interest (just an adopted daughter!). Honestly, I see them as canonically aro-coded, at the very least. (Also, for those of you who like the Amis de L'ABC: i headcanon Combeferre, Coufeyrac, and Jehan Prouvaire as aro, because reasons)

My personal headcanon: all the prospit kids in homestuck are on the aro/ace spectrum. on the flipside, all of the derse kids are gay/bi/pan. (specific headcanons: aro ace John, who figures out pretty quickly that he doesn't want a relationship. demi ace Jane, who wants a relationship but only rarely gets crushes, and only on friends, and who doesn't understand sexual attraction. romance-repulsed but bisexual Jake, who is attracted to Aranea and Dirk but never has a crush and hates being in a relationship. aro ace Jade, who is very affectionate and romance/sex-neutral but mostly just wants cuddles and a qpp/moirail. dave is pan; roxy is bi; rose and dirk are both gay) Troll aromantic headcanons: well this is a bit more complicated, because of the whole quadrants system; for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to define aromanticism as "does not want either kismesis or matespriteship"; if you include kismesis as compatible with aromanticism, this whole thing changes. So here are my headcanons: equius and aradia are aromantic nepeta and tavros are on the spectrum (experience matespriteship but not kismesis) but not aro terezi is also on the spectrum (experiences kismesis but not matespriteship) but not aro Going to throw in my agreement on: allo aro Dean and aro ace Castiel, although I don't watch supernatural anymore aro ace Luna Lovegood aro ace Rey aro Katniss aro everyone in undertale other than Asgore, Toriel, Alphys, and Undyne. (yes, all of them. #all your faves are aro) especially frisk though! (and papyrus and asriel and napstablook and mettaton and gaster and chara and ok yes basically just "literally all of them") And, because I can't resist, because HDM is the best thing ever, my opinion on aro!Mrs Coulter: I disagree with it, personally. I definitely see her as having some kind of romantic love for Asriel (even if she doesn't necessarily like him, I always read their death scene in TAS to be heavily romantic). On the other hand: aromantic sexual Mary Malone! It's shown that the hatred her Church has for love applies mostly to sexual love, so the Marzipan chapter fits better when you see it in this light: it's not a sudden "falling in love", considering that she is happily single and not interested in dating in all of HDM, especially not with how the Church sees romantic love as more-or-less "innocent" in comparison to sex, especially in relation to her life as a nun: it's a sudden realization that she did want sex (despite living happily single, there is still something she wants that she can't get as a nun, and it's not god: it's sex, and it's also particle physics. mary malone is my favorite). Allo aro mary malone is the best.

[Content Warning: Descriptions of mental illness, past suicidality, heavily manipulative behavior motivated by fear and mental illness] I have some sort of personality disorder (either Dependent, Borderline, or -NOS) and, well, I have ridiculous abandonment issues. I've always been incredibly incredibly attached to close friends, but as I've gotten older, I've been in so, so much pain around the idea that they'll leave me for romantic partners. I also do have the need, divorced from romance, to be someone's "number one". While I'm quite stable and doing okay now (thanks to a wonderful qpp, some vaguely decent meds, and a truly incredible therapist), I have in the past threatened to kill myself over my two closest friends leaving me (with one, it was "if you kill yourself I'll kill myself too because I can't live without you", and with one it was "if you leave me for your girlfriend I'll kill myself because I can't live without you"; while I am no longer friends with the first, neither are dead, and neither am I, so...that's a win, I guess?). I'm no longer suicidal at all, so no worries there, but I'm still incredibly, paralyzingly terrified of being left alone. Add this to the fact that I have more mental illnesses than I do self-care skills (can't consistently: cook, wash myself, do work, look normal/presentable; can consistently: have panic attacks, psychotic breaks, depressive episodes) and that I don't know if I'll ever really be able to achieve independence, and so my dependence on others gets even more intense, which tends to drive them away more (the stronger I feel about someone, the weirder and creepier it makes me--unless it's romantic, then it's "cute"!). Right now I have a qpp who I hope to live with in the future, and she respects me as a possible life partner, but she has a girlfriend and I can't shake that doubt that she'll leave me like most people leave their high school friends. I have a strong need for human connection, despite being introverted, and I need to be taken care of (there's that DPD again!), so I really do want/need some sort of living situation with friends when I grow up. I do also have a sex drive, although I've pretty much resigned myself to either being celibate or having one-night stands occasionally. Although the "poor self-care skills" makes me kind of an undesirable sexual partner, so the celibacy is probably more realistic I also panic when people have crushes on me, because it is a lot of pressure that I know I, as an unstable aromantic, cannot really live up to, and crushes aren't something I can really avoid, especially if I want to be live with, be friends with and/or have sex with other people, something that the majority of allos have trouble maintaining as "platonic". I like to hope that I'll be recovered enough that I won't need these things, but that's.. well, it's not exactly realistic, even if worrying about the alternative is really only making me worse at this point. tldr i have a lot of fears about growing up aromantic and mentally ill, mostly about being alone, abandoned, seen as second-best, and being unable to take care of myself, and they're all really big and i don't really know how to deal with them.

I'm going to second the person who said After the Storm by Mumford & Sons. That's one of my personal favorites, too. Other songs that mean a lot to me- Boats and Birds by Gregory and the Hawk In Fact by Gregory and the Hawk Fear & Loathing by Marina and the Diamonds Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift Flying Away from Fun Home

Listening to love songs. When I was young, I really loved Taylor Swift, but it just never occurred to me that her songs were about romance--to me, it seemed obvious that all of them except for Love Story, Fearless, Sparks Fly, Speak Now, and Last Kiss (maybe one or two others?) were about friends and family, although I thought it was kind of weird that they were all about boys. Because... That's what love is to me: how you feel about friends and family! It never even occurred to me that she was talking about ~special sparkly romance love~ until one of my friends was talking about how Taylor Swift's songs applied to the boy she had a crush on because That's What They're About: Crushes On Boys (she was actually a lesbian and we were both totally faking our "crushes" but...yeah I was a bit surprised)