I don't like romance

I just,,, hc aroallo/nonsam aro Ben so much,,,, I love,,, the he,,,

Anyways enjoy these 🥺

Age 11: LOL what was I thinking of course I get crushes! The other kids say you get butterflies in your stomach and my tummy feels weird whenever I’m around people… do I have a crush on everyone?

💛 Alloaros should be supported in the entire aspec community, not just the alloaro community.

💛 Alloaros should be listened to and respected, just like anyone else in the community.

💛 Getting defensive when alloaros tell you something you’re doing is arophobic isn’t helping.

this is you admitting you fucked up, accepting that you hurt people, and saying “leave me alone about this” which. you dont get to do when youre the one who hurt others. you dont get to say “i know i hurt you but i didnt mean to so im going to pretend i never said that.”

“i deleted the post so only the called out versions can be reblogged” which versions? im looking at the post on mobile and there are three (3) responses shown in the notes. two of them are by alloaces, so only one called out version can be found without actively searching for it. i know more people called you out - i follow several. you responded to their criticism by deleting their replies, blocking them, and ultimately deleting the op. if you want to own up to your mistakes, make them visible. reblog the callouts yourself, because right now it looks like youre trying to sweep it all under the rug. right now, most of the critisim is just going to get stuck in aro and alloaro circles because alloaces dont reblog from us.

you yourself said that this post was “meant to be a conversational point” but deleted anyone who disagreed with you. it wasnt going to “add to the conversation in a positive way” because it isnt a positive conversation. you started it by saying “i dont like the way you use words to describe yourself.” thats not a positive starting point. thats an attack, and we reacted defensively, and youre now playing the victim.

i dont think i have a point to this. i know youre not going to listen - ive seen this play out enough times to know that. im just asking that you do better.

I’ve seen quite a few of these for asexuals but so far not a single one for arospecs. Please do not take if you’re not aromantic or on the aromantic spectrum. Please reblog if you take it.

Mild trigger warning for discussions of suicidal tendencies and trauma.

Me:

I wanted to put out the word about this - as of now (March 8, 2020), Arocalypse (the main/only independent aromantic forum site) is facing imminent shutdown by around the end of the month unless volunteers can be found to take over the technical implementation and running of the site, as well as the day-to-day moderation.

Ideally, it sounds like volunteers should know at least a bit about domain registration, website hosting, and using forum software (currently invision power suite) - or at least be willing to learn.

There are some volunteers willing to provide financial support, but there’s still an urgent need for a lead technical support admin, and I’m guessing there may also be need for day-to-day moderation support soon as well.

Why should I care about Arocalypse?

As it stands, arocalypse is currently the only well known, fully independent and community-led and maintained public discussion space for aromantic people, in that it is independently hosted, run, and moderated, by aromantic community members instead of relying on unrelated third-party platforms like tumblr or reddit or facebook. With other sites, like tumblr, aromantic users subject to the whims of non-aromantic staff, with little ability to moderate or control their own spaces. There’s little to no transparency around site management and updates, and little to no resource if content is removed or censored - and at the same time, no way to remove or hide content that is problematic (like anti-aro trolls).

As an independent hosted and managed site, Arocalypse provides a space where aromantic community organizers and members can give and take feedback and provide what the community actually needs, not just whatever bare minimum is profitable for some tech company.

For another example, consider the fact that there’s no way to remove spam or mistagged content from tumblr tags - a community-owned space like arocalypse, on the other hand, is able to develop and enforce it’s own community-driven guidelines to ensure that spam gets removed and that misplaced content gets shuffled to appropriate subforums as needed.

In additional, forum-style communities like arocalypse are also important for their general ease of use and navigability for a wide range of users, which makes them accessible to larger parts of the community than more niche and sometimes confusing platforms like tumblr. Plus, it’s centralized, and has been around long enough to have fairly good SEO, which makes it a much better landing ground for new aros who are just starting to figure out what aromanticism is, let alone how to find other more obscure community spaces and resources.

If you’ve ever thought to yourself “I want to help make more spaces for aro folks, but I’m not sure how” - this could be a great opportunity to get involved in real hands-on aro community organizing.

And even if you don’t have the time or skills to take on this position (I know I’m in that boat right no myself), if you can at least take a moment to signal boost this it would be much appreciated!

I’m over 20. I’m finishing my master’s degree. I mostly left my parents’ home almost 10 years ago, and I’ve met a lot of people. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to “act” or “feel” allo, and who I am didn’t change.