#aro shipping discourse

[empuratapatient]

well you see it’s fine to ship aro characters! I’m aspec and I don’t care lmao, just cause the character in cannon is disgusted by relationships and has only ever been called aro and not arospec doesn’t mean that they can’t experience romance! Aromantisim is a spectrum and I’m definitely not using it to erase cannon aro characters lack of interest in romance!

[lifenconcepts]

hot take but. Before people were fucking about with terms and stuff, old movies had WAYY more deep platonic connections that could be mistaken for romance and stuff. Not that they had romantic or sexual tension but like.. people nowadays look at two characters glance at eachother and think ‘wow. They should fuck’ but a room of guys would stare at some guy tenderly holding another guy on tv because he had a nightmare and think ‘wow. What a very sweet moment with absolutely no other connotations other than deep respect and sincerity.’

just think that’s neat.

[mossy-aro]

tbh as much as i do think it is worthwhile to discuss the topic of shipping aromantic/asexual characters and the nuances of it all (as well as the general attitude allos have towards aspecs in fandom spaces). it also makes me sigh equally because like... what characters. i'll be real guys we don't even have characters to discourse over. literally there are like 3 ever and none of those have fandoms anyway and the ones which do are like 'it was confirmed on twitter in a nebulously worded post by the creator'. its so bad out here

[lilfoxay]

who do I ship? uhm, human trafficking is illegal???

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

The fact that even the most well thought out points for why we should not ship canon sex repulsed/romance repulsed characters are met with immediate backlash calling it “not fair” drains my hope

[maerhiya]

the vast mistreatment of aro/ace characters in fandom spaces needs to be studied

[aidensinternetdiary]

Just saw a aspec be a pick me in the aro tag. "Erm actually, we shouldn't care that an aroace character is being sexualised" "the character isnt real" "asexual doesnt mean sex repulsed" literally look at this stupid shit;

So this person thinks that people who don't want to see ace characters be sexualised cuz duh, majority of them won't be into that, they think it's 'infantilizing' them? So what does that mean, does that mean being sex repulsed and not wanting to see or be seen as sexual is childish? Sex is maturity, is that what I'm getting? Hmmm, I wonder where I heard that before.

Also this person is clearly arophobic as fuck because they only talk about sexualisation which has nothing to do with us aros because surprise; not all of us are aces, a lot of us as allosexual! Why tf include us when we don't fit into what your even talking about? Clearly this person thinks aromantic is just a subset for asexuality and they got the gall to call other aspecs out for wanting to see their identities be respected in fandoms. "Not all aces are sex repulsed" but all the ace characters they have are so stfu.

The allos will never pick you. Allos never even pick us aroallos so what makes you think your any different lmao. Just cuz what, you feel some sort of romantic and sexual attraction? You think you'll still not be mocked like the rest of us? Jesus christ.

[theautismcorner]

I just posted this on Twitter but I think you guys will like it too. Also some of the inspo ships for this post are listed in the tags.

Side note: weird and gay for my best friend and I is different than the weird and gay of my shipping for the most part but the verbiage still applies. The exception in which we sometimes mirror a ship is (aro - bc me too) Sasha and Tim but we are both also ace. I need to finish TMA so I can write fic for them.

And hello dear best friend who will see this post.

[the-meme-monarch]

yeah that ship is fine it's whatever (<- hates it badly but doesn't have any reason to and doesn't want to seem like an ass over it)

[manyminded]

”I’m uncomfortable with (others/myself) shipping aromantic characters” and “I ship aromantic characters because aros can still date” are statements that can and should co-exist.

sincerely, an aro who likes to ship fellow aro characters

[smolldust]

Me scrolling the aroace tag rn (it’s all alastor ship discourse)

[pep-rambles]

While I can't speak for other Alastor ships (but I'll tag you all and you can weigh in). But in the RadioApple/DuckieDeer fandom a lot of those making fanwork, including the smuttier stuff, are acespec/arospec themselves so maybe learn what is actually going on in these fandoms before try to gatekeep in their tags

[mar-mots]

I'm not done with this mole hill yet actually. But genuinely as someone who is aspec/arospec and disabled I am deeply side-eyeing the Viktor is Ace discourse right now because I feel like context is being lost in the conversation.

Viktor ace and/or aro headcanons because you think it fits? Sweet. Queerplatonic interpretations of jayvik also perfectly valid. In fact, any interpretations of the two is completely valid because I'm not your mum. Go do whatever you want forever.

You prefer SkyVik? MelJay? MelJayVik? None? Cool. The point is it doesn't matter what other people think. Do what you want forever.

I also don't care if Linke is an aphobe, homophobe, whatever-phobe because I don't know the guy or his inner thoughts and world. I'm not gonna cast too much judgment over uhhh gay shipping.

HOWEVER...

There is an uncomfortable history of making disabled people and characters ace, essentially desexualising them, and treating them as if they aren't people with their own thoughts, their own needs, their own agency.

This is why I'm deeply suspicious of Linke's decision to state this in the context that it was. Was Viktor ace the intent the whole time? Perhaps. But it does feel a little bit like it was an attempt to dissuade jayvik as an interpretation of a text rife with topics and scenes and whatnot that can be heavily up for interpretation.

Long story short is that what we got is not difinitive proof either way that JayVik is canon. What we got is a deeply complicated story of love but whether that love is romantic, platonic, something that transcends either, is something that is fully up to the interpretation of the viewer. And I think there's something a little bit beautiful about that.

I know how I read it, but that's only my interpretation of the subtext. I'm not gonna begrudge you yours.

And that's what I'm saying on that.

[lilyrosegold]

To those who counter any general discomfort people have with aro and/or ace characters being shipped romantically or sexually with “but aro and aces can still date/have sex/be in relationships”- that’s is true but, do you actually care about the complexities and nuance of navigating romance and/or sex as someone who falls on the aroace spectrum or are you just looking for an easy way to not get hate for blatantly ignoring a character’s identity in favor of your shipping?

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

You guys do realise that saying shit like “repulsed (romance repulsed/sex repulsed) aroaces need to learn that partnering aroaces are just as valid as them and that’s why we can all ship this character” is not respecting either identity??

You are literally invalidating two identities.

Repulsed by refusing to see aroace characters as anything but partnering aroace. You committing the crime you are accusing others of. How about “partnering aroaces need to learn that repulsed are just as valid as they are and that’s why we DONT ship a character”? No? You don’t like that? I ducking wonder why

Partnering by assuming so much shit about how they roll. I’ve seen everything from “cured” to actually decent in depth exploration of the identity while dating. But an overwhelming majority is “aroace people can date” and then dipping the fuck out. No explainagion of identity, no exploration, not even a mention. That’s erasure.

[maerhiya]

‼️MINOR THUNDERBOLTS SPOILERS‼️

fortunately, yelena doesn't get into a relationship in thunderbolts, but, unfortunately, now there's a huge wave of fans shipping her and bob.

and so the shipping aroace characters discourse continues and intensifies.