He's had enough of this ice cave
Honestly, I think sex repulsed aces have all the right to be mad, annoyed or indifferent to fandom culture.
This place has been so unwelcoming towards us since the beginning. Don't give us lectures about "respect" when fandom culture has been responsible for being so harmful toward aces, including both adult and younger ace sex repulsed people. Even if you want to talk about "well, do your own thing!" guess what, most of sex repulsed aces don't even have the safe place to make their own content, because of "purity culture" acussations and aphobia. Our headcanons and ideas get labelled as "puritanism", "anti sex", anti-shipping", "misogyny" (since most of people think that ship fics = women) and "anti queer", etc. We are subjected to sexual harrassment and people either being creepy or invalidating our identity/trying to coerce us into sexual stuff, including making sexual remarks without consent. We talk about how we wish romance and sexual attraction wasn't the focus, we talk about how certain stories would've better if they weren't focused on romance, and we are suddenly the worst. People can talk in fandom spaces about their experiences as lgbt people, but we have to walk to eggshells everytime. We are treated like nuisance to your dear fandom culture. The only way we can have a proper convivence, apparently, is when we 'overcompensate' with either making sexual jokes or writing smut and basically acting if we weren't sex repulsed in order to not "disturb" the fandom. I know a lot of aces who ended up dealing with compulsory sexuality because of these situations, not only due to fandom but also due to the lack of visibility of asexuality, sex repulsion and the oversaturation of sex and romance in society and media. But of course, not disturbing the precious fandom culture is much important.
Ah, a don't forget the casual and prominent jabs at aces about how we are bad people and how our lack of attraction/interest makes us "less human" and the common guilt tripping / ocd inducing posts everywhere about how we are destroying the culture.
I think the message is clear.
"it was never said that alastor was aromantic" ok but like all of his relationship dynamics are better if he is, so...
Also do you need it to hit you with a brick? Like why are we bragging about media illiteracy in the best case if it’s not just straight up arophobia?
also it’s just upsetting because it’s straight up obvious that people only do this shit because they’re amatonormativity-pilled and because they want to ship alastor (in an allonormative way). It’s sad when I see people do this, cause it’s like bro whether you mean to or not, this kind of mindset is the exact thing that kept me closeted and battling my own internalized arophobia for years.
amatonormativity might just be the death of my sanity i'm so serious.
"Alastor is only ace not aro!" Do these people actually think this dude has any intention to engage in romance? 😭 Bff at this point they're either arophobic or just plain stupid. Media illiteracy is so bad in fandom lately but it also extends to the erasure of Alastor’s aromanticism. Both Vivianne and Amir have said they see Alastor as aro but apparently people won't accept it unless it's spelled word for word to them and even then they're gonna pull an "aro people can still date!" - said about the most romance-repulsed character in the show.
Here’s the thing, too. (And keep in mind that I engage critically with any media I enjoy. I can be a Hazbin fan and rightfully criticize it at the same time. The notion that fans should not hold Viv accountable is honestly ridiculous to me— she has a top-trending show on Amazon Prime. She is a public figure at this point and she is responsible for her own actions and any harmful messages she may encourage, regardless of good intentions.)
Unfortunately, amatonormativity and arophobia is so prevalent in fandom and shipping culture that it would exist to some extent even if Viv handled things better. However, I’d argue that this fandom would be less of a hell for aros if Viv didn’t encourage the “I don’t want to ruin the fun” attitude. I think she has the power to make it better if she does take that responsibility and work to make things better. Even minimal effort things, such as including the aro flag in merch, or saying herself that Alastor is aro— even these tiny things could make a difference. At the end of the day, the intense arophobic and amatonormative attitude we see in this fandom compared to other fandoms cannot be separated from Viv’s actions and choices regarding Alastor’s aromantic representation.
What people are doing— arguing that he’s “only ace not confirmed aro” is just them taking the queerbait already laid out. They are reproducing the amatonormativity and arophobia Viv herself has perpetuated regardless of good intentions. If Viv was open and honest about Alastor’s aromanticism and did not dangle that representation over our heads by implying it but discarding it whenever it’s most convenient, then fans would not feel as empowered to be openly arophobic, to treat aromantic people and aromanticism as something to be used and discarded whenever convenient.
Honestly, in terms of media illiteracy, the bigger problem I have is that people lack the media literacy to engage critically with the media they enjoy. There’s this attitude that creators and a show can do no wrong and therefore everything has to be justified and any criticism needs to be shut down. Fandom culture does not help— while I definitely agree with “ship and let ship” etiquette, fans take that and run with it, to the point where nobody is ever allowed to engage critically with culture and media or ask questions about choices because you don’t want to “ruin people’s fun” — aka, be the friend that’s too woke, or be the feminist killjoy.
“Ship and let ship” is talking about anti-harassment and the absurdity of attacking someone because you ship x with y and they ship x with z. “Ship and let ship” doesn’t mean that we’re absolved of ever being asked to question and engage critically with the choices we make.
“It’s not a big deal shipping isn’t real,” well, you cannot have it both ways. Fandom, Ao3, art, and media cannot be this powerful, queer, anti-censorship, culture-changing force we purport it is while also being “not real” and therefore not significant enough to talk about. We spend a good deal of time engaging in fandom, and like it or not, our reproduction of cultural attitudes does not stop in fandom.
Nobody is saying that you can’t do and ship what you want. But what we are saying is that it’s not insane to ask you to think more about your choices as something not innate but instead a product of socialization. Our attitudes are something socially reproduced. Ultimately, shipping is really about the enjoyment of seeing different dynamics between characters we enjoy. Why is it that we immediately feel like those character dynamics have to be (or would be ideal as) something romantically and sexually allonormative to be interesting, to be something deep and significant and meaningful? Those are the questions we should be asking ourselves, that I’m asking myself and I encourage others to as well. Fandom culture is not immune from questioning, and for the last time, nobody is taking away your romance. Instead, we want to broaden the conversation and culture so that we all can have fun, not just a certain section of people.
The rapist ring leader villain downfall being at the hand of the touch repulsed asexual man he was rejected by and constantly harrassing , thats karma. Good stuff
“Why is Alastor calling him sweetheart” because he is a man from the deep south and terms of endearment are often used condescendingly here. “Bless your heart” is a classic all-purpose K.O. He’s not fond of Vox, he’s making fun of him in a way that Vox’s northern ass wouldn’t understand.
Fun fact: both the official spanish subtitles have Rosie outright saying "I know you're asexual".
just went through the other subtitles, and both the swedish, german, danish, and turkish subtitles have her saying "I know you're asexual" as well
and while the norwegian subtitles don't explicitly say "asexual", they do translate to "I know [romance] is not your thing"
god it’s so sad living in an allocentric world. There are so many relationships that are so complex and nuanced that are all put under the label of ‘romantic’ and immediately all the intrigue is taken from it. Like don’t you realize that these relations are actually ENHANCED by the fact that they are not romantic or sexual?
NOOO DONT PUT THE CHARACTERS IN A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP YOURE TAKING OFF THE SEASONING!!!!
"I would do anything for you; I would cross worlds for you; I would kill for you; I would die for you" etc in fictional romance= tired and expected
from a boss to their employee= what the fuck is happening there
alastor kissing the people he loves but it's always in non-romantic contexts, send post
still thinking about how someone told me i was “erasing aroace rep” & “speaking over the aroace community” for pointing out how alastor is shown to be romance/sex repulsed and that i, personally, find it uncomfortable to see him shipped with people while disregarding his identity.
i’m just. ????????? huh
Like, sure aroaces can date and have sex but Alastor doesn’t seem to be one of them
ONLY 14 DAYS LEFT AND ONLY 58 BACKERS!! PLEASE SHARE SO THEY CAN REACH THEIR GOAL BEFORE THE DEADLINE!!
I WANT ONE SO BADDD UGGHH
↳ campfire aranea
whenever my mutuals are being silly and posting a lot im like fuck yessss love and peace on mother earth lets seriously just let our hair down. but whenever i'm being silly and posting a lot i'm like. they're gonna hunt me for sport i know it
I think sex repulsed aces should be able to openly embrace their indentity, their "culture" and to be openly happy being themselves without having to say for the 627291 time things like "but it's okay if other people enjoy sexual stuff!" so people don't harrass them, or accuse them of being "puritans".
