Character: I think boys are pretty

Fandom: oh! They're gay! That's canon!

Different character: I have no interest in romance or sex. I don't understand it. Relationships confuse me. They seem pointless to me. I have no desire to be in a romantic or sexual relationship. I am an aromantic asexual.

Fandom: well, I guess you can interpret them as aroace...I don't see it though.

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

oh I'm sorry this AROACE character exists and you can't ship them with any other character because they're AROACE, must be so sad for you

why is it that when someone says they're not interested in dating/ sex everyone immediately assumes that means that they're gay? especially with fictional characters who don't have a love interest. it just pisses me off so much because it's just aroace erasure at this point. "oh this character is a lesbian because she doesn't have a boyfriend" SHUT THE FUCK UP

felt like I was forgetting something about tomorrow but then I remembered oh yeah kind of a big day how could I forget

Happy Dracula eve!!!

tw discussion of aphobia and sexuality

One thing I absolutely love about Hazbin Hotel is the diversity of representation in it. However I do note a lack of respect for that same diversity in the Fandom and it infuriates me. Yes, I am primarily talking about Alastor. Alastor is canonically AroAce. There seems to be a complete disregard for that in a large portion (though not all of course) of the Fandom. I've seen him shipped with Lucifer, Vox, Rosie, and Angel. I also want to say I've seen him shipped with Charlie and Vaggie, though, fortunately, not particularly commonly. Now I do understand that desire and attraction are not necessarily synonymous. Dude, I’m aro (specifically demi-ro) and allos3xual ( bi specifically), I'm familiar. I also know QPRs are a thing. However the implications in the vast majority of shipping posts is not that a desire (without attraction) is being filled or that the relationship is a QPR. It is an implication of romantic and/or (usually and) s3xual attraction and chemistry. Also in addition to the attraction situation there's another issue I have with these ships, I would say canonically it is implied that Alastor is not only AroAce, but is also sex repulsed (I'm not going to go into my arguments for that in this post, but maybe in another). Now if you're looking at me going “Didn't the creator say we could ship anybody with anybody” or “it doesn't really matter,” Let me put a question to you. If you saw a character who was canonically confirmed to be lesbian, and a large portion of people in the Fandom started constantly shipping her with every single man in the cannon, would you still have this same level of apathy? I doubt it. If people were excusing it with “it’s just my headcanon ” or “the creator said we can ship anybody” would that change anything? No that would still be lesbian erasure I'm pretty sure I'd be seeing a lot of posts with people up in arms about it, right? Why aren't we bringing the same energy here. It's the same thing. This is AroAce erasure. Now if you're saying, and I've seen people say this kind of thing, “it's just a character it doesn't matter. Pick something that does,” Yes it does matter. There are very, very few confirmed AroAce characters, just in general. We know that representation matters. Also aphobia is a problem not only outside, but also inside of the LGBTQ + community. There are people who tell aro and ace people they aren’t really part of the LGBTQ+ community, even to the extent of not allowing them in LGBTQ+ spaces. Our character representation deserves the same respect as yours. We deserve respect.

Thoughts on Radioapple? Personally I don't care for it and it kinda bugs me when I go into the Habbo hotel tag and see these two guys just plastered everywhere

Definitely not a radioapple fan lmao

I hate any alastor ship by default just because of the aroace erasure and the fact fandom spaces just cant handle aroace characters. It’s always support for aroace people until it gets in the way of a ship they like. I think when your shows most popular ship is actively participating in LGBTQ+ erasure you’re kind of fucked as a fandom, especially when there’s literally other LBGTQ+ ships in the canon. Definitely just bugs and irks me

Edit: please go read my reblog for this, a LOT of people are severely misinterpreting my post. I AM AROACE!! I AM TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE ACTUALLY BEING UPSET. NOT AROACE PEOPLE PROJECTING. I just genuinely dont like the ship theres no chemistry. Im not like against aroace people being in love I am literally cupioromantic guys

I honestly hate how characters who dont like the opposute sex are automatically assumed to be gay. I hate it even more when the character explicitly shows no interest at all in any gender.

for example reyna from hoo was the first fucking aroace coded chracter i ever saw in a book. she was one of the first chracters to finally make me feel heard. i finally felt like there was a chracter i could truely relate to and who understood me. and i might sound like a bitch, but i absolutely fucking hate when people make her a lesbian. thankfully its rare to see her in a hetero pairing. but seeing her in a queer pairing isnt any better.

there are so many other chracters who would work better in queer parings, so why does it always have to be the aroace chracter.

Ive also noticed that its more common for a female aroace chracter to be put in lesbian pairings way more than male ones. correct me if im wrong though.

the aroace rep is so fucking rare anyways, so please stop putting them in relationships. while there are aroace people who want to be in relationships, not all of them want to be in a relationship, and they dont have to be you first pick for one.

im just so tired of seeing aroace chracters constantly being changed to fit ships. this might be very bitchy put for the fucking hell please stop.

👏please👏stop👏shipping👏Alastor👏

👏he👏is👏aroace👏

👏this👏is👏aroace👏erasure👏

(edit: the comments have turned to conflict so let me say one thing. Alastor has been shown to be romance and sex repulsed. even though Vivziepop has said that we can ship him. even though aroaces can still date. it doesn’t matter. it’s still erasure. you’d get mad is a canon lesbian was shipped with a guy, right? so you should do the same if an aroace character is shipped with anyone.)

STOP "curing" aroace characters

Given how the show has acknowledged Alastor's asexuality I couldn't help but ask myself (and my fellow aroace of fans of Hazbin) about how the fans should treat Alastor's asexuality.

So, because the show has made it clear that Alastor won't fall in love (or make love for that matter lol), do you think fan creators are obligated to keep true to that in their own creations (that is to say, they should keep Alastor far away from any sex/romance as much as possible and that it potentially invalidates the ace representation if they do otherwise)?

Feel free to share your thoughts!

#AroAceJugheadOrBust

I am glad the Riverdale show is over. To the people gushing about how the show was nonsensical, special & amazing, I would like to remind (or tell) that Jughead is canonically asexual aromantic.

There was initial enthousiasm in the aroace community at the annoncement of this show in 2016 & early 2017, especially because the actor Cole Sprouse was initially x supportive of an asexual Jughead, had read the comics & claimed respect for the decades-long original material indicating that Jughead was aroace (even before it was official confirmed in 2016 in the Chip Zdarsky comics). I don't know if Cole Sprouse mentioned it since, I couldn't find anything after 2017.

In 2017, there was a months-long campaign, with the hashtag #AroAceJugheadOrBust. We kept up hope, especially because at the time, it would have been the biggest piece of aroace representation ever seen on television, in a mainstream show no less. And we weren't hoping for something out of reach, they were adapting a comic where the best friend of the lead was consistently depicted as aroace, for decades. And we were told we would get a fair portrayal of the character.

Time passes, the show aired, Jughead initiated a kiss with Betty & Jughead got a girlfriend. At some point someeone involved in the show straight up said (I would cite the source but I don't remember well & I didn't bookmark it at the time, sorry) that the reason they gave the character a love interest was that otherwise it didn't make for a compelling or interesting story (I don't remember precisely, sorry).

I stewed in that a long time, thinking about how I'm one of the most interesting person I know, being aroace isn't boring, if they can't have a character being interesting without giving them a romance plot, that's them being terrible at their job...

When all our hopes were dashed, other people, many queer people started to show up & then like that show. Rooting for it. I saw praise for queer representation for bi or gay characters, but I didn't see any mention of the straight-washing of one of the main characters & how maybe some solidarity was warranted (how any potential good gay or bi rep in a minor character wouldn't make up for the straight washing of a main character).

As an aroace person, I wanted the show to fail, for the widespread outrage of the queer community condamning straight-washing to underwhelm any positive review.

That didn't happened this time. I hope the next time people try to erase aromantic or asexual identities of fictional characters in popular media, things are different & we do get that solidarity & support. I hope things get better.

Shippers who use the "aroace people can date" phrase as an excuse to ship canonically aroace characters are infantilizing romance/sex repulsed aroace people. As a romance and sex favored aroace person, it's giving the same vibes as "you just haven't found the right person". I wouldn't be surprised if these shippers end up becoming exclusionists down the line.

cw vent

aspec erasure within fandoms is disgusting and tiring. and when i say "aspec erasure" that really just means ace and aroace erasure because we have such nonexistent rep that the only aspec characters we have are either ace or aroace since no one knows other aspec identities exist.

ffs STOP USING NON-SEX/ROMANCE-REPULSED LABELS AS AN EXCUSE! "uh, aroace people can still be in sexual and romantic relationships 🤨 clearly you're the aphobic one here lmao" says the one who only knows aroaces can still be in relationships because they got caught for aroace erasure and are trying to find an excuse. these people don't really care about aspecs: all they want is a reason to draw characters kissing and fucking.

"but the creator never said the character is sex/romance-repulsed 🙄 you're so dramatic and just wanna start discourse 😒" a creator doesn't need to explicitly state a character is sex/romance-repulsed for them to be. you seem fine being able to tell that a character is coded as gay or lesbian without the creator explicitly stating it, yet when a character on screen says they aren't interested in sex or romance it's not enough for you. if a character isn't wearing a sign around their neck that says "I DON'T LIKE SEX" or "I DON'T LIKE ROMANCE" then it isn't canon, and even if they did wear a sign, i doubt you'd care then either

i'm so done with this shit. i just wanna feel safe in fandoms for once in my life so i can enjoy the tiny crumbs of rep i'm getting. i just wanna enjoy a canonically aspec character in peace without their tag being filled with aspec erasure. things like bi or lesbian erasure are also a problem, but i feel like fandoms have gotten a lot better at calling it out, whereas with aspec erasure, no one makes a peep. and whenever someone does call out this erasure, they get dogpiled because "why can't you just let people have fun!?! 😡😤"

I wish all people who ship/sexualize canon/heavily implied AroAce characters a very DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

We're still living in an era where AroAcespec individuals are being erased and people are justifying it. Whether that's in shows, or articles.

People are using micro identities to justify their actions. Which also proves they don't understand the AroAce spectrum and how those identities even work. It's all around disgusting