@Sleepyowl – That site which lists the definitions has a lot of questions and answers… many which you ask.
If you have not yet looked at the FAQ, I urge you to, because it can help you get the answers you are looking for.
Edit: I just have not set my birthday @Zyrios. It reminds me to do so, but i always forget later. lol
Unrelated (and I apologize), but I see a birthday cake next to your username, shall I assume your birthday is happening?
In any event, I’ll stay on topic now.
While @Eiwynn is correct, i want to briefly correct a mistake here. Asexuality is not a sex drive thing. Asexuality is defined as a lack of sexual attraction, you can have a libido. I do. Many asexual people do not, but some are kinksters. My libido is directed at litterary nothing, so I deal with it the same way as I deal with any other body issue.
If you have any questions left after you read, feel free to ask me. I know the focus of this thread is more about writing asexuality than understanding it in general, so you can DM me if you’re worried about getting too far off topic.
As I said above… the exploration of libido/sexual attraction direction of inquiry is off-topic. That discussion is now officially closed in this thread.
Thank you for keeping the focus of the thread on track everyone.
I think this would be nice for those looking for the option, but in regards to asexuality, I think my first post opening the thread explains why this misses the mark.
Substituting these concepts would be a pitfall, because what they have attached to them from a western societal perspective… religious, moral and ethical considerations.
Could you maybe ‘just’ allow people to choose what level of physical/emotional intimacy they’re comfortable with with a potential love interest without assigning a hard label to the relationship? It always bugs me to have to choose something at the start of the game, and it then 'nope’s me when my character for whatever reason develops some form of attraction outside of whatever orientation I chose in the beginning of the game. Isn’t it possible to write relationships as a string of actions (for example ‘I want to kiss/hug/fondle them’ or ‘I take them up to my room for cuddles/sex/a video game marathon/what have you’) without making assumptions about those kind of actions dictating the character’s sexual orientation or assuming that because it happened once that character is always going to be up for those kind of things, including it in text snippets where it isn’t player choice?
Tldr: Not everything, especially something as complicated as sexual/romantic/emotional/platonic/whatever attraction, can always be put into neat little labeled boxes, so why would you limit what a character can or can’t do/experience to what you understand to be in those labeled boxes?
I just… how is this off topic?
The two most common pitfall that writers have is:
Allo writer rarely discern between all the many modes of attraction @Eiwynn, so finely listed. Because for most allo people it is bundled together in a way that they do not have to think about the disctinction.
Allo people gets confused over lacking something, but still doing it for a myriad of reason. Or dealing with biology function different from allo people without it actually impacting your quality of life in any way.
And that is not the fault of allo people. For allo people most of these things are bundled together in a way that makes them tangled up, so it is outright alien for them to imagine the opposite. It is very hard for the human brain to comphrehend a lack. Escpecially if that lack is a spectrum.
As a personal example. I am a romantic ace, and I know where my writing limit is. I can write a lot of different kinds of aces, though they will mostly be based on my own experience for obvious reason. I can write a grey ace. And I can write aroace, by extrapolating my own aceness to aroness, but even then it wouldn´t be as detailed as a writer who is aroace themselves.
But I cannot write from a viewpoint of a character who is aro, but not ace - at least not when it comes to physical relationships. And that is because my brain cannot simply comphrehend sexual attraction, so when I cannot use romantic attraction as either a spring board or substitute my brain goes: Error. Error.
Gods know, I have tried, but my brain can simply not compute it. Even when I read sex scenes, my brain tends to just skim over them unless there is an enormous emotional component it can lash onto and that emotional component tends to be romantic feelings, because most authors are allo.
I do agree with other people that most often it is best that writers just try to not assume anything and just goes for a situation to situation, but then we again run into the problem of most authors being allo (and not queer) and then unwittlingly writing in base assumptions that do not fit. Either because they are genre tropes or because that is just how attraction works for them. It is so many small things, that writers cannot be aware of it.
Also for most writer cogs is a personal projects and they have neither the time nor the word count to put in the enormous work it is to accomidating a full ace and aro spectrum (on top of a full orientation spectrum).
Also sometimes there are just not room in the story for it, because romance is such a small subplot that the writers have to go with: Either you have a standard experience (which would likely be allo), or you do just not engage. And that is also fine, because the focus is just not there.
Also some genres is just not build for us. I cannot enjoy certain types of adult movies. Just as there a heart choices and certain wips in the adult section which are just not for me. And that is fine.
If your game revolves around subterfuge/trickery in any way it might add something to ask a follow-up question about intention, but if it has no influence on the plot/story in any way it might be better to leave it up to player interpretation.
I would love to see more legit asexual/aromantic options in IFs. I know it was mentioned already, but I feel the need to bring it up myself. It is very sad that actually playing as asexual and/or aromantic usually means that the deeper intimacies that can be forged with our favorite characters gets locked out of entirely, because the only way to truly connect with the story’s characters is to pursue a relationship with them. Usually, playing as an asexual/aromantic character means that you can become acquaintances, or maybe just barely friends, with the cast. But never any further. I always end up going with the bi/pansexual option, despite being aroace, because that’s the only way I get can close with my favorite characters :’)
I hope one day it’s more common that QPRs (queer platonic relationships), or deep/intimate friendships, are also explored in IFs so that we don’t have to fall back on playing as an orientation we are not just to get the deeper connections with the IFs characters.
This is something I’ve been exploring in my work over time - imperfectly, I believe, but handling it in different ways. I’ve been getting less rigid about it over the years, hopefully incorporating more nuance and flexibility, rather than treating asexuality or aromanticism as an absence or just gating off content for ace and/or aro player characters.
In Noblesse Oblige, I’ve been doing something similar to @Cecilia_Rosewood’s description, where a player can specify that they’re entirely sex-repulsed and/or completely uninterested in romance, which signals that a player wants to block off engaging in such things. Queerplatonic relationships are available for each main character. But if they do want to engage in a physical and/or romantic relationship with a character, there are options to discuss how they feel about physical contact or romantic intensity, what their boundaries are, and what (if anything) they would like to explore.
All that said, player input is vital. A beta tester highlighted an implication I didn’t intend in Creme de la Creme, which I edited; a player asked about greyaro orientation in Royal Affairs, and I was able to implement it without much difficulty. I would love to hear from ace and/or aro people about examples which feel effective, authentic, or self-expressive - are there any ChoiceScript games that provide an ace and/or aro player character experience that feels good? Are there particular characters that felt true to life when playing?
I’ve had a quick scan through what’s been said so far and figured I’d hop on and give my own thoughts.
Having read a great many books and interactive books that CoG publish, there is usually one striking pitfall when attempting to write or offer asexual or aromantic characters. This is that if the reader chooses the option that specifies no sexual or romantic interest, then the path of romance in that book is completely taken off the table.
This is particularly prominent in some older books, but is beginning to change with some of the newer WiP’s that are out there. Authors who write characters as sexual and romantic beings often identify the two aspects as the same, with romance options often focusing around sex and how that progresses the relationship. Obviously, this is representative of people who also view romance and sex and being closely link, but for those that don’t it can often leave them underrepresented and left out almost.
I think a large portion of trouble comes from how authors handle romance. Obviously, picking a sexuality at the start of the book allows for predetermined romance paths to be available if the reader wishes to explore them. However, we are then faced with asexual and aromantic characters who might not experience romance and sex in the same way as most others do, and I feel at times a lot of authors don’t really know how to handle characters of this category, but don’t want to risk the negative feedback of excluding the option and therefore almost avoid it by just closing off romance paths entirely.
I agree with what’s being said about the option to specify if you are sex/romance disinterested which would block the options off, but by declaring ace/aro you can still explore them in different ways. Queerplatonic relationships would be incredible to see, and providing options to explore different love languages or aversions would be great. I think the Sherlock Holmes WiP shocked me pleasantly when it allowed me to specify a touch aversion, I thought it was great to offered that.
All in all, and I think maybe I’m going round in circles. The biggest pitfall to me in authors writing about asexual or aromantic characters is that they never know what to do with them, be it through a lack of understanding or connection with that sexuality or even being uncomfortable with it. This then leads to players who pick this never being able to explore romance within those games, and much of their roleplay being neutered.
It also raises a concern about how much access people of these sexualities have in regards to the Heart’s Choice releases, since many are gender and romance locked and I would suspect most but not all wouldn’t necessarily go to great lengths to accommodate these sexualities in a romance heavy book.
Happy New Years everyone 
It’s actually more common than you’d think for HC stories to just… let you not be romantic. Like, I can name four off the top of my head where I got away with not really doing anything romantic with anybody.
In Never Date Werewolves, you can choose to play your character as a single mom with six kids, a job, and no time or interest to even think about dating. It turns from a romance game into a slice of life dramedy about single motherhood! (In a world where werewolves exist, but still.)
In the pirate game whose name I’m blanking on, you frequently get hit with situations where you see couples being cute with each other, or the game throws questions about your take on romance at you, and there’s always at least one answer that’s essentially, “man, who cares? I could be doing pirate stuff right now.” I don’t know if you can actually dodge the romances, since my character picked a fight with Caleb in chapter ten and got Mike Tyson’s Punched Out for the SNES, and starting the whole story over from chapter one didn’t sound very appealing to me.
In Belle-De-Nuit, I may have been too focused on channeling my inner Puss In Boots, but I can’t recall where any of the romance triggers were. I did, however, spot all the points where I could engage in an honorable duel, and jumped on them, because I am a closeted musketeer.
In If It Please The Court, you can pretty neatly dodge romance stuff in favor of purely focusing on the spy games and political intrigue. Of course, my character wound up fleeing to Poland because she turned traitor to the French crown, but I mean hey, shit happens, right?
Those are the four I’ve played that I know do that. Haven’t really touched any of the others, so can’t confirm or deny on their count.
This.
I think romance is such a nuanced topic because what might be considered romance for some might also be different for others. And I write that as someone who writes explicit content in her game lol.
For me, romancing a character can be broken down into two parts:
The first part of romancing a character is all about the little things, the deep conversation that you can have with that NPC about their childhood, favorite foods, and special interest. It’s walking to the kitchen and watching that significant other flipping pancakes while dancing to the latest tune, making a complete goof at themself while their cat watches. It’s the cute note that they will leave you to let you know that (I’m out of the house for the day, and will see you later and have a good day at work). It’s the text you get from them asking you to come and save them from the neverending meeting with their mother lol. And yes, those are spoilers, iykyk.
The second part, for people who are comfortable with it. Is all the sexual tension, touches, caresses, passionate kiss, and innuendo jokes. etc.
With not a lot of authors spending time developing the first part, some readers end up missing out on romance because the second part is not for them.
While I agree with you about not attaching labels to things, there are a few problems with this from a writing standpoint. In games with gender-flippable characters, there has to be a choice from the beginning to accommodate the MC’s preferences.
Even with set genders for the ROs, if the story is character-driven (as I prefer), you have to deal with the NPC’s wants/needs as well as the MC’s. Not all characters are going to be cool with “we’ll just touch when the MC wants to touch, I’ll be whatever the MC wants, and we don’t have to define things.” Many/most humans do not function well under extended uncertainty (this is why, given a choice, people will gravitate toward bad situations over uncertainty, but that’s a whole other discussion). Uncertainty causes a number of problems that manifest physically (for example, it causes a great deal of stress). That isn’t to say that it applies to everyone (few things do), but it is a fairly understood concept. And this concept applies just as easily to relationships, be they platonic or romantic.
In relationships, uncertainty is the thing that causes the most problems between people–that old familiar “check your phone to see if they texted/called” thing can be a product of this as much as it can be a product of “I can’t wait to hear from them.” Yes, in the beginning, relationships typically aren’t clearly defined, but if they continue, there is some sort of understanding. If the understanding is verbal and agreed to by both parties, then it tends to decrease uncertainty. If it’s never agreed upon and is just a ‘take it as it goes’ kind of thing, it’s uncertain and a lot of people will respond poorly to it. Of course, trust is also a necessity, but you can’t establish trust without defining boundaries (this is one reason that, in Wayhaven, the A, M, and LT paths can be the most stress-inducing, though A and M’s are defined, it’s just that the actions don’t coincide with the supposed agreement–which causes conflicting feelings and uncertainty).
What I’m getting at here is that, if NPCs/ROs are to be more than a shell for the MC to use however they want, they have to have their own personalities and way of doing things. If all ROs are cool with never defining things, it becomes unrealistic really quickly. It also becomes difficult to write said characters because then all players are either forced to forge a relationship with someone who is nothing more than a blank slate for the MC to paint however they wish or the author is forced to write two different versions of each RO–one who blithely responds to the MC/player’s desires and one who is a developed character with their own desires for a relationship (or not).
That said, it is much easier to present the “maybe we’ll be something, maybe we won’t” when you’re writing a story, rather than a game. Why? Because you control all of the characters and you, as the author, usually know where it will go (not that it always works, because your characters don’t always behave as you want them to!). When writing a game with choices, the problem is that, if you don’t ever have the player define things for the MC, you can’t really plan well. All you can do is have set points where the player can decide how to react/behave and either force the NPCs to be fine with it (even if it’s out of character, which would drive me nuts) or have them flat out ask the MC if the MC thinks there will eventually be anything between them or not. Which results in defining the relationship–friends, friends with benefits, friends that cuddle, etc.
Also, without a clear definition, then how can an author write any interaction between the MC and NPCs without making every single thing a choice? Is an ace character fine with the RO throwing an arm around their shoulders? Touching the lower back? Shoulders touching? Little things like that tend to really enrich relationships in games for me. Depending on my MC, if they’re standing around with their LI, they would take it as a “sign” if the LI kept them at arm’s length constantly and never casually touched them. An ace character may hate that and be uncomfortable. So how does an author know how to handle it without the player/MC telling them? I think that’s one reason most authors just resort to no romance for ace/aro characters–it’s like navigating a landmine and someone will inevitably get pissed off at how things are handled.
Okay, this confuses me. If the reader says their MC isn’t interested in sex or romance, why wouldn’t romances be taken off the table??? I mean, the way I write, I tend to lean more toward the MC defining those relationships with each RO/LI rather than overall, and doing it at a point after they get to know each other a bit (if the RO is interested in the MC, then they may approach the subject or, at least, hint around about it). But it still needs to be defined, one way or the other, and if the MC indicates they have no interest in romance period (which they will be able to do with the first LI that approaches them), then it makes sense to lock them out of other romance paths lest the player get upset that they’re being approached for romance when they don’t want it. The same applies to sex–if the MC tells the first character who hints around they want to have some fun that they don’t like sex at all, then having others approach the MC for nookie will just upset people who feel they’re being harassed. It really becomes a no-win situation for a writer!
This is getting long, but I want to present a scenario to you…
In what I’m writing, there is a poly choice–it’s a male and female duo that has been together for a very long time, but the male’s race has an innate need for a soul connection. The female is a part of that, but he has searched for years (well, millennia, really) for the one/ones who will complete that soul connection. The female is fine with this, though she doesn’t have that same built-in need he has. In comes the MC. With these two, there are multiple options, but there are a few things that are musts if the MC becomes the third to complete their soul connection–it has to be the three of them, the male and female duo will continue to have sex with each other, and both the male and female want an intimate relationship in the respect that they have to be truly involved with each other and love each other deeply. Now, the MC can choose to have sex with one, both, or neither of them. It’s not a requirement. However, at the very least “snuggling” has to be a thing (the female, in particular, is very touchy feely, and craves closeness with both the male and the MC, if the MC chooses to join this). So, while there is technically an option for an ace MC with these two, the poly is required, emotional intimacy is required, and some touching is required.
Does this still apply as an ace option or no?
I think when I wrote that I was attempting to recognise that romance in most books involve sex and romance going hand in hand. And that players who may not be interested in one facet of that end up having the whole pathway locked off. Which led into my further comments about authors not always necessarily know what to do with people who select those categories. I didn’t mean it in the sense of ‘I’m not interested in romance, so now I’m upset that the romance option isn’t available’. I hope you get what I’m saying.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you’re referring to games that allow the player to be asexual, but that means aro-ace by default, rather than treating interest in sex and interest in romance as two distinct things.
I believe that is what I’m trying to say. Thank you
It feels like you’re heaping two different things together here. I’m asking the author not to assign or ask for labels from the player, and then limit the character’s options for forming relationships to that.
Imagine this scenario: the player, at the start of the game, decides that their character is going to be a straight male. But then they encounter the romance options, and none of the personalities of the female characters really work for them. However, they get along with one of the non-binary characters like a house on fire. If the writer sticks to the orientation the player chose at the start of the story, their main character wouldn’t be able to date this romance option, even though it would be in character for the main character to do so.
Does that make sense?
The solution for gender-flippable characters as romance options in relation to orientation seems pretty simple to me. Instead of having the player choose a (sexual/romantic/whatever) orientation, let them pick the gender of the gender-flippable characters. That way they’ll have the opportunity to run into the characters of the gender they might feel attracted to.
When it comes to NPC having a set sexual/romantic/whatever orientation, that’s a whole other discussion.
You can absolutely define the boundaries of a relationship/character orientation/preferences in character. Just do not ask the player to define it, or force things on characters they haven’t specified being okay with. (In fact, I would love to see things like that addressed in games. This far a lot of games assume a whole lot of things about the main character without ever asking them what their preferences are in character.)
There have been way too many instances in ChoiceScript games where choices like ‘hang out with character X’ result in the main character diving into bed with them without having as much as held hands with character X before. It’s so jarring when you’ve been promised to be able to play as an asexual character.
You’re welcome. I knew what you meant because that’s an issue for me too.