Hi? Introducing myself is awkward

[Crimson Square]

So - hi, I guess? 

I should probably say something about myself.

My name's Sal, I'm aro, bi, trans/non-binary/vaguely-male-ish-gender-is-complicated, use he/him and they/them pronouns (as well as er/ihm and neo-pronouns, depending on language), a university student in Vienna, from Austria, someone who's first language is German, neurodivergent but not quite sure how specifically, really into math, into fanfiction, and someone who hasn't been online for a couple of months until very, very recently.

 

Some elaboration:

 

When I say I'm into math, that means I study it, dream about it, and frequently joke that my feelings towards math are the closest thing to romantic feelings I ever have experienced, even though looking at it more seriously they're more orthogonal to any description of romantic feelings I've ever seen than not. I might accidentally slip into math jargon and am used to people getting annoyed with me over this, so I try not to. I still might. Please be nice if you mind. I also might apologize if I catch myself even if you don't mind. Please point this out to me. (Learning what people want as a response is. Hard?) 

 

I kind of - don't quite get romance, and I like quoiro in the sense of "what the fuck even is romance", but I mostly use aro, aromantic, and aromantisch for myself, depending on language.

 

Concerning fanfic, I'm semi-responsible for Gen And Aro Prompts over on AO3 due to creating the prompt meme and having Official Removal Powers; I really, really hope more people contribute!

 

If you want to add a prompt, you can do so anonymously; and any prompt that is gen (= Does Not Involve Romance, might, say, be focused on familial relationships, or an adventure prompt, or…) and/or contains Aro(-spec) Characters (so a prompt about a cupioromantic protagonist and their romantic life would be Totally Fine and also probably potentially awesome if fulfilled) is allowed, same for any story falling under these conditions.

 

That said, since it has happened and I removed several of them today (… after months of not looking at the prompt meme, I'm… sorry for that?) - please, please don't put any ace-focused romance stories into the collection; I know there's some prompts that are written in a way that means people could fulfill them by writing an ace-focused romance story, and as far as I know people just… copied an ace-focused prompt, forgot about which collection they were submitting to, exactly, wrote a romance story months later, and put it into the "Gen and Aro" collection… which, of course, is not meant for any romance, unless it's aro-focused, even if it's ace-focused. I'm pointing out ace-focused romance stories specifically because… well, those were the only non-aro romance stories submitted so far. And they were usually really nice ace rep and I dislike being in a position of either a) doing something that will limit the visibility of nice ace rep stories or b) having non-aro-focused romance stories in a gen and aro prompt meme meant for aros, because those are not good choices.

That said,  gen ace-focused prompts/stories fall under the gen part of Gen and Aro Prompts and I'm happy to see them, and there's also quite a few of them already there.

 

IRL, I regularly participate in the Ace Aro Vienna meet-ups (when they're held… so not right now, because Corona), which are for aro(-spec) and/or ace(-spec) and/or questioning people.

 

I kind of tend to get shuffled into the Official Welcoming Committee/Hug Giver/Person We Let Speak At Official Things role, which is part of how I kind of ended up doing a radio interview on Aromanticism and Asexuality. (The other part was me being the only person from our group who had any time/energy to do this…) - Which. I was not the best person to speak about asexuality (at all), obviously, and any questions about personal experiences are equally as obviously aro-focused, but the ace members of the group were mostly fine with what I said, and I am a lot more confident about what I said about being aro due to… well, being aro? If anyone wants a link to the interview, I can give it. (It's in German.)

 

… I also got labelled an activist in that interview, which. I am still not sure whether that fits. Also I really, really hope to meet more people who are doing stuff like this, because a) How Do You Do That? And b) hopefully there will be someone else from Austria who is doing/is interested in doing this because I do not want to be Austria's Foremost Alloaro Activist By Default Because There Is No One Else. Which… it currently looks like this might be the case. 

[Kadence]

  I totally understand the math bit. I super passionate about writing fiction and fantasy and I do joke to myself about writing being the closest to being in love I've ever gotten lol. I also slip into weird, semi-poetic rants and I'm told I talk like I'm writing a book, so I understand that haha

  Welcome to Aropocalypse, it sounds like you've contributed a lot to the aro-spec community already lol you're definitely more of an activist than I am

[Crimson Square]

4 hours ago, Kadence said:

Welcome to Aropocalypse, it sounds like you've contributed a lot to the aro-spec community already lol you're definitely more of an activist than I am

Most of my contributions happened due to me not having impulse control and just somehow stumbling into doing stuff. I maintain that it shouldn't quite count as activism unless it happened more deliberately than I did anything, but the evidence against me is starting to… somewhat pile up?

 

4 hours ago, Kadence said:

I totally understand the math bit. I super passionate about writing fiction and fantasy and I do joke to myself about writing being the closest to being in love I've ever gotten lol. I also slip into weird, semi-poetic rants and I'm told I talk like I'm writing a book, so I understand that haha

Ooh! Fellow fantasy fan! What do you like to read/write?