Aro-ace character presentation?

As you say, have zero interest in sex or romance at 14 does not really reliably indicate the person will be lifelong asexual. So your character will indicate who they are, they may be precocious enough to know about terms like Ace and discuss them rather than just assuming the will be normative later in life. I am not sure how else it would be indicated.

One common experience I have as an aro person that looking back seems somewhat indicative is the utter lack of crushes and also not understanding crushes. As early as 4th grade I can remember kids teasing each other about having a crush on someone, or someone having a crush on them. I was always that kid who said "no one" when people asked who I had a crush on, and meant it and I didn't understand why people (my siblings, friends, classmates, etc) insisted it had to be a lie. I would write and read stories involving romance (and there are aro-aces who still want relationships), but I personally couldn't/didn't fantasize about it for myself. Imagining myself in a romantic relationship to this day is weird, my brain literally cannot compute. Ironically, other people (as early as 14) would also make jokes or comments about how they were so curious to see what I would act in a romantic relationship because it was so removed from my experiences.

So I would say you can always have her experiencing things that end up being common for a lot of aro-ace people, because even as someone who didn't care about romance or really think about it as a child, it still popped up because our society is so romance-obsessed. I'm not sure if you are aro-ace yourself and could use your experiences? But I've seen a few bloggers elsewhere talk about experiences as kids that end up seeming pretty universal for aro-ace people. And having other characters say stuff like "oh you're just a late bloomer" or "you'll understand when you're older" is obviously not a concrete indicator, but it's a pretty common thing to hear so I don't think it would hurt having it in there. I think a lot of people would identify with being told those things.

Also, I don't think it's unreasonable for kids of this generation to be on the Internet even earlier than 14, so like Veinglory said, she could find a discussion about this stuff online (though it's not as common as saying being bi so she might need to be looking up those terms and stumbling upon a discussion?)

Some it will also depend on the type of scenes and other characters you have, so there might be some natural places you can contrast her aro-aceness/lack of caring with other peoples' or general attitudes.

Your question does make sense so I hope that helps! If you want to talk more about it or have more questions, I'm happy to talk more about this

Religion0 said:

So I've got a major character who's aro-ace. I want to avoid saying this outright, as it's not remotely important to her as a character (that is, she doesn't care) and she's also 14 which is young enough that it'd be perfectly normal to assume she's just a slow bloomer, but I do want to make it identifiable (readers go "I think she might be aro and/or ace!"). Am I making sense?

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This is difficult for a 14yo character, but is there anyone who might be interested in her romantically (eg a playground crush) who could know that she's ace-aro? Or is there a parent or other adult figure who might recognise her ace-aro inclinations?

I have an ace character in my current WIP, but she's an adult woman and there's a character who's pining after her and gives her plenty of opportunities to clearly say "Not interested in you, not interested in anyone, okay bye".

Even if she didn't say as it, pining romantic is a PoV character and we get to see his thoughts. He's well aware she's asexual and states it clearly in his chapters.