castletalk

I do Brazilian jiu jitsu!

oh I LOVED this book! It was the most fun I've had with superhero-type stuff in a long time. plus i hadn't really thought of it through an aro lens before, but now im thinking it's not much of a stretch at all to read the main character as arospec/lithromantic.

This always sucks! But in my experience it's better to notice in advance, rather than being completely caught off guard later. if you can, it's probably best to find a way to tell him you're not interested in a relationship (or just come out, if you're comfortable with that). if he just wants to be friends, it won't matter, and if he's into you, it's probably better to nip that in the bud.

9 hours ago, Whirl said:

Hi Castle! Love the gorgug pfp!! I'm a huge d20 fan!! Riz means a lot to me 🥺

For recs, I highly recommend the IDW1 run of transformers, especially James Robert's stuff. Sci-fi! Robots! Lots of queer characters and very well developed relationships— some romantic and some not.  For example, Whirl (my pfp and namesake here) has a very complex and sweet platonic relationship with another character, Cyclonus. I HC whirl as aro :) 

If you like found family I very much recommend it!

You can find them on read comics online. It's a little confusing figuring out where to start, but tbh you can just pick a point that sounds interesting to you and go from there. 

Thanks, I love Riz too!!

Awesome, comics recs! I haven't read any Transformers stuff before, but it sounds great :)

I'm pretty good at word games and puzzles! Boggle is my jam.

678

19 hours ago, Neon said:

Starting with fantasy recs:

Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson, features an aro main character (confirmed out of canon as the author decided to not write a sequel), and it's really good!

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett is excellent. Every book is a stand-alone so you can read whatever you are in the mood for. (Here's the list for reference https://www.discworldemporium.com/reading-order/).

The Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull remains one of my favorite of all time. The romance is minimal and it focuses heavily on the sibling relationship between the main characters.

The Market of Monsters series by Rebecca Schaeffer is an urban fantasy with two aroace leads!

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill is also one of my favorite fantasy books, I don't remember if there's any romance.

The Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard is a dystopian fantasy and the main romance is one of the only YA romances I like. It also has multiple queer couples.

The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini is also excellent, especially if you are like me and like the concept of Tolkien's worldbuilding but finding Tolkien's writing insufferable.

For sci-fi:

Recursion by Blake Crouch is excellent and I read it in one sitting, but it does have a main romance and iirc a sex scene

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is similarly amazing, but also has a lot of romance and I also think there is sex in it. The main trio are polyam and they have robots!

The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag is a post-apocalyptic story with amazing illustrations to go with it. The main character is gay as well!

On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden is a graphic novel and the main character is gay

The Illuminae Files (series) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff is a "compiled documents" space opera and is really good. However, there is a lot of romance

Bonus:

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is realistic fiction but it features one of the best platonic relationships I've read

I love Discworld! I'm not familiar with the rest of these, but I'll add them to my tbr. Thanks for the recs!

19 hours ago, alto said:

Hi Castle!  I have written books.  You can find them on Amazon.

Cool, I'll check them out!

I'm pretty much up for anything sci fi or fantasy, especially if there's well-written/interesting platonic relationships! Bonus points if there's queer people. Or robots. Or monsters.

(I mostly read adult books, but I'll read YA if you know a good one!)

Congrats and good luck :) I was in a very similar situation a couple years ago. For me, relationships that start out long distance are more comfortable. I wonder if that's common for arospec people?

Hey! I'm Castle, I use he or she pronouns, and I'm an aro lesbian. I've known I'm on the aro spectrum for basically as long as I've been in my 20s, but there's been a tragic lack of aro people in my real life (that I know of), so I'm looking forward to talking to you all!

I'm a big reader, especially sff, so hit me up with any book recs! And if you have any opinions on which batman comics are good, share those too, please-- I wanna get into them, but... there's lots. 😁