#mod atem

This is Mod Atem and Welcome to occasional Peri! 

We hope to bring you some smile and lots of fun here with this cute ask blog, and we are excited to see what the future holds! Please, feel free to ask questions to Peridot or either one of us! 

Okay this is a fun one as a gnc nonbinary alloaro who's done sex work. I love this. That's the rep I'm talking about

Big things I'd say are good to be careful about:

- Sex work is work. It's separate from private and personal life. Keep it so. It may be taboo as well to some people, but don't frame it as such in the story as it reinforces the stigma.

- Try to keep it clear that the alloaro person isn't flirty because they're alloaro but rather that it's a separate trait and the two things just so happen to both be traits they have.

- If you're a binary person (trans or cis) be careful of framing being nonbinary as exotic or as a "sexy third gender" or such. Also, their agab may or may not come up since they are a sex worker, but it ideally won't be a... big thing. As in it won't be a plot thing.

- Finally, be sure that this character isn't just a sexy, flirty sex worker alloaro no romo just sex person or whatever. That may seem obvious but you would be shocked at how that shit can accidentally become your character's entire personality. Remember work vs personal life should be separate especially as a sex worker.

First off I want to say I'm sorry to hear that you're in a situation like that. Being closeted is not a fun experience, and less so when serious backlash can come from it.

Next off I'm glad to say this is a topic I can for sure help on! Simply put: you can have the character state that the relationship they have with their QPP is not romantic! If someone teases they're dating, your character could easily laugh it off awkwardly and say that they're very, very close friends, but they're not romantically together. They don't have to state that they're aromantic, or even that they feel however which way about their QPP! That's one of the plus sides to writing things more subtley, I find at least. Having a character push off romance, moan about it, or just say they think it's overrated is one way I've made aro characters textually canon myself.

[image description: an anonymous ask reading ‘what are some of you & your followers’ favorite aro-related tropes & situations to see in writing? (I personally am a sucker for almost anything under the found family trope umbrella involving an arospec character; allo characters actively choosing their arospec friends over romantic interests is also Very Good, imo’ end description]

(Sorry it took us so long to get around to answering this one! We forgot to queue it after we'd all drafted our answers, oops)

I'd kill and die for literally just any found family, arospec character or none. Found family is my lifeblood and the mcu owes me financial compensation for found-family-baiting me. Really though, I don't have any other favourite aro-related tropes. I'm not someone who finds much appeal in making tropes for aro-specific situations so that may just be a me thing, however. I just want romance tropes to die tbh.

- Mod Atem

I’m also a big fan of alloro characters choosing their friends, or even alloro characters who still date genuinely valuing their friends just as much and making a life around them. Also I love friendships that are like, embarrassingly tender and loving WITHOUT being written as ‘closer’ to romantic relationships. Tbh I just think the two kinds of aro projection fodder fantasy that need to be in all literature ever are ‘friend tells you how much they value you’ and ‘people who set off an aro’s repulsion get made to feel awful about it’. The crossover is ‘someone sets off your repulsion and a loyal friend screams at them for it.’ I just think that would be neat lmao.

- Mod Kaladin

My personal favorite aro tropes are 1. aro characters (or, more commonly, characters who just don't have a love interest because Nobody Wants To Actually Call Them Aro) who are unapologetically weird and don't fit in with Conventional Norms, but still have a fulfilling life and meaningful friendships and are treated as unambiguously human by the narrative, 2. like basically everyone else said, alloro characters prioritizing their aro friends over love interests, and 3. found family that stays a family, and isn't treated as just a precursor to pairing off all the characters in the found family.

-Mod Ollie

(2/2) since it seems like 'aplatonic' as a label can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people and there doesn't really seem to be a unifying experience, it's hard for me to figure out what kind of portrayal of an aplatonic character would resonate with aplatonic people, or what things to avoid writing. (on a personal level, it's also making questioning VERY difficult.) do you have any tips on how to write an aplatonic character in a way that won't alienate aplatonic people?

Well, this one is a bit tricky. I think the big thing here is deciding which definition you want your aplatonic character to fit! It's intentionally vague specifically because of the variety of experiences aplatonic people have, similar to why QPR has such a vague description, as with alterous attraction.

I use aplatonic personally to say I'm not interested in QPRs. So, for me, an aplatonic character who I would be able to see myself in would be a character who doesn't want a QPR.

For others however, that may mean they don't feel platonic attraction/the desire to make friends with particular people. So their representation would be different than mine.

Welp, okay there was an attempt made at updating this more! The world kinda went to shit - god its been literally 23 days how is march 5th a year ago - and as usual I can't speak for the other mods, but I kinda ended up swamped with the whole.... pandemic thing.

As far as I am aware all 3 of us mods are safe and healthy, though! Which is a win! Hopefully I'll be able to update a bit more, finish up my writing greyro characters tip post, and answer some asks in the near future!