#fandom problem 14884

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #14,884:

Debates around changing a character's orientation.

If you're going to change a canon aroace character to make them gay, are you equally okay with someone shipping a canon gay character in a straight ship?

Either a character's orientation is something sacred and immutable, or it's not, you can't really have it both ways.

But people are rarely consistent about it. You can't argue that "making a gay character straight takes away from representation, there aren't very many canon gay characters" because hey, there's even fewer canon aroace characters.

[damnfandomproblems]

Response thread for Fandom Problem #14,884:

(Currently 2 replies)

Reply 1 - Anon

Personally, I am firmly in the camp "fanworks doesn't affect canon". So yeah, for me changing a aroace characters sexuality to anything else, for fanwork, doesn't bother me. Same way that it doesn't bother me when the sexuality of a gay character, bi character, straight characters, cis character, etc orientation gets changed for fanwork. I see fanwork always as a "what if?" Story. So this whole debate confuses me, because I genuinely dont see the issue with changing things up for fanwork, because thats what fanworks are for. Insisting that the change in orientation in sexuality, gender, etc is canon however........ that is problematic. Because then you are actually deliberately erasing the canon sexuality of the character to fit often some sort of agenda. (Looking at you, Lan Wangji and Hua Cheng are straight crowd) (If it helps, I am ace myself. So this is from a ace persons perspective.)

Reply 2 - Anon

The day fandom realizes shipping is about character dynamics and not sexual orientation is the day we will know peace.