The Newest Fabled Creature

Yeah, especially when you feel so serious about it, like, I did and it consumed my life for a good month, I just - 💀

Thank you! In retrospect, I already knew that I should go with the flow, and write when I feel it's the right time for it; I already have some ideas/cool stuff I can write, but motivation has been jarringly absent; but at least the idea exists lol. But, I guess sometimes I need to hear that from others still, especially if they're in the same boat, so thanks! Also a 24k HTTYD fic sounds kind of awesome lmao But I understand that, since I have old docs of fantasy stuff I thought of when I was younger, and it's still rather interesting stuff, but then I think to myself of not only how I came up with the shit, but why?? lol I would overshare but I'm not gonna do that to anyone.

I also kind of view Ramen as a little cool aro thing

:OOO I need to try that!!

Chocolate chip cookie dough is where it's at for me. Purely just normal vanilla ice-cream with cookie dough chunks? Yes.

I'm LGBT in different aspects of my life (multisexual and trans) but I also consider my aro identity to be LGBT and would consider myself a part of Pride if I went to an event with specifically aro-centered celebration in mind. I've never been to a parade before, which I wish I could this year, but a queer related crime happened near my city very recently, so - yeah, that's not gonna happen. It's plain awful. I did go to a family event last year, the first ever in my rural county, but they haven't planned anything for this year sadly - could be related to the fact that my State has 13 anti-LGBT laws in place. But, yeah, even with the event last year I was still coming to terms with being aro and although they didn't have aro-themed pride stuff it was cool because most of the people there, both young, middle aged, and elderly, had an awareness of the aspec community.

I listened to the songs not so long ago and I thought they were really good! I quite love them! Thank you MaJiKer!

I don't write as much as I did when I was younger 🙁 (any tips on that??) I mean, I can always try to kick my ass into gear, but I usually just never feel like it's the "right day" to start writing, or the right time; stupid shit my brain likes to do that ultimately makes me feel more awful. So, this is not necessarily a story on my part and more of a hypothetical - since I never necessarily wrote romances before, only fantasy world-building shit, I think I would accidentally just write them as aro, because I would try getting into the groove of writing them being all romantic or feeling romantic attraction, and then my brain would short-circuit and be like, "Hmm. no. that is not correct, because according to the encyclopedia of -" and I would just automatically stop the progression of these characters getting together and write them being all ambiguous and possibly experiencing meshes instead. But I would read others peoples' short stories or fanfics and it's all romancey and I'm like "1) how the fuck can you write dialogue??? and 2) omg why is this good, I wish I could do tat"

I experience the same thing of my aromanticism mixing with how I experience sexual interest. I'm not asexual since I've experienced sexual attraction to people, though I tend to be attracted to unattainable people as well; fictional characters, sometimes complete strangers, celebrities, etc. Most of this has to do with me being aro than with my sexuality. I've actually never done anything to please myself since I never felt the need to/interest for it, but I also never felt the need to want to do anything sexual with anyone else no matter the gender. I kind of just sit there feeling attracted, might even fantasize, but because of my lack of romantic attraction and my decreasing alterous attraction at that, it causes me to not even want to bother with anyone sexually and I kind of just don't want to either.

Yeah, and that toxic mindset could land the individual getting hurt/hurting themselves in the future; just pretty messed up all around.

I agree with everything else you said, but this part hit home for me in a lot of ways. It's kind of what I imagined as well when I finally accepted myself.

Whenever I say that "I'm proud to be aromantic," I mean it in the terms of having finally accepted who I am and how I feel towards not only just others, but to the people closest to me, and how I feel about love and relationships in general. I'm proud to have been made known to myself. I do see it as a form of achievement that I dabbled into the aromantic community because that led to my discovery and I've met amazing people in the community. And I'm proud of having learned about amatonormativity and took the time to dismantle my own assumed beliefs regarding romance and romantic relationships. I'm also just proud to be free, because that's what being aromantic means to me. I was the same way about this with discovering my sexuality and gender, but because I've got to "sit" with those identities longer, they feel like a more grander part of me and so innate, that saying I'm proud -yes technically true in lot's of different aspects- doesn't feel like it makes the most sense anymore, and I feel like that would be the same for being aro later on; but... a part of me feels more inclined to say, "I'm proud" than stating how I'm not, because with everything I've discovered it would feel disingenuous to me to say "I'm not proud"; despite understanding the sentiment of why some people say they're not proud. They don't say it because they're ashamed, but because since being aro/aro-spec is a part of them, it's not really an achievement and yeah that's correct. But there's achievements to be had in who we are as people, in what we do later in life that being queer may have an impact on, and how we want to be happy in a world that views romantic relationships as the "ultimate form of happiness." Similarly to some of the things that Sili and roboticanary stated, basically. I am proud to express myself in a way that makes me feel comfortable and happy, because I achieved that level of comfortability with myself through working through my internalized queerphobia; through working against the doubts and the many days of feeling like I was "fake." I'm proud of my stance against the norms, and I'm proud to be queer in the sense of defiance; because society needs a lot more defiance this day in age fr.

I've had The Longest Time by Billy Joel playin' on repeat for a while now.

To Jillian, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I tried to reject you, dismiss you - of your feelings, how you viewed yourself and the world. I'm sorry that I tried to reject you, because of your experiencing being a girl - how you felt and believed you were a girl - even when later you'll realize you are not. I'm sorry that I later would want nothing to do with you, on part of making myself believe that you invalidated my current experiences and made my identities "not authentic enough." I blamed you a lot, for things that now just feel so ridiculous. I blamed you for not realizing things sooner, for not being stronger in the face of things where we needed to be, and blamed you for zapping away all and every motivation I have for creating and writing, believing that all of that was spent in my early childhood years and teens. I'm sorry that when you were finding things out, unraveling what and who you thought you were, that - at the time - we made ourselves not think about "it," pushed "it" away, and kept "it" under wraps and deep inside of the closet. You became so unhappy because of that; but you had shoved "it" so far under the bed that you felt as though you were actually fine. When you finally could breathe when you started accepting yourself, your sexuality, your gender, you would slowly start questioning why you haven't experienced what you called "crushes" at the time, in a long time. You'll dabble into the aromantic community, become utterly fascinated and supportive of the community, and you'll feel seen, and you'll feel like something within you was touched by these stories, and you'll start thinking, "Maybe... I'm aromantic?" And then you'll do exactly what we did with our sexuality and gender all over again. Push "it" away, not think about "it." You'll feel as though if you were to find out that you're aromantic, then that would be the worst thing you ever found out about yourself. And it'll take a while for you to finally, finally allow yourself to even think, to feel, and to accept your aromantic identity. You slowly become comfortable making jokes about being aromantic, you'll even say that you're officially three different flavors of Skittle. You'll slowly understand that you never needed "signs" to be who you are now, that who you are now is just as creative, carefree, strong, and handsome as when you were a little girl, who thought true love would come to her one day "Buuuut, just not today." You'll create amazing poetry, think of ideas for short stories that you'll find is just easier to write in your head than on paper, though you'll try writing them anyway, you'll meet people who are amazing, supportive, and who you may go separate ways from, but that doesn't make your relationship with them any less important. You'll get back into theater and reawaken that love for working with your hands and acting. You'll think and be so indecisive of the way you'd want to make change in the world, but your spirit will be so vibrantly there and still is there. You'll finally love yourself kid. I'll be there to love you too. From, Memphis

I would love to get this book, and I probably will for the representation, but I often can't ignore spelling mistakes in books to a bad degree; I don't know if that's just because of how I am or if I should become an editor at some point for a job. It does seem interesting regardless.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but Hobie Brown from Spiderman: Across The Spiderverse, gives off such lovepunk (heh) aro vibes. He's already a revolutionist, a non-binary icon/inspiration, and doesn't seem like the type of person to ✨vibe✨ with societal expectations; hetero/allo(ro)/cis/amato/normativity, all that jazz. And likewise, anything punk (and so punk characters) I automatically connect with not only in a trans way, but in an aro way as well (despite not being punk myself, but I have the spirit).

I had the internet when I was 10 as well, and being 19 now, I actually only learned about aromanticism (or became conscious of it) at the age of 17 and started identifying as aro last year.

No problem! And Inflatable Man is also def my fave!

I love Body Talks, yes that's a good one! @maeliavxk Like this is a very good song by Donovan Funk, it's called In All My Glory, worth a listen if you'd like! Other recs from them/him are Inflatable Man (the guitar is beautiful in that song) and Sex Sells which is a fairly recent song and may be hard to find any lyrics to. Here's the lyrics to In All My Glory at least https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Donovan-Funk/In-All-My-Glory

This made me bust out laughing not so long ago Here are some notable comments: "i love how he gradually goes from sleeping human being to a blubbering mustard abomination" - Darrel Darrenman "i love how the mustard sprayer puts his finger to his mouth to say "gotta be quiet" and then proceeds to open the loudest door in the history of mankind" - patties on a mf grill "The sputtering, the random blubbering, the coughing, the "Oh shit." Everything about this is beautiful." - Digital Apex "I love how he stops at the door like Shrek protecting his swamp" - Lando Carlrissian

I actually don't know many aro-spec singers, other than the few that are also ace, but most of what my aro playlist consists of is songs I interpret as aro. I do know this one singer who I'm pretty sure is aro? Maybe aroallo? Their/His name is Donovan Funk, very good music, but not a lot of their/his music is about being aro.

Yeah, I heard about the book in progress some time last year, and was on the edge of my seat lol

It has some stuff related to progress, but it's mainly a community study book, with first hand accounts of Aces and Aros! I have Loveless and it's very good! It does have one type of aroace experience written in it, and some side romance, but it's relatively enjoyable!

You're not a snob, trust me. I understand most of that. I'm not much picky on anything, music-wise or food-wise, but I still get it, especially since I know people personally who are the same! It's absolutely fine if you don't vibe with romances, don't want it nor want sex, it doesn't make you snob at all in that regard either; and I relate to the enjoying conversations and wanting to do activities. And I agree heavily on the not making lists, since - yeah I do make "lists" sometimes - but it can tiring, and I kind of only do make them on a whim; like: Oh, okay they have that physical trait I like? Gotcha. Oh, they're attitude/personality is a certain way that I like. Checkmark. They can throw me too!? Hell yeah. Lmao