The Ninth Doctor is Romantically in love with Rose and nothing is around that disproves that.
Next on my list of my journey of “just deal with whatever is out there with River in it” was Swipe Right with the Ninth Doctor. The one that was infamously used to argue that Nine is fully aroace and therefore Ninerose can’t be a ship. Well, now that I’ve listened to the whole thing I can give a more educated rebuttal.
Before I get into spoilers, I will repeat what I said previously. Asexuality is a spectrum. Not everyone who is acespec is completely without the potential for romantic and/or sexual feelings. It’s just markedly different to how allosexual people experience them. I do think most people on here know this. But it’s important to remember. Every incarnation of the Doctor does seem to be somewhat acespec. That does not mean that Nine feeling zero attraction to River proves he is all the way on the end of the spectrum to where attraction to anyone is impossible. Demisexuality is very plausible here for Nine specifically since Nine at this point never allowed himself to get remotely close to anyone. In general the Doctor is pretty much always grey ace or Demi! Even with Ten David Tennant points out in an interview how most of the kissing was not initiated by Ten and how it’s not usually a sexual thing for him. Emphasis on usually. So if we can accept that Ten was acespec but clearly romantically in love with Rose then it’s the same for Nine.
Spoilers below for a more in depth rebuttal
The story is about a planet where a robot named the matchmaker has taken over society and kills people if they don’t find a partner. Both the Doctor and River show up to investigate. The Doctor tries to legally match up with an asexual woman so she’s not murdered but can’t because River has tampered with the computer system so it shows her as his wife and makes him unavailable to anyone else. When the Doctor rejects her, River is very offended and upset the whole time. He is very adamant he’s not interested in being her wife and doesn’t like how she waters down the word and masquerades as such. Asking “do you know what that word means”. Later on, the Doctor tries to make the robot scan the asexual woman and recalculate whether a partner would make her more productive. It doesn’t work because she’s alloromantic. River says it’s the Doctor it has to scan because he’s the one with no romantic feelings whatsoever. He agrees. It scans her. It works. The robot shuts itself down.
But here’s the thing. The robot was taking a moment to moment scan. In that moment the Doctor had no strong memories or current feelings of romantic or sexual love. That does not disqualify someone from being Demi or Grey Ace. It was a moment in time. Him having no attraction to River whatsoever does not prove he is Aroace in the sense of being someone who will never experience sexual or romantic attraction. It just proves he didn’t feel those things for River. Having a stranger tag you as their wife in a database and get mad you’re not happy about it is really quite the ick regardless of sexuality anyway.
The most important thing is that there are discussions of Acespec labels for the woman who was being helped. But Nine NEVER claims any label. It’s River who does that for him.
Noah was dressed in the best clothes he had. It was just a button up and a good pair of jeans, but hopefully it was enough to make him feel like he was in a costume playing a role. He had a bag with a clipboard and pens in it. Assistants use clipboards right? He took a deep breath and reminded himself that this was Matt and everything would be fine because Matt would always take care of him. He knocked on his door and stepped back rolling his shoulders and trying to get into his role.
“No one’s ever accused me of being smart.” ~ Mick Rory @dominicpurcell When the world is ending…go out with a bang 😉 #swiperight #legendsoftomorrow https://www.instagram.com/p/CTSJwkJlflc/?utm_medium=tumblr
i set out to have a look at siedlung #praunheim ( a late 1920ies colony built by ernst may - frankfurt's most well-known city planner ) but ended up loving a 1960 mourning hall way more 😍 the mourning hall at the #westhausen cemetery was built by architect günter bock and sculptor otto herbert hajek ( who contributed also to wiesbaden's very own mauritiuskirche - my absolute favourite church building here 🖤 ). it's a brutalist structure at its finest and entices with a 75 meter long ferroconcrete wall with abstract sculptural carvings. i completely, utterly fell in love with this jewel! talk about never obsessing about anything 😌 turns out that i do, just not over what presumably everyone else obsesses over. #frankfurt #architecture #neuesfrankfurt #brutalism #mourninghalls #friedhofwesthausen #günterbock #ottoherberthajek #sculpturalarchitecture #swiperight (hier: Friedhof Westhausen) https://www.instagram.com/p/B68p9M7KvaU/?igshid=1ibvuqsexctvx
