This is the second out of seven one shots I have for Aro Spec Awareness Week.
Artemis is eight when she first learns what the word 'crush' means.
"That's when a boy like-likes a girl or a girl like-likes a boy," Aphrodite, who is her relative, explains.
"But isn't that just a boyfriend or girlfriend?" Artemis wonders.
"Boyfriends and girlfriends are when two people like each other at the same time. A crush is when only one person likes another," the nine-year old informs her, smug with the superior knowledge granted to her by age.
Later, Artemis realizes it isn't the best definition, but it's the one she goes by at the time.
It is this year that people in her class become very invested in crushes. Sure, before, people would tease each other and joke about those things, but now people start actually getting them. On the bus, girls talk about which boys like them, and which boys they like back. Artemis never participates in those conversations. It isn't very interesting, and she prefers to keep to herself anyway. She is still stuck in the mindset that so many others her age just recently left: that boys are gross and to be avoided. When she tells Aphrodite this, the older girl laughs and tells her she will change her mind when she is older. Artemis believes her.
Some boys in her class, the most annoying ones, including Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo, her own twin brother, start bragging at lunch about how many girls they have a crush on. On the first day, it starts out small, only one or two crushes per person, but by the end of the week, each boy's list contains almost every girl in the class, leaving out only the unpopular ones.
This is all ridiculous in Artemis' opinion. All anyone has to say is that they have a crush on every person in the world on the first day, and they would win, and it would be over. Crushes aren't even real, Artemis knows. At least, not for people their age. Romance is only for older people. After all, books and movies have adults and teenagers falling in love, but never children. It is her estimate that people start actually feeling these things around the age of twelve, meaning that Artemis and her class have a long way to go before they would really start crushing on people. It is obvious to her what is really going on. Adults put so much emphasis on romance, that children follow their footprints. Anytime a girl finds a boy who isn't completely annoying or gross or ugly, she assumes that she had a crush on him, and vice versa, believing that there is no way two people of the opposite gender could like each other in a way that isn't romantic. The rest of her class are idiots, Artemis concludes, for not being able to see this and look past it like she can.
...
When Artemis is nine, she vows to herself that she will never fall in love. She isn't sure why exactly she is so against it. Just that there is something slightly repulsive about romance, and that she doesn't want it. It makes her feel wrong in a way she can't describe and a little disgusted, just imagining dating, or worse, getting married. Everybody expects her to have it someday, but she will prove them wrong. She doesn't need a man by her side. She will show that she can stick to her core, her true self, and never back down. She will fight the world if she has to. And even when someday, she does fall in love, like everyone says she will, she won't show it, won't give into it, won't become like every other person. She will stay strong.
(Deep down, under the anger and stubbornness, there is doubt. Because when it really comes down to it, can she really fight her own feelings? If her heart says yes could her mind really say no? Can she really fight fate?)
She promises herself that she will never turn her back on her younger self, but her biggest fear is that one day, she won't even try to fight her romantic feelings, that she will gladly dive in, and think that her younger self was stupid for ever trying to resist. She is scared because she knows she is young, but she isn't stupid. (She doesn't want to be wrong.)
...
Every time there is a character in a book or movie who says they will never fall in love, Artemis forms an attachment to them. You are like me, she thinks. You will fight on my side, and give me strength to keep going. Every time, when they do fall in love, her heart breaks a little more, knowing that someday, she will be like them. It is more proof that everyone has to fall in love, that there is no way against it, because after all, if those characters, stronger than she is, give into their feelings, how can she not?
...
As Artemis grows older, it becomes less of a war against romance, and more of a war against society and its expectations. Romance doesn't seem quite so bad, though she still doesn't want it for herself. She doesn't hate it like she used to, or mock those that fall prey to it as much. After all, those people are the normal ones. She is the one who is different. But she has always known that, never truly fitting in with her classmates because of so many different reasons. She embraces her differences, clings to them, builds walls with them, and fights metaphorical battles to prove that they are hers and she is not letting them go, because the only other option is to shun them, to be ashamed, and she can't let that happen, she can't let people make her feel weaker or lesser because of them, otherwise what will she have left?
She's not sure if she actually doesn't want to fall in love still, or if she did too well of a job conditioning herself against it when she was younger. It doesn't matter either way. Artemis is stubborn. She intended on not liking any boys romantically, so she will stick with that as long as she possibly can. She just wants to show every person who ever told her that she needed romance, that she had to fall in love someday, that they are wrong.
But part of her knows that she is trapped, cornered, and outnumbered. It's only a matter of time before she falls.
...
Aphrodite suggests to Artemis that she is just afraid of falling in love, and that's why she hates it so much. Because it's easier to show hate towards something and avoid it than face a fear. It scares her because it might be true. And if that is the case, that means everything she fought against for so long was worthless, that she would be better off with a boyfriend. Artemis can't allow herself to accept that.
"Love really isn't all that bad. It's actually quite nice," Aphrodite says comfortingly, because she doesn't get it.
...
When she is fourteen, Artemis meets Orion. He shares her wildness, her calm, her interests, and is all around a fun person to be around. She likes his personality and appearance and wants to spend more time with him. She wonders if this is what love is, but the idea bothers her, so she pushes it away whenever it comes near.
It is around this time when she first learns the word for people who don't feel romantic attraction: aromantic. She already considers herself asexual, and knows that sexual and romantic attraction aren't the same thing, and that people can feel one but not the other. Enough of her questions the nature of her feelings towards Orion for her to not think that aromantic fits her. Soon she forgets all about it.
Later, looking back, Artemis thinks what she felt was platonic and aesthetic attraction, combined with the heteronormative assumption that had been ingrained in her all of her life that a boy and a girl cannot like each other in a way that is not romantic.
...
A couple years later, when Artemis first realizes that she is aromantic, the first thing she feels is relief. She doesn't have to fall in love. She wasn't stupid for sticking so long to a promise she made as a nine year old. She wasn't stupid for fighting so long and hard for a part of her no one seemed to understand. What she felt, what she still feels, is valid. She doesn't have to fight anymore; she was never fighting a real war anyway. Or maybe she still is, but the war isn't a solitary one against not falling in love. It is one against amatonormativity, the belief that everyone should want an exclusive, romantic relationship with a single person above all other kinds, and she isn't alone in fighting it. There are so many new terms, new people, and a community, as small as it is, and for the first time, Artemis feels truly understood.
,,,
The second thing Artemis feels is anger. Society made her think that romance is the most important thing in life, that it is an inescapable fact. The feeling of betrayal is a bit of a surprise, but it's there. Everyone, everything lied to her, and made her feel scared and angry for so long for no reason. In some ways, she had been right all along, but no one had listened or accepted her, so she had clung to her ideas because she was too afraid of letting go.
She feels angry at Aphrodite who is the one person who did the most harm, who made her doubt herself the most. She feels angry at herself for believing all of them. She feels angry on the behalf of every other person who was wronged in the way she had been (because she knows she got off lightly in comparison to many), and every person who would be, and especially for those who would and had spent their entire lives believing that there is something wrong with them, searching for a happiness that could not be found.
...
She comes out to her family when she is eighteen. Apollo takes it well, having always sort of known. Her parents don't mind or care much, saying anything that makes her happy makes them happy.
Artemis tells Aphrodite aggressively, as proof that everything she had said on the matter was wrong. She still hasn't forgiven her older relative. They get into an argument as Artemis unleashes all of her pent up rage, and Aphrodite refuses to believe her, saying she is stupid for not wanting romance.
They never really talk after that.
...
When she is older, she starts a group called the Hunters. They start out as a small group that meets in the library ten minutes away from Artemis' apartment. At first, they are composed entirely of women who have vowed to not have any sort of romantic or sexual relationships.
Later on, they branch out, becoming more involved in social justice, fighting for their people instead of just providing a safe space for a very specific group. They open up, allowing nonbinary as well as female aces and aros, spectrum included, regardless of what relationships they have.
They grow more, spreading out across the internet. They are called the Hunters, as they hunt and destroy injustices.
A lot of people think Artemis is a crazy radical feminist who wants to eliminate all men off the face of the planet because she doesn't allow men into her group. While there are times where the idea sounds tempting, she isn't one for mass genocide. She just wants a place where people like her don't feel alone or broken, a source of comfort for anyone who has been wronged by society's pressure on romance and sex, regardless of whether or not they can or want to join. She wants to be heard so everybody who doesn't place as much value on that type of thing can know that they aren't wrong.
So she does. The Hunters educate people on aromanticism and asexuality, providing all kinds of support for aros and aces. They advocate for women and LGBT+ rights and representation. They push for stricter laws and enforcements against rape and abuse, and dozens of other things. They aim for change on a larger scale, but also for individuals, when they can. Although their membership is exclusive, their help is not.
The Hunters take time to be themselves too. Their community has grown on the internet, and is spread out over multiple countries, but Artemis makes sure there are times and places where they don't have to fight or be angry and strong, where they can just exist and enjoy each other's company.
Here, Artemis has created a place where she belongs and found something worth fighting for. There is a lot of work to be done, but she is content, and knows her eight year old self would be proud to have become the person she is now.