#kats corner

draw grace, rocky, and everyone forever

so often as an aspec person i find myself going from not minding a ship to genuinely hating a ship due to its characterization in fandom being so insanely mischaracterizing the characters and making absolutely no goddamn sense in the way they try to make it happen AND ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT its characterization being SO insanely aphobic (despite fandom creators claiming its not but you can be aphobic in what you make and be aspec. maybe like look at source??? and realise the character(s) you are writing are heavily implied if not everything but outright stated to be leaning on the side of no attraction, as well as the fact that the way you represent the ship is allonormative and aphobic in nature and that aspec relationships are more often than not significantly different to how allo relationships are and the standard depiction of a relationship is not applicable here without it reading as "fixing" an aspec (coded) character due to their previous expression of not having interest in relationships nor feeling the need to ever seek them out being a core part of their characterization and story). i genuinely feel like the internalized aphobia some creators might have is bleeding out into their works. either that or some creators just really want any excuse to make basically porn with a story attatched to it of characters who are very much aspec coded (in a core way to their character and story and the ignoring of would be an ignoring of canon plot and story on a similar level of pretending a character defined as trans subtextually in a story about finding yourself and being comfortable within yourself actually isnt trans because you want to have them be in hot yaoi/yuri or homophobic straight relationships and not allow them to be themselves. or in a story about a gay/lesbian/etc person finding themself but forcing them in a relationship with someone of a gender theyre not attracted to) is insane to me. the average fandom, when handed an aspec character, makes aspec people feel like we dont exist, and when we do "oh well b-b-but aspec people can still be in romantic/sexual relationships!!" yeah but its both optional and displayed WILDLY differently (the majority of the time) than what you have going on and you really should dig deeper into that if thats your only justification for shipping aspec characters into relationships that are both mischaracterizing them and antithetical to their story, or at least some core aspect of it.

i dont hate shipping and understand it is a core part of fandom, but shipping shouldnt look the same with aspec characters. not every aspec person wants to be in a relationship, and even for the ones that do, it is most definitely different than the standard allo relationship the majority of the time.

now, i know there are aspec people who have relationships that are in line with allo relationships, i know it can happen and i'm not saying theyre any less valid than any other aspec person, but their representation in fandom is so significantly more than other aspec people who can seek relationships but dont seek allo relationships that it feels like (and probably is) that they are being put on this pedestal of being the "acceptable" and "most normal" and "better" version of other aspec people due to their alignment being more with the standard allo experience, when that is not the case and should not be how any of the aspec people are treated. we are all equally valid and deserve proper representation in both media and fandom, and the fact that aspec people having the option to pursue relationships inherently means to fandom that they should, not can, but should be shipped is an idea that needs to be corrected.

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