/u/HavePlushieWillTalk on Which characters from TV/Films are Ace to you?

I think Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas. It's something I thought about lately. He's not into Sally. Sally is into him. He likes Sally. Sally treats him kindly whereas everyone else fawns over him; they want his attention, and she just wants him to be... what? Safe and well? Like when she goes and brings him dinner, she doesn't stick around, she knows he is obsessed and probably isn't eating well, but she doesn't butt in. Sally is romantically interested in Jack.

Jack is not romantically interested in Sally. When everything falls apart, he realises that Sally was the one who spoke to him rationally and warned him BEFORE everything hit the fan, then, when he goes to fix his mistakes, he finds Sally has already tried to fix them, and yet she doesn't want to use this to pressure him to pay attention to her after everything is all well again (except for Oogie), she lets everyone else fawn over him. Jack finds her after and says;

"~My dearest friend, If you don't mind

I'd like to join you by your side

Where we can gaze into the fog

[...]

For it is plain, as anyone can see

We're simply meant to be~"

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And then they embrace- but without ANY obvious feelings of romance FROM Jack, just an acceptance that he really likes Sally and want to be with her, not because she is beautiful, funny, smart, or any other kind of thing that has a root in romantic or any kind of physical attraction, but because she makes his life better, she makes him feel better. One thing he has been missing is a sane person to talk to who isn't obsessed with him, which Sally isn't; she's just in love with him. It's possible he is the reason she was sneaking out and ran away, so she could see Jack, since she doesn't interact with anyone else (that I can think of) while out, except for when she is dragged home by the Doctor. But even with a lot of her attention on Jack, she is a critical thinker with her own agenda which isn't 'dry hump Jack' or 'ruin Jack's plans for the lols' which makes her markedly and wholesomely different from the other residents of Halloweentown.

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Therefore, I believe he is aromantic (and possibly asexual, because you could read the entire film as an exercise in everyone being asexual, and... Jack is a SKELETON. AND DEAD. And Sally was never alive because she is a rag doll. So she's an artificially created life-form made of dried leaves and cloth romantically attracted to an undead corpse in a well-tailored suit) and yet has a positive relationship, partnership, with a person romantically attracted to him, without being pressured to feel the way she feels.

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It's made me feel a lot better about probably (ugh, poor Plushie, can't even come to proper terms yet) aromantic and asexual. I was cool with ace but this aro is a bit new... new as in it's suddenly become undeniable when I was in lovely denial for so long. ANYWAY Jack makes me feel better about that because he has a relationship with someone who adores him and makes him feel special and he makes Sally feel special and he's happy. And I loved Jack anyway, I have plushies and shirts and all sorts of him, and I've cosplayed as him before. So maybe my subconscious was like 'There's a reason you identify so hard with a skeleton. A REASON. BRO.'

September 17, 2020 at 11:56PM