#aroace characters

So many other filmmakers would’ve turned Stratt into a love interest, and the fact that they didn’t is huge. Stratt and Grace can have a complex relationship without it having to be romantic or sexual in nature. They can just be friends.

So.. you know Aroace people are allowed to be in relationships, right? You know that aromantic is a spectrum, and not everyone has the same rule/ boundaries as you when it comes to relationships, yeah?

Popular to contrary belief, Aroace people are allowed to "date".

People in queer platonic relationships are allowed to kiss fuck hold hands and call themselves specifc labels if they see fit. The whole concept of queer platonic relationships are purposly challenging societal norms by loving how ever you want- unromantically.

"This is cute but I like Aroace grace better"

"Grace cant date simon, hes aroace"

"Eva and grace cant be in a relationship if theyre both aroace"

Hey so.. heres the thing. Aroace grace is allowed to be in a relationship.

He's allowed to have a relationship with someone that is also aroace. He's allowed to have a relationship with someone that is romantic and ace, hell, he's allowed to have a relationship with someone whos a literal rock.

Now if you mean you like the idea of grace being uncomfortable with relationship dynamics because you like the repusentation of grace being relationship repulsed and enjoy the themes of Grace ONLY needing friends to be complete as a person because your value as a human should not have anything to do with your ability to feel romantic attraction- THAT is fine!

Love that. Love the idea of that little guy cringing at couples kissing in public. Love him having a ton of friends that he loves very much platonically. And yaknow? Canonly he DOES love a lot. His heart is so full. In the book he talks about his friends and how close he is with them. He loves those b-words.

Saying he is incapable of love and relationships is doing exactly what mainstream media does- Makes the entire charater alone and isolated with little to no compelxity of their feelings or emotions. Grace loves A LOT. Maybe too much at times for some people and not enough towards others.

But we need to stop saying "but grace is aroace" under queer platonic ship art/fics.

Not only are you damaging the fandom by causing seperation but you are also making the claim that aroace people in relationships are not valid in their identity and I do not dig that at all.

Feel free to respectfully discuss or debate if I'm misunderstanding something. But block me if you think aroace people can not be in QPR's or love someone because they're "incapable" of it.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

🧡💛🤍🩵💙

There’s this habit in fandoms that contain aromatic or asexual characters to go “aroace people can still be in relationships and have sex” and then disregard their entire identity. Because yes, obviously we can, but there is more to those actions and intent behind them, and it becomes a wildly different experience for all parties than it would with an allo couple.

It’s annoying as a aroace reader to want to interact with those characters and then constantly be reminded that no one cares about us. It’s always a “right person” or a “learning intimacy” or changing their identity entirely, even when it’s canonical. And it becomes a running joke to me that when an aroace character is close to someone in media, their identity goes completely out the window in the eyes of the fandom. Because to be happy you must be in a romantic and/or sexual relationship, and they’re not allowed to be single.

It’s important to me that people understand this, obviously as an aroace person myself, but also because the perpetuation of acephobia and arophobia spurs from misinformation and misunderstandings. It also doesn’t help allos that we keep putting relationships above everything else, because then no one can be single and happy.

Im also not saying that you can’t ship aroace ppl with anyone else that is not my intent, just be more aware of if you’re accidentally perpetuating homophobia against the aroace community.