Just to be perfectly clear, none of those things is hugely egregious or problematic on its own (the 'LGBT' acronym especially, I've seen a fair amount of 'Q+' people that associate with it just fine and that's understandable), it's just a lot of little things that tend to pile up over time. And yes, most of the time none of them are intentionally pushing us aside – but again, that's 'cus we'd have to exist in people's eyes for that intention to even exist in the first place.
Anyway. I dunno. Feels a bit overly whiny. But it's another one of those things I'd wanted to get out of my system ig.
There was some viral post saying verbatim “Hello binary gendered tumblr user. Before you is a nonbinary character in a relationship. You have three hours to describe the relationship without calling it yaoi, yuri, or anything else that puts them in the binary. If you fail, the room fills with toxic gas.” I thought it seemed fun, I’m nonbinary myself, and the comments were full of “yaouri!” “yippie!” and other people having fun. I put “QPR” down, because they don’t specify “romantic relationship” or “sexual relationship.” Just “relationship,” which I thought was a nice inclusive move. The first comment under mine, and the one with three times as many likes as my comment I might add, is “queerplatonic isn’t a romantic relationship (glaring emoticon).” So… yeah. There we have it. All relationships are automatically sex and romance and a queerplatonic RELATIONSHIP doesn’t count as one, according to this lovely progressive site full of lovely progressive people. It’s crazy to me that under a post about nonbinary erasure, we have other forms of queer erasure being supported. And not only could this person not simply scroll past, they had to carve time out of their day to make sure I knew how livid they were that I suggested that nonbinary people could possibly be aro/ace/aroace/generally in a QPR, and that a QPR is a real relationship. The aphobia is real on here, it wasn’t left behind in the 2010s.
hi, hi, hello! hi fandom space! i’m a sex favorable asexual! yeah, i exist! yes, i’m the one you keep pointing out when you want to ship canonically aro/ace characters! hi! guess what, i hate you. stop it. stop using me to erase my friends who aren’t sex favorable, because you know what? it’s actually really awful of you to only believe i exist when you want to erase a different part of my community. stop using me to encourage allonormativity. you as an allo person do not get to use ace-/aro-spec people to encourage our erasure and dismissal. no. i hate it and i hate you. stop.
Aro/ace culture is being devastated at the fact your favorite character who had so many implications of being aro/ace in the early days of the source material has now been written into (checks notes) a plotline where he’s now in an implied straight romantic relationship and is a father of four
It’s crazy how many people just don’t understand why a lot of aro and or ace people don’t like that Alaster gets shipped. It’s not that hard to understand we don’t have a lot to let ourselves lose. I mean can you name 10 asexual characters? 5? Can you name two aro characters. There’s the guy from Archie who they made have a sex scene in a movie version. There’s a few books. I think a background character in Heartstopper? Do you see the theme here??? You’re all queer people, do you not get it? How it feels to have nothing? Is it so wrong to be upset that there’s finally an outwardly aroace person in popular media and instead of people embracing that they’re fighting on the internet about why it’s ok to ignore it? And I will never in my fucking life have anything against the people who are aro and or ace and portray him in THEIR experiences, even if it is a romance or sex favorable experience, but it is obvious that way too many of you guys are allo and it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t even like him as a character that much, he isn’t even made by an aroace artist. The show isn’t even that fucking good, I just want to keep someone like me for once in my life. If there were a million other aroace characters I wouldn’t care, but it just hurts seeing erasure coming from my own community. It just sucks, man, I don’t know. It just sucks
Viv comments on Alalstor's orientation [thoroughly edited post. Initially named "THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY"... Yeah no wonder I trimmed this thing]
[Title text in bold: Viv comments on Alalstor's orientation (thoroughly edited post. Initially named "THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY"... Yeah no wonder I trimmed this thing])]
[ Approximate transcription:
Viv: I feel like the fact that they say—I always-I always try to be very coy, about his—I mean not about his orientation. Because like, I don't think that I wanna be coy about that with any of the characters.
But, for his uh, like, his romantic aspect. 'Cause like, I don't wanna crush dreams. But like—You know, there is a canonic, y'know, direction, for that to...
[member on the call]: Let the shippers ship!
Viv: ... To let them enjoy, I'll let them have their fun. ]
[End of transcription]
I've made quite a few changes to this post, as I've put in the title. If you check older reblogs, you'll definitely see that I had the least sensible reaction possible (going into rant right off the bat, basically). And I sincerely apologize, mainly because I got information wrong. (And also because I deployed precisely 0 critical thinking skills at that moment. My bad"^^)
You see, I mostly misinterpreted and failed to make out what the other members of the call said near the end. Which coincidentally re-contextualized Viv's entire talk, due to her response to this. (As a commenter rightfully pointed out to me)
By the end, she says how the shippers would have their fun, in the way that despite there being a canonical romantic direction for Alastor, (whether allo or aro is unspecified) these shippers would still be pleased with the content shown. Which was the complete opposite of what I initially gathered (that being the implication that Al would have a romantic subplot, and that it may be in favor of some of the most popular ships.)
Now that I've cleared that up—and that I can write and think MUCH more calmly... I must say that this whole talk is still so sketchy to me.
Yes I am an aroace Alastor truther, and in retrospect, this could be great news! But like... I greatly dislike how everything's worded. Alalstor's romantic orientation is DELIBERATELY left out of the "orientation" part itself! For what's supposedly an aromantic asexual character, this makes me nervous! It makes me fear for the worst! I hate that the aromanticism is left out of the "undeniably obvious and important thing that I never hesitate to confirm", for Viv. I hate it. If she genuinely says that Alastor is also aromantic, then just confirm said aro label if that The One Thing you don't mess around with! And if it's just to mess around with the fans and be ambiguous just to do a fake out... Then why would you do that? That's terrible, to be honest. And counterproductive if you want your fandom to not be a pit of discourse and toxicity.
It just seems so... Lackluster. Call me skeptic, or even pessimist, because it's true. But there's nothing in this whole debacle that makes me believe that Viv will end up confirming Alastor as aromantic. And even if she does.. That doesn't erase the sketchy and terrible aro erasure (arophobia, mind you) that she's shown just because she doesn't want to "crush dreams", or "ruin anyone's fun".
A ton of fans barely respect Alalstor's undeniably canon asexuality, and I've seen some that claim that they'll "leave the fandom" if a he's confirmed as aromantic.
I hate that Alastor being aromantic is equivalent to "instant fandom misery" in the queer "loud and proud" creator's eyes.
I need to vent about aroace representation, toxic fandom culture, discrimination in the LGBTQIA+ community and over sexualisation of characters. move along if it ain't your cuppa and sorry for any typos.
Yes this is about the Pitt
When I started following the Pitt tag here on tumblr during season 2 I was surprised to see people yearning for Dr Mel and Dr Langdon to have a romantic relationship, in the sense of posting pics and gifs as proof, making predictions, and wondering when they would have the big "reveal" aka confessing their feelings, having a romantic interaction, etc.
I did not, for the life of me, pick up any romantic vibes from Mel or Langdon in season 1 (but that's just my experience as a viewer)
[I was NOT surprised to see the over sexualisation of the actors and characters, especially the middled aged male characters being shipped and having tons of fanfiction. that's a normal day on Tumblr and I am glad of it. I will not venture into rpf territory because it's not my place. Ship and let ship, don't like don't interact is the motto.]
What I am talking about is the representation of ace or aro characters in media (or the lack there of ) and the way they seem to be dismissed/denied by fandom in general.
The woman (affectionate) is the most asexual character I have ever seen, in a good way. She is autistic too, which doesn't automatically mean anything, but she does appear to not be interested in being involved with people/being close to them as FRIENDS let alone romantically. She is sort of robotic and follows a script during social interactions, doesn't touch anyone I think, just wants to exist in public and do her job comfortably without being forced into unnecessary interactions with people, which I love to see.
When flirted with, she explained her interests and likes in her hobbies (bobba and cosplay in the renaissance fair aka acting, role playing, being a character in another world creatively). She didn't flirt back in anyway and didn't seem interested in it either.
She hugged Langdon when he came back because she was ecstatic to see him and quickly apologised/stopped. (She displays affection BY HUGGING which is totally normal in the usa and is immediately sexualised /infantilised and hit with "oh she is down bad for him")
She displays relief and joy when seeing her favourite mentor and co worker working beside her and helping her with her sister and is immediately hit with "she's in love with him. This is proof. She's 1000% into him. She wants that cookie so bad."
And the same is said about Langdon, a conventionally attractive married man, father of 2. Because why would he ever like a woman and admire her/care about her and look out for her well being without it being sexual or romantic?
This is what I've been seeing in the Pitt tag and I know sometimes it's jokes and light fun but it still hurts to have friendship disregarded and seen as less then or offensive to suggest (because god forbid someone says a ship are just friends)
I am not talking about fanfiction or shipping characters. I am talking about, specifically, the ace/aro erasure in media and fandom by claiming a ship is involved romantically and cannot "just be friends" bc that would suck and be "boring" or "baiting the audience"
YOU PEOPLE CANNOT STAND IT WHEN A CHARACTER IS ACE OR ARO AND IT SHOWS!!!!!
I saw it coming a mile away and thought "welp I sure hope people dont get disappointed or flip out when it's revealed that the autistic asexual woman isn't interested in the conventionally attractive man that's her superior at work and responsible for her learning and one of the few mentors she feels comfortable around"
"Welp I sure hope people don't get disappointed or flip out when the conventionally attractive man ISN'T romantically attracted to the asexual woman that's the only doctor with known autism in the entire hospital that we know of"
"Welp I sure hope people don't flip out when two characters display friendship and comfort around each other but aren't hot for each other/don't want to have sex"
Why can't they have an amazing mentorship or even friendship? Why can't they admire and enjoy each other's company as coworkers and friends?
Why does every relationship have to be a sexual or romantic one?
I feel really disappointed in the fandom, because to me this is similar to people in the Sherlock fandom NOT accepting people who view Sherlock as asexual (the man said he had no interest in love or romantic relationships and called watson his friend, best friend etc, but I don't want to get into that due to all the history)
WHY CANT FRIENDSHIPS BE AS DESIRED AND FULFILLING AS ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS????
People are just as happy and fulfilled with friends/groups of friends and ZERO romantic or sexual partners then people who have all of it. It is often not desired by ace and aro ppl to have those relationships and they are not less than for not having them.
Stop forcing your romantic views and sexual views on characters when they are clearly asexual. In fact, when they are canonically ace or the actor/creator says they're ace. Again, I don't mean fanfiction, fanart or any kind of fan creativity. I am talking about literally denying it and calling fans who believe they're ace "offensive, homophobic, boring" etc
Signed, a horny bisexual that enjoys sex and is tired of bi-erasure and won't stand for my comrades ace and aro folk having to put up with this shit
