Hey happy pride month! aroace representation should be treated with respect and a readiness to learn from those who aren’t aroace themselves.
There’s this habit in fandoms that contain aromatic or asexual characters to go “aroace people can still be in relationships and have sex” and then disregard their entire identity. Because yes, obviously we can, but there is more to those actions and intent behind them, and it becomes a wildly different experience for all parties than it would with an allo couple.
It’s annoying as a aroace reader to want to interact with those characters and then constantly be reminded that no one cares about us. It’s always a “right person” or a “learning intimacy” or changing their identity entirely, even when it’s canonical. And it becomes a running joke to me that when an aroace character is close to someone in media, their identity goes completely out the window in the eyes of the fandom. Because to be happy you must be in a romantic and/or sexual relationship, and they’re not allowed to be single.
It’s important to me that people understand this, obviously as an aroace person myself, but also because the perpetuation of acephobia and arophobia spurs from misinformation and misunderstandings. It also doesn’t help allos that we keep putting relationships above everything else, because then no one can be single and happy.
Im also not saying that you can’t ship aroace ppl with anyone else that is not my intent, just be more aware of if you’re accidentally perpetuating homophobia against the aroace community.
Its just stupid ig im posting this at 1am and may very much regret it in the morning
