#raphael. known aromantic who has a hard time figuring out what it feels like to be in love

[copperhawks]

Asexual Constant and why he means the World to me: Part 1

Constant didn’t see why that made a difference. How were Sav and Don’s heart troubles any different from Constant’s heart troubles when Daine was missing, or when he saw Sav sad for their dead parents, or when he felt lonely and lost? All those things hurt his heart. They were big too, they mattered too.

There are a few signs early on that Constant is asexual/aromantic/aspec, but in chapters 18 and 19, this becomes pretty explicit.

First, is this piece of internal musing from Constant in chapter 18.

Daine tells him that Sav often gets really mean when he’s “heartsore” and Constant can’t understand why. He says that HE doesn’t get mean while he’s “heartsore” so why would Sav. All Daine offers is that it’s “different.”

And to be honest, even without the asexuality, Constant’s RIGHT. There are obviously differences in how platonic love, familial love, and romantic love express themselves and how they effect people and their relationships. But the INTENSITY of each love can be entirely equal. The love you feel for your mother, your best friend, and your romantic partner can all be the exact same level of intensity.

Sav’s meanness when he’s heartsore over Don isn’t explicitly due to it being of a romantic nature. It’s far more complex than that, relating to how his relationship to Don even came about, what their relationship was outside to it becoming romantic, and what it’s become since both of those relationships ended. It has a lot more to do with what Sav thinks of himself and how his relationships to Don have shaped that. His relationship to Don is COMPLICATED, to say the least, even before the green hair and unsuccessful exile. His meanness over it stems from that complexity, not just because it’s romantic.

Constant’s confusion over is just so intensely relatable to someone who grew up not really getting the whole Thing over romance, at least in real life. I had no problems watching rom coms and reading books with romance in them and got really excited when two characters who were clearly feeling feelings for each other finally were allowed to kiss. But in real life? Was I supposed to be DOING something to acquire those feelings or were they just supposed to come to me? Were the feelings I had when I was around my friends potentially romantic or not? Had I ever felt it and I just didn’t know what it was, so it had passed me by?

Figuring out you’re ace, for me, meant living in a world of constant (ha) confusion for a while and just... having to play act for a while until a few things came across my attention on social media and helped me understand what asexuality even meant and the variations that came within it etc etc.

Asexuality isn’t a thing that’s really ever DISCUSSED and it certainly never made its way into media I had available growing up as a child. I read Tamora Pierce books where everyone had a love interest they got together with at the end and possibly multiple love interests within one series. The one person who didn’t end up with someone still had crushes she could identify as crushes and slept with one of them before she was 18, all experiences I couldn’t really say that I had. So even though Kel has now been WOG’d as aroace, when I first read her series, she still fell into the same molds as the other Pierce characters had. And I mean, I didn’t have the WORDS to even be able to headcanon her as asexual/aromantic back then, so it just seemed progressive for her not to end up with anyone by the end of the novel, but that we were supposed to assume that, within a few years, she probably would, once she found the right person.

At no point does she have thoughts like the ones Constant expresses above, at least, not that I can remember. She doesn’t really question sex or romance, though she arguably has somewhat less of it than Alanna or Daine did during their books.

And it’s CONSTANT that gets me.

Hard.

Because wow do those words hit home for me. He’s not naive, or ignorant, he just... doesn’t get it. Because he doesn’t feel the same way, he can’t feel the DIFFERENCE between the different loves he’s felt for various people in his life. One is not arguably stronger than another unless he just... knows them a little better or has spent more time with them. But he’d probably say that he loves Daine and Sav equally even though, from what we know of Sav and Daine’s early lives, he’s probably spent far more time with Daine than he has with Sav.

And I just... when this chapter was published and I read those words, I think I melted. I felt like crying a little. I feel like crying now as I write this and this is gonna become a whole ass rambling essay about why I love asexual Constant so much.

I’ve seen a few pieces of media as I’ve gotten older that include asexual characters explicitly (the Shadowhunters TV show and the book Belle Revolte are two that immediately come to mind) but it’s by no means a long list and aside from Shadowhunters, none of them are mainstream. I hope that some kid somewhere was watching the episode where Raphael Santiago confesses that he’s asexual and the woman he’s in a relationship with (who is NOT asexual) listens politely and accepts him for who he is and gives him a hug at the end. They break up eventually, but it’s not because of his asexuality. I hope that kid heard Raphael Santiago talk about how he felt and went “oh wow, that’s exactly how I feel, it’s A REAL THING.” I wish I’d been able to BE that kid.

Asexuality is becoming more widely known among the LGBTQ+ community and within online fandoms and it’s not hard to find headcanons that see characters from popular media as ace/aro/aroace/aspec. And it is showing up in some queer YA media (see earlier example of Belle Revolte as well as Samantha Shannon’s Bone Season series). And that’s GREAT, it’s so awesome to see knowledge of this sexuality becoming more commonplace because it means more and more exposure to people who might not otherwise have a way to figure out what their feelings even MEAN.

Constant is not alone, by any means. But I think it almost means MORE to me that he’s an original character than if one of the canon characters had been made into an aspec character (which is a completely valid choice!), partially because... I didn’t expect it. At all. I didn’t expect to click the link for Chapter 18 and see my own mid to late teen years reflected back at me in one short paragraph. I didn’t expect to see it in a 14 year old boy whose main passion in life is hawks.

Constant and I don’t necessarily share a LOT in common: I do not have a passion for hawks (though I think they are wonderful and beautiful animals), both of my parents are very much alive and I know that they love me, I am not a younger child, I was not born to a specific responsibility of leadership I know I’ll one day have to take over.

But in this, we are reflections of each other. In a way I don’t know that I had ever felt reflected by a character before. He makes me cry. A lot.

Dee, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for Constant. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to truly adequately explain what he means to me. But thank you. He means the world to me.

#tamora pierce #tortall #the immortals #the immortals quartet #daine au lb #constant de hartholm #asexuality #long post