#I don’t understand why ship discourse is in the aroace tag

[smolldust]

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

[psychicdisaster]

Alright then, here is my take on the whole shipping discourse in this fandom.

As someone who headcanons that Saiki is aroace with zero romantic or sexual attraction, I think it’s not my job to police anyone who likes to ship him with other characters. I can respect others who do so (and sometimes I find their ideas to be very interesting), and so can you. It’s not like getting angry over this will fix the problem over night.

I do wish less of the fandom was about shipping, because I think that the platonic relationships are the backbone of the series and are worth exploring. Despite that, I absolutely love seeing what people think about different pairings because the fandom is so creative.

It’s important to note that although Saiki says he has no interest in romance, he is written to be an unreliable narrator, meaning it’s hard to tell whether he is explicitly aroace coded or not. I like to think he is, but I don’t think others are wrong for disagreeing.

However, I do understand why someone would be upset with all of this. It is a bit frustrating to see a character you see as aroace be shipped left and right. In that case, it’s best to block users/tags that you are not interested in. Blocking something really isn’t serious, it’s simply a way to make this platform more enjoyable to you.

Anyway, I think this discourse is a bit useless. Let people see the character how they’d like. There’s no use arguing with each other. I think we can learn to respect different opinions.

[self-insert-hell]

Thoughts of an aroace shipper and selfshipper:

[Putting this here on this blog as it mentions self shipping.]

As someone who’s aroace but also comfortable with attraction when it comes to fiction, I honestly feel confused about the whole shipping discourse when it comes to any aroace character that’s on the spectrum. Because, personally, as an aroace, I don’t mind people shipping aroace characters for fun, as long as they’re respectful of their canon identity. Plus, when it comes to fan creations and such, it’s not canon in the first place. At the same time, I understand the frustration with people who don’t want aroace characters to be shipped and feel like it’s erasing aroace spectrum rep. When it comes to the whole “erasing rep” part, it gets muddy and complicated when you’re referring to the whole spectrum.

Although, I do have one thing I’d like to discuss about the whole representation part. When it comes to fandom, people ignore all types of identities and ship what they want. Again, I’m only cool with it as long as the individual isn’t acting like it’s canon canon. That and it’s up to the creator and what they feel comfortable with. If they don’t want their character to be shipped, cool. If they don’t mind their character being shipped, cool.

Then things get a bit more nuanced and somewhat “confusing.” At the same time, shipping characters can help someone figure their own identity. I would’ve never understand that I experience queerplatonic attraction if it weren’t for shipping. I often (unintentionally) put myself in stereotypical black and white boxes. I mean, I thought I wasn’t aroace because of the one and only time I did feel attraction. Later on, I realized my aroace identity is very complicated but I know for a fact that I’m pretty “far down” the end of the spectrum.

Also, specifically, when it comes to OC x canon ships and self inserts of the sort…personally, do whatever you want. It’s for you right? And you just want to have fun. I repeat, as long as you aren’t acting like your ships are canon and recognize the character’s actual identity, I personally think it’s fine.

While these may be my personal beliefs, I also understand the lack of representation. But again, I feel like most aroace representation is lacking no matter what part of the spectrum you’re on. That and while people are going to do what they want anyways on the internet, at the same time, people also need to be respectful of other people’s characters that they don’t own.

Then you have people who can be aroace and fictsexual. Again, if the creator of a character is comfortable with their character being shipped and the person who’s shipping that character acknowledges the character’s canon identity, I think it’s fine for fictiosexuals to do what they want.

Again, this is my personal opinion and I obviously don’t speak for everyone on the aroace spectrum. I just wanted to talk about this and explore this topic.

Anyways, this isn’t as important but I’ll put my further two cents here.

Take me for example. I selfship with Alastor in 2 ways. When it comes to my OC, canonically my OC is aroace as well, and in a QPR. But I also put Alastor in the romantic category. Why? Because I also enjoy writing my oc in romantic situations and I’m lowkey poking fun at myself. It’s for me and it’s purely because I find it fun and well, funny at the same time. Also, I put a tag for it if anyone doesn’t want to deal with seeing that stuff.

Further more, despite my own confusion when it comes to identifying any emotion I feel (I’m sure neurodivergency has a role in that), I also like exploring a range of emotions in what I create because it’s all fictional. It’s not real.

Furthermore, after finding out about what a QPR is, I finally had the words to correctly convey and label my self ships into.

Overall, it also can be cathartic. What if someone is cupioromantic and one way they cope is with shipping/selfshipping? Besides the self shipping, fans like to project parts of themselves onto characters. (I repeat, the ones who are just having fun but also are respectful) I’ve also seen non-aroace people wanting to explore how to write aroace identities as well. As long as they do the research and are respectful, go ahead! If you’re writing an aroace character for the first time, you’re not going to be perfect and that’s okay. Now, obviously, I’m not saying it’s okay to write harmful stereotypes of aroace people.

Shipping can be useful in exposing new identities that some people may not know have/have enough knowledge on. It can also broaden one’s perspective as some people may not understand that being aroace is a spectrum, can fluctuate, and isn’t all black and white.

But yeah. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

This ain’t for you proshippers.

[cranesofibycus]

About ”shipping” Cad. I’m aroace. And unwilling to partake in the discourse, so anon ask it is.

I thought Cad’s sexuality was pretty clear a long time ago. Taliesin said on multiple occasions that he wasn’t going to stand in the way of any shipping but that there was nothing going on. That didn’t stop people from shipping him with everybody except Beau and Yasha. And I’m with Taliesin. I don’t think it should. As long as people don’t try to deny him being aroace in canon, whatever happens in fanworks is okay by me. Shippy fics or shippy art don’t take away from canon. I go to fanworks to see different interpretations, not for something that mirrors the canon. And I multiship. I enjoy almost all CR ships and all this talk about what and who you’re allowed to think about feels too much like the purity police for me. I’d like more representation too, but I’d actually prefer it to manifest as Gen content overall instead of policing what kind of stories get told about certain characters. (And I extend this attitude to other characters too. I like to headcanon people as aro and I think I should be able to do it openly even to canon lesbians.)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts :) I don’t really think this is discourse territory (yet). I’m super eager to learn more about aroace perspectives and experiences. This kind of discussion can be so, so valuable and even fun! I wouldn’t want to ‘hide’ that behind a discourse tag. 

I really appreciate your viewpoint and agree with most of it. Ascribing non-canonical sexualities to fictional characters has been done as long as fandoms have existed, but that doesn’t automatically make it a free-for-all. There are definitely head-canons that are a lot more harmful than others. Shipping canon lesbians with men, for example, or erasing Caduceus’ asexuality would be among those. It always depends whether your head-canon feeds into widely accepted harmful tropes about the identities in question, which is why I understand that shipping Caduceus and Fjord in a QPR is walking a delicate line. It can have the effect of perpetuating stereotypes and gives permission to people with a lot less understanding of the nuance behind it to freely repeat the tropes. Which is why I’d always advocate to listen to voices from the groups in question, and allow your mind to be changed when it comes to shipping things outside of canonical sexualities.