real talk tho if you're gonna insist on shipping an aroace character then you forfeit the right to complain when people reasonably give you flack for it
like can you imagine if a fandom was hellbent on shipping a gay man with a woman? completely ignoring any themes or story elements relating to his orientation, ignoring any struggles he faces for being a gay man, in favor of putting him in a M/F relationship?
(^this isn't a hypothetical btw I watched that shit happen to Dorian Pavus. Y'know, the gay guy whose dad tried to put him through blood magic conversion therapy to make him like women.)
So why, pray tell, do y'all wanna act like it's so different with aroace characters?
"Oh, but aroace people can still–" and gay men can still date women and have sex with women and be in committed relationships with women. Hell, many real-life gay men have done these things. But shipping isn't real life, and it certainly doesn't exist in a vacuum where your political beliefs and internalized bs suddenly switch off.
If you ship a gay man with a woman, you may rightfully get called out for being heteronormative. Because you are being heteronormative.
The same principle does, in fact, apply for aroace characters! If you ship an aroace character, you may rightfully get called out for being amatonormative. Because you are being amatonormative.
It's true – similar to the above example about gay men, many real-life aroace people DO have sex and engage in romantic relationships, because aromanticism and asexuality are both spectrums. Exploring the ways in which fictional characters might engage in romantic/sexual relationships that don't "perfectly line up" with their orientations is a worthwhile endeavor, bc these are things that real people experience and want to see depicted.
…but that is not what happens in fandom spaces. Aroace characters are regularly subjected to the complete erasure of their orientations, with any struggles or thematic elements related to them being aroace getting thrown out in favor of shipping.
That the majority of these pairings are gay doesn't actually make things any better – being amatonormative is not magically less inappropriate than being heteronormative. But amatonormativity is so deeply ingrained and unchallenged across cultures that the average non-aspec is all but oblivious to its impact. As a result, people treat ignoring an aroace character's orientation for the sake of gay shipping as progressive, even though it categorically isn't.
And christ alive, all of this is WITHOUT getting into how race impacts things. I have seen, repeatedly and across fandoms, how fans will headcanon nonwhite (and esp. black) characters as aroace simply to justify excluding them. This isn't genuine respect for aroace identities, it's slapping an "unshippable" label on them and tossing them out – bc these fans can't stand seeing nonwhite characters as more than background elements, let alone conceive of them being in relationships.
Then, on the other end of the problem, when a nonwhite character actually is some flavor of aroace– suddenly everyone neeeeds to ship them. In fact, you'll be lucky to see any fanworks of that character that aren't focused on shipping! Bc apparently the only thing worse than a nonwhite character existing is a nonwhite character not serving as shipping fodder.
I'm not gonna suggest something like "only aroace people should be allowed to ship aroace characters," bc frankly that's the most half-assed and unenforceable response possible.
The solution is that allo people need to get better at depicting aroace characters, and those who refuse need to face the fire and stop whining about criticism.
