why is it that when aros get even just a little sliver of representation (which, just so non-aros who might not be paying attention to this stuff know, we have even less media representation than pretty much every other lgbtqa+ group), even just a character who doesnt end up in a romantic relationship or AT BEST explicitly says theyre not interested in romance (and doesnt end up in a relationship anyway), the entire fandom has to demand that theyre gay/bi/etc and then suddenly youre problematic for headcanoning them as aro even though that’s what theyve been (likely unintentionally, but still) coded as? anyways im tired
like….i get that we’re all lacking representation and sometimes the best wlw/mlm have in terms of representation is characters who dont have canon love interests (especially the ones that have a really close best friend). but you have to understand that that kind of coding isn’t /only/ gay coding it’s also aro coding. (that’s why it’s called queercoding because there’s a Lot Of Overlap) we see ourselves in a lot of the same characters as you do and honestly, as an aromantic person who has literally gone through people endlessly insisting that im gay and refusing to hear anything else for an answer, it’s really disheartening when the entire fandom does the same thing to characters i relate to/see myself in and won’t allow me to headcanon them as aro without jumping on my post with “nope theyre gay” at best, along with accusations of homophobia just for looking for myself in a fictional character that isn’t canonically any sexuality.
i’m not saying you can’t have headcanons. i’m just saying that aros and gay ppl see ourselves in a lot of the same characters, but since gay ppl have a larger presence in fandom, potentially aro characters get overwhelmingly interpreted as gay, to the point where people forget it’s not canon, and aros who want to see themselves in the character are labeled “problematic” for “undermining gay representation”. and i’m just saying that that’s not ok
All of this. All of it.
I like to reblog these posts because so often Tumblr gives me all sorts of social-justice-couched reasons why my headcanons are unacceptable, and so often it just feels like folks trying to make it so aro-spec folks don’t exist even in our own fanworks and meta. Given that representation generally begins with fandom, the impact, if not the intent, is one of erasure.
Aro-spec headcanons are so important, and I don’t want anyone following this blog to feel like they’re not allowed to see themselves in the storytelling that moves us.
(Also? Discussing this in terms of queercoding is so important! So seldom do I see the overlap in coding as it impacts a variety of folks under this larger umbrella discussed!)
bottom line is: even if you feel like something is very strongly implied in canon, people can still believe otherwise
yes, the ship that you decided was heavily implied and just taken out because of homophobia is not, in fact, something everybody should see as canon
Fuck JKR 