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mirrorofliterature · 2 years

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respect characters lack of attraction as much as you respect their same gender attraction

I am so tired of people fiercely defending a character’s gayness and simultaneously ignoring and retconning another character’s a-specness.

it’s not people fiercely protecting canonically gay characters that bothers me, such as alec lightwood and thomas barrow. I like to see that.

but the double standards are absolutely exhausting.

jughead jones is aro-ace, but if you watched the tv series you wouldn’t know that. the tv series completely erased his sexuality. if it had been his gayness that was erased, there would have been outrage, boycotts. his aro-aceness? merely a footnote.

I’ve watched both of rowan ellis’ videos on asexuality representation and it’s honestly heartbreaking: here covering the timeline, where raphael santiago appears halfway through in 2017 (it’s one scene, and whilst the fandom has gotten miles better, I have seen so much fan content that ignores or outright changes his asexuality, source: long-time shadowhunters fan), & here covering the issues with asexual representation. the representation for a-spec people is thin and largely absent. how does one prove a negative? people will always speak over it. this character shows a clear and absolute disinterest in everyone. well, they just haven’t found the right person yet!

I’m tired of people fighting over characters and saying that the only right way for them to be queer is to be attracted to the same gender, of gay headcanons being prioritised over a-spec ones. I’m tired of people ignoring the inherent queerness of being a-spec.

I am tired of people conflating asexuality and aromanticism. they are two completely separate things that may co-exist but may not. a character says they don’t want to date and people call them ace? not wanting to date relates to being aro. not experiencing sexual attraction makes someone ace. I see reyna talk about not wanting to date. she’s called ace by riordan. are words meaningless?

I find aphobia an incredibly exhausting and invisible force that permeates our society and our media. it is so pervasive, so silent and insidious. aphobes are not welcome here. all people under the a-spec umbrella are valid. their identities should be respected.

but when not even fictional characters are given an ounce of respect, my heart breaks.

#asexuality #aromanticism #aphobia #fandom problems #to call it wanks would be to dilute the issue #queer #on allowing a-spec characters to exist

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aceofwhump · 3 years

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Hi Ace! One of my OCs is a AroAce character- I was wondering if you have any tips on how to write them. As a member of the LGBT community, I don't wanna offend the AroAce community. Thanks! <3

Hi nonny! First of all I love that you're writing an aroace character!!! That's awesome!! There are so few of them in media we need all the rep we can get! You're awesome! And secondly, thank you for asking! This is an excellent question and thank you for being considerate and asking it.

Disclaimer: all aroaces are different and our experiences are all different. These things are just my opinion and are based on my own experiences as an aroace.

I highly encourage any other aroace reading this to chime in with their own thoughts and feelings on the matter because the more voices the better!

Under a readmore for length:

The first thing I wanna talk about is bad representation we currently have in the ace/aro/aroace community and why it is bad and then showing you good representation and why it is good.

Now aroaces hardly have any representation AT ALL so any rep is welcome. Most of the ace/aro rep we do have is either terrible or not even canon confirmed. That said, there are good ways of representing asexuality and aromanticism and there are bad ways.

Bad rep we currently have includes characters like Sheldon Cooper, Sherlock from the BBC series, House M.D., Riverdale's Jughead Jones, and Shadowhunters Raphael Santiago.

These are bad for the following reason:

Sheldon and Sherlock are both implied to be unfeeling, rude, and not human. They are constantly made fun of and are being told they are weird or inhuman simply because they don't have sex or date.

House falls under the "asexuality is a disease that can be cured or fixed" trope. Do not fall into this trope!!! I think House says, and I quote, "the only people who don’t want [sex] are either sick, dead, or lying.” DON'T DO THIS!

Sometimes characters spend the show/movie having their sexuality questioned and then they have sex or date and suddenly they're "normal"! This happened with Sheldon who started dating Amy and they had sex and the show was like "see look at how normal they are now! regular couple! see they wanted to have sex the whole time!" Fuck that.

Shadowhunters was great at making Raphael asexual but they erased his aromanticism and then never mentioned or brought up his sexuality ever again.

Both the creators of Riverdale and BBC Sherlock have said that asexuality is boring to write for. Pisses me off. Now I'm going to be brief about Riverdale here for a moment even though I can spend days ranting about how much this show pisses me off. Jughead Jones is asexual aromantic and Riverdale went "Nah that's boring. We changed it. Now he's neither." I think the quote he said was "“there are fresher ways to tell [the] story.” Don't do this.

I'm adding one more point here. A lot of times the aromantic characters are the evil ones. Implying that aromantics are evil because we "don't feel love". (i mean half of why Voldemort is evil is because he doesn't feel love. thank JKR)

On the flip side, some good ace/aro rep (not necessarily aroace) includes Todd Chavez (ace but not aro), Voodoo from Sirens (ace but not aro), and Jughead Jones (not the god awful Riverdale Jughead. I'm talking about he comics Juggy who is aroace and awesome)

All these characters talk openly about their sexuality, don't "change their minds", are given full and interesting plots, aren't forced into sex or relationships, and don't fall under terrible tropes. They are good characters to look at for good rep. They aren't perfect (none of them are perfect representation) but for the rep we do have these are the best in my opinion.

The other way I wanted to answer this is by talking about a few reminders of things to think about while writing.

Remember that AroAces are:

Capable of feeling love. we are not robots. we feel love and are capable of expressing love. we love our friends, our family, our partners, etc.

Try and avoid the "aromantic/asexual/aroace character is an unfeeling robot or an alien" trope. It implies we're inhuman, incapable of feelings. That's not true at all.

Both asexuality and aromanticism are spectrums. we all experience things differently. Some aces are cool with having sex, some aren't. Some aros are in a relationship or want to be in one, some don't want anything to do with it. We're all different.

Asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction

Aromanticism is a lack of romantic attraction

know and understand the definitions. this is the only "requirement". There are other identities that fall under the Ace and Aro umbrellas and it might benefit you to explores those as well. Like demi and grey asexual/aromantic.

Our reasons for having sex or entering into a romantic relationship can be different from Allo's but that doesn't mean they aren't just as valid.

Speaking for myself, I as an aroace place a higher priority on my friendships and family because of my lack of sexual and romantic attraction.

Okay this got sooo long. I'll end it there.

Take some time and really explore your character. Ask yourself where do they fall in the spectrum of AroAce? How do they feel about sex and romance? Do you plan on saying in text the words "asexual aromantic" or are you leaning towards impying it? If you're going to imply it (which is fine) make sure it's obvious and think about how you're going to show their aroaceness. Familiarize yourself with the definitions of asexuality and aromanticism. They are separate identities even if we just call ourselves aroace. They each come with different things so take some time to look into that.

If you run into any problems and have any questions about asexuality, aromanticism, or what it's like being aroace please come on back and ask! I am happy to talk about whatever in order to help!

#mod replies #mod post #ask #anon #not whump #asexuality #aromantic #aroace #writing aroace characters #writing #writing advice

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wildflowerswildhorses · 6 years

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marking-stars replied to your post “PSA”

I personally don’t ship him with anyone. But you can still be ace and be in a relationship with someone??? And before people jump down my throat I’m ace and have been in relationships with people as well as had sex with some of them - but that doesn’t erase my asexuality. As long as they remember and respect that he’s ace what’s the problem???

Raphael Santiago is Aromantic, asexual AND romance REPULSED. Being ace is not the same thing as being aro. And yeah different people are difference because it is a spectrum and you can fall anywhere on it. But Raphael doesn’t experience romantic or sexual attraction and he DOES NOT WANT a relationship. And by shipping him with people you are erasing and invalidating that. And that my friend is pretty harmful.

Now I’m not the person to actually be speaking on that and there are plenty of others who actually identity the same as Raphael that you can find out there who are rightly offended by what shadowhunters and the fandom does. It is harmful to them.

For existence go check out this tag by @jamescarstairs. I mean yeah it’s about Jughead Jones and what Riverdale did to him and his sexuality. But the same principal applies and they’re actually ace and aro and their opinion is more valid than mine

#marking-stars #replies

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