the best way to love is not at all

are there any aro-spec irritations/reliefs you experience in larger fandoms? do you think when seeing your f/o shipped with others, you respond differently than the average allo might?

Aro-spec irritations: everyone taking the interaction between the Moon and Caine in the finale as “proof” of romance, instead of Gooseworx, the creator and VA of the Moon, telling her character within his canon that she loves him. Like that meta is way more interesting and powerful than Moon loves Caine. Also why do Caine and Pomni have to be romantic. Pomni is Nice™️ to everybody, why is it suddenly Romance when it’s with Caine (or Jax, or Ragatha…). Why do Kinger and Caine have to be romantic. Creator/creation is way more interesting and complex to us, especially in terms of Caine’s god complex.

Aro-spec reliefs: none that we can think of. The fandom is known for its ship wars. Maybe… there’s at least a handful of platonic Caine yume, so not all of the selfshipping content is alloromantic in nature.

Reaction to shipping: yeah, we’re not that big of a fan of it, but we tolerate it. Again, we think there’s way more interesting and complex non-romantic interpretations of character dynamics that just aren’t being explored by anyone within the fandom, in favor of romantic readings. There’s not even character analysis anymore, most of the fan related content being generated is allllll about shipping. Which is frustrating.

if there is a canon/extremely common fanon couple with your f/o, do you interact with it, go out of your way to avoid it, or look especially for it? If it's a canon couple, how does that intergrate into your selfship?

Canon & Fanon: ignore, Bluetooth bothers us way more than Showtime for some reason (probably because Alex supports Bluetooth, and people take that as Word Of God, and that makes it especially annoying because Moon and Caine interact TWICE within the entire series). We at least understand why people ship Caine and Pomni together, but Caine and the Moon just really feels like peak amatonormativity. Like Caine HAS to be with someone, and the Moon declared her love for Caine, so they’re The Couple.

Integration: Since Bluetooth and Showtime end up having very little interaction within the canon, these ships don’t really effect our selfship with Caine in any way, since there’s no content or interaction to siphon from canon to begin with 🥲

is you f/o being aro-spec a common assesment within the fandom? if not, do you wish it was? are there blatent examples of them being aro-spec that the fandom looves skipping over?

F/O aro-spec: a.) fandom reads him as asexual more often than aromantic, but since allos tend to lump the two together, his aromanticism is often implied in this headcanons and b.) it’s not common but it’s not unheard of. There is an interpretation of Caine where his inability to understand humans and their emotions includes romantic (and sexual) attraction and he’s therefore aroace.

Do you wish it was: *shrug emoji* having been in fandoms where canon aro(ace) characters exist, we already know if it was explicitly stated within canon, that allo fans would be using, “bUt ArOs CaN sTiLl Be In ReLaTiOnShIpS” to justify shipping an aromantic character. Like there’s just no escaping the amatonormativity, it’s a nightmare.

Examples: unmmm… not really, not without acting like aromanticism is lumped in with asexuality. We suppose we could say there’s clear examples of Caine being sex repulsed, and in our society, sex and romance are intristinctly linked, and none of his adventures focus on love or romance in any capacity. In fact the only couple we see in Caine’s Adventure is Mildenhall and his dead wife that he killed.

is being in a large fandom while both selfshipping and having an aro-spec f/o alienating? or is it well-respected, or manageble in a smaller circle? have you found someone that also selfships and thinks your f/o is aro?

Alienating: Kinda, yeah. People’s selfshipping is definitely different than ours, and that informs the type of content we can engage with. It also means what little stuff we put out is more niche and doesn’t appeal to other selfshippers.

Other Aros: yeah, there’s others. No one really posts consistently though lol. So we haven’t like formed friendships with other Caine yume or anything like that.

do you like engaging with the larger fandom? or would you prefer my case, where you'd be the sole provider?

We ONLY engage with Caine selfshipping content. And fankids. We don’t understand it either. The fandom is a raging dumpster fire that can only be survived by blocking users and tags, and we keep our blood pressure low by curating our experience and leaving our circle. Caine makes us happy, therefore we ONLY engage with Caine related content 🙂‍↕️ We regularly check the Selfship, Yumeship and x Reader tags, and limit how often we check Caine’s general fandom tag. Since there’s not really analysis or headcanon posts, we mostly engage with fan art.

tojo is a platonic f/o of mine! she's from DRV3, a dutyfull 'maid' who does anything to take care of the people she is in charge of.

she is not explicitly aromantic, but in the game she has basically no other priorities than her job. i think this extreme focus on her work is an avoidant style that brings some relief from the societal pressure to persue romance.

some people dont think of her as being aromantic, because there is an in-game event that mimmicks attraction to the MC. however, this is a dream sequence, and her 'attraction' is highly conditional. having to make up a 100% perfect person before she even starts being attracted to them sure does not sound alloromantic to me...