#yes aroace people can be in a relationship

[randompolykin]

sexuality:

child who doesnt know labels exist thinks "i hope i fall in love with a girl"

is an idiot who doesnt relize its gay until a freaking mobile game tells them!!!

descovers the term lesbian

questions being bi or omni etc,

looks for gender neutral labels when realised its nonbinary

neptunic!!!

or am i omni??? or noma?

nah

neptunic

(also some other time later this happened again idk where exactly in the timeline tho but it happened agian)

oh hey i might be aceflux- im aegosexual!!!!-cupio?-nah ageo no cupio, no aego-wait im just ace, no im-okay i was right the first time im aceflux.

realised i might be frayromantic-no im not-yes i am-how can i know? maybe i havent met the right person yet yah im fray-but WAT IF IM WRONG?!?! nah bro ur type is litearlly girls you dont know lmao.

but what about all those times we imagined falling in love and dating? -those were either cardboard shells with pretty faces and laughs, or imaging being in a qpr actually,

so we cant...fall...in love? -nope but we can form strong platonic bonds and be in queerplatonic relationships!

GETS HIT WITH THE APLATONIC WRECKINGBALL

...what happened. i thought i figured it out?

um...now what?

okay so alterous attraction. yeah alterous attraction. that solves that.

"gay Freddy Fazbear *appears in my head setting off the domino affect of being fictional gay men somehow?"

where this is right now: to simplify things i say i'm neptunic aceflux and frayromatic, which is true, but im also some sort of multisexuality that can like all genders, completly aroace, a gay man, a lesbian who doesnt care to think to hard about other labels, polyamorous, cupio, gray, and someother stuff probably too. why? well because their are people living in my head who are also me but also not (just me) so basically i'm mulitble sexualities inside of multible sexualities. oh, i also forgot to mention im objectum.

aka my "sexuality" is a mess.

LGBTQ+ folk what was your gender/sexuality pipeline?

[agentoffangirling]

I think there would be world peace if people could stop shipping aroace characters

[triangular-static]

look i understand if people just don't like the idea of billford, i think we have a different internal concept of what shipping means (they're not good for each other at all but i need to dissect their dynamic like a bug. you understand. it's fun) but it's fine to avoid things you don't like, good for you genuinely

however people saying they like. don't see it. like. i'm not saying there's no platonic way to read it, i'm aroace spec myself i'm all for reading things in different ways. but i do think saying they weren't partners in any queer sense at all is trying too hard to go against what the narrative is trying to say, or missing it. somehow

anyway media literacy time if a character makes a joke like this

and the previous context of that joke within the show is that it's about an ex wife. what connection do you think the text is trying to get you to make.

and that's just from a writing point of view. not even noting that from an in universe perspective ford likely knows the joke from the same source as stan. and is therefore. placing himself in that role of the joke are you seeing where i'm coming from

(not to mention bill's side of this text which is. extremely manipulative but also does not read very platonic. again, it can technically be read as platonic! bill literally can manipulate ford's feelings. but the specific wording used is very much meant to look like possessive ex partner wording whether the character means it that way or not. it's coding. look again i'm not saying it was good for them i'm just saying there was something there.)

and then there's also the divorce/break up/rock bottom input on the website. like. how else is that supposed to be read. and the corresponding page in the book itself.

the language being used here. like yes he's saying it in a joking way but then there's the other side that isn't joking which is him crying at the bar. it's the both sides (the very coded language on top of the very genuine emotions and dynamic beneath)

i know most of us are on the same page with this i've just seen a couple people saying they don't see it when this is some of the most clear cut coding i've ever seen. and these are just the things that explicitly reference a relationship off the top of my head i'm not even including the general vibes of Everything

tl;dr it's barely even subtext anymore it's all but straight up text. what's not clicking have we forgotten what coding is (lighthearted i just enjoy the phrase what's not clicking. what's not clicking)

[lilyrosegold]

To those who counter any general discomfort people have with aro and/or ace characters being shipped romantically or sexually with “but aro and aces can still date/have sex/be in relationships”- that’s is true but, do you actually care about the complexities and nuance of navigating romance and/or sex as someone who falls on the aroace spectrum or are you just looking for an easy way to not get hate for blatantly ignoring a character’s identity in favor of your shipping?

[zaebeecee]

Aroace individual: [writes a fanfic with a ship that includes a canonically aroace character, using their own experience to explore different avenues of how aroace relationships function]

Some allosexual, bursting through the wall and knocking over the potted plants: Oh so you’re aphobic? You’re ignoring that this character is ace by having them *** nasty style? You’re making them *** with their *** *** and *** in a *** for *** *** to ***?? Bending over with *** in their *** until *** *** *** and *** *** *** ***?!?

Aroace individual: they’re queerplatonic here actually

Some allosexual, now tracking potted plant soil all over the living room: BUT IT SAYS SHIP RIGHT THERE, HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY BE A SHIP IF THEY AREN’T CONSTANTLY BANGING

Aroace individual: why are you in my house

[paging-possum]

Like I don’t want to sound like a Little Hater™️ ESPECIALLY about something that is definitely useful and beneficial to people especially other queer people. But if I pick up a book and they have a scene where two characters basically start dictionary definitioning identity labels at each other in casual conversation I am returning the book immediately. My biggest pet peeve that is not actually a problem it just gets on my nerves

[kiwisandpearls]

the statements “platonic relationships should not be undervalued” and “it’s ok to ship wlw ships and mlm ships even if the characters involved have no canonical romantic interest in each other” are not mutual exclusive.

[caramel-cream50]

Controversial opinion but I find it weird as fuck that the character that seems to be shipped the most in the hazbin Hotel fandom is aroace..

[number1villainstan]

"do you ship them as friends or do you ship them romantically" i ship them as It's Fucking Complicated

[unagrancantidaddepanes]

"allo people ship aroace characters in QPRs as an excuse for aroace erasure by still shipping them with other characters" is the most mind numbing take ive ever heard in my life. I cant believe I have to say that respecting aroace identities isnt aphobic 💀

[infizero]

i think interpreting dynamics that dont have any canon basis to be familial as familial is totally fine but a) you cannot act like this is canon fact and, in tandem with that, b) you cannot attack people for interpreting it differently. believe me i am all for killing people who sexualize ACTUAL familial/familial-coded dynamics with knives but you have got to understand that just bcuz these two characters are friends does not mean they are siblings and it does not mean you get to get mad at others when they inevitably ship them

[judas-not-that-one]

“this is the least stressful weekend i’ve had in two years. and it’s not hard to find what’s different. the absence of family. the addition of him”

“the addition of him” she says

god i love her. and i really really look forward to seeing what else happens with this

[vamptwinklover]

as someone on the aroace spectrum i dont give a damn if you write smut about aroace characters

[wildshadowtamer]

“i hc this character as asexual, bc of that i cant give them a romantic partner” “i hc this other character as aromantic, so they cant have bio kids” 

no! thats the wrong way around! ace and aro are two seperate identities, aroace is both of them, you are looking for the word aroace. asexuals can have romantic partners, aromantics can have children and sex. also asexuals can have bio kids too we’re not incapable of having sex we just dont have the drive for it. please god research identities you are not apart of before you put them on a character i beg of you.

[stillgeekingout]

#it's very strange #because i often feel like the culmination of those characters arcs #like if the point is they're ace great but like... #the option of lesbianism just *never* occurs #which--and again not to discredit any ace people or ace readings of her work--is such a common lesbian experience! #like myself and a bunch of other lesbians i know had that journey #of going 'hmm i don't like men... guess I'm asexual! (do not ask me about women i will combust)' #like lady bird... whatever #little women... alright i suppose if you wanted to make a comentary on how lma was forced to add the heterosexual romance at the end #and not suggest anything about a real person and also not deviate from the source material #but barbie was insane #the coding was next level #like c'mon birkenstocks??? #and i argue that barbies acceptance of genitalia could be read as an acceptance of sexuality or the very least exploring it #so why isn't she a dyke??? (other than mattel probably giving a hard no on that)

I don’t know, the thing that really bothers me about Greta Gerwig’s films is that there is just this gaping hole where gay women should be. Like, when you’re making these movies about the trap of heterosexual marriage, breaking free of that, and the only concrete answer is to be a single woman over and over and over again, it feels like an intentional absence. You can watch the movie with a queer lens, but it is egregious that you may only consider homosexuality in her movies in this way. It ought to be in them. There is no reason for it not to be there. Women don’t fuck women in Greta Gerwig’s feminist liberations. Often, they don’t have sex at all.

[bitchliteraria1906]

Listen, I'm a shipper. Shipping is fun. Exploring relationships between the silly characters I like is fun, and to me, that includes shipping.

HOWEVER, as an aroace person who started valuing both my friendships and my ability to be alone without feeling like shit even more as I learnt about amatonormativity, I just need to say:

Can we please stop throwing around phrases like "There's no platonic explanation for this" or "They're too close, they can't be just friends" when talking about ships we like and analyzing the reasons why we think they should have been canon?

Can we please stop acting as if romance is some sort of "end goal" and that if two characters who have some form of chemistry don't get in a canon romantic relationship, then their potential was wasted?

Can we stop assuming that characters who end up single will automatically feel alone and miserable?

Like, can we stop normalizing amatonormativity in fandoms? I know it's difficult because those phrases and thought processes are very normalized, but can we try?

Also, some people will find this controversial, but yes, this includes not screaming "Are you homophobic???" At anyone who doesn't like a popular, implied or even canon queer ship. Yes, some people who don't like the ship will be homophobic, but some of us really just want more representation of single main characters who actually stay single, as well as representation of qprs, strong platonic bonds, people who live well by themselves/in solitude and so much other stuff that we often don’t get due to the world kind of being obsessed with romance (and sex tbh, but that's not the point of this post).