Abroromantic Pride Flag

Overview

To provide a symbol for abroromantic identity, the romantic counterpart to abrosexual.

The flag derives from the abrosexual flag, marking the romantic orientation by holding the five bands at full strength inside a heart and veiling them everywhere else. Pride-Flags published it on 25 September 2016 at 11:34 UTC, as a 5000 by 3000 pixel PNG, and recorded both the coining of the term and the design of the flag as unknown. ^[1]

Identity & Context

Represented Identity

abroromantic

Subcommunity

fluid romantic orientation

Language Context

From Greek 'habros' (graceful/delicate). The romantic counterpart to abrosexual.

Creators

Origin

Specific Place

DeviantArt (Pride-Flags account)

Place Type

blog

Digital Origin

Yes

Digital origin; no verified physical location.

Published by Pride-Flags on DeviantArt at 11:34 UTC on 25 September 2016. ^[1]

Dates & Chronology

Year Created

2016

First public use

September 25, 2016

Period in Use

2016-present

Documented in community wikis and flag reference guides. ^[4]

Pride-Flags published a second abroromantic flag on 11 March 2021. It drops the heart, replaces the middle band with a pale green #D3F9CD, and shifts the other four values by a point or two. Its description reads: "Original abro flag coined and designed by anonymous. Center stripe has been edited to fit specific orientation type." Unlike the 2016 file it displays a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. ^[5]

The base Abro- flag was published on 4 July 2015, fourteen months before the romantic version, in four of the same five colours; only the middle band differs. ^[2]

The base abrosexual flag was drawn by Mod Chad of pride-flags-for-us and posted on 21 July 2014, answering an anonymous request that specified a five-colour gradient from #46D294 to white to #EE1766; Mod Chad chose the two intermediate steps. Its 2015 re-rendering, not that 2014 file, is the artwork this flag was built on, and the greens and pinks of the two differ. ^[2]

The colour meanings in circulation are a later community reading rather than anything the requester or Mod Chad published: green for Queer attraction, white for the in-between stage of attraction shifting, pink for the actual shift, with the watermelon resemblance offered as a pun on the fluidity of the orientation. ^[4][6][7]

Lineage

Direct predecessors

Abrosexual Pride Flag

Related flags

Mascromantic Pride Flag (2016, Designer Unknown), Androsexual Pride Flag, Ceteroromantic Pride Flag (Four-Stripe Heart, 2016), Demiromantic Pride Flag, Omniromantic Pride Flag, Panromantic Pride Flag, Polyromantic Pride Flag

Directly derived from the abrosexual flag, keeping its five bands and marking the romantic orientation by paling the field outside a heart. ^[4][1] The design descends from Mod Chad's 2014 original; the raster it was built on is Pride-Flags' own re-rendering of 4 July 2015. ^[2]

Lineage tree

Every record reachable from this one through documented parent and child relationships: 2 records across 2 generations.

Ancestor

Abrosexual Pride Flag

This record

Abroromantic Pride Flag

Colors & Symbolism

Same as the abrosexual flag: the green-to-pink gradient represents fluidity and change in orientation over time. The heart marks this as the romantic rather than the sexual orientation. ^[4]

Heart

Marks the flag as the romantic orientation. The heart is not drawn as a shape on top of the bands: the bands run at full strength inside it, and everywhere outside it they carry a 50 percent white veil, measured exactly at every band. This is the construction the archive used across its romantic-overlay flags. ^[1]

Original color meanings for the abrosexual base design are unknown (see abrosexual entry). The heart is the distinguishing feature. ^[4]

Sampled from the 5000 by 3000 pixel originals of both the romantic version and its 2015 base flag, each checked against the file size its page reports before sampling. Four of the five bands are identical across the two files. The middle band is not: the 2015 flag is #FFFFFF there, the 2016 romantic version #F7F7F7. Because the field outside the heart is the band colour under a 50 percent white veil, a pure white band would veil to pure white and the heart would break where it crosses that stripe; at #F7F7F7 it stays continuous. ^[1][2]

The entry previously carried three values, #46D294, #FFFFFF and #EE1766, named dark green, white and darker pink, and left two of the five bands with no entry at all. Neither #46D294 nor #EE1766 appears on either file, and #46D294 is a bright mint rather than a dark green.

The 2021 alternate is a third set again: #76CA92, #B3E4CA, #D3F9CD, #E595B5, #D9436E, with a pale green where the others put white and no heart at all. ^[5]

Design

Aspect Ratio

3:5 · standard

Orientation

horizontal

Stripe Count

5

Layout

horizontal_stripes_with_symbol

Stripes (Top → Bottom)

Green, Light Green, White, Pink, Deep Pink

Center Symbol

Oversized heart holding the bands at full strength

Five bands of equal depth, each 600 rows of the 5000 by 3000 original. The heart is oversized: its lobes run off the top edge, where they occupy 33.5 to 66.5 percent of the width; the cleft between them sits 17 percent down; the widest point, 17.3 to 82.6 percent of the width, falls a third of the way down; and the point reaches the bottom edge at the exact centre. ^[1]

Five horizontal bands, the same five the 2015 Abro- flag uses, with a heart-shaped area left at full strength and the rest of the field veiled. ^[1][2]

Five equal horizontal bands at full strength inside the heart: #75CA92, #B4E4C9, #F7F7F7, #E795B6, #D9446E, green through near-white to deep pink. Outside the heart the same bands read #BAE5C9, #DAF2E4, #FBFBFB, #F3CADB, #ECA2B7, each of which is its full-strength value under a 50 percent white veil. ^[1]

Usage & Adoption

Online Usage

Wikis and community flag guides

Current Status

active

The flag circulates in online Queer communities, identity wikis, and pride flag reference guides. It shares its base design with the abrosexual flag, distinguished by the heart that marks romantic rather than sexual orientation.

Image Archive

Historical Rendition

Later Alternate

Archive Reconstruction

Discourse & Debates

• Whether romantic-counterpart flags that mark themselves only with a heart provide meaningful visual distinction, or whether the identical base design creates confusion.

Common misidentifications

• Easily confused with the abrosexual flag; the heart is the distinguishing feature

Abroromantic describes people whose romantic orientation (not sexual orientation) is fluid or changes over time. The romantic counterpart to abrosexual. Abroromantic may overlap with aroflux, but in aroflux the gender(s) of attraction typically remain consistent when attraction is present, while in abroromantic the direction of attraction itself may also shift.

Footnotes & Citations

Image Sources

Rendering

Pride-Flags 2016 version

• Encycloflaggia reconstruction of the 2016 abroromantic flag, heart outline traced from the source raster · Credit: Designer unknown; published by Pride-Flags; reconstruction by Encycloflaggia · Encycloflaggia · reconstructionRights Archive-produced reconstruction; subject to the rights status of the underlying design
• The 5000 by 3000 file published by Pride-Flags on 25 September 2016 · Credit: Published by Pride-Flags; designer recorded there as unknown · DeviantArt · verifiedRights No Creative Commons licence displayed; reuse invited by the account's stated terms
• The heartless recolouring published by Pride-Flags on 11 March 2021 · Credit: Published by Pride-Flags; designer recorded there as anonymous · DeviantArt · verifiedRights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, as displayed on the deviation
• The complete historical rendition: 5000 by 3000 pixels, published by Pride-Flags at 11:34 UTC on 25 September 2016. Its description records both the coining of the term and the design of the flag as unknown, and it displays no Creative Commons licence. The entry's colours and heart geometry are measured from this file. ^[1] · Credit: Published by Pride-Flags; designer recorded there as unknown · DeviantArt · No Creative Commons licence displayed; the account states that its designs are free to use for anything pride-related
• The 2021 alternate, 5000 by 3000 pixels, published by Pride-Flags on 11 March 2021. The heart is gone, the middle band is pale green #D3F9CD, and the file displays a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence the 2016 file does not. Its description reads: "Original abro flag coined and designed by anonymous. Center stripe has been edited to fit specific orientation type." ^[5] · Credit: Published by Pride-Flags; designer recorded there as anonymous · DeviantArt · Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, as displayed on the deviation
• The archive's reconstruction, normalised to 3:5. The heart outline is traced from the 2016 source raster rather than approximated, and the field outside it is built the way the original is: the same five bands under a 50 percent white veil. ^[1] · Credit: Designer unknown; published by Pride-Flags; reconstruction by Encycloflaggia · Encycloflaggia reconstruction · Archive-produced reconstruction, subject to the rights status of the underlying design