Q&A: “what’s the deal with the fact that lesbian folks get mad if you headcanon characters as ace?”

titanium-star-bisexual said:

hey vesper? sorry to bother you with this again, especially when we kinda already spoke on it, but now people have started getting offended and attacking me for my head canons in my inbox. i wanted to ask if you knew what the deal is with the fact that lesbian folks get mad if you headcanon characters as ace? i thought a person could be both at the same time? ? im just not sure what to do because they are really getting angry. any pointers?

hi. 🙂 you’re never a bother, so no worries.

but aahhh, i feel like i’m the wrong person to be giving any kind of pointers on how to deal with fandom backlash. i do not involve myself in any kind of fandom, largely in part because i do not want to deal with this kinda stuff. as such, i have zero experience dealing with this kind of backlash…

i do want to point out, though, that backlash like this isn’t specific to lesbians responding negatively to characters being headcanoned as ace. this kind of hate gets thrown in every possible direction by any and everyone, including by aces– a perfect example of which is the response of some aces while jumping on the #LeaveElsaAlone bandwagon. so painful. much ugh.

a person (or character) can most certainly be ace and a lesbian at the same time. not everyone is aware of this, including people in both the lesbian and the ace communities. as such, i’m sadly not surprised that you may have people from either or both communities telling you that you’re wrong. you could try to explain to them how it’s possible to be both ace and a lesbian, but you certainly do not have to. you could link them to someone else’s explanation, ignore them– do whatever it is you feel like you want to do.

them understanding is not your responsibility. they should be able to at least respect you and your personal headcanon regardless.

…and yet it seems as if they can’t. it’s ridiculous and even rather frightening at times, the ownership and / or self-proclaimed expertise that some fans feel they have over a character. it’s equally ridiculous that people feel like someone headcanoning a character one way somehow detracts from their own headcanon or from the awesomeness of the character themself.

[mumbling] back in The Golden Days Sans Internet™, prior to the word “headcanon,” we’d play with our action figures, dolls, books etc and headcanon characters however the hell we wanted. with the internet today, it’s basically like someone bursting through the door of your bedroom (blog/Twitter/whatever) yelling at you “WTF YOU CAN’T DO THAT, THEY’RE NOT BLEHBLEHBLEH” and you just sitting there staring up at them, your eyes glazed over like “….wtf are you in my room???” sure, there’d be that obnoxious kid at school who saw you doing your thing and who would give you their opinion without you asking for it, but ugh. it feels like people are so much more emboldened by the internet these days. ridiculous. meh. [/mumbling]

tl;dr: if it were me, i might respond to perhaps two or three of them, depending on how i’m feeling and the tone + contents of the messages, but i would by no means feel obligated to respond to any of them. respond to them or delete them (with or without reading them), it’s your call. just don’t take whatever they say personally.

and please, please, please, if you do respond, do not make it into a “lesbians vs aces” thing. even if that’s what they’re doing, please do not go there with them.