The Problem of Radiosilence
Alright, well, I don’t really want to do this, but since I see no one else doing it, I guess I’ll throw myself on the sword.
To begin with, I want to be clear that this isn't about all Radiosilence shippers. Rather, it is about a very specific way Radiosilence is being used in the wider fandom.
Radiosilence, as its own ship separate from Radiostatic, makes no sense from a fandom standpoint. Instead of being used as an interesting sub-dynamic within the Radiostatic umbrella to explore platonic feelings or QPRs, it is often used as a stick by anti-Radiostatic shippers to hit real Radiostatic shippers with. What do I mean by that? Well, let’s first define some terms:
Firstly, what exactly is a ship? A ship, as defined by the shipping wiki, ‘is the desire by fans for two or more people, either real-life celebrities or fictional characters, to be in a relationship, romantic or otherwise.’
Secondly, what exactly is Radiosilence? As defined by the Radiostatic page of the shipping wiki, Radiosilence is the ‘one-sided, unrequited ship … where only Vox is into Alastor.’
So, here in lies the issue. A ship is about wanting two characters in a relationship, platonic or otherwise, while Radiosilence is about unrequited feelings. This seems inherently contradictory.
However! These two ideas CAN coexist! Perhaps you are someone who feels strongly about aroace Alastor, so you are a Radiosilence fan because you want Alastor and Vox to have a strong platonic relationship or even a QPR. That is both a ‘ship’ in that you want a relationship between them of some kind and Radiosilence in that you like Alastor not returning the romantic feelings. That aspect of the Radiosilence ship (and those fans) isn’t the problem, and it is a fun dynamic to explore!
The problem comes in when certain fans claim they are Radiosilence shippers and say things like ‘Alastor hates Vox! He will never care about him!’ or ‘Yes Alastor! You tell that white man to fuck off!’ or any number of other things that imply they don’t want Alastor or Vox to have a relationship of any kind. In any other fandom, these sorts of comments would make you an anti-Radiostatic shipper, and you would stay out of Radiostatic spaces. But, for some reason, in this fandom, this is called being a Radiosilence shipper.
Everyone is allowed to have any opinions they want, of course. You can hate Radiostatic as a ship. I can’t stop you. But what bothers me is that Radiosilence is often used as the only ‘correct’ way to enjoy Radiostatic when, arguably, Radiosilence, as many people use it, *isn’t even really a ship of Radiostatic*!
The clearest example of this was in the recent helluva-shipyard poll for favorite Radiostatic dynamic, where the final round (Radiosilence vs Murdermeida) got flooded with reblogs claiming that Radiosilence is the only correct ship dynamic for them and that Murdermedia is the worst thing ever. I won't quote specific examples here to avoid calling out specific people, but feel free to look at the reblogs yourself if you'd like.
Many of the reblogs are hating on Radiostatic as a ship in general. Their claims range from how Alastor has no feelings for anyone but himself to the fact that Vox is racist. They assert that Radiosilence is the correct dynamic specifically because they don’t want Alastor and Vox to have a relationship in any way, which just… isn’t what shipping should be about!
If you don’t want Alastor and Vox together in any way (whether platonic or romantic) just say so instead of hiding behind the ‘I ship Radiosilence’ shield. Let Radiosilence be for the aroace Alastor fans who want a strong platonic relationship or QPR, and let Radiostatic fans in general enjoy playing with our dolls without having to read takes that are so mean-spirited in our Radiostatic tag.
Signed, A Tired Radiostatic Fan
