Time to read: 6 minutes
No one needs a reason to write aro/ace characters in their fanfic, but many participants do. Their reasonings are often a combination of factors: canonicity, fandom, audience, and personal experience.
Canonicity
A writer’s ability to write an aro/ace character changes depending on the canon sexuality of that character. Canonically aro/ace characters exist but are not easy to find. Therefore, writers might use subtext to justify their aro/ace interpretations. When a character is aro/ace-coded, the portrayal is often based on stereotypes. And without an explicit commitment to making the character aro/ace, the resulting ambiguity creates a long list of characters that behave as if they are aro/ace even if they are not labeled as such by themselves, other characters, or the creators of that media. Because they are systematically excluded from media, participants write aro/ace characters into existence through fanfiction.
Fandom
Fanfiction overall is favorable toward shipping. Just like aro/ace characters are excluded in canon, they are also excluded in fandom interpretations. Some participants write aro/ace fanfic specifically to counter this focus on sex and romance. Even so, fanfiction outside of shipping culture is less popular and can even be met with criticism. Some participants noted backlash for writing characters as aro/ace when it disagrees with what the rest of the fandom has decided.
Audience
The participants do not only write for themselves. Many also write for their friends, loyal readers, or requests such as writing challenges, prompts, and gift exchanges. The desire to write aro/ace characters changes with each group; a personal project will be more intentional while a fanfic to fulfill a request during a gift exchange may only include an aro/ace character as a requirement rather than genuine desire on the writer’s behalf.
Personal Experience
Perhaps the most salient of motivations is that of the participant’s own connections to aromanticism and asexuality. Nearly 90% of the participants are aro/ace; and since fanfiction is often a space for identity exploration, the fics being written tend to come from a place within their own journeys. Those early in their journeys to acceptance of their aro/ace identities have written fanfic in which their characters are also figuring out their identities. Those further in their journeys have written fanfic in which the character is less concerned with exploring their identity. Their fics focus on characters getting to exist without their aromanticism/asexuality being a point of contention or struggle in their daily lives.
Participants would use their characters to work through their own issues related to the social conditions that make aromanticism and asexuality so distant from what society perceives as fulfilling. Where participants face stigmas and stereotypes, so do their characters. Although their characters can receive a happy ending that the writers are not guaranteed. This turn toward queer futurity where media and society fail them is mimicked in discussions of queerbaiting (McDermott, 2021). In a world where being both queer and happy is extremely difficult, writing characters that get past the bad times and have happy futures is a motivation for many participants.
Intent
These motivations may overlap in various ways; e.g., a writer might write for themselves but choose to publish on AO3 for others that might relate. Here I distinguish between active and passive intent. There is an active intent to write aro/ace characters when the writer is choosing to do so to fulfill some goal. There is passive intent the writer does not necessarily make a conscious effort to write aro/ace characters, or also when it may not be their choice.
Writing for Yourself
I actively/intentionally write aro/ace characters…
- To see myself and my identity represented
- To vicariously project- to use a character as proxy for experiences I don’t want to experience myself (e.g., a sex-repulsed ace person that writes about characters having sex)
- To work through trauma and confrontations with aphobia
- To organize my thoughts and help myself figure out my romantic and sexual orientations
I passively/unintentionally write aro/ace characters…
- Because as an aro/ace person, my writing is automatically (subconsciously) filtered through my aro/ace point-of-view and so my characters just are aro/ace without me necessarily intending to write them that way.
Writing With the Intent to Share With Others
I actively/intentionally write aro/ace characters…
- To give representation to other people (e.g., allo people writing aro/ace fic)
- To create space
- Within shipping culture where aro/ace characters are excluded
- In fanfiction where aromanticism and asexuality are excluded in media
- For other identities and experiences across the aro/ace spectrums (e.g., writing aroallo characters when other characters are aroace)
- Creating space is done with the mindset of “no one else has done it so I will”
- To educate others
- On aromanticism, asexuality, and their complexities
- On how aro/ace characters “should” be written (e.g., one writer might disagree with how an ace character is still put into sexual relationships in others’ fanfic, so they will write their own to “fix” this)
- Because I view queerness as political and as a writer, I must be purposeful in how I write my characters’ sexualities
- Educating others is done with the mindset of repairing a gap or righting a wrong
I passively/unintentionally write aro/ace characters…
- Not because I wanted to, but because someone else wanted me to. I wrote it for a friend or as a gift for prompts, exchanges, challenges, etc. and this is why I wrote the character as aro/ace rather than me wanting them to be aro/ace.
Writing With No Intent
There are also times where participants write aro/ace characters without any justification further than pure interest and enjoyment. Sometimes, writing an aro/ace is not about some grand scheme for aro/ace inclusion; when a character is canonical aro/ace, a writer must simply choose to write them that way. Other times, it’s the thrill of figuring out how to write a character as aro/ace when they are not aro/ace in canon. It is the puzzle of finding aro/ace subtext and fitting their version of the character with the canon version that is the participants true motivation for writing. In this way, the writer doesn’t really intend to do anything other than have fun.
As mentioned, these motivations and intentions can overlap. And no writer is obligated to write from the same position each time; they can write multiple aro/ace characters for a variety of reasons. Because of this, it is difficult to say that aro/ace fanfiction serves any one purpose or is written by/for any particular group of people.
Aromanticism & Asexuality in Fanfiction Writing 