#but in fanon I see them as gay on the aroace spectrum

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

I'm aroacespec (and honestly confused about where I fall on that spectrum, but I do know I'm sex/romance favorable) and tbh my relationship with shipping is weird.

There are some ships I look at and I'm like "how can you see this as anything but romantic" and there are other ships where I'm like "okay but why do we have to ship them, can't they just be friends?" and it's almost always the total opposite of what the fandom majority's view is. For example, my Sonic "how can you see this as anything but romantic" ship is Espilver, and my "okay but why do we have to ship them, can't they just be friends?" ship is Silvaze.

I will say that something I've noticed is there tends to be a double-standard with allo people (specifically cishet people) when it comes to ships. You get a ton of "why can't they just be friends" with slash and femslash ships, but then those same people will ship a het pairing that look at each other in a single frame. I don't know if it's something that's more obvious to me because I'm gay myself (or even if it's more obvious because I'm aroacespec specifically), but it's weird to me. I choose to look at it this way: if this was a het ship with the same character dynamic, would people still say "why can't they just be friends?"

That's not to say aroace people are in the wrong for looking at a pairing and saying "can't they just be friends? Why do we have to ship them?" but with a lot of cishet people specifically, it feels like there's a lot of people perpetuating a borderline homophobic double-standard. I get it when it's something like Scott and Jay from Ninjago, but so many masc characters' dynamics are canonically given homoerotic or even just romantic undertones (a good example of this being, in my opinion, Sonadow; there's not an almost 3 and a half hour long Sonadow iceberg video on YouTube for no reason. As far as I'm aware it's the longest Sonic-related iceberg video on YouTube that covers exclusively official content) which is why people tend to gravitate towards those ships. I could do an entire analysis on why gay ships tend to have bigger followings than het ships but if I did this would get too long lmao. I will once again point to the Sonadow iceberg video though.

I generally use shipping to explore my own relationship with my aroace-ness, and usually I do that using characters I either headcanon as aroace in some way or who are canonically aroace, because I can relate to those experiences. It's kinda weird to me to see other aroace people acting like doing that is bad or wrong, because usually that's what people are doing, and even if that's not what's going on, fanfiction doesn't affect canon.

There is no right or wrong way to participate in fandom (unless you're harassing people and/or actively putting people in danger), no matter what you identify as.

Basically: People should be allowed to do what they want, if something bothers you that bad there's nothing wrong with blocking a person or tag.

(I might've gotten off subject a few times, sorry lol)

Okay, that thing about blocking tags inspired me to look through my blocked tags to see what ships I've blocked and here's my petty aroace thoughts on all of them without naming names lmao

Fanon het ship. They've never given any indication that they know of each other's existence. Her girlfriend is right there.

Canon het ship. Had the chemistry of two wet paper bags. Literally just shoehorned in there because god forbid any story exist without a romance subplot.

Semi-canon het ship. I'm mostly neutral about them. Just unnecessary.

Fanon mlm ship. Literally brothers?? I don't care that one of them is adopted, they grew up together?? As brothers??

Fanon het ship. I don't care what you call their relationship. You can call it professional, platonic, familial, just please don't call it romantic.

Semi-canon het ship. Again, completely unnecessary. God forbid a man convince a woman to become a villain without there being ~attraction~

Fanon het ship. She is 14?? And he is like 30??

Semi-semi-canon het ship. He did have a crush on her when he was, like, 14 but he's a grown adult now and she's the most lesbian-looking woman to ever exist and they're the most found family siblings to ever find a family

Fanon het ship. LET MEN AND WOMEN BE FRIENDS. LET MEN AND WOMEN BE PLATONICALLY MARRIED.

Fanon mlm ship. I personally see them more as brothers. But whatever floats your boat.

Semi-canon het ship. Just really shoehorned. I don't like the woman very much. I liked her more when she was allowed to be a badass without being a ~flirty badass~

Fanon mlm ship. Again. Adopted brothers. Gross.

Canon het ship. I've seen many things from this director. He's a creative man. He couldn't think of a way to move the plot forward without a smooch?? He couldn't create a series that didn't have an unnecessary love triangle??

Semi-canon het ship. The man isn't coming back for S2 and boy folly gee am I glad

Fanon het ship. Not my cup of tea. Just let them be friends

good lord I have a lot more ship tags blocked than I thought

anyway, this is your daily reminder to just block stuff you don't want to see and move on

[dalekaiken]

sonadow for ship bingo!

Auuuugh Sonadow my beloved... It's my OTP and fave Sonic ship but I'm also REALLY picky about it XD (but then again it's a very popular ship so. It's easier to be picky). I like it in many ways too though, like I love them as platonic, I love it as one-sided, I love them as weird rivals who have no idea what their actual relationship is. I like it when they're soft and loving but also when they're just way too obsessed with each other gjdfkgdkjfghdkfj. So much potential, so many possibilities...

I personally prefer them as a queerplatonic couple because they're both just so aroace to me, but I do enjoy them as a romantic couple as well!

Ship bingo

[onesidedradiostatic]

I'd like to know your full opinion on shipping Alastor, despite him being AroAce. I've seen conflicting opinions on it from AroAce People. I've seen some AroAce people say that shipping is taking away rep(and point out that people would be pissed if this was done to, say, Angel Dust), but I've seen other AroAce people saying it's fine and it's a spectrum. (A friend of mine who I believe is aroace takes it into consideration and makes it part of the shipping and story) Personally I'm on the spectrum(gray-ace and demiromantic), but I'm not AroAce in the way people usually think so I'm not sure I have a right to comment on it. I can also see both sides of the conversation.

(I had this in my drafts for a bit now so this ask is old)

I've mentioned time and time again, I personally do not like reciprocated romantic alastor ships. and as someone who possibly falls more under greyro (idfk man), I do not believe alastor falls under that either CANONICALLY, it's just pretty clear to me from the rosie dialogue that alastor is specifically an aroace who is not into dating

but I will not police people for what they ship and I do not think harassment is okay, there's definitely better things to spend your energy on anyways. if it were up to me, the only thing that would exist are one-sided and qpr alastor ships, but it's not up to me, so it is what it is.

it's whatever really, what I care most about is that people don't try to insist he's not aroace in canon to try to give themselves hope that their ship will happen. I care more about our canonical rep (*cough* just fucking solidly confirm it vivzie *cough*) than what people do in fanon even if I don't like it. ultimately, I stay in my own space and don't bother those people as long as they don't bother me.

the main issue with like all of this, why these constant arguments over what type of aroace alastor is exist, is that alastor is our ONLY aspec rep. the aspec community is so varied, favourable, neutral, repulsed, aroallo, alloace, aroace, demi, grey. one singular character cannot possibly singlehandedly encompass ALL our different experiences. he is only ever going to represent one type of aroace, one type of aspec. because he is a singular character. I genuinely think the worst thing to come out of alastor shipping discourse is the amount of aspec infighting I've seen. at the end of the day, we're all starving and we're all fighting over a character who will only ever represent one specific type of aroace.

it's like if every mlm/wlw person only got ONE mlm/wlw character, you may see gay people/lesbians and mspecs fighting over that character because they want the character to represent them, arguing over how mspecs should be allowed to use that character to represent their mspec attraction or gay people/lesbians arguing that the character should firmly remain exclusively attracted to men/women to represent them.

it's a case of people desperately wanting to be represented and aspecs are so underrepresented we never get to see everyone fully represented in a single piece of media.

[deepfriedtwinkie]

okay, but like

I’m not out to piss anybody off here, I just need to rant for a second, so if you ubership Hartwin, maybe these aren’t the droids you’re looking for, okay, this isn’t supposed to be some kind of aughts flame war shit

I just

O B V I O U S L Y, people are more than free to ship whatever they wanna ship, yadda yadda yadda; I’m not saying this to rain on anybody’s parade here

(last time I said anything about antishipping it was “before you ship Reylo please consider loving yourselves instead” and some ragey 14-year-old @’ed me and then vagueblogged for the next hour about “preachy assholes with ugly themes,” which only reminded me it’s useless to post an opinion on this hellsite, so I mean, hey, y’all drink whatever bourbon blows your hair back, I guess)

but can we just 

do 👏 you 👏 know 👏 how hard it is 👏 to find 👏 ANY 👏 steady source 👏 of Kingsman content 👏 that doesn’t 👏 ship 👏 HARTWIN 👏

like. I really need to follow more Kingsman blogs. but EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. DO THE KIDS STILL SAY “THE STRUGGLE IS REAL” OR

and look

I know damn well that “gay representation devalues FRIENDSHIP, though!!!” is a shitty-ass argument against headcanoning any two characters as gay—which works fine ’cause I’m not saying that at all

I AM saying: there is a big problem in fandom where romantic/sexual love (of ANY orientation) is given so much more value and attention than other types of love that are equally as important, and we’ve literally romanticized romance to the point of inserting it in cases where its presence would be problematic and cause an unhealthy dynamic at BEST 

(btw, this isn’t about me thinking they’re straight, either, ’cause guess what, my headcanons involve almost everybody we like in both of those movies being somewhere on the LGBTQA+ spectrum. personally I think Roxy’s gay af, Merlin’s bi, Harry’s the emperor of AroAce County, and Eggsy’s basically Jake Peralta, like, straight as a rule but definitely flexible. while we’re at it, let’s talk about how Eggsy’s mates Jamal and Liam were absolutely a thing, but that’s a whole other post)

DOES EGGSY LOVE HARRY? CLEARLY. DOES HARRY LOVE EGGSY? OF COURSE. IF YOU’VE FUCKING SEEN THE MOVIE WITH EYES AND HEARD IT WITH EARS, YOU GET THAT PRETTY WELL

BUT DOES IT MEAN THEY WANNA BANG? I’M GONNA GO WITH NO

WHY DO I NOT THINK SO? OH I DUNNO

let’s go with their fanon-popular ages, for the sake of this, okay, I know we don’t have exact ones, but work with me—let’s just say thaaaaaaat:

EGGSY IS 24

HARRY IS 57

THAT IS AN AGE DIFFERENCE OF 33 YEARS

NOT A FEW

THIRTY-FUCKING-THREE

AN ENTIRE MERRILL-LYNCH EMPLOYEE

THAT AND ALL THE REALLY REALLY OBVIOUS PSEUDO FATHER-SON CODING WE’RE REPEATEDLY WHACKED OVER THE HEAD WITH

(oh but you forgot that’s half the FUN for some people, Audrey!! that’s why you’ve seen WAY too much fanart that threatens to ruin the word “daddy” forever!! don’t you know thERE IS NO GOD)

can we just

I would really love to ask hardcore Hartwin shippers to do a real quick exercise 

here it is:

picture Hartwin, except in your mind, turn Eggsy female. don’t change anything else. now it’s a 57-year-old man with a 24-year-old girl/young woman/whatever you wanna call her

is it okay now? no? what’s that? oh, now it’s gross? you mean like it’s an obvious power imbalance and shit like that? your feminism’s offended now (and rightfully so)?

OKAY WELL THEN GUESS WHAT BUTTERCUP, I HATE TO BREAK IT TO YOU 

so like

every time I fUCKING CLICK ON SOMETHING I THINK MIGHT NOT BE HARTWIN BUT THEN IT IS, part of my brain dies, even though I know I shouldn’t be surprised because I know damn well the law of rabid internet shipping is If You Build It, They Will Come. I’ve known it for ten years, I am Old and Tired

but I am a LITTLE disappointed that pretty much the entire visible K fandom is willing to ignore what would essentially be a kindasorta W*ddy All*n-ish dynamic just so they can write more smutfic

(yes, I know not every case fetishizes them, I know there are people who ship them substantially, but that doesn’t make it any less cringey. Harry Hart is not Hugh Hefner; alliteration is where that comparison stops, okay)

AND it ignores how beautiful Harry and Eggsy’s CANON relationship is, just the way it is

THEY. ARE. A. FOUND. FAMILY.

(not to mention men who are openly proud of each other, men who cry and appreciate each other and aren’t emotionally stunted despite having EVERY reason to be—are we so unfamiliar with that, so unused to seeing it, that THAT’S why everyone wants to read it as gay? is that the saddest fucking thing, that it can only seem to be one way or the other? but that’s another post entirely, also, just another point in the MEN NEED FEMINISM TOO column)

I mean, is there even ANYONE else who agrees with this? (besides @faeriviera, I know YOU do)

discussions welcome; miss me with any defense of Master DeVere and the Naughty Valet, ’k