#raphaelrepresents

Chapter 3/3: Would you ever have sex? [Shadowhunters; S2B AU; Raphael & Izzy]

Sex neutral/repulsed!/aroace!Raphael talks about relationships with Izzy.

It’s Easy to Not Talk about a Lack [Shadowhunters 2x9 Bound by Blood; aroace Raphael Santiago & Magnus Bane; not R*zzy friendly]

Because there was no aromantic characters on my TV, and I barely new much of the identity I experienced so much internalised arophobia. I was like “no I can’t be aro, I can’t be like this,” I even went through the phase of “I have to be at least arospec because that makes me more “normal”” hence why i’ve gone a few arospec identities before accepting myself as aro.

I know there’s a lot of characters on TV that don’t show that much importance with romantic relationships but somewhere down the road they’ll get one, their “endgame” will be either them “finally” in a romantic relationship, or married with kids (in most circumstances). And that really affected the way I accepted myself being aro. I saw characters that I loved, maybe identified with a little on the aro side without realising it (even tho they weren’t canonically aro so it’s mostly my fault here) end up in a romantic relationship. I saw platonic friendships shown as lesser than romantic ones. And it left me feeling broken, and not wanting to be aro, I wanted to be “fixed”.

So the fact these shows are openly erasing both R@phael’s & Jughe@d’s aromantic identity really infuriates me for this reason. 👏 why 👏 is 👏 straightwashing 👏 only 👏 okay 👏 when 👏 it 👏 comes 👏 to 👏 aro/ace/aroace 👏 characters 👏 

When you headcanon these types of characters as aro and you aren’t aro yourself it’s really telling on how you view aro people in general. Maybe you don’t mean it in a bad way but when we are constantly stereotyped and dehumanised we don’t know how else to see it.

“Everyone has a right to ship whatever it wants” yes that’s right until it comes to erasing someone’s identity.

And by taking a character who has been described as “aromantic” or “asexual” and saying something like “but we don’t know where on the arospec or acespec [character] falls” to 99% of the time defend shipping is very dehumanising to asexuals who feel no sexual attraction, or aromantics who feel no romantic attraction. Non aro/ace people don’t get to decide that an aroace character is suddenly arospec or acespec because they seem “more human” or “more relatable”. 

Most, I say most, authors/writers WILL tell you if they are asexual or acespec and/or aromantic or arospec If a character is confirmed as an aromantic asexual they are aroace If a character is confirmed demisexual they are demisexual If a character is confirmed asexual they are asexual If a character is confirmed aromantic they are aromantic etc. etc. etc.

You cannot change an aroace character’s identity to arospec or acespec to cater to your shipping “needs”. The same goes for erasing the aro part in aroace, or the ace part in aroace. DON’T DO IT.