Allo-aros in fiction

[Ettina]

Can you recommend some good stories about characters who are or seem to be allosexual aromantic? Preferably if they're not particularly stereotypical (eg not promiscuous, readily form strong emotional bonds, etc).    

[m4rble]

Some people argue Rose from Steven Universe may be aromantic because she seems confused by the concept of romance. 

Edit: I didn't see the allosexual part. Rose is affectionate but her romantic and sexuall orientations are unclear. Considering her species doesn't reproduce sexually it's likely she isn't sexual. 

[Cassiopeia]

I know a few ones that are canon. (Both of them features a main romance plotline though)

 

This webcomic has a canon alloaro character (Martin), two canon QPRs (Robbie/Orson and Martin/Neve)...

Ignition Zero

 

In this one Gio is alloaro.

Les Normaux

 

If I remember more, I'll link them.

[Dodecahedron314]

Dang, ninja'ed by @Cassiopeia on Ignition Zero  Though IIRC only Martin and Neve's relationship is queerplatonic--Robbie and Orson's is portrayed as more romantic.

[Cassiopeia]

Opps sorry, you are right. They were not too sugary though as far as I recall. I'm so useless when it comes to recognising romance anyway...

[Confidential_Con]

Homestuck (a webcomic) is the only thing I've seen where a character says they don't feel romantically attracted to people and it's not used as evidence of them being heartless/inhuman/childish. Objectively it's a pretty low standard, admittedly, but it's the first time I saw a character in media who was coping with the same things I was re:romance.

Jake English (who is sexually attracted to women, and is heavily implied to be attracted to men as well) is one of the main characters, and who over the course of the story starts dating his best friend when he asks him out. Jake then finds himself utterly miserable in the relationship and copes with it by avoiding his boyfriend as much as he can. They later break up, and I really emphasized with his doubt and self-hatred about it afterwards.

Quote

GT: Its fair to say i never came close to feeling as strongly about him as you.
GT: I envy you actually. Ive actually worried at times that i just wasnt capable of feeling that way about anyone.
GT: And maybe thats why i was just meant to be alone.

Quote

But yeah thats pretty much what the doctor ordered for old jake english. No romantic stuff. No platonic stuff either! Ill be like...Mr nonrom sansplat... Or... Oh horsenoodles there has to be terminology that more effectively consolidates my present understanding of myself into a coherent identity i can get enthusiastic about.

 

Homestuck's not really about Jake's struggles with his identity, so it's not worth it if you're thinking of reading it just for that, but it's something I wanted to mention.

[Mark]

On 15/12/2016 at 9:01 AM, m4rble said:

Some people argue Rose from Steven Universe may be aromantic because she seems confused by the concept of romance. 

Edit: I didn't see the allosexual part. Rose is affectionate but her romantic and sexuall orientations are unclear. Considering her species doesn't reproduce sexually it's likely she isn't sexual. 

 

Maybe it should be an additional requirement that the characters be human
Otherwise you could claim every Cheela character in Dragon's Egg (and it's sequel Starquake) is allo aro.
Though there are quite a few sci-fi settings where allo aro human characters would be completely unremarkable, even if the author(s) concerned havn't actually written any.

[Dodecahedron314]

The situation that suggests this is a bit ambiguous at the moment and we'll have to wait for season 2 to be released in March to get the whole story on what exactly happened, but the end of season 1 of The Penumbra Podcast could be very easily interpreted to suggest that Juno Steel, the canonically bi main character of one of the recurring storylines of the podcast, is also lithromantic/akoiromantic. 

 

Spoilers for S1E2 (Juno Steel and the Case of the Murderous Mask) and S1E18 (Juno Steel and the Final Resting Place): 

Spoiler

Again, it's purposely left very ambiguous what exactly happened in Final Resting Place between Juno's "decision" to stay with Peter Nureyev and the ending scene where he's back in his office and says "it's not like I had anywhere better to go", but it was very clearly shown that he was romantically attracted to Nureyev previously (definitely by part 2 of Train From Nowhere, and possibly even as early as part 2 of Case of the Murderous Mask), so while it's impossible to draw conclusions as to what exactly made him decide to stay in Hyperion City rather than leaving Mars with his newfound romantic partner as of right now because season 2 hasn't been released yet, the offhanded tone and seeming lack of regret with which he regards his decision could definitely suggest that the romantic attraction is gone now, which is the strongest possible implication of lith/akoiromanticism that I've ever encountered in fiction.

 

[Apathetic Echidna]

Been a while since I read them but aren't there a few characters that would fit as allosexual aromantic (though not specifically identified) in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books? 

 

I just realised that one of my favourite characters from Anne Bishop's Black Jewel Trilogy, Surreal SaDiablo, seems to be allo-aro for all the books except the last story, and even then she is more 'loving' than 'romantic loving' NO SPOILERS. Surreal is a side character in the original trilogy, and important character, but still a side character. Later she gets a book to herself, Tangled Webs, and then there are some short stories in the collected stories books that deal with her later life. She does have a relationship but it is more about finding something familiar in an unfamiliar place and fulfilling desires than being romantic  I JUST REALISED. Surreal ends up in a QPR where she gets her affection needs met without sex. Damn, these books get better the more I think about them. All warning I posted here still apply

 

[Mark]

51 minutes ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

Been a while since I read them but aren't there a few characters that would fit as allosexual aromantic (though not specifically identified) in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books?

Amongst dragon riders, especially gold and bronze, romantic attraction could be a liability. Wyrs effectively are military bases.
Pern is primarily an agrarian society without much concept of the 'nuclear family'. I don't recall any attempts on the part of the Harpers to promote either romance or amantonormativity  in the books.

[Apathetic Echidna]

1 hour ago, Mark said:

especially gold and bronze

I was thinking the golds and bronzes, and also the noble (?) who had the white dragon. As I said though, it has been many years since I read them but it seemed there was lots of 'I love my dragon most of all'  

 

[Mark]

8 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

I was thinking the golds and bronzes, and also the noble (?) who had the white dragon. As I said though, it has been many years since I read them but it seemed there was lots of 'I love my dragon most of all' 

That would be Lord Jaxom who's impression of Ruth almost caused a political crisis.

[SamwiseLovesLife]

Does Voldemort count?

[Apathetic Echidna]

On 05/10/2017 at 1:09 AM, SamwiseLovesLife said:

Does Voldemort count?

is he allosexual though? he is very driven and basically at war throughout the books. I have found a Fantastic Beasts fanfic that has a seemingly very allo-aro Grindelwald, but I won't recommend that to anyone, I won't even admit to reading it. It has good characterisation but it is SO messed up. I'm probably on some sort of government watch list after checking it out, it is that messed up. 

[Neir]

Is this where I might promo my own novel? Hahaha

I am writing a fictional piece called The Charlatan, which focuses on an aroace protagonist who has to flee her country in response to being scapegoated for bankrupting the nation and starting a war. (Oof, what a mouthful.) One of the characters that joins up with the protagonist early on turned out to be a bisexual aro, and I am doing my best to write all of the characters' orientations and identities into canon as explicitly as possible, even though they're not the focus of the book.

 

You can find The Charlatan on Wattpad or Booksie. My writing might not be amazing, or everyone's cup of tea, but I love when others share their work and representation with me so I thought I would do it too.

[Apathetic Echidna]

@running.tally

ooooh Wattpad. Next time I find some free wifi you are going to get 1 more follower. 

[Tagor]

I think the problem of aro allo main characters in mainstream media is that there aren't really that many conversations/situations which can only be explored by having such a character. If you want to depict a "you don't even love me" argument you can do this just as well if you use two heteroromantic characters. As far as I can think of stereotypical roles, the only one which would benefit from being represented by an aro allo character is the "player" like Barney Stinson from HIMYM who in fact wants to settle down but doesn't know how to do this without a romantic relationship. The problem with this character role is that it would only reinforce the "aro allos are cold hearted players" stereotype and (at least for me) wouldn't be a character one would identify with.

 

 

[Holmbo]

I found another one! One of the POV in Becky Chambers new book Record of a Spaceborn Few seem to be allo-aro. She doesn't want a romantic relationship and only wants sex without any strings attached. She goes to a prostitute, which in the sci-fi setting of this book is a social service freely available, and she and him become friends without there ever being any expectation of romance.

[nonmerci]

What about Gipsy (Cisco's girlfriend) from the Flash?

Her break-up scene with Cisco sounded very aro to me. They broke up when Cisco had the possibility to leave with her, because Cisco was in love with her but she wasn't and couldn't understand why. So I thought she could be sexually attracted to him, but not romantically.