Aplspec - Tumblr Posts
Just heard someone on TikTok state that "platonic love is the purest form of love" and I just want to vomit now.
Fuck off with that bullshit. Don’t say crap like this.
Grah. Can’t even word. What the fuck makes people say shit like this and believe they’re actually right??? And that they’re somehow helping aros with it???
(It was a TikTok talking about (queer-)platonic relationships, and started off already weird with bullshit about how if you don’t love your friends you’ve "done something wrong in life", but it just got worse and worse from there………)
Just a fucking reminder that loveless people exist. Aplatonic people exist. And that no form of love is """purer""" than another. Just… how do people think this is an even remotely okay thing to say?
Fuck amatonormativity. Fuck platonormativity. And above all, fuck love.
bro i'm an alloromantic and allosexual(i'm pan and polyam btw) but even though i feel romantic attraction and sexual attraction pretty often and i also feel other types of attraction intertwined with these, sometimes i also just feel tertiary attractions alone(hope this makes sense) and i hate when other allos don't understand what i mean when i say that for example i only feel queerplatonic attraction for someone or when i say that i feel sensual and aesthetic attraction for someone or even when i say that i want other types of relationships rather than romantic relationships with people. like bro wtf just educate your-fucking-self! (a lil edit cause i forgot to add this) I FUCKING HATE HOW AMATONORMATIVITY AND MONONORMATIVITY AFFECT ME LIKE BRUH LEAVE ME ALONE!!
i'm resposting this because i think it can be really helpful in case you're questioniong rather or not you're aspec or if you're questioning what type of attraction you're feeling :)
(this can also be helpful if you just want to learn more about different types of attraction)
Types of Tertiary Attraction Infographic
src: www.lgbta.wikia.org
if you're apl or aplspec, i just gotta tell you that you're cool as fuck!
on one hand it's really nice that more people are learning about Aplatonic people and are being inclusive of them in their aspec posts. i do feel happy knowing that more people are likely to know about it, and people are being accepting
on the other had i really wish that more posts at the top of the tag were SPECIFICALLY about Aplatonisism. rather than most of the top posts being about A-spec identities in general
Things I shoulda known
I really should’ve known I was non-binary because I didn’t understand the binary at all, like I do, but it just was like a sock that never fit. When I did discover the term it made me a bit sad, but I had this huge wave of relief and was happy that I could finally be myself. All gender bathrooms are the best, no questions asked. Now onto my sexuality...I really shoulda known I was ace..I mean dude, I literally couldn’t say the word “sex” for years. I have a list of alternatives...quite literally. It’s funny cause one of my friends knew before I did. Now onto my romanticism...I never understood romance..but I was fully convinced that I was a pan/panro...I was really wrong. I hadn’t had well, any crushes (faked ‘em to a T). I found out I was demiplatonic and realized I have squishes on occasion (literally my besties...I love them so SO much...I wanna hang and talk philosophy with both of ‘em), and that I might not be as introverted as I thought. Imma get real existential real quick, but I really am grateful that in the little time that I’ve had on this planet, that I will never experience falling in love or sexual attraction because I’ll have a whole ‘nother experience than somebody else. I’ll change in different ways. My experience may not be common, but I’m grateful that I get to have it.
people are allowed to love being aro, ace, apl, or similar even if their orientation is caused by a disorder, by the way
; MARINA MY BELOVED
Thought this would be funny, credit if you use
is me or mephone4s is so apothiaroace and apothiplatonic?
or at least aroace idk
ppl should be normal about loveless aromantics and plato averse apls actually. like. neither of those things are a moral failing. "b-but you can't not love! you can't not want to forge friendships! we're social creatures we need connection!!" i don't feel either of those things so uh. cope i guess.
@whackacole3
I think the main thing about a friendship-favorable aplatonic would be
a) thinking their friends are cool people
b) enjoying socializing with their friends/getting attention from them
c) perhaps establishing friendships for something they get out of it (validation, security etc)
d) something I'm not thinking of
e) all of the above
but not specifically loving their friends/struggling with the concept of platonic love.
I think I personally view friendships as some form of social contracts. I want attention, I want people to listen to me, I want to talk about my interests - therefore, I get into connections with people where we mutually do that. Imagine playing sims and having your character do certain actions to increase the friendship.
I can enjoy talking and spending time with people, but for my friends... the word love doesn't really fit. I feel like I just don't care enough about other people. I think I rarely engage, and sometimes I do that not because I really care, but because I'm afraid I'm failing this "contract" we have going on ("good friends reach out! if someone doesn't message you first they are a bad friend!" etc).
For example, I made a bunch of friends through streaming, but out of all the people there's ONE person who's streams I'd eagerly join, unless others stream a category I'm passionate about. For other friends, joining their streams/lurking feels like a chore I should do to support the relationship. And even for that one friend? We have a lot of things we could discuss, so I'm not even doing that out of love, but because I get to have an amazing conversation and get attention.
So really, at least for me, friends are a way to get you a safe socialization consistently, and also a nice way to have people that would help you in dire situations.
As an alloromantic allosexual, I know what romantic and sexual attractions feel like. I can imagine being romantically in love with someone to the point I would happily sacrifice something for them. But I wouldn't feel as self-sacrificial for a friend. I would do my best to help them in need, and I could sacrifice something - but perhaps not out of love, but out of obligation.
A lot of focus in arospec communities goes onto how friendships and platonic relationships are not lesser than romance, that they could reach the same intimacy level. And that is important and true! Idk how it is for the majority of people, but for me though... it is not like that :/
Moreover, idk if I'm just lonely and still hormonal, but if I even experience platonic love, it is tied to sexual/romantic one. If I get close enough with a friend, I will start having thoughts about us in a romantic/sexual relationship and might develop a light crush. It is often not serious and I don't pursue them, but I've had those kind of thoughts about a bunch of people. It's as if intimacy for me is tied with romance/sex.
I am just one person, and my experiences are not universal (and different from aro/ace/loveless/etc apls), but here are some points I think could help:
- what does your character get out of friendships? If you don't experience platonic love, then there must be something else tying you to your friends. Safety? Common interests you can freely talk about? Do they want to be around cool people? Something else?
- how do they sustain those friendships? Maybe they've absorbed the societal view of friendships and do a lot of things for their friends, because "that's what friendships are like" and "that's what being friends is". They may be more distant and reach out less. However, that doesn't mean they don't care! As per point one, they are in a friendship for something, so they do care about their friendships and friends. But maybe not really because of love, but because of mutual benefit or something else
- they may have grown distant with a lot of their past friends. I personally grew apart with many childhood friends because they lived far, but I'm not sure I really miss it. There's that girl I was kinda friends with last 4 years of school, but none of us ever went for a deeper bond, so after school ended we haven't even talked once. Maybe your character also falls out of the connections easily and doesn't miss them
- they may have lots of acquaintances at places like school/work, and enjoy spending time with them as a way to socialize, but would rarely if ever pursue a deeper bond with them
- how do they feel about their lack of care? Considering how friendships are normalized, they may feel guilty for not being good enough friends to other people and try to compensate out of that guilt. Or have they done some deep introspection and accepted it? Do they have some boundaries because of it?
- they may still tell their friends "I love you", even though it is empty. I have a friend we often exchange "love you"s with, and for me it is not really a way of expressing feelings, but a way to sustain a friendship (they throw a heart at me, I throw it back). I know I'm basically lying, but... I don't want to make things awkward or try and dismantle the friendship. Plus, even though I don't really love them, I may still act as if I do. Maybe your character prefers not to use any love-based words? Maybe they use something like "I care about you" instead?
- they may also use "love" words when discussing caring about friendships, just because that's a widespread language to talk about it. They may equate "loving" friends to "caring about friendships" in general, even if there isn't a feeling that "love" is a proper term for
- hugs may feel uncomfortable/empty too. So how does your character feel about that and other forms of friendly gestures? Do they like them, do they dislike them, do they feel empty?
- perhaps they can't imagine what platonic attraction is. If somebody asked me what platonic love feels like, I don't think I could answer, and for me, trying to imagine gets a muddy picture with romantic/sexual attraction involved. They may be surprised to learn about the concept of "platonic crushes"/"really wanting to be friends with someone" - "Is it like thinking someone is cool or being interested because they share your interests and you can talk about it?"
- do they experience other types of love or attraction? is intimacy tied to some, if yes? Idk if my mom just did something wrong, but even when I was a child I would only say I love her just because "You're supposed to love your mom" and it'd be awkward if I didn't. I don't think I love my sister either. That's more afamilial territory, but maybe the same things that lead to aplatonicism lead to not loving family too. Out of "non-partner-oriented" types of love I experience maybe sensual and aesthetic and I love my cats (that's kind of parental love? I want to care about them and protect them)
- they can probably have any number of friends (from a small circle of those they really click with or a lot of surface-level acquaintances to chat with, if they're an extrovert)
- when it comes to negative traits, maybe portraying the character as manipulative would not be the best. They may view friendships as contracts, but they may also care about those friendships and people in them. They may even act as if they love the people, just without feeling much about it and being more obligation/honor-driven
- also tying aplatonicism (and especially lovelessness) to being evil, incomplete or inhuman. Evil is obvious (people may have many reasons to not experience platonic attractions aside from being jerks, and jerks also often have their jerk friends). By "incomplete" I mean treating it as if something's missing or it's an inherent flaw to be fixed. If your character is unhappy about their lack of deep friend connections maybe trying to examine why that is and tackling it could work for a story, but I think the majority of people here would love to see an apl that's not there to be "fixed". People can be fine with it! And still happy about their life! If anything, a story of self acceptance would probably bring a lot of joy to apls, maybe with messages of how you can have personal connections with friendship and you don't have to do it like everyone else. Inhuman is also obvious - people don't have to experience love to be people
I'm sorry this is so long (I have a lot of thoughts, so I always write lengthy), but hopefully, this can be of help!
hey, hope this is okay to ask, but do you have any tips for writing a friendship-favorable aplatonic character? i don’t want to get into any stereotypes or negative things. feel free to ignore this ask if you want!
id say probably try to acknowledge the lack of bond with friends? like the character likes their friends, but lacks the bond kinda? sorry if this isn't a good explanation
Signed ☝🏽
petition to call wondering if you're aspec "a-speculation"
I can't believe I'm fucking aplspec. It all makes sense now-💀
In the community's attempt to uplift loveless aros, we have created a very rigid idea of what it means to be loveless and, by proxy, what it means to be aro in general. I know people who constantly feel not aro enough or loveless enough, and it's all because they don't adhere to the love negative views the community seems so obsessed with leveraging. Sometimes I fully expect to hear an accusation of cooties get thrown around with how mature some of y'all be acting.
As an aplspec, loveless individual who has been scarred time and time again by those who claimed to love me, trauma is NO EXCUSE to push out love and/or romance favorable aros. Again, in the attempt to not leave out loveless voices, we have created a rigid standard of what it 'means' to be loveless... and that HURTS loveless people! If you have the audacity to call this out in any way, you'll get some self pitying asshole in your notes putting words in your mouth and being otherwise aggressive. I've seen it happen multiple times to ONE group of people. You'll be told you're throwing your community under the bus for speaking out, have your words cherrypicked and the rest glossed over, and told that 'erm actually, this thing I've been told is actively harming members of my own community is not bad and you're just a meanie bigot!'
Please do better in realizing that your language is already a weapon.
What if God was an agender aromantic asexual aplatonic entity
Fun fact: Hieroglyphs are a logographic system, where each character represents a word, although in some cases, two characters could join together to form a single word, like for Turquoise, which is represented with a man and a pig next to each other.
Logographic systems nowadays are systems such as Chinese Hanzi, Japanese Kanji, etc.
Emojis could also be considered Logographic, since they tend to represent a single word, rather than a sentence or a letter. i.e: 🤧 represents "sick" but it has the contextual meaning of "I am sick."
In the examples given by OP, this too, is a logographic system, though rather limited in vocabulary.
Also I think it's a shame we have an emoji of a bow and arrow, but not one of just an arrow or just a bow.
aspec are so cool bcs aro - 🏹, ace - 🃏, apl - 🍎 we got hieroglyphs!!
The quote in question is factually incorrect (which I know is the joke, but still), so I fixed it.
"Happiness is magical and everybody should experience it."
'love is magical and everybody should experience it'
Pipe Bomb 🫶🫶
aspecs are A PART of the LGBTQIA+ community. try to argue cunts.
i always hhear people talkibg about how twilight is aplatonic, but CAN WE TALK ABOOUT SCOOTALOO ?? in episode 23 she was REPULSEDD by platonicc attraction, shes literally one of the aplatonics who have friends butt dont/are repulsed by platonic attraction