i think something that is often lost in “aroace people can still date/have sex”/“being aroace is a spectrum” arguments when it comes to shipping aroace characters, and ryland grace specifically, is that, like, yeah! aroace people (and therefore characters) sometimes do want to date/have sex, and aroace experiences do lie on a spectrum. but is that true of this specific aroace character?
grace wasn’t declared aroace by word-of-god, either by andy weir or ryan gosling or anyone else involved in the movie’s production. he’s aroace because he’s portrayed in the novel as a character whose thoughts on sex and romance range from “uninterested” to “active dislike.” he’s aroace because his life and story reject amatonormativity in the same way that many aroace people’s lives do. he’s aroace because, in the film, he feels isolated when he sees people hooking up at a party, and states that he likes to “keep a wall up” in relationships. this is all subtext and coding, but it DOES give us a pretty good idea of whether ryland grace, specifically, would want to date or have sex - and the answer is “probably not”!
so like… yeah, sure. some aroace people do date and/or have sex, but based on the text, grace isn’t one of those aroace people. and sometimes aroace characters are declared to be aroace by writers/artists/performers even when their story does not demonstrate that/provide context by which to intuit how they, specifically, feel about dating or having sex - but grace isn’t one of those aroace characters, either. his existence as an aroace character is a conclusion drawn because he doesn’t really desire sex or romance, and because his happy ending involves neither, just like so many real aroace people. his place on the aroace spectrum, as far as we know, is that he’s fairly averse to both - so it can be disheartening when that element of his characterization is ignored for shipping purposes!
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