fair enough. i should have come to your with a more neutral tone instead of anger. i know it probably doesn't sound believable, but i genuinely didn't mean to direct anger at you specifically. i should have either just not sent the asks at all or waited until i was in a better headspace and i apologize for that. unfortunately this stuff really grates on me despite my best efforts because i apparently have an uncanny knack for running into shit like this when it comes to lesbian characters and i was getting riled up thinking i'd done that yet again. but that's simply an explanation not an excuse and i don't want that perceived as an attempted excuse.
i also want to clarify that stuff like that does bother me with Alstor too. i don't ship him with anyone and try to avoid shippy things that involve him. him being aroace also contributes to my discomfort at the concept of shippy radiovees but i'm always uncertain if someone like me, who doesn't consider myself aroace, should speak on that stuff. because i often get hit with the, "qpr exist" or "some aro people can still be in relationships" or "some asexual people can still have sex" responses in return. which obviously is true in some cases, so... i'm never exactly sure if there's any response to give as to why it makes me, an allo person, uncomfortable.
it's why i put more of my focus on Velvette since that is something i feel i can speak on, even if i do so poorly.
i understand i made a shitty impression and that i was rude to you but thank you for engaging with me and answering my question anyway.
Hey, anon, I appreciate this ask! I know it sucks and is hard to face that you might have come at something the wrong way, and I respect the self-reflection! It's also why, even though I generally am pretty firm in my refusals to engage with someone who I feel is picking a fight, I try to be open about why if they are willing to engage genuinely. And I'm happy that you were!
I honestly did not get the impression that you were angry at me specifically. It felt more like you were angry at a general someone, as represented by "people who use radiovees with an explicitly romantic meaning," and were hoping that I would validate both your feelings and your stance. I really understand how upsetting it can be to see people twist a character representation that means a lot to you. Alastor is the only meaningful aroace character that I have ever had the joy of engaging with, and it certainly happens a lot with him.
That said, I also think that "people in fandom should feel free to write whatever headcanons they like" and "it fucking sucks when popular fandom preference feels like an ongoing microaggression" are things that can co-exist. With regards to radiovees specifically: I personally use that term very, very generally, to refer to Alastor and the Vees loosely being some sort of group or hanging out at minimum. I think my (very young) radiovees tag is actually mostly Alastor and Velvette hanging out and bitching about Vox while Alastor is still tied to the chair. However, there are probably plenty of people out there who use radiovees specifically to refer to them all as an OT4, and I don't think that's an "incorrect" ship for people to have.
Firstly: What you said, about how you've heard that some asexual people can still have sex, and aromantic people can still be in relationships... that's not a mystical power exclusive to ace people where their asexuality can be waived for mysterious and unknowable reasons. A straight dude can kiss another dude on TV for fan service and because he's secure in his heterosexuality. An ace person can have sex with their partner despite not really being interested in sex otherwise because they like making their partner happy. A lesbian can date or sleep with a man without being attracted to him for entirely unrelated reasons - and, in fact, when I shared your first ask, one of my friends' immediate reactions was to state that they themselves have done just that. I don't think that setting our standard for good representation at "gold star lesbian" is healthy, or representative of the complexity of people and sexuality in general. You say that words mean things, but the fundamental meaning of a sexual identity is to represent attraction - and attraction does not always correlate with what a person actually does. This fact is like one of the first slides of every "LGBTQ+ 101" presentation I've ever sat through in medical school and residency.
Secondly, people can choose to write Alastor as non-aro or non-ace (or grey-romantic or grey-sexual), and they can also choose to write Velvette as bisexual, or asexual, or anything else. They can do this for any reason, including that they just think it's neat, or hot. It might not feel good to those of us that feel a dearth of beloved characters to represent us, but just because it feels like somebody is taking something from you does not mean that they actually are, and it also does not make it morally wrong. People who ship those ships are not choosing between shipping them the "right" way and the "wrong" way, they're either going to ship it the way they enjoy or just avoid those characters altogether. You're never going to wring your preferred portrayal of a character out of someone, and I have not seen evidence that it makes for a better community to try to do. I have had a lot of people come into my inbox inspired by my works to write their own with a more informed portrayal of asexuality, though.
(This, of course, also does not mean that you shouldn't bitch about whatever nonsense extensively (in private). Bitching (to your friends) is a great way to vent about it and I encourage it. I will even occasionally bitch directly on my blog. But I don't encourage taking it to other people directly.)
Also, the effect that I've personally noticed is that when the fandom rhetoric gets very loud about debating Alastor's aceness and what that means, it mostly results in those folks that just don't understand what aroace actually means about a character going on and writing and drawing stuff where Alastor is in no way portrayed as aroace, and still tagging it Aromantic Asexual Alastor, because to not do so would earn them fandom ire. I would so much rather be able to block a "Bisexual Velvette" tag (if I wanted to) because people feel comfortable using it without getting chastised, than run into your average Velvette fic and get jump-scared by Velvette fucking Vox.
(This is purely hypothetical. I think Velvette fucking Vox would be great fun the same way that I think Alastor fucking Vox would be great fun; none of it relates to me thinking either of them are attracted to Vox, though, HAH. This is where we refer back to nuance in sexuality.)
Anyway, tl;dr: "Radiovees" is a super general and flexible tag and everyone really does use it differently, but I think the predominant use at least from what I've noticed is mostly just to indicate "Alastor joined the Vees." I think that if you used "radiovees," people would not automatically assume you meant it romantically. Even so, I personally support people who want to ship all four of them romantically, even if I have my own very particular opinions on the dynamics.
