#so they don't know they're erasing a canon queer character's orientation

[askshivanulegacy]

[ARCANE SPOILERS]

I'm waffling with whether I agree with this overall post. 😂

Headcanons are fine. They don't "damage" anything, not even when it's a stereotype. They don't erase anything. They're headcanons and cannot hurt anyone - not even if someone changes them in response to events in the show. After all, people change their orientations in real life. Yes, it might point toward a bias that it's probably good to examine. But it's entirely possible that original Jinx is aro and AU Jinx is not. Sexuality is not a necessary constant across universes or even a necessary marker of core character identity (which is not something we can measure so who the heck knows). We don't know that that interpretation isn't the correct canon. Also, maybe she's 100% straight the entire time! Or maybe she's lesbian and the other guy is trans and never said (like elsewhere in the show). No proof either way, Jinx is just so busy terrorizing people. 😂

As for Viktor: we have no actual proof he's NOT aro, either. Even up to the very end of the show, you can read this relationship as platonic. You can read it as romantic. You can read it as aro. You can read it as sexual. You can read it as asexual. The verdict is ENTIRELY in the viewer's hands. It's my decision as much as yours. There isn't enough canon evidence to confirm one way or the other. No, not even if it's "important" to be queer. If that relationship is platonic to someone, then it's platonic, and that's what's more important. If someone's viewing experience is so far in one direction that they didn't consider anything else, all it means is that, wow, they were super invested. Good for them! It doesn't "say a lot about someone." It says nothing.

There's supposedly a trans character in the show, but we're given no canon evidence for that. Most people will never know it. With no canon evidence, you get to have whatever interpretation you want and it's just as "real" and "important" and "powerful" as any other interpretation. That's the beauty of an ambiguous storyline, and also the frustration (depending on your personal point of view).

At the same time, definitely, people need to know when their interpretation is just a headcanon versus confirmed canon. Too many people act like headcanons are canon, or they act like an obvious interpretation is "weird" when really it's their own behavior that's weird. You can "deny" an interpretation in that you simply do not choose to view something that way, but you still have to acknowledge that other interpretations are possible. You also can't ignore the reality of canon.

Clearly these above posts are all for a very specific interpretation, which is super important to them. And that's fine. It's still just one headcanon, it's not a default, and importance is only in the eye of the beholder. Any other headcanon is just as valid and important.

And nothing is canon unless it's explicitly shown.

Or vice versa, everything is canon until proven otherwise. :)

Hot take and not to be a killjoy or the shipping police but people treating Viktor or Jinx's aroace headcanons as if they were canon is not the revolutionary take people think it is.

Headcanons are always all right but we have to acknowledge that they are somehow damaging when they apply to stereotypes. It might not be the case for everyone but most of the time people unconsciously assume that disability/mental illness=asexuality. These headcanons erase the freedom of attraction from people who are already seen as unable to have sexual/romantic experiences/desires, when it's completely untrue and harmful.

You can headcanon Viktor and Jinx as aroace, but I have seen people changing their minds once Viktor is no longer disabled (s2 with all of his other forms) and Jinx is no longer as mentally ill (alternate universe Powder). And it speaks wonders of how people see these characters.

"I never thought about Jinx being able to feel romantic/sexual attraction until s2!" To believe she's actually only capable of that when she's not "damaged" is incredibly disturbing. Especially since Jinx has always had a bit of a flirty personality too.

"I've always seen Viktor as asexual, I don't know why!" That's fine. You can headcanon him as ace. But I believe there is a reason behind it, most of the time, if for some inexplicable reason the "vibes" of the disabled character are making you think he's ace.

I say all of this being aroaspec myself, by the way. Headcanon all you want but going to people's posts commenting how "it's weird for you that they have romantic/sexual plots when they're clearly aroace" is not a win at all. It's a headcanon, after all, and it should be treated as such, and that's fine. But it also is damaging to spread stereotypes like these.

Of course the disabled character is asexual. Of course the mentally ill character is aromantic. It's not as revolutionary as you might think, tbh.

Fandom is not activism and it's all right to have any headcanons you want BUT some of them are filled with damaging stuff and perhaps we should look into ourselves more before treating these assumptions as something canon.

[iyote]

mousefur canon aroace btw ^

[obsessive-bear-walking]

I've never been one to overly police fandom but I will say that I'm actually begging you guys to be considerate of the fact that queer people get nothing we look like the majority sometimes but a lot of it is fetishism of mlm, trans women, internalized misogyny, and misogyny. wlw don't get 1/4 the attention mlm get and aphobia. Ace characters? Canonically sex disinterested ace characters? Too bad you're fucking because someone finds you hot. I know it doesn't seem like that, but it is.

Also, I know how much of fandom is based on projection so a lot of folks are writing for themselves, but please understand this, you need to be considerate of the people who Yelena is actually for as a canon queer character. I see a lot of debates about "If you can make everyone gay why does sexuality matter?" it is different. Fandom has always had a and issue with how it treats queer people when we are sitting right here and I am not asking you to drop and erase every single piece of fan content you've made that erases a character's queerness. I am only asking you to be compassionate. Gonna do one of those stupid apple comparisons. (Sorry) Personally, I'm trans, gay, and demiromantic. I have maybe 10 apples to live off of and some of them rotted, not even remotely editable either because they're too old for most people born after my generation to eat.(as in queers under 25 might have no idea who they are) or because they're predatory or bad representation.

Also, like none of them are aspec. Cis het people? They, each individual, not as a group, have hundreds of thousand ache orchards. (I wont get into race/ethnicity, religion, and disabled/abled here but that makes it even more complicated and I don't think I should be the person to make a post about race)

If I personally took 300 apples from you it would not hurt your apple population at all. There would be 0 change in your apple consumption you wouldn't even notice they were gone. Though straight people love to act like they're losing something and the world is over and "evil queer pandering" when they're faves become queer ... it doesn't actually hurt you, you're just kinda being babies.

Also a lot of my gay apples came with women who hated me, who thought it was strange or gross that I was an actual gay man because how dare a gay man exist outside of their little sexy sinful day dreams? How dare I love men? So sometimes, understandably when we see our stuff being taken and added to the majority it can fucking hurt, our apples are only in the double digits, if that, and some of them are rotted through.

I'm not specifically in the fandom Yelena is from. I don't know a ton about her but when you absolutely flood fandom with content that erases her queerness that hurts the queer people in your spaces, who are actually working hard at building your spaces too. So I'm just saying, be mindful be considerate have an ounce of compassion before you completely flood Yelena's tag to no return with stuff that would hurt the people that she's for and make them feel alienated and like they don't matter. One of my friends fandoms has a queer character who's always shipped outside of their boundaries you finally see a queer character in the sea of nothing and their tag is only full of them with their orientation erased? I've had women in fandom say in their own wrods that they love certain queer ships but always genderbend one because they think queer folks are gross or strange.

That shit hurts. It's just another reminder that we don't belong in fandom, there isn't actually a place for us despite a lot of the content being about us. I don't want any "but ace people can date" discourse on this post I'm just saying be mindful. I also don't wanna hear from people(not even queer ones) whining that fiction isn't reality. That's not what this is about and I am not attacking anyone I am not saying "never write these things"/"Never post these things" I'm just saying to have some thought and consideration. That's all this post is.

[bifaq]

I keep seeing people erase some of my favourite bisexual characters and I really don't know how to deal with it anymore, it just really brings me down and makes me so frustrated. I just don't know what to do, I see other people calling the erasers out but they always get attacked and called homophobic/lesphobic when they're just trying to not be erased anymore. It's just so unfair, do we not deserve our representation anymore? are we just not allowed it? I'm so confused

I’m sorry I’m getting to this so late!

It’s totally justified to get frustrated at people doing this. I think what’s important to remember is that someone headcanoning a character with unspecified orientation, or ambiguous ‘queer’ characters as either bi OR homosexual is equally valid. Even if a character reads bi to you, as long as that’s not confirmed in the source, it isn’t really erasure if someone doesn’t agree with you. The same applies the other way around, though - people shouldn’t go around calling us homophobic for headcanoning characters as bi.

As for people headcanoning canonically bi characters as gay/lesbian/straight, well... 99% of the time they’re just poopieheads. ;-) 

Of course, there may be cases where people write/headcanon a character changing their label really well, and I don’t think that should be off limits if it’s done respectfully. However, many people like to erase bi representation just because of good old-fashioned biphobia. 

I’m afraid I can’t give you the magic recipe to deal with this, but you’re definitely not wrong for calling it out or being upset about it. And if all else fails, we can always be obnoxiously bi to rub it in the face of biphobes: