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Does anyone else have any aro related projects they are working on, or know of some currently existing ones?


HotRamen

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Sorry for advertising but, First of all I just wanted to share the webcomic that I'm working on here:

https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-other-side-of-the-wall/list?title_no=247918

 

 

it only has two chapters out so far but ill be updating every 6th of the month

it has 3 main characters that are aro; well they all dont really feel romantic attraction but this world doesnt have a word for that.

its also a take off of a soulmate AU where people are born with a tattoo of the name of their soulmate, except in this world some people werent born with a tattoo and theres a wall built between the two groups. any way if this sound intresting please read it!

 

Second of all I know of the aromantic and asexual characters database but it mostly has books. Books are good although I perfer comic books better, but I was curious about if anyone is working on anything aro related like a song, or an animated short, a comic, or even just a script for a play or a movie. I also want to know if theres already media like this out there that is made by aros and aro-spec people, or has aro representation. I guess I'm just kinda bummed on how little representation there is in these other catagories. 

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Hi there!

 

Not sure if these count since they are all in the 'planned idea' or 'first draft' stages of existence, but I have several stories in the works that includes aro and ace spec characters. Some of them are novels (one novel series is an urban fantasy where one character is aroace, and one I'm realizing is probably bisexual greyromantic, possibly demi). My fantasy short stories series that I started has an aroace lead (most the rest of the cast I haven't decided orientations for yet). As for none novels/written works I do have an aro-spec superhero that will eventually be an origin novel followed by a comic book series (her 'sidekick' and eventual best friend is aro-spec too). And I have a film idea that's based on the concept of 'fantasy buddy cop style film' where one half of the main duo is aroace (I do admittedly write a lot of ace aros simply because it comes more naturally to me by far, but I am starting to branch out a bit!).

 

So there are some medium-future to far-future stories coming up depending on when I'm able to get them done. Your webcomic sounds really cool by the way! I'll check it out some time, I totally agree the media needs more rep for the aromanticism and asexuality. Unfortunately because of the lack of rep I don't personally know any currently existing recommendations for that. But I'm also really interested to see if others have any!

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Not sure that it counts as Nothing is published (yet >:() and anyway it's in French, but I do work on books where there is aromantic stuff. In one, I have a QPR (though none of the characters are aro (I Don't even know aromanticism existed at that time), I built their relationship on the idea that boys and girls can be friend and that friedship can be a bond as strong as romance; and it ended up that I describe them as "soulmates but not in a romantic way").

In another, I have an aroace character. I was sure for ace (he is even sex-repulsed), but not about aro because the guy is a sociopath and I didn't want to add to the "aro are psychopaths" stereotype. But at the same time, he will stop a bit his sociopath behavior, and I didn't want to add to the "love will make you a better person" stereotype. So after a lot of thoughts, I decided that I didn't have time for romance anyway and that aro is good. Anyway he is the best character.

And in a story I have finished, I thought that if I ever write a sequel someday, I was wondering if my main character will be aromantic and allosexual. In particular as it is a book for children (for 10 years old and more), it could sensibilize to that question.

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Aha, this looks like the perfect thread to post this. 

It's a kickstarter-funded anthology of speculative short stories and poems, centered around aro characters and platonic relationships. If you're interested in submitting a short story or poem, here's a link to the submissions page. https://commonbondsantho.com/call-for-submissions/

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I'm writing a story right now that features a character who comes out as aroace. I'm a bit worried that I'm using stereotypes or something. Can ya'll help me out?

 

This character is a seventeen-year-old boy who is flawed in a bunch of ways. He's overly critical, kind of bigheaded, and he talks a lot. But he's also a funny best-friend character who is supposed to be entertaining. In the story, he struggles against the norms of the society he lives in. First, he is bothered by the community's passive reaction to the story's main conflict (vampire slayers are trying to kill them all), and he's also internally fighting his romance-repulsed aroace identity in a traditional family that expects him to get married. Briefly, to rebel, he joins a gang, but he realizes how violent they are (also they make fun of the fact that he doesn't want a girlfriend), and he leaves. Near the end he comes out to the main character as aroace. 

Does this character sound like a stereotype at all? If so, let me know! If you know any books with aroace characters that I can look at, I would love to know about them.

Some questions I have are: What does romance-repulsion feel like to you, and how could I show it in this character? Also, what are stereotypes to avoid? How did you come out, and how did it feel?

 

(Also, there's a conflict in the story that I'm a little worried about, too. The main character is a lesbian, and she and this aroace character come out to each other. When the main character comes out as a lesbian, this featuring character has an angry and homophobic reaction. This is partly because he was raised to think this way by their traditional community, and partly because he is romance repulsed. He reacts negatively to other forms of romance in the story, too. Soon enough he accepts the main character for who she is, and they support each other. Obviously, intolerance within the LGBT+ community is a real issue. Do you have any advice on how to tackle it?)

Thank ya'll so much! I'm so glad aro-spec people are creating out there.

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@hermi1e
that sounds like a good story arch. Not cliché at all. I suppose the main cliché to watch out for with aro ace characters is that they can't love. Or that their lack of romantic or sexual desires is due to some past trauma. So try to make clear that's not the case.           

 

 

 

 

 

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On 3/17/2019 at 12:36 AM, Holmbo said:

@hermi1e
I suppose the main cliché to watch out for with aro ace characters is that they can't love. Or that their lack of romantic or sexual desires is due to some past trauma. So try to make clear that's not the case.           

 

 

Thank you for telling me! This aro ace character and the main character have a strong platonic relationship, but the aro ace character is definitely awkward and uncomfortable with showing platonic affection (such as hugging). I am worried that this falls into the robot stereotype of aro ace people. What do you think?

 

Also, he does have an slightly emotionally-unstable father, which is kind of like past trauma. It is not a necessary story element, and I might take it out of the story anyway. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, because I didn't even think of that!

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On 3/16/2019 at 8:41 PM, hermi1e said:

He reacts negatively to other forms of romance in the story, too. Soon enough he accepts the main character for who she is, and they support each other. Obviously, intolerance within the LGBT+ community is a real issue. Do you have any advice on how to tackle it

I would say to insist that he is disgusted by relationship in general and that this is due to his education. Also make it clear that in the end he is ok with it.

 

29 minutes ago, hermi1e said:

Also, he does have an slightly emotionally-unstable father, which is kind of like past trauma. It is not a necessary story element, and I might take it out of the story anyway. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, because I didn't even think of that!

It is ok that he has past trauma. What is offensive is if you makes this the cause of his aroaceness. For instance, in a story I have a psycho and traumatised aroace character, so I make it clear that his mental problems has nothing to do with his orientation, and that his orientation is as valid as any other.

 

On 3/16/2019 at 8:41 PM, hermi1e said:

What does romance-repulsion feel like to you, and how could I show it in this character? Also, what are stereotypes to avoid? How did you come out, and how did it feel?

I'm not romance repulsed so I can't say. About stereotypes, I would say : look at Sheldon Cooper, and avoid everything BBT did (seriously, they did all the stereotypes :  emotionless, no empathy, no understanding other's feeling, seing as a robot or an alien, and the worst, the idea that finding the one will change him).

About coming out, it depends. A friend of mine was talking naturally about her bisexuality, which leads me to come out for the first time. It was great, because my friends are open-minded and polite.

With my mother it was more complicated. She told me the classic "you'll change your mind later maybe". The difficulty with this orientation is that a lot of people don't know about it and/or deny his reality. And when they believe you they are horrified to think you will live forever alone.

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  • 3 months later...

Orion's Arm universe, a fictional encyclopedia from the year 12000 or so, has some aromantic stuff, though they don't use the term. From their page on marriage: "There are many clades in which any form of marriage is irrelevant given their programming and/or biology. This is particularly true of xenosophonts. Prior to Terragen contact, some of these were familiar with the concept only through study of subsapient life forms that had pair-bonding instincts. Attempts in the past to force some form of marriage on non pair-bonding clades and species through memetic engineering have typically failed in the long term." From the top of my head, Samaelians for example don't have any sort of pair bonding and engage in casual sex without any mating rituals.

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  • 2 weeks later...

? thats awesome!!!

I've recently been writing a script for a short film idea I had; called 'Cupid's Aro', a cupid attempts to make a person fall in love, using cliche romantic meet-cutes, and has no idea why it never seems to work!

I've also been working on other short film/webseries concepts with friends but those are less developed :)

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  • 2 months later...
On 2/17/2019 at 4:41 PM, Skittles87 said:

Aha, this looks like the perfect thread to post this. 

It's a kickstarter-funded anthology of speculative short stories and poems, centered around aro characters and platonic relationships. If you're interested in submitting a short story or poem, here's a link to the submissions page. https://commonbondsantho.com/call-for-submissions/

 

A little update on this anthology - I'm getting a story published in it, hooray hooray hooray! 

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  • 1 year later...

I don't know if this counts either as it isn't aro-focused, but a story of mine I worked on not that long ago has a side character who I headcanon as aro. 

I didn't intend this while writing at first (I was in a fuzzy area of kinda-sorta-questioning at the time) but looking back on it she could totally be an aro in denial. 

Her name is Bella and she kinda supports a main-ish character of mine when he's having some family issues, this was her main purpose in existing in my story. When he goes to a costume party that he was pressured to attend, from his POV a junior dude starts dancing with bella and talking, and then she bites her lip and rushes to the bathroom, upset. He goes to comfort her and she starts crying, which is out of character for her (being the slightly goth-y character with a pretty cool demeanor). She says that he'd asked her out, and says she doesn't know why she's upset, that she's stupid, that she liked him.

This makes me think of when an aro convinces themselves of liking someone in some way because it's the social norm but kinda internally panics when anything romantically coded actually progresses... I may have been subconsciously making her a bit of a self-insert. 

But yeah lol, it was a smallish scene in proportion to most of the story but it stands out to me as aro-esque. 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Hey all I somewhat recently figured out I am aro and since I am a photographer for my job I decided to do a portrait series of aros.  I am just now finally getting started on it but will prob also include aces as i am that as well.  I will likely post them to my IG and/or create a new one for that

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/27/2020 at 11:52 PM, Bluebird said:

Idk if this counts but I created a fun word cloud! (I was clearly very bored)

Screen Shot 2019-05-19 at 2.36.35 PM (1).png

This would make a great board at the top of a wall. Not sure what it's called in English.

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