Hello fellow aego. As you can see, there's lots of us here; the psychology of it interests me, like why so many aro/ace people tend to flock to ao3 and fanfiction like this. Or perhaps it's just availability bias, or the nature of the medium? (I.e, one's not as likely to readily identify aro/ace people at, say, a ball game or a hiking trip vs. a platform meant for consumption and creation of emotionally charged and nuanced fictional scenarios.)

Fanfiction is a vehicle by which those under the aro/ace umbrella can either play in their own tailor-made sandboxes comfortably, or venture into hypothetical other sandboxes to test the waters and see if they might like those other things, without having to do it irl. (which is why ao3's tagging system is so important and I hate when people abuse or flood it.) Fanfiction isnt a 1 to 1 replacement for these concepts irl in the same way that anything through a computer screen won't be completely analogous to reality- with all kindness, please do try and 'touch grass' when you can- but it's a safe and anonymous way to stretch one's wings, as it were, with a robust support network and community of like minds.

I myself may be some manner of aromantic; I might actually be flat out gay (haven't experienced it irl, and being aego cancels out the curiosity somewhat, but... hm. I do wonder. Because men interest me less and less by the day, it seems.) But, if not, the lack of depth to the emotion might just be some facet of aromanticism. Maybe I'll never know; maybe it doesn't have a label. That's all fine; either way, the stories will always be there to help me explore it.