DeltaAro

I first wanted to design that… but that’s how tons of awards are named (Legion of Honour, etc). It should be a bit more unique! The Grand Emerald Cross of the Order of the Ice Cream Serving Aardvark It sadly has not much emphasis on arrows, it was kind of difficult to add them here. Two small ones still occur in the frame. The middle medallion is in Greek style as a reference to Plato. The Latin is surely wrong Now please remember: the Grand Emerald Cross is not some mere scout patch. This is a SERIOUS award! Here is the SVG, licensed under CC BY 4.0. The text was converted to paths, but the font used was Noto Serif.

But it is not. I’m stuck (as a customer of a major European bank) with a Mastercard brand that is not compatible with standard Mastercard. I actually got a notification that it starts to get aligned with Debit Mastercard in 2023 (so then it will be compatible with standard Mastercard). But right now, I cannot donate (except if I’m paying some extra fee just so I can donate). I do not make these things up (ok… aside from the fact that way more Europeans having a credit card… 50% maybe … but you can easily live without one).

Ok – while I’m aro, I’m not some weird dropout from society! I’m just a European aro and credit cards aren’t a thing here. Perhaps only for people who travel a lot to the U. S. or for business reasons or some high flyers. ? We use debit cards, cash, PayPal, Klarna, wire transfer …

Honestly, I’d like to donate. But I have no credit card! It would help if contributions were accepted via Patreon or similar services.

Oh that’s ok. License is hereby CC BY 2.0. Only thing taken from somewhere else were the fonts used, that’s it! Maybe if this board stays online, I clean up the SVGs and upload them. So anyone can easily edit and combine them. We need an aro art pack (if I could only draw better…)! Also the quiver patch ended up too dark and washed out. I like @roboticanary color scheme. But enough aro scout patches for now! You can all easily adjust saturation / brightness / contrast with GIMP. Also I would feel bad if poor aros had to deal with Australian custom officers: “I do not accept your claim that this candy arrow is purely ceremonial. I arrest you for possession of a deadly weapon. You have the right to remain silent…” Inexcusable.

If it just accidentally happens to combine, I’m ok with it. Perhaps it might be even nice… but allo-allos usually make their romantic love (in one way or another) dependent on sex…

Elf? Elf? “Elf” means 11 in Afrikaans, Dutch or German. Is it that what you’re hinting at? But … in Maltese “elf” means 1000!!! Good luck finding 1000 other aros in the wild! This would be … oh… “LEGENDARY” would be an understatement! The aro bards would sing about you till the end of times. Everything else would just pale compared to your bright, radiant green, aro light. Heck, if you achieve that, you’d transcend mere humanity. We would declare you the Living Saint of Aromanticism! Ok, ok, ok … I try to calm down… I guess you just want to know: why an elf, not a human? At first I wanted a character with green hair (naturally green hair, not dyed!) and who is an archer, so I instantly thought of the No. 1 fantasy stock character: Forest Elf Archer. But to concoct another retroactive interpretation: you meet forest elves everywhere in virtual spaces like video games, but never one in real life. So they’re just like aros. ?

Well, thanks but any random clip-art glove has at least that quality. Still strive to do all by myself – no copyright issues. So now I thought about it again: how on earth can you represent amatonormativity? And then just came up with "RULES" in red, in the font used by Twilight. So final result with patch effect: We have a few pretty good artists here on this board but they seem to have gone into hiding. And the other two badges finished with patch effect… (improved the motive a bit, too)

Honestly, a badge is not enough for that, finding FIVE aros in the wild deserves the Grand Emerald Cross of the Aromantic Knights of Honor… Still, as a very first draft: … suggestions?

I’m running out of ideas, just did a green boxing glove, what else? I found punching (red) hearts a bit too negative and cliche, LOL? Arrow on the glove IMHO doesn’t work, too. So what to else to insert? Took me some time to come up with an idea… Any suggestions? Can still make adjustments. When the bump map for the patch effect is created, it’s difficult to change.

Yes, this is a flamewar-prone topic. Compared to sexual or romantic orientation, the concept of platonic orientation is very ambiguous and therefore prone to misunderstandings. E. g. “aplatonic” is often interpreted as having no interest in friends. Or like your example, “heteroplatonic” is translated as (if a woman says it) “I only want to be friends with men”. And indeed, sometimes people really understand it that way. Then platonic orientation becomes – not without justification – linked to: asociality*, personality disorders, antisociality, bias, bigotry, internalized bigotry, … But I guess most of the time people who apply this concept to describe themselves understand it differently. Like they say “aplatonic” and mean “I do not identify with this feeling you call platonic attraction” or “homoplatonic” and mean “I just ever had squishes on girls”. * IDK if asociality is really negative … I guess it is neutral. But in most cultures it has a negative connotation, excluding some mystical traditions.

The vagina is a separate tube from the urethra. It’s just the penis that combines urination and sex. I admit, that’s kind of strange. But… still genitals are kind of, well… perhaps not the most beautiful body part. Not that enormously appealing outside of a sexual context! I regard the desire for sex just as a primitive, animalistic impulse (I mean humans have a lot of such impulses, so why not…); it’s not so weird that this impulse can override our disgust (of course we still remain human beings with feelings that can be hurt…) To me it is romance what makes sex weird. Because allo-allos elevate sex to this grand, deep, emotional, nearly metaphysical aspect of life (to know someone = to have sex with someone in the Hebrew Bible. I guess I can say I “know” a few people, but not because I had sex with them). Allo-aces make more sense to me. ?‍♂️

Three crushes at 14 years old? Wow. ? I had zero crushes in my life and I’m more than a decade older. I would guess grayromantic or demiromantic.

Aro.

While The Expanse shares the complexity and sheer epicness with Game of Thrones (also James Holden is indeed similar to John Snow, not just regarding appearance, but also character) it’s the last season and the ending where the comparisons fail. Game of Thrones went bad in the end and ended with a massive disappointment. The finale is just atrocious. So bad it makes the whole series look bad. The Expanse OTOH ends with one of the greatest episodes. It is very satisfying and wraps up most important plotlines. It’s the grand finale that this adventure deserves, and one that still leaves you wanting for more! My top five finales: Mr. Robot (this one is an exceptional, nearly perfect finale; and perhaps the greatest episode of the whole series) The Expanse Dark Breaking Bad The Americans

Garlic bread … OMNOMNOM I also associate vampires with romance (Twilight!). ?‍♀️ = ?. Seriously! So garlic repels vampires and repels romance. Does anyone know black garlic? I like that too… but you don’t get a romance-repelling breath. What about juice from Aronia berries? Ever tried it? I like it, but honestly… I still prefer simple Grenadine.

No, never had a crush. Never EVER. A few women/girls and one man had very obvious and undeniable crushes on me. Which I found extremely weird and unnerving. No humble bragging, it’s the truth. Only in this sense I remember what a crush is like. I’m human, and humans are all around me. I interact with humans every day (can’t say that about animals). It’s my species so contrary to even very human-adapted animals (like dogs or cats), I should easily comprehend their behavior. But when a crush is directed at me, those humans seem to morph into eerie, scary alien xenomorphs. Now you might say: “But aren’t humans all very, very different in their characters and interests? You never can fully understand all humans.” – Yes, this is correct. But all other differences, as strange as they may seem to me, just pale compared to alloromanticism. I have like a visceral, fundamental aversion to alloromanticism. I just cannot help it. I’m also totally clueless at an age when I really should not still be clueless: Alloromantics describe their crushes like an heroin high. But they have their normal responsibilities – alloromantics do not go on sick leave when they have a crush! I just do not understand how this works…

Hamlet, Porklet, Beeflet, Sausagelet.... Anyway, I want a vegan version of this thread: "The Tofu game"!! Soylet the Prince of Tofu. So much better!

Sorry. Expanse is over. I’m just lost for words.

I guess that having a family with children is the one huge, monumental change in the average person’s life; to raise your own small humans must be quite an experience! I regret not having this experience. And obviously many (but not all, we had aro parents here on this board) aros are also missing out on this. So their 20s and 40s feel more similar. I don’t think we childless aros differ that much from childless alloromantics, though. I do not envy childless alloromantics at all. They usually just have their long history of failed romantic relationships. If that’s the only thing I am missing, I do not care. Anyway, there still is change in other areas of your life. E. g. professional responsibility. You suddenly make important decisions. Like really important, not just important as your math test next week.

Of course just for me. How could that be some objective truth? ? Yeah, sure… I just find it weird. 99% of humanity thinks otherwise.

I find kissing outside of a sexual context weird... Cuddling itself is ok, but kissing + cuddling combined feels weird to me.

Oh yes, a great movie – starring Sidney Poitier, who died last week at 94 years.