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Ask: Character Tropes and Identity

Handdrawn illustration of a yellow pasture against a background of hills and sporadic trees. Scene is overlaid with the dark green/light green/white/grey/black stripes of the aro pride flag. The text Aro Worlds Discussion Post sits across the image in a black, antique handdrawn type, separated by two ornate Victorian-style black dividers.
~ K. A. ~ 1 Comment

An anon asks on Tumblr:

I realized my ace character fell into some Aro/Ace tropes like being emotionless and callous. So now they’re a snarky jerk but with a heart underneath it all. Is that better or should I do away with the character entirely? On top of that, technically the character is aroace but I only plan to call them asexual since they don’t have split attraction. Is this acceptable?

I would enjoy reading a snarky a-spec character, anon, especially when the pure and innocent a-spec character is another awkward trope and I have been known to be a snarky jerk myself. I don’t think I’ve written any character without at least a slight undercurrent of snark, and at times it’s a whole lot more than an undercurrent. Besides, these sorts of characters are so much fun to write…

The thing with representation is that almost any character in isolation will possess elements that can be read as bad or problematic representation, because it’s those elements of not being a perfect human that make for real characterisation.

To be brutally honest with you and the world, any character that successfully avoids every possible element of problematic characterisation for their marginalised identity will be a character that  bores me to tears. In many ways I am problematic representation for an aro (autistic, familial and sexual abuse likely being partial reasons for my aromanticism, iffy on the subject of love, mentally ill, so not good at human interaction, shy) on first glance and if taken in isolation. Why shouldn’t my characters be the same?

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Ask: Characters and Absence of Love

Handdrawn illustration of a yellow pasture against a background of hills and sporadic trees. Scene is overlaid with the dark green/light green/white/grey/black stripes of the aro pride flag. The text Aro Worlds Discussion Post sits across the image in a black, antique handdrawn type, separated by two ornate Victorian-style black dividers.
~ K. A. ~ 1 Comment

An anon asks on Tumblr:

What is your opinion on characters who have no love at all (not just romantic love, but all kinds)? Obviously, they’re often demonized (*cough*Voldemort*cough*), but if they aren’t could they work without being inherently arophobic? I (an aro) am thinking of writing a story where a character loses their ability to love and Doesn’t React Well, but eventually learns to accept it. Should I go through with that? If so, are there particular arophobic tropes to avoid?

I am somewhat biased in that I’ve written an aro character who means “all love” when he says he doesn’t love (and this is explored further and more explicitly in his future stories) so, as someone who has a complicated relationship to love myself, bring them on.

I am so tired of seeing “love” billed as the ultimate indicator of a “good” character while “inability to love” is the ultimate indicator of “evil”–despite the fact that some of the most difficult things I have endured came about from someone else’s love. If relatives bullied me and friends-who-wanted-to-be-boyfriends stalked me despite and because of their ability to love, why should an inability to love mean anything  when love just as often motivates cruelty? In my opinion, there is nothing inherently misrepresentative of aro-specs in a character’s inability to love–just the social tangle of ableism and aromisia and amatonormativity from other people in unquestioned assumptions that ability to love makes a protagonist. Why should it?

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