#i want good aro rep and i want it plastered across tv screens worldwide

[arotechno]

thinking about my last reblog as representation has been on my mind a lot lately. this is by no means a phenomenon unique to aros nor is it unique to the queer community at large but it's definitely an issue that we have to deal with a lot by virtue of not having a lot of representation to the contrary.

a lot of probably well-meaning writers/artists will "include" aromantic characters in their work, but it's often a side character in a large ensemble cast of different queer characters, and even if the character is referred to explicitly as aro in canon it often rings very hollow when they are an unimportant character or their aromanticism has absolutely no bearing on their existence whatsoever.

don't get me wrong: i am all for representing characters whose story is not ABOUT them being aromantic. i don't need nor particularly want every canon aro's story to be an aro story. but the truth is we don't have many aro stories at all. in fact, most of the time the only people willing to tell our stories is... us, and while i certainly have reservations about alloromantic people writing aro narratives without the proper research, it would be nice if more people cared about us enough to put us in their stories in anything more than an extremely trivial, tokenizing way.

i think a lot of it stems from people's extremely basic, trivial, and oftentimes patronizing view of aromanticism. so many people think they can just say "aros are valid!" or write a shipper-on-deck aro side character who loves their friends and they've, like, solved arophobia or something. most people don't want to listen to us or our stories and so they don't think there is anything deep or meaningful about aromanticism worth exploring. that's a separate rant for another time i think but the point is people will toss in a throwaway canon aro for representation brownie points and they think it makes them a hero. and unless they're written by an actual aromantic or someone who at least has done a LOT of research they tend to be pretty mediocre anyway.

this is probably a hot take but honestly if you made me choose between a tokenized side character confirmed as aro on-page/on-screen and an aro main character with a solid character arc that actually reflects what being aro is like but isn't ever called aromantic in the source material, i would choose the second. obviously in a perfect world we'd have it all. aromantics deserve stories written for and about us and our identities by creators who are unashamed and unafraid to use the word aromantic and represent us authentically. but if people think all it takes to do good representation is to use the word, well... the word isn't everything. aro representation is not an arcade token you can trade in for a prize.

#sorry this is kind of disjointed #but idk someone had to say it and i'm glad we're starting to talk about this! #aro rep is not some one size fits all thing you can squeeze into a meaningless side character... #...and then use to promote your work as having Aro Characters when it's like. straight up a romance novel and the mc has like an aro friend #i don't have a real life example of that one it just seems like it probably exists #i think perhaps koisenu futari made me greedy and you know what GOOD #i want good aro rep and i want it plastered across tv screens worldwide #i'm tired of begging and scraping what little i can off of accidental aro coding #sigh. anyway #aro #aromantic #aro representation #aro characters #long post #op