Seeing the character I identify with having his canon ship fic event hurts me so much , to me it’s not a headcanon , he’s supposed to be Aro ace and the writers caved to shipper demand. To me watching these shipppers do a fiction secret Santa centered on that forced canon ship hurts me so badly but I feel obligated to follow it because I want friends x.x but they all hate me
I’m feeling that this is Riverdale, and I’ll talk as though it is Riverdale, but honestly, much of it applies to most well-known aro-ace/aro-ace-coded characters in fandom.
Jughead in particular is a well-established character, and long before the word was in regular use in LGBTQIA+ spaces, Jughead was shown as aro-ace–in fact, as a romance-repulsed aro-ace. He’s a rare aro-spec who is not evil, a character to whom we can point in explaining our lives to alloromantics and non-a-specs. There are indie writers providing aro-spec representation (let me promote our aro-spec artist profiles again) but they don’t have the accompanying fandom experience or the ability to easily demonstrate our lives to the mainstream.
Aro-ace Jughead isn’t headcanon; I see it as coding, in the earlier comics, at least. In the case of the modern run, I see it as asexual-without-use-of-the-split-attraction-model or aro-ace written by authors who don’t know enough about a-spec identities. I adore the way Jughead is treated as unquestioningly aro-ace in aro-spec spaces, because it is so obvious we don’t even have to talk about it. There’s no “is it headcanon, is it canon” discussion here; he’s aro-ace. It’s jarring to move out of the aro-spec community and realise that what is obvious to us isn’t obvious to everyone else, that suddenly our evident truth needs to be defended, and I think that adds to our distress.
I’m sure you realise that by reducing aro-ace Jughead to headcanon status, anyone who wants to ship him now has free rein to do so without any nagging guilt. (In other words, you can proclaim your social justice virtues all you like and still get your ship on.) I suspect there’s–consciously or unconsciously–a motivation to toss aside erasure by ignoring the fact that in the case of Jughead, asexual clearly means aro-ace. If it’s not said in flashing capital letters, even though it is said in the comic canon and clearly enough that aro-specs don’t waste time debating it, then people claim “headcanon” and do as they like because amatonormativity and aro erasure.
(The comic canon is not a rarely-discussed obscurity lost to the mists of time. It should be kept in mind in fandom conversations about an adaptation that has engaged in such flagrant erasure in Jughead’s character.)
Shipping culture, in a world where shipping is near-universally read as romance, is amatonormativity in a nutshell, and that unaddressed amatonormativity means it doesn’t and can’t respect aro characters and coding the way it has begun to respect other LGBTQIA+ identities. To see the show and fandom completely ignore the aro-ace is a hurtful and upsetting thing. You should feel hurt and upset–please don’t think you’re overreacting. The walls of aro-spec and aro-ace spaces are paved with people making angry, frustrated comments–honestly, it’d be easier to find an aro-spec blog where someone hasn’t raged over Riverdale.
I know it’s hard to feel so divorced from a character and fandom you love, to feel like you have to endure the erasure in a given space just to keep on having a community and connection. In the past, I’ve decided to bite my lip and endure, and at the time it felt like something I can and should do because friends, but it just poisons my relationship with the other fans, with the fandom and with the source material. The resentment is there, bubbling away under everything, and before too long it devours your joy for a character you love.
I heartily recommend backing away from this ship event. Blacklist any and every ship-related tag. Unfollow anyone who doesn’t tag and block anyone who will toss ship-related content into general tags. Unfollow people who post about the event and don’t tag it, because you should blacklist event-related tags as well. Do not stint on the block button if you can apply it! Do whatever you can to make sure your online spaces are not shoving ship-related fanworks and meta into your face, and do it unashamedly and unapologetically. Don’t put up explanatory posts or tell people why you’re doing it–just quietly do it and go about the rest of your life.
This relates to my comment about worth in followers from the other day, but when I consider the things that make me happier, one friend who understands me and listens to me is worth a whole lot more than ten friends who erase the aromanticism of a character who represents me in the name of their favourite ship (and in doing erase me). Western society in particular tells a narrative that more friends and more followers gives us value, which encourages the idea that we need to put up with awful just to have those kinds of interactions. But you don’t. You just don’t.
I’ll posit that the idea that the narrative of putting up with erasure and dismissal just to have more friends (or be connected to family, because this narrative is toxic in many directions) forces us to permit said erasure and dismissal. It means people can get away with hurting you. Why give them space? Why stand there being a willing audience? If you can’t stop them–and most of us can’t, because that’s the nature of lacking privilege–shut the door and go back to building spaces where they can’t talk. Go back to building spaces where you can have discussions and create the stories you need and deserve to see.
I’m not going to say that this sort of community building is easy. It isn’t. You’ve got to spend time and spoons on carving your own path, and it isn’t at all right that we have to build these spaces from the floor up with only a few people to help us while everyone else gets to tell stories around a roaring fire in a mansion over the road. Those people who walk past, see what you’re doing and stop to pass up the nails while you hammer, though? They’re the friends you want and they’re the friends that are worth having. Even if there’s fewer of them.
Don’t follow this fic event. Don’t engage with it. Shut it right out of your life. You don’t need this constant erasure. You don’t need the constant pressure of feeling you have to fight it or that you can’t fight it. You deserve so much better, so please, value your right to exist in a world where aro and aro-ace aren’t dismissed as headcanon and do everything you can to get this event blacklisted and unfollowed.
I’m going to finish by asking: can folks recommend me some deliciously aro-ace celebratory fanworks for Jughead and Riverdale? (Or Shadowhunters with regards Raphael, while we’re on the subject of aro erasure in the adaptation?) I refuse to believe annoyed fandom aro-specs haven’t stepped up here, and I think we can all use a dose of good media that does what the writers and the larger fandom won’t.
