to preface this, yes, iâm aromantic (aroallo). iâm also the number ONE mlm enjoyer. i love romance. i LOVE falling in love vicariously through fiction, where itâs safe and iâm not a real person and where i can actually see the appeal of something like that. shitty gay fanfic, romantic or purely smut, helped me realize i was trans. i love romantic fiction and i love characters and i love shipping. this is coming purely from my perspective as someone whoâs aromantic on the basis of that identity, not out of romance-repulsion*.
however. i think itâs telling that yâall canât enjoy a single piece of media, or just talk about it, without romance being on the table once. ryland grace (at least in the movie, havenât finished the book) says and does NOTHING, not a SINGLE thing, that could be construed as him being interested in romance. thereâs soooo much going on with phm. look me in my cold dead aro fujo eyes and tell me with a straight face that the hypothetical of ryan gosling making out with markiplier makes it on the top ten most interesting things about project hail mary. (fuck, tell me itâs top ten about iron lung.)
so many of you just canât fathom exploring a characterâs relationship dynamics without applying an allonormative framework to it. thatâs it, full stop. both of these movies are vaguely similar (space, saving the world and some such, male mcs), and both of their main characters are suspiciously single. this is a problem that must be fixed. killing two birds with one stone - how *happy* would they be as a couple? theyâve both got something fundamental missing from their lives, wouldnât it be cute if they could fix that, together?
i think thatâs WEIRD. i actively enjoy shipping and i actively enjoy making things wayyy gayer than they have any right being. i love imagining homoerotic subtext that isnât there. however, i find it infinitely more enjoyable when two things are true. (these are basically my prerequisites for enjoying any ship, and 99% of the time theyâre true!):
1. thereâs another character that they have chemistry and/or an interesting dynamic with; OR, thereâs another character with which they would have had chemistry and/or an interesting dynamic with; OR thereâs an aspect of this character that would be more interesting to explore with a romantic relationship (this last one is very, very, very rarely true).
2. the character canonically has at least HINTED at feeling romantic attraction at some point; OR the character entertains the thought at some point of entering a romantic relationship.
if the first condition isnât satisfied, well, i just think thatâs plain boring. (i also think that this separates shipping just to ship, which canât be divorced from the allonormative and aphobic context in which it happens imho, from an actual exploration of a relationship. ofc i am talking about romantic relationships and sexual relationships often donât require this, but thatâs something else entirely and not whatâs happening in this case.)
if the second condition isnât satisfiedâŠ
(to be elaborated on in the why-ryland-grace-is-canonically-aromantic section. yes i am going there)
shipping is fun because exploring relationships and creating drama is fun. shipping is NOT fun because characters being in relationships is inherently fulfilling or a reward or GOOD.
and genuinely? deadass? do you want my opinion? the appeal of bloodymary hinges on the latter idea. it hinges on âcurling up in ryan goslingâs armsâ being a hard-earned reward for what simon has been through. not that these two characters would have any chemistry (and, yeah bite me, thereâs no reason to think they would) or that their stories would intersect in any meaningful way. itâs that neither of these movies have romance, and thereâs a subconscious need to make them have it. that completely fanon romance with no textual backing is more worthwhile to engage in than the canonical aromantic subtext and/or platonic relationships. alloromantic relationships are more worthwhile than aromantic ones, because you all are comfortable celebrating that form of queerness and PRETENDING THAT THE OTHER DOESNâT FUCKING EXIST.
okayyy okay this is genuinely making me mad iâm becoming less articulate ughhhh lmao. sorry if that didnât make sense.
ryland grace is my close personal friend and he told me that heâs aromantic.
canonically! heâs canonically queer! are you all happy? are you all celebrating the way you would if he was canonically gay?
okay, i think we can all agree that having a character show not a single sign of being interested in romance in any capacity is an anomaly. itâs an anomaly to the degree that itâs used as evidence for queercoding (in the aspec-exclusionary sense; ie same-sex attraction, not lack of attraction) when a character has no interest in straight relationships. (i also hate this idea, that a character not being straight codes them as gay, but that aphobia is a lot more blatant and needs less explanation. i hope.) so much of fiction actively avoids characters like this, because, well. people who act like ryland grace in the real world are queer. itâs not the typical human experience around attraction. this is what aromanticism and asexuality, and the whole a-spectrum in general, are. it is always a conscious decision to make a character, let alone a MAIN character with two hours of screen time and plenty of opportunity for an off-handed comment, entirely uninvolved with romance.
no, grace does not stand up in front of the whole science team and say âhey, just so no one gets any funny ideas, i am aromantic! this means that i do not experience romantic attraction! just so we are all clear! i am aspec! i am a queer character!â
yeah, jack twist and ennis del mar also donât look at the screen and say, âiâm a homosexual man and this is my homosexual lover and we are in love and gay and members of the lgbtq community.â (hell, they even clarify for you that they arenât âqueersâ! the woman that wrote them said that itâs not a gay love story**! whatâs with these modern-day gay audiences making everything about them?) they just have gay sex in front of you onscreen and ruin their lives because⊠uh,,, raising kids sucks?
calling the gay cowboys from brokeback mountain gay cowboys is not WRONG. not once in the movie is their queerness brought up in any heavy-handed way; they donât even say âi love youâ. theyâre gay cowboys because theyâre two men who like having sex with each other, we as an audience recognize that this is what being gay is, and we extrapolate that their succeeding struggles are due to this gay identity. (iâm now trying to imagine what watching this movie would be like for someone who fully took them at their word that they werenât queer and itâs almost funny. the whole movie would just be random disconnected vignettes of boring good looking people acting weirdly, lmao.) as in-your-face as it is, this is subtext.
grace is subtextually queer. strattâs comment about him living alone without âeven a dogâ paints him as subtextually queer as jake gyllenhaalâs character getting pounded does. (pssst. if youâre questioning this, imagine if stratt had said that he had a boyfriend in this scene. then would he be canonically queer? if you think thatâs true, but this isnât, then you probably just view aspec people as less definitively queer than gay people, iâm ngl. say it with your full chest next time, or maybe reexamine this.)
okay, beyond the analogy. logically: a character is single and, as far as the audience knows, wants nothing more than to be single. as established earlier, this is a conscious choice by the author, and itâs likely that the character does not possess a secret burning internal desire for romance that they refuse to disclose publicly. so, the character then definitively wants nothing more than to be single. a person who feels this way in the real world is aromantic, whether they identify themselves as such or not. thus, the character is subtextually and canonically aromantic. aromanticism is queer, thus, the character is subtextually and canonically queer.
sure, ryland grace is not wearing an aroace flag shirt like yâall draw him in (although he totally would and they totally should have done that). and owen/isabel from i saw the tv glow doesnât have a fucking pronouns.page. would you deadass, straight-faced, tell me that that character is cisgender? or, since the genderqueerness is officially author-approved and the main focus, does that make it more real? or, once again, do you view a hypothetically alloromantic allosexual transgender person to be more queer than a hypothetically aroace cisgender person?
in any case, i 100% fully completely believe that grace is subtextually aromantic (and likely aroace), and thus it would be accurate to describe him as simply aromantic. grace is an aromantic character. heâs queer! does this upset you? why? at the very, very, VERY least, letâs agree to call him aromantic-coded. heâs actually queercoded!
iâm not saying that youâre evil and a bigot for liking bloodymary, itâs a ship, lmao. ultimately this is my reading yap yap yap subjectivity, but i think you can only stretch that so far in good faith. i could read brokeback mountain as a story about a loving husband and his good friend who he likes to wrestle with sometimes. letâs be realistic, though - in a world more kind to and aware of people like me, this would be a very logical and very common opinion. in a world where more people respected aromanticism as a queer identity worth exploring on its own, bloodymary would likely not be as popular.
and itâs not about the individuals or erasure, not really. itâs compounding this evidence that actually exists in the text for a queer reading, one that points towards an identity less respected in queer spaces, with the completely fanon crossover that exists in more comfortable, more allonormative territory. itâs about the systemic erasure of aromantic-coded and subtextually aromantic characters for alloromantic/sexualsâ fun. keep drawing fanart and writing fanfic, i donât care, but maybe entertain the thought of an aroace character every once in a while? maybe entertain the thought of an allo character separate from their ability to kiss and to procreate for once in a while too, please?
because ultimately this isnât about you, person who enjoys bloodymary. itâs about the absolutely massive fandom that has gathered around what i can only perceive as one of the most milquetoast ships imaginable that includes one of my favorite queer characters ever, a ship that necessitates the erasure of that identity. itâs about how many goddamn people can look past that, not that you as an individual never thought of it. just⊠love aspec people more. through respecting us in fiction, being kind to us in fandom or irl, advocating for us in the real world, or giving us all your savings so we can go see project hail mary in theaters ten more times. or just not arguing with our own queer interpretations of fiction, in any case.
* which of course is just as valid as my experience! youâre allowed to dislike something because itâs romantic and youâre aro and romance-repulsed. (i encourage yâall to complain like that, to be completely honest. itâs suchhhh a fucking necessary perspective and calling out peopleâs biases towards allo characters and allo-presenting relationships is so important. i canât stress it enough that you deserve to be as loud as [and louder than sometimes, especially in fandom spaces, oh my god!] any other queer person.) iâm just trying to articulate that this is not what iâm trying to argue - that is, iâm actually trying to argue something, not just express an opinion. i love you romance repulsed aromantics (and anyone else!), yâall have been so important to my journey as an aspec person and you deserve the world. and a hundred bucks from anyone who has ever made you uncomfortable in fandom.
** this is actually a really good analogy, not to jerk myself off too much, because of this. she stated that itâs a human love story. as silly as this sounds, they really arenât gay. they were not written originally with the intention of being gay. theyâre men who have sex with men. that doesnât make people calling them gay incorrect. itâs extrapolation from the (very clear) subtext, regardless of authorial intent. these are men who are shown to be attracted to and have sex with men -> these are gay characters. this is a man who, as established, is deliberately and consciously shown to not be attracted to any gender -> this is an aromantic character.
