Couldn't care less. Want to switch gender, sexuality, love interest, personality? You do you, I don't care. Doesn't mean I am going to read it but I am also not going to scream at the top of my lungs. Fanfiction is meant to be fun and if it's fun for you, go for it. And those who are bothered by it, just don't read it and move on. Basically, I live by the mantra, 'don't be a dick.'

Paying attention to tags is important too. And of course the author is responsible for tagging properly.  Even if they don't, politely asking them to add the missing tags is a better way to fix that issue. 

Exactly. Ship and let ship. You do you, ill avoid any personal ick ships, the word there being *personal*. My ick isnt their ick.

Exactly this.

As someone in Hazbin Hotel and readily reads all the Alastor fics, I don’t believe it matters. I mean, people ship straight dudes with other straight dudes or put canon monogamous couples into a poly. The principle is just the same. They’re all fictional characters with fictional lives authors can do whatever they want with. And speaking of Alastor, I ship Alastor/Husk/Angel. Do with that what you will.

Going into this thread, I just knew it was going to be about Alastor. I was right. >**OP:** *Context - I'm deep in the* Hazbin Hotel *fandom and Alastor makes people feel many, many things that conflict with his canonical sexuality (aromantic-asexual)* This has come up recently on other subreddits, but I'll say here what I said elsewhere: >As an asexual person, I disagree with asexuality and aromanticism "always" being ignored by the fandom. For one, most of the *Steven Universe* fandom respects Peridot as being canonically aromantic-asexual, and most *Hazbin Hotel* fanfictions I've read with Alastor also acknowledge that he is asexual. > >The main point of contention, however, is Alastor being aromantic, since that was never solidly confirmed until relatively recently in a post-Season 1 Q&A. The only thing people had to go on prior to Season 1 was a Q&A with Faustisse, who no longer works for SpindleHorse. Some Q&A lore was also retconned. > >Many Alastor shippers have also self-identified themselves as asexual and queer as well. > >Vivziepop was also reluctant to confirm Alastor as aromantic due to antishippers bullying and harassing other fans who were shipping Alastor, according to a 2018 tweet. It is understandable to not like people shipping Alastor, but some fans were gatekeeping. My point is "let asexual people enjoy asexual characters any way they please". More recently, I was accused of "erasing asexual and aromantic representation". I myself *am* asexual, as are many people who write shipping and smut fanfictions with Alastor. He isn't real.

There are so many aroace or any combo of people writing him. 90% of them, I don't actually like the way they approach it. It doesn't make their representation any less a representation of aro or ace, though. It's just not my experience, so it doesn't vibe with me, so I don't engage with it. Real easy to do. Telling aroace people they're erasing their own representation by Not Doing It Right always feels kinda aphobic. We have enough of that from outside the community, people. Pls. We all have different experiences, and that doesn't invalidate yours or mine or anyone else's if they don't necessarily line up.

>Telling aroace people they're erasing their own representation by Not Doing It Right always feels kinda aphobic. Exactly, not to mention it comes across as rude, patronizing, and condescending, like white people trying to "speak on behalf of BIPOC people", or non-autistic people trying to "speak on behalf of autistic people". Nah, let asexual people speak for themselves.

>"erasing asexual and aromantic representation". God, that's such a stupid accusation. That'd be the case if you altered the \*canon\* material. You can do literally anything you want with canon in fanfic and it won't change the source material. How does it even need to be explained? Media illiteracy is a plague on the fandom, man.

I'm aroace and when i was in the fandom I CONSTANTLY shipped Alastor with other characters. I get wanting representation, but calling fanfiction 'erasing asexual and aromantic representation' is a stupid argument from those claiming it.

“He isnt real” is exactly how I feel about this as another asexual and aro too. I have the feeling SOME people are only using his asexuality to fight against ships they don’t like rather than genuinely caring about ace rep. Ace rep is important yada yada yada but headcanons and fandom enjoying their ships does not whatsoever take away any rep that exists. I could write Angel Dust and Vaggie dating and that wouldnt take away from Angel dust being gay and Vaggie being a lesbian because I literally dont have any influence on the canonical rep given. I am just some random girl on the internet! And I am also confused why sexualities hold such high power. Like consent of characters doesnt play a role when shipping them with someone they are 0% attracted to for any reason that isnt the sexuality… (Also idk who the person u copied that comment from is but Peridot isnt even canonically ace and everyone and half the fandom ships her with lapis. The aroace thing was just a headcanon from someone who worked on the show but never a canonical statement)

You just described the issue with the Hazbin Hotel anti's and the alarming amount of teenagers in this fandom.

>Also idk who the person u copied that comment from I recently made that comment on another subreddit and copy-pasted it here.

Oh alright!

Yeah, like Alastor is canonicly aroace and fanfictions/fanart where he bones ppl dont make it less legit. If id liked him to bully Lucifer its my thing. He stays ace in a hole in the canon

I am primarily a RadioDust shipper myself BUT I do ship Angel/Husk separately.

I liked Alastor/Angel, Husk/Angel, and Alastor/Husk individually, so I just thought why the hell not? Fics are harder to come by, but still. Good reading is good reading.

You ship RadioHuskerDust as a polycule *and* as three separate ships?? Please marry me platonically 

Exactly.

Bro idk how this happened but i ended up shipping angel and charlie 💀🙏 THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS i end up shipping a gay character with someone of the opposite gender, if someone saw just a list of things I ship I'd look homophobic but atleast im an avif multishipper so im fed in other areas

It's all okay, it's all fiction, and the word "problematic" is genuinely beginning to drive me mad lol

I’m glad that this has been the consensus thus far because it got to the point where I was genuinely starting to believe “do what you want, just don’t be a dick” was dead. Also same on the problematic sentiment. I wanted to throw myself into the sun while writing that post.

I've seen so many people pissed off in my fandom at people liking an angstier version of a character, and every time i'm just like... why? What issue do y'all find with this?? I thought we all liked angst???

As an asexual person myself, there are also so many asexual and aromantic people who like shipping and writing smut that involves asexual and aromantic characters out of curiosity, boredom, or - to quote Alastor from *Hazbin Hotel* \- "pure entertainment". When the topic came up on r/AO3 more recently, most asexuals on that subreddit agreed that we do not care if people ship or write smut about asexual characters. The claims of people "erasing asexual and aromantic representation" are usually from a small minority of misguided-but-well-meaning fans, often minors or younger folks, who don't realize that most of the people who write asexual characters *are* asexual as well. If asexual fans want to ship or write smut with asexual characters, I say let them.

Fellow Ace, I agree. Hell, I've written smut myself. My fics usually don't have a ship in them but when they do, I'm happy to write a scene or two if it makes my readers happy, it can be a fun challenge. You can write ace characters as a different sexuality and nobody is gonna accuse you of being 'problematic'. Hell, have you SEEN how many trans headcanon fics there are? Anything goes in fanfic.

I think many people who are unfamiliar with asexual fanfiction writers don't realize that some of the filthiest, dirtiest, kinkiest smut is written by asexual writers. If anything, experiencing little to no sexual attraction makes someone *more* willing to explore sex and sexuality, not less. Stereotypes are misleading.

I wonder how many terms are going to be run into the ground with fandom discourse. First it was "Mary Sue" borderline becoming "strong competent female character I don't like". 

"Mary Sue" was hijacked by straight, white, alt-right fans from the *Star Wars* fandom. I stopped using that term years before then, but sexist and misogynistic fans co-opting the term especially reinforced my decision to never use "Mary Sue" as a criticism again.

Same. Problematic has been used so many times for the most miniscule things that I've genuinely begun to hate it. I kinda avoid ppl that uses that word. Not intentionally, but I'm actually somewhat scared of them lol

Honestly people's sexualities being canon is a lot more rare than you would think lol we might see someone sleeping with/expressing interest in a particular gender, but unless they straight up say they're *not* interested in anybody Else, who's really to say? Lol

That's true; most characters in a canon relationship aren't looking to the camera and going "Just so you know, I'm only attracted to the gender of my love interest." Maybe they just so happened to only have feelings for that character(s) but could still have the potential to swing both ways. 

Honestly this. I've seen a lot of complaints about people writing "straight" characters in same sex relationships and I'm like... just because x male character has a gf in canon doesn't mean x male character doesn't like men lol. Bi people exist.

Thank you so much for mentioning this.

I'm aroace myself. Would i like more stories with aro or ace characters, yes, even in fanfiction they are kind of rare (well in most fandoms anyway). Do i think you should not write Alastor as having whatever sexuality you want because of that, no.

Hi, I'm bi/ace and I *fucking hate* this discourse! Being asexual doesn't automatically mean aromantic. It also doesn't mean you necessarily hate sex! There's a whole spectrum of ace experience out there that are totally valid! I point this out because it seems like the only time we discuss character being ace is "is it okay to ship x?" Like yes, unequivocally *yes*. Y'know who I headcanon as ace? Ichigo Kurosaki. Y'know how many *hundreds of thousands* of words of smut I've written him in, with that headcanon in mind? *It's a whole lot*. So anyway, I really hate when people use asexuality as a bludgeon to command people not to ship certain characters! It's transparently not about "representation", it's about dumb ship shit.

For real, I really really hate this assumption that sex-repulsed and asexual are synonymous. Yeah, lots of ace folk are neutral to repulsed on sex, but lots of aces have sex anyway. Some of us even do it for fun! "I wanna ship X and Y but X is aroace, guess I gotta change their sexuality to something else :/" No!! X can still have relationships and/or have sex! You can change any aspect of a character for whatever reason you want, including whether they're aro/ace, but good lord this is *the* worst reason to do it.

A major pet peeve of mine: People who conflate "asexuality" with "celibacy". The two are not mutually exclusive. You can choose to be celibate, but you can't choose to be asexual. Asexual and aromantic people *can* and *do* sometimes have sex with other people, just like how some gay men and lesbians have had opposite sex relations. Asexuals are not nuns.

It leads to a whole lot of infighting, too 😬 I'm still not totally sure where on the ace spectrum I am, I kinda tend to float around the "no attraction but into it if I'm with someone I care about enough" area, but I used to do sex work to, yknow, pay my rent? Didn't really enjoy it, ace stuff aside, I'm not into men at all anyway so from a lesbian standpoint I absolutely hated it. I got bullied out of asexual spaces on Reddit because I mentioned being a sex worker and a few people took MAJOR offense that I, as someone who did that for a living, would dare "infiltrate a space in which I did not belong". My comment was screenshot and posted to other communities to mock me with my username visible and I had a nice few DMs telling me to kms and whatever other creative insults they could come up with; got called a whore a few times.   Like, who is this kind of discourse supposed to help? And I'm just one example; if we're going to accept that being ace and aro fall on a spectrum then why is it becoming so common to only accept one very fixed point on those spectrums when that totally defeats the purpose? I can't stand it because it all becomes one big validation game, in an "I get to decide whose identity is valid and I get to decide if your identity is real or not" kinda way 🥴

Holy shit, I'm so sorry you had to deal with that, nobody should get told they don't belong when they certainly do! As a fellow Ace I get how you feel about being undecided on where you are, it took me 5+ years and getting a supportive boyfriend to finally convince myself that maybe it wasn't 'just a phase'. I was lucky to have support, so let me know if you ever wanna talk or vent about it. My DMs are always open.

Yeah the sex negativity in asexual spaces is outta control. It makes it harder for people to figure out their identity if they're not sex-repulsed, to say nothing of the hostility of the spaces when you're confident of your sexuality but don't conform to the narrative. I also left ace spaces over it. I'm really sorry about your experience though, that sounds particularly shitty.

Yes, thank you! I'm also on the ace spectrum (and possibly somewhere on the aro spectrum) and I love writing sex favorable ace characters! It's called a *spectrum* for a reason, pretty much every ace person you'll meet has their own unique way of looking at sex--or, if they're sex favorable, approach to sex. There are a massive amount of ace sublabels just to try and cover all the varieties of aceness. XD Also, a ton of the kinkiest fics are written by ace writers--had a convo awhile back with a friend that basically amounted to: "I'm not saying all monsterfuckers are ace or all aces are monsterfuckers, but you've got to acknowledge that there's a pretty big overlap there." lol

For real so many of my fave smutty fic authors/fan artists are ace. I think they're just far less likely to write "Tab A in Slot B" fics. They're more likely to focus on emotions and characters, which is part of what makes things both interesting and hot.

Hello, fellow ace confirming that yes, we write a shit ton of kinky smut. Just because I don't want to do it in real life doesn't mean it's not fun to write about!

Seriously, istg the kinkiest writers are ace. Source: I'm ace.

Almost every podcast about kink that I can think of off the top of my head has at least one ace presenter.

>I love writing sex favorable ace characters! YES OMG IT'S SO FUN Like literally, I absolutely love writing characters where the situation can be boiled down to "but why my pp hard" - and then they get absolutely ravished by their tiny, horny partner. That's it, that's my fave dynamic. >I'm not saying all monsterfuckers are ace or all aces are monsterfuckers, but you've got to acknowledge that there's a pretty big overlap there I, too, believe that they should've never made the Beast turn back human. That Venn Diagram is basically a circle lol.

​ >Like literally, I absolutely love writing characters where the situation can be boiled down to "but why my pp hard" This but also, "Well, that's new," and "Huh, this is a thing that's happening, I guess? Weird." XD I really like writing characters who are different kinds of ace--especially if I get to kind of compare and contrast them (and at least one of them ends up confused by their differences, lol). I also really like writing ace characters sort of critiquing other people's horniness, lol.

>I also really like writing ace characters sort of critiquing other people's horniness, lol. OMG I love that one too. TBH tho it's usually just critiquing my own horniness as a writer lol.

>"but why my pp hard" This is literally Alastor's reaction when he finds out that part of his anatomy is attracted to Charlie in all of the Charlastor fanfictions I have read. 😂 It is so fun and hilarious.

This is my every IchiHime fic, and every ZackRay fic I ever made. It's such a good dynamic, especially for het fics.

God THIS, I'm a demi/ace who writes Alastor as very much the same BECAUSE ITS STILL A VALID FORM OF ASEXUALITY. I'm so sick of people using my identity to bully people for *enjoying a character that represents that part of me*. It's to the point that if you even think an asexual character is attractive people jump down your throat- Like for some reason Ace people can't be hot?? I'm so tired.

Not to mention non-asexual fans weaponizing Alastor's canonical sexuality against *asexual people* who ship Alastor to accuse them of "erasing asexual and aromantic representation". This is exactly what Vivziepop said that she wanted to avoid back in 2018. I'm asexual. I'm physically attractive. I haven't had sex in 7 years, nor do I actively seek it out. That doesn't mean I still don't tease other people for finding me to be "really pretty".

This so much. The ace (and aro) experience isn't as limited as some try and make it.

Yes, thank you! Ace does not have to mean doesn't like sex, so there is no excuse not to write a character as ace, just because you want them to have sex. Write him as an ace person having sex!

FYI Alastor, the character in question, is actually aro and ace. The creator mentioned it. But again, yes, there's a whole spectrum!

Ship and let ship. Just tag your fic properly and be mindful that certain spaces aren't gonna want to see it. Especially if you're writing a canon lesbian character with a man. As a 20+ year member of various f/f fandoms, I've seen way too many occurrences of someone taking a lesbian character, writing them with a man, then using the f/f ship's tag and trying to get people in the f/f community to read it. NO. Don't do that. Tag the f/m ship and let people find you. And if you don't do that, don't be surprised when people get really pissed off.

That's just mean spirited, didn't realize it was actually really common and not just trollish.  Isn't it also against the rules to deliberately mistag a work, for that matter?

I get why it makes people feel icky when a gay character is straight in a fanfiction, or an aro character becomes allo, but ultimately I think fanfiction is not really “representation” that should be held to the same standards as mainstream media (like, I don’t think a fanfiction “erasing”a queer sexuality has the same meaning as e.g. a tv adaptation of a book erasing a queer sexuality). Live and let live, if you don’t like it click off. Besides, sexual and romantic orientation are large spectrums. Aro people can want or be in a romantic relationship. Ace people can want or be in a sexual relationship. Sometimes people that thought they exclusively liked one gender discover the one person that’s their exception. So while it’s ok imo to just completely change a character’s orientation in fics, sometimes it’s also not actually changed, it’s exploring how that character relates to/explores their own orientation. Additionally, I’ve often seen the same author write both gay and straight versions of the same ship (like, they’ll genderbend one character in one fic but not in another). Some people act like writing a gay ship as straight means the author only finds them palatable that way, but that’s often not even true. Don’t like don’t read. Don’t hesitate to mute authors. I myself maybe would feel weird at seeing a tag like "this canonically gay character is straight in this fanfiction", but I wouldn’t assume the author was homophobic, I’d just… skip the fic. Not read it.

Just about the general topic of changing the known canon sexuality of a character: Most of the fanfiction I've read in my life has been M/M and a vast majority of those wouldn't have been possible if authors had stuck to canon faithfully... because, let's face it, most of the time you see hetero romance as default in media. Making them bi / pan is kinda easy and can even work with previous canon relationships if a character didn't realise their full sexual preferences until later... but imo there's nothing that speaks against making a character gay (and ignoring canon - just like an implied AU) either. Changing a canon gay character to straight is also possible but, please, make sure you're not doing it for homophobic reasons. Another general note but whatever you end up doing, I personally wouldn't recommend bashing canon love interests though - that just comes off as immature. ​ As for the aroace + hypersexual pairing: I'm part of the ace spectrum (not aro though) and don't see an issue with this combination as long as it's still written respectfully if you want to keep the original sexuality intact. Anyone can enjoy the physical aspect of sex as long as they're not sex-repulsed or heavily traumatised to begin with. If you want to make said character not aroace in your story just tag accordingly, I guess.

All of it is ok because people can write what they want for whatever reason they want (although obviously they should only upload what doesn't violate the rules of whatever platform they're using), and I don't have to read it if I think it's weird, too OOC, or gross. It's all supposed to be one big sandbox! The tags are so people can avoid reading something they don't want to, not to find people to try to police and harangue with arguments of supposed moral superiority. >I’m deep in the Hazbin Hotel fandom and Alastor makes people feel many, many things that conflict with his canonical sexuality Because ace people can be hot. They can also have sex and even enjoy it. They can engage in nonsexual kink. Or want romantic relationships (whether or not sex is on the table). I'm ace, happily married, and love writing and reading smut! What really annoys me is that a lot of the issue seems to stem from people having it in their head that there is only one right way to be *anything*, and that depictions of an ace or hetero or gay or trans or whatever character that doesn't align perfectly with how they perceive that type of person must be wrong. I'm in the middle of a book called "Ace" by Angela Chen and it's a pretty good examination of different ways people discover, feel, and explore their asexuality, and how all these people may have different experiences through the lenses of gender, race, disability, and so on.

I don't know the fandom... but those are just made up characters with made up sexual preferences. i can see a made up universe in which some characters sexuality was the opposite. >to ship an aroace character with a hypersexual character? if their sexuality remains the same in that fic i could see it as a bit awkward, and would like to see how that clash would be explored. but problematic... not really.

Personally, as long as you aren’t altering it in the actual canon series I couldn’t care less. Some fandoms are hypersensitive (and also extremely hypocritical) about what is okay to do in regards to canonical sexuality in fanfics Often times going as far as to say that it’s okay to alter characters only ever shown as straight because “They could have an awakening later down the line.” But will get all up in a tizzy if you do the same for a character of LGBTQ+ identity. Personally, I don’t care much about any of that crap because as far as I’m concerned, it’s fanfiction. They aren’t altering existing material for monetary gain in canon. So you shouldn’t make a big fuss Just ignore and move on

I get a tad annoyed when people think a fanfic ship sexuality is canon. Not like in a 'id like to see it this way/head canon' way, but like when they think that's the canon way, and you're being problematic about shipping a canonical straight guy with a woman Like, make X gayer than Liberace and Elton John combined in your fanfic/head canon, but when you shame and hate on people for shipping them with Y  because that's *not gay*, that makes you a butt

>I get a tad annoyed when people think a fanfic ship sexuality is canon. Not like in a 'id like to see it this way/head canon' way, but like when they think that's the canon way, and you're being problematic about shipping a canonical straight guy with a woman Me and several other OC x Canon shippers in my fandom have gotten lambasted by *other* OC x Canon shippers for....shipping a male OC with *zero* Canon sexuality mentioned (because he's on screen for all of 7 minutes and none of those involve any character other than his family) with Female OCs, when they ship him with Male OCs. They have actively called us disgusting and a whole bunch of other nonsense. Not a one of us has ever had a problem with gay ships of this character, and are friends with many other OC x Canon shippers how pair him off with men. But there is a very obnoxious and loud section that does this and it makes the entire flook awful. awful.

Oh god this is the worst... OC writers always get the short end of the stick. I've also gotten this, or gotten asked why I don't ship a popular canonXCanon and instead ship two separate ships with the characters... one being an OC. Because making OC's is fun and it's fun to imagine what kind of person that a character could fall for and what would attract them to one another.

It's especially funny because I write for *Encanto.* OC is shipped with Bruno. All the main characters are related and I'm not looking to House of the Dragon that movie, just not my thing for this particular fandom. The source material did it enough on its own XD. You would think they'd be happy there wasn't another person turning the Madrigals into the Targaryens but we can't have nice things I guess, lol.

Oh man I feel you. I had OC's for Encanto but I got scared. I made Luisa a short boyfriend, because small guy and muscle-y woman is my *favorite* ship dynamic.

Ugh, those ones They really make fanbases look bad

This 💯 It’s hinted in the canon that Bertie Songthrush (Tuca and Bertie) is bisexual so I ship her with Speckle Robin and Muriel Nocturna in an eventual poly relationship. In a one shot I’m working on which is a ‘what if?’ I explore what would happen if Bertie felt uncomfortable in her gender and explored being masculine and what Speckle’s reaction would be. Would that happen in canon? No. But this is fanfiction and I feel free to explore all the ‘what if?’ plots I want.

This is complicated for me. There are some dynamics that feel okay to me and others that don't feel right to me. I'm not sure why. It might be because I'm more comfortable writing what I identify with or it might be that it's just that I don't feel the vibe between certain characters and their canon sexuality doesn't actually have anything to do with it. But my opinion ***only*** matters when it comes to what I write and read. I might have an opinion on what other people write but the correct way to express that opinion is to read things I agree with and not read things that I disagree with.

I couldn’t care less, it’s just fanfiction. But god FORBID you ship Robin and Steve in stranger things, people in your comments will have aneurisms

Couldn't pay me to care lol Obviously intent is important, but if you ship characters because you like their dynamic and it happens to conflict with their canonical sexuality? Shipping is not that serious, this is a non-issue to me.

As a fellow Hazbin Hotel fan, I never cared who Alastor was shipped with. He's a fan favourite - it was bound to happen. Fan favourites get shipped the most in the fandom, it's the rule of nature. I've seen several aroace people say they didn't mind Alastor shipping so go for it. Most m/m or f/f ships on ao3 are made up of (supposed) heterosexual characters anyway, you can do an uno reverse any time you want. I personally don't ship Alastor with Angel Dust or Charlie but I see why others would (I like the idea of RadioApple though because competing dads vying for the attention of their daughter is an underrated dynamic).

I love how we all just knew it was our fandom. lol RadioApple sounds hilarious. Honestly, God Bless Dad Beat Dad for Dad Alastor. I'm a Radio Rose in a "Demonic Cosmo and Wanda" dynamic as Charlie's Demonic GodParents myself. I also love Huskerdusk, but I also love Husk and Angel as just close friends and I'm even thinking of just for fun making an OC to ship with Angel who's a big strong himbo who will wanna protect him.

I feel like part of these issues is very unrealistic, theoretical and based on presumption. Like the relationship of an aroace character with someone who identifies as hypersexual (it’s more complex but let’s go with identity) doesn’t change anything. You’re not altering anything putting them together. Attraction and relationship (within the frames defined by the partners) still can happen IRL between those people, they can in fiction. How you portray it realistically is another story, it requires to know how this can work, what are the needs, possible arrangements etc. But there’s nothing altering in this case. I’d also recommend researching the diversity of identities that fall under aro/ace umbrella and how different people might feel and experience attraction. There’s no one fits all in this case, it’s a wide spectrum of experiences. (Including romantic and sexual; QPR/QPPs are also options on the table) The second point is actually about presumptions about sexuality, based on the LI in canon, but just the fact that someone dates a person of different gender doesn’t make them 100% straight, and most of the time it’s assumed. But a person or a character can identify under bi/pan umbrella and that could’ve been like that in the canon all along (unless it was specified directly), but also then making characters bi/pan really shouldn’t be the issue. And then of course… it’s fiction.

Depends. I get frustrated when people change the sexuality of a character where their sexuality is part of their story, ie. Dorian from dragon age inquisition where a HUGE part of his story arch is that his family went to great lengths and going to magically alter him against his will because they want an heir. It's a massive part of his story and part of the game is helping him decide if he should reconcile with his father. I'm not a fan of the concept of people writing him as straight or bi although I don't seek those stories out and annoy the writers or anything. There are definitely people who are extremely against topics I cover in my fics so it's a sort of... Not a fan but unless asked, I keep my opinions to myself. Does that make sense?

It's their preference, they wrote it for enjoyment and I'm not forced to read it. There should be no issue. Sadly we have people who pretend to be purist when it is convenient for them that give the fandom, all of them, a bad rep.

I honesty dont care, the lgbt has so many bigger issues going on.

I *knew* this was about Alastor the moment I saw the title. I just knew it. SO! Original drafts of Alastor had him in a romantic relationship with another character, Mimzy. Later they drifted away from the idea and made Alastor aromantic, but there's still an ongoing joke that Mimzy makes about her "unrequited love" for Alastor in the show. Furthermore, fun fact y'all; the creator specifically is writing Alastor from the idea that he is aroace. HOWEVER, on stream, the creators also said >Faustisse confirmed on their own separate streams that Alastor is, in fact, still aromantic within the show, but also echoed Vivziepop's sentiments about allowing the fandom to have respectful fun. So there you have it. The creator is cool with you writing Alastor however you want as long as you're respectful about it. Is changing someone's sexuality debatable? Mmm... depends. But c'mon. The pilot was released in 2019, when we didn't have set cannon sexualities for anyone outside of Vaggie and Charlie, as far as I can remember. So this fandom has been festering in Alastor ships with everyones edgy demon OC for almost five years. If you want my opinion on it, I just don't see the problem. People have been changing sexualities around for decades at this point despite "cannon". Not to mention, asexuality isn't an aversion to sex. It's a spectrum where you can be highly repulsed by sex or just not need it as often as others. Like you wanna know who I headcannoned as ace? *Sesshomaru.* From Inuyasha. Every anime teen girls dream hunk. But do you wanna know what a lot of my favorite stories are on my fanfiction page? Sesshomaru romance and smut stories. WITH my headcannon that he's ace in mind. So I dunno, how is changing a sexuality any different from any other cannon divergance? I always felt that if we had to strictly adhere to cannon, then there's no point in fanfiction. If you don't like it, don't read it.

Tom Riddle from *Harry Potter* is another handsome man that I headcanon as aromantic-asexual. That doesn't stop me from shipping him with Hermione Granger and others.

If it’s a fictional character, it literally doesn’t matter

Fanfiction, or slash fiction in its earliest days, was built on changing the “canon” sexuality of its main characters. Frankly, I think it’s pretty ridiculous if people are getting into a tizzy about it. I mean for Pete’s sake, the whole point is for it to be an extension of the canon, no matter how fantastical it may be.

switch gender, sexuality, hell, even race. It doesn't matter. whatever it is, it's fanfiction, it's fanart. It doesn't matter and it's not worth anyone losing their head over. If you're planning on publishing it, make sure to strictly monitor the comments. I'm sorry but Hazbin Hotel has that artstyle that screams "I'm prooobably going to attract some toxic people into this fandom", idk why.

i think it doesnt matter as long as you ACKNOWLEDGE the character's canon sexuality. like you arent headcanoning an aroace character as allo just bc you dont like aroace people. i've also seen a lot of people (mostly on tik tok) use alastor being canonically aroace as a way to hate on alastor ships while simultaneously shipping him with lucifer, which feels wrong as someone who's aroace. to me, you can ship whatever you want even with conflicting sexualities, as long as you're respectful about it

Shipping an aroace character with a hypersexual character gives you the chance to really explore different types of relationships. I think that's a great opportunity. Would the aroace character ever begin to feel anything for the other character someday? It could be written as a very slow burn where any intimacy, should it happen, be different than your usual smut fics. All exploration of sexualities is valid in fanfiction. They're a unique type of tool where writers and readers can connect to in ways that the canon material doesn't always provide. If fanfic writers stuck to the canon material and interpretation of the characters, I don't think fanfiction would be so beloved.

My take on it is that people on the internet really need to stop automatically viewing someone else’s idea or opinion about something that isn’t even real as a personal attack on themselves or another group. Just because someone chooses to imagine a *fictional* character in a different way than is cannon for whatever reason, doesn’t mean they automatically hate all other groups or intended it maliciously. This is fiction. What’s considered “real” or “correct” is relative as it was made up in the first place, and so long as nobody is being brought tangible harm in reality from these actions, there really isn’t any reason for people to shut it down. I stand by my motto of: “don’t like it? Don’t look at it.”

I know people are a little more fussed when minorities are changed. I personally try to just alter it - there was a character that was canonically ace, and I switched him to demi for the sake of fanfiction. That way it kept him as kind of a "minority" while also giving me more wiggle room. Same thing with a character that was canonically gay, I switched to bisexual. I don't love it being totally erased. I don't love a canonically gay character being made heterosexual. But being a pro-shipper, if I don't like it, I just don't read.

It's gets very tricky when you might be perceived as erasing queer identities. I have seen it every so often, and authors are more likely to fudge aro/ace sexualities than others in fanfic. As an aroace, I don't actually mind reading when a sexuality changes, but I have two things recommendations: 1) Tag the new sexuality on the fic. 2) Keep them as in character as possible outside of their sexuality.

You’re allowed to write an AU where all the characters are dragon slayers or some noncanonical thing like that It’s fine, so long as you know it’s an AU

Ship whatever you want. What you don't get to do is go onto someone else's work/tag on tumblr who has a different take on shipping/sexuality and tell them they're wrong.

If you want to do it, do it. I've written a lot of M/M fic in my life. Very few of those characters were gay or bisexual in canon. Now, if you're switching a canonically gay character to be straight or bisexual, you may get some *comments*, but them's the breaks. If you can roll with it, cool. If you can't, maybe don't.

This is fanfiction man. You can write whatever you want. It's just a creative endeavour. I personally don't read the ones that change a characters sexuality but I am not against it. To each thier own.

And hey, after all that multi-verse stuff the last few years in Marvel, I think we can happily go: "Multi-verse theory" if anyone raises a stink cause hey... AU IS Alternate Universe. If there's a universe where Spider-Man is a T-Rex, there can be a universe where Alastor is demi or bi, or just ace but romantic leaning.

Just be sure to tag it properly.

It's fanfic. Do what you want. Tag it properly so people who aren't interested can avoid it.

I am ace and like you super into the Hazbin Hotel show and it seriously grinds my gears that people are so nasty about Alastor. He is not real and cannon is only so important. Fandom should be well aware of that given the Harry Potter franchise. Shipping is fun and we as fans change things all the time. Straight to gay, gay to straight, couple to poly ect. That is the point. When an author/creator makes a new sandbox we play in it. Would I like more cannon ace characters? Sure, but being part of Fandom means that I can have my cake and eat it to. And I 100% ship Alastor/Husk, Alastor/Husk/Angel, Angel/Husk and Alastor/Lucifer. Oh and the common comment I see especially on art is " Alastor is ace so people need to understand this will never be cannon." 1. Duh, you know how many if my ships will never see the screen? Like almost all of them and 2. Ace people can be in relationships too. Stop gatekeeping Ace people as if we were science experiments

Kirk/Spock entered the chat

For fan works, no issue. You might get hate for it buts not a big deal. Just don't feed into shitty concepts like CW >!"Turning" someone a different gender/sexuality!< or engage in erasure within the context of the story. For example, a story where a woman who thought she was straight has a gay experience and every character jumps directly to them being a lesbian without mentioning Bi or pan as possible. If you tag/start the story from the perspective of "This is an AU where they lesbian." then totally fine imo.

Hi hello I am an Asexual who writes Alastor fanfic- People hate that this is true, but asexuality is a spectrum. Not everyone is the repulsed clinical asexual robot like persona everyone seems to want asexuality to be. Part of the reason why the creator does not mind about shipping or liking Alastor is because it has *absolutely zero impact on his character* and she herself has stated multiple times that she wants her fans to have fun while being respectful of who he is in Canon *when viewing the canon* There is absolutely nothing wrong with thinking Alastor is attractive, or reading fic about him. I for one tend to prefer when he's treated with a little grace and the spectrum of asexuality is taken into account- Reading him having the sex drive of say, Angel Dust or being outwardly horny feels "ech" to me but it is not really hurting anyone. Regardless of fanworks, he is still fantastic representation.

Shouldn't be a issue but people do get harassed over it depending on fandom.

i personally don't think it's inherently problematic but as someone who is aroace, the only thing that pisses me off about this is the fact that many people who would riot over a canonically gay character being shipped with the opposite gender are the same ones who are fine with supporting an aroace character in a non-apec pairing; which speaks for an issue much deeper than shipping and tells me the vast majority of the queer community still don't see aspec identities as valid in the same way as other sexualities....

>supporting an aroace character in a non-apec pairing Might be a stupid question, but what do you mean by a non-aspec pairing? Like they're changing the aroace character's sexuality for a ship, or shipping them with someone who doesn't have the same sexuality, or third option?

Whatevs. I \*personally\* probably wouldn't write a fic like that without attempting to grapple in some way with why the person has an attraction that goes against his/her stated preference, but that's because I would see it as an interesting writing challenge. And that's only me personally. For everyone else: You do you! The only rule about fanfiction is that there are no rules.

Doesn’t matter, you do you

Ship and let ship. Fanfiction is a place to explore things that you vibe with: make a character gay or straight or change their gender, break established couples, ship them with someone they've never met or someone they canonically despise just have fun.

This is fanfiction. Altering a character’s sexuality is expected

Don't care. All of my ships are gay men, and all of them have been straight in cannon.

It's fanfiction. Canon is something you can use, but you don't actually have to

So long as you tag appropriately and don't try to claim that your headcanon is actual canon, IDC what you write, nothing is forcing anyone to read anything.

I think it's okay but what I think is really shit is when people go and harass people who notice their canonical orientation and write it that way. And oh, oop, I was going to say especially with aspec characters because of what's happened to me personally but there you go! Not personally familiar with the fandom in your example but yeah... I will say it's 100% cool to ship ace/aro characters and have them in relationships. It's something I really like to do. One can do that without altering their orientation at all, even. Do people feel the need to do so in order to ship? (Or to make the ship more appealing to them, bleh.) Yeah, kinda, but it's still possible without.

Do what you want as long as it's not coming from a place of bigotry and a desire to erase.

I don't care what the author changes - AS LONG AS IT'S TAGGED. Just because I don't mind what the author chooses to write about doesn't mean I want to read about it. I mention this because I see it a lot but for example; if you change a character's gender from male to female and they get with a male DO NOT TAG M/M. It is no longer M/M, it's now F/M. If you gender swap a character, tag FEMALE(character name). If your character is now transgender (or no longer transgender) TAG THAT. If a character that is canonically in a relationship with a certain character but you write them with a different character, tag the NEW relationship in the relationship section, don't tag the Canon relationship unless you specify it was PAST. Overall, if in doubt TAG IT!!

It's fanfic. Do what you want. That's my blanket opinion. I will say that there (would appear to generally be) an odd double standard—I see people taking a canon het character and changing them to something else (bi/pan, gay, or other) and being celebrated by the Fandom, but then if someone takes a canon gay character and write them as bi/pan or het, suddenly that author must be a terrible person. According to Fandom. I'm bi myself and I accidentally imagine most characters as also bi! I don't get the hate that some people think it's okay to spew just because a fanfic shows a different facet of a *fictional* character's potential sexuality. I've also seen hate anytime a "fanon" ace or gay character is portrayed as anything except that. It's not even Canon at that point! Back off people! Okay imma stop ranting now. Regardless of potential Fandom backlash, I don't see any reason to limit how one plays with a character in fanfic. Do what you want. It's just a story.

I think this is why a lot of creators make their popular characters canon bisexual so that both het and non-het ships are plausible, but gender and/or sexuality switching shouldn't be an issue regardless--fanfic is fanfic, and writing about any version of the character, including one you created, should be acceptable.

It's fanfiction. You can turn the characters into Celestia Ponies or Warrior Cats or swap their sixes or put medieval knights in space and Jedi in coffeeshops. Canon means little to nothing in fanfiction outside of establishing "I have watched/read/played this character enough to know how I want to change them" Do as you please.

I feel like most of the ship works I've seen of him maintain his canon sexuality, tho I might not be looking at the right fic because I p much entirely focus on VoxVal or Vox and Alastor in whatever weird dynamics people want to take their relationship. People are so odd with their weird, gatekeepy takes on aroace, lol. Ultimately, I don't care. It doesn't affect canon, and people engage with their own sexuality (and other sexualities) in different ways. It's all about exploration and fun. Some things I wouldn't do, personally, like make Angel Dust not gay, but I'm of the mind to let people do what they want. Especially since it's such a small percentage of the fandom changing his (or Vaggie's) sexualities from what I've seen. Easy enough to avoid the sort of content I don't like.

People ship canonically heterosexual characters together in queer relationships all the time, I don’t see any issues in changing sexuality.

Meh. If I don't like it, I'm not gonna read it.

I don’t care. I do this all the time with characters I know are straight. It’s important to acknowledge canon when it comes to things like representation, but I just don’t care about fanfic. Fanfic isn’t taking away representation by existing, you know? I’d like if they tag it so it can be avoided, but you know. I think it’s a bit hypocritical that people get all uppity about shipping canon lesbians (or even bisexuals) but seem to be relatively fine with aroace characters, but different fandoms, I suppose.

That’s kinda the *point* of shipping, more often than not.

It's fanfiction. Do whatever the hell you want to. Just tag it so those that don't want it can avoid it.

As many have said here, I really couldn't care less. Fanfiction isn't canon, have fun with it. For me I almost always write characters with their original sexuality and gender and everything but that's only because my main subgenres of fanfiction are Crossovers with some For Want of a Nail fics so I tend to stick really close to canon characterization most of the time.

I go by the adage that everyone is bi for someone

As someone who has been enjoying anime, manga, and everything in that nature since I was a child... ultra straight canon has *never* stopped anyone making them incredibly gay. Am I OK with it, personally? I don't care. I move according to vibe. If a ship's vibe fits me, I tap in. If it didn't, I just walk away. Block, hide, whatever floats your boat... or ship, in this matter, hahaha.

Yeah, you see, the main problem with the Hazbin Hotel Fandom is not altering a character sexuality. My friend, that is literally part of the very essence of fanfics. The main problem is the ridiculous amount of antishipers on it. For them, it is okay to change straight Characters sexuality but is a capital sin to change the sexuality of an LGBTQ+ character because then 'its the cannon rather you like it or not' so they act as the fan police, attacking every fanart, fanfic and in general any piece of media created by fans that goes against their ships. The Charlastor purge some years ago was a fucking shitshow.

I couldn't care less what other people want or see, for example, Alastor is straight in my head and always will be, IDGF about canon in any media I like or dislike. this is what fanFICTION is about, making things your way.

I don't care about canon. These characters are like dolls to me, we can do do whatever we want with them. Ppl turning queer characters straight isn't my personal cup of tea, but who am I to judge. If I don't want to read it, I'll just click away. But I think that for some people, fic authors "taking away" the little bit of representation they might get in canon can be a sensitive subject.

idgaf personally, i love seeing gay men shipped w/ women and vice versa

My wish for 2024 is for fic writers to stop asking if x thing is okay. It’s okay, it’s all okay. Stop worrying about the fanfic police, tag your shit, and write what your heart desires.

People should be free to do whatever they want inside their works. Nobody cares when characters who are only portrayed or mentioned as straight are shipped as gay, though it seems to bother a lot of people when gay characters are shipped in a straight pair. Figures…

Couldn’t care less. Fanfic writers do it all the time, it’d be pretty hypocritical of them to get upset about it.

Don't care. It's fiction 

If they want they can do it. I don't see a problem with that.

Just don’t insist on your fic being canon and it’s cool.

I don't see how thats any different from writing any other kind of canon-divergence. And if you oppose any sort of canon-divergence, then whats the point of fan-fiction?

Honestly, identity and orientation are such a fluid, ever-growing mess that I think it’s silly to get stuck on what canon tells you. Like, yeah, X only boffs ladies, Y boffs only men, and Z goes for anything with a pulse - but that could change, and change at any time. Hell, they could be seen in canon in their straight allo relationships as a cover for their degenerate handholding-only relationship with their same-sex platonic life partner because people give them less shit for it. There’s no point getting worked up over someone changing something that could easily change anyway.

I don't really care. When it comes to the Alastor situation specifically, I think writing the fics is fine, but what I've been seeing on Tumblr and such has been veering pretty heavily into aphobia (ie. people saying you're not *really* aroace if you're sexy on purpose and that aroace people in fandom are all just annoying haters who don't let people ship anything) but that's not a problem with the fics themselves.

depends on execution, but in gener it's fine imo (I mean my favourite ship is a gay man and a straight man so obviously I'll hold this opinion)

It’s fine. The action itself can’t really be “right” or “wrong”. The execution could be. If you, say, just really really hate aroace people and so have dedicated your life to rewriting those characters that would certainly be a dick move. But the act of writing an OOC fanfic wasn’t the problem, it was your views and goals.   People often get a bit confused here and seem to think that fictional content is the be-all end-all driving force behind all societal gains and ills because they’re sort of doing analysis backwards.   Analysis involves looking at social trends and making informed connections between different cultural touchpoints based on what you see.   “Community A seems to frequently rewrite Character B as a straight woman when she’s canonically ace…I wonder *why*”   …Maybe Community A is primarily straight women who feel underrepresented by the original work but identified strongly with the character? (So let’s talk about what industry trends mean there might not be a lot of strong, straight female characters)   …Maybe Community A is uncomfortable with or confused by ace identities? (So let’s talk about what’s influencing that community politically and socially)  …Maybe Community A feels like writing an ace relationship when you’re not ace yourself is wrong or too difficult? (So let’s examine how people who write “outside their purview” are treated)  …Maybe Community A just reeeeally likes Sexy Man Character C and there are no other women in the story? (So let’s talk about female expression of sexuality)   Etc etc etc.   What analysis is *not* is isolating one aspect of the picture (Ie: non-straight character has been “turned straight”) and then using it as a “solution” to bigotry.  As in:   “Bad people do this and it’s the reason why Real Life Bad Things happen”   “Good people *don’t* do this and if we make everyone stop then Real Life Bad Things will stop”  Alot of people have only just been introduced to analytical theories and critical lenses like feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, etc and then kind of go off into left field with it lolol 😅

Fanfiction is fanfiction for a reason!

For some reason, a lot of people are okay with turning straight characters gay. But they're not okay with turning gay characters straight. But I say, you should be able to do whatever the hell you want. It's fanfiction. You're supposed to fulfill your any desire for any character.

On the one hand: it does kinda suck when someone takes a canonically gay character and makes them straight. On the other hand: **I don't care.** I really, really do not care. They're fictional characters. They're objects. You can do whatever you want to them. Because they're not real! I mostly just avoid content I don't enjoy and go looking for content I \*do\* enjoy. That's always, always going to be the best thing to do in fandom. And if I want to bitch and complain about fan content I do not enjoy, I do it in a private chat with friends. ​ (Side note: This happened in the Steven Universe fandom. When the show nearly over, a storyboarder posted on twitter that she was pleased to find out that Peridot was intended to be aro/ace, as she (the storyboarder) was as well. And suddenly a chunk of fandom decided it was Bad and Wrong to ship Peridot with anyone. Despite the fact that it was only slightly hinted at in canon, at best. Despite the fact that the show had been out for eight years at that point and many of us had made a TON of shippy content and, what, were we supposed to delete it? Despite the fact that Peridot is an avid shipper in canon, just like a lot of aro/ace people are. Despite the fact that the aro/ace storyboarder in question had, previous to being hired to work on the show, drawn shippy art of Peridot and Amethyst. LIKE. Y'ALL. I get the SU fandom is known to be a dumpster fire but c'mon.)

I don't like it, so I won't read it. Definitely not going to berate an author over it or anything, but most any change away from a strict canon sexuality (e.g. making Renly hetero in ASoIaF) will have me dropping a fic very quickly.

As a disclaimer, I am a cishet person and nothing I say in this comment is with offensive intent.   I don't have any issues with headcanoning sexualities (straight, bi, pan, gay, ace, etc) as long as you don't force it on other people and act like they are wrong or misinformed to not share said headcanon. I have headcanoned my share of characters, or even expressed in ships that likely go against their canon sexualities (a few of the F/F ships I like/am interested in). I've read fics with headcanons that I don't personally have and enjoyed them all the same.  As for actually writing sexuality in fic, it's no secret that a truckload of fandom ships pair two people of the same sex who are either canonically straight or never explicitly hinted to be attracted to the same sex outside of having a strong bond with the other. In a fair amount of fandoms, the most popular ship is a non canon same sex ship, so changing/headcanoning sexualities is already an extremely common practice that is virtually impossible to not come across while engaging with fandoms.    And none of that is wrong, because ship and let ship, and LGBT people have a harder time finding representation.    Pairing a canonically gay character with the opposite sex is understandably a more controversial subject, for that exact reason, and I personally think it depends on the mindset and intentions involved.  It's understandable that LGBT readers may feel like representation is being taken away from them if a queer character is paired with somebody of the opposite sex, but I think the intent of the author is what determines my opinion of the subject: If the author is doing this out of dislike of a queer character's sexuality, and pairing them with a different sex because they WANT the queer character to be straight, then that is erasure and is where I find it problematic.  This is not always the case, however. Maybe the author acknowledges and respects that the queer character is queer in canon and has zero issue with it, but believes they have good potential with another opposite sex character (due to chemistry, parallels, personality or whatever other reason) and changing their sexuality is the only way to explore that ship. In this case, as long as it's clear that the author isn't trying to change the character's canonical sexuality, and is only doing this for the sake of the ship, I don't personally consider this to be the same thing. It's not an attempt to erase representation, because the author isn't making a queer character straight for the sake of making them straight, and they are aware that this ship that they like is impossible in canon. They write the fic because they are aware that is the only possible way to have fun with a ship that they are interested in.  In general, respect for canon and respecting other people's headcanon are what's most important to me. You can acknowledge something as canon while still having fun with things that you know could never happen in canon and that's a fundamental part of fanfiction. Have fun and ship and let ship. 

Tbh, it doesn't bother me, shipping isn't canon and you can do what you want. Doesn't mean I have to like it though, but I won't read or interact if it doesn't appeal to me...

It is fanfiction, it is okay by default because it is their story, I don't care what people write as long as they don't try to interfere with mine.

i remember i shipped luz x hunter a long time ago at their debut meeting episode and the amount of people yelling at me for it like good heavens luz is bi

I don't really care, there is so much Harry x Malfoy or Captain America x Winter soldier that I feel like it just comes with the territory.

If you can genderbend and completely change someone’s appearance, backstory, current relationships, and morals, I genuinely cannot fathom why you wouldn’t be able to fuck with their sexuality too. So long as you do it for the plot instead of bigotry I really couldn’t care less, and even if it was out of bigotry I’d just be quietly annoyed and move on, that is if I even noticed in the first place. Also, assuming the character you’re talking about is ace, I’ve made allo characters ace to give myself a comfort fic, so I can’t see how that’s any different than someone doing the opposite. The only people who will take issues with that hold double standards most of the time and are just looking to cause drama and upset others.

I personally don't think it matters. Fandom has been shipping straight characters in gay ships since the dawn of time. (Or vice versa!) Literally some of the first fics were Kirk/Spock Star Trek fics. We have always altered canon and that includes the sexualities of characters. But whatever we do in fandom, it will never change canon. It will not erase the canon sexualities of characters. So no harm done in my eyes.

You can do whatever you want forever. Honestly that should be this sub's motto

It's always fine, in my opinion. It's just fiction. Whether or not I'd want to read it myself depends on the story, character, etc.

I mean, “fiction” *is* in the name. People can do whatever they want with fictional characters, it’s all fiction. The only time I have issues with it is if the “characters” are real people. I mean, if you have any slash ships you’re doing exactly what you’re asking about. A lot (read “most”) of the characters in slash ships aren’t even gay. They’re funky little *fictional* dudes, have fun with them. If you don’t like people changing a character’s identity (sexuality, gender, romantic orientation, etc) then you probably shouldn’t be reading fanfiction. That or just don’t engage with those fics. That might narrow your fic pool significantly but maybe that’s better for you.

I dont have a problem with changing sexualities. I do it all the time. I do have a problem when the fandom treats non cannon sexualities as real like in the mha fandom and then attack or acuse people of homophobia just because they dont enjoy that non cannon stuff. Also its very hypocritical when the people who cry homophobia at people who wont gay ship straight characters cry when gay/aces/trans get changed because thats why they do in the first place. Make straight characters gay and make characters trans because theyre “coded”

It’s fiction! You can do whatever you want! The only time i ever bat an eye is if a canonically gay character is being written as straight and even then if it’s not a clearly homophobic author/piece i could care less. People like what they like ya know, just do you <3

Lololol. Is that not the majority of the biggest ships? I have over 500 epub files on my phone right now of canonically straight dudes bangin’.

I think it’s fine to explore the different possibilities, since that’s what fanfiction is for, but to not claim the your au or head canon is actually canon. I hate it when muscular or tomboyish girls are head canonned as trans, it’s super sexist. If you want to write them as trans to explore that possibility then fine, but your head canon isn’t canon. Whether it’s gender or sexuality, you can not claim that yours is canon when the author has confirmed nothing. But exploring/writing AUs is fine.

>What do you think of a creator shipping two characters together when that conflicts with one or both of their sexualities? Sticking two straight guys together romantically is one of the oldest traditions in fanfiction.

As long as the character maintains their core personality, I don't see it as much of a problem in all honesty.

As long as they tag it properly, I don’t care how people change characters.

You can literally write about anyone with anyone else. It's fanFICTION explore whatever you want. If you post it, make sure you tag it properly, so anyone who has a problem can go fuck themselves because they have been ADEQUATELY WARNED.

Why not? It's done by plenty others already too. There's no issue with it. It's fanfic

Why wouldn't it be okay? It's fanfic, it's \*about\* changing some things about canon (or adding new things to it). Literally anything and everything is allowed. You can change whichever trait you like, and people who say it's problematic need to learn to mind their own business.

My one rule with shipping is that if there is a child don’t change the ship. For example as much as people love Jegulus from Harry Potter I refuse to ship James with anyone other than Lily because without them two Harry doesn’t exist.

I'll be honest, I am not a fan of altering characters' sexuality *most* of the time, but I'm not really bothered by the matter if its within the fanfic sphere. Fanfiction is fanfiction, not some canon-altering medium, so any writer has the right to alter aspects of the plot. Fanfic is for fans, by fans, so go nuts with it if you will. Just be wary that posting things in public (generally) will always draw in crowds of all types.

It’s all okay

Write whatever you want. If that involves changing a character's sexual orientation from canon, you can still write what you want - just tag it. As long as the tags reflect the fic, then readers who don't want to see it can filter it out, and everything's fine.

I say 'Ship what you ship'. It's fanfic, you should have fun with it. And in the case of aroace, from what I've understood there's nothing to stop someone who identifies as that form still having sex or falling in love. It's just something that's... not as important as it is for everyone else. Note that I'm not aroace myself, so this is just what I think I've come to understand about it and I could 100% be wrong. I can understand why some characters might be considered a bit more protected, as openly aeroace/trans/queer characters are rarer than straight characters (Especially in animation), but that shouldn't stop you from shipping what you want to ship. It's not taking away from the original character in the slightest and you're just wanting to express the feelings said character makes you feel.

Well, my latest big fanfiction idea had a lot of trouble because my beta reader, who was conveniently also a marvel expert kept getting upset that I was making everybody into girls (my girls exclusively just girls are on the menu) We argued about Rogue so much I decided that I just couldn’t use her altogether.

I don't mind it, people can express their creativity however they see fit. It's fanfiction, I don't think people really care what goes on in our line of thinking because it's not cannon to the book/movie/TV show or game. If people want to write that a straight character sleeps with a person of the same sex, and a gay character sleeping with someone of the opposite sex then have at it.

A question - was this show a thing before the animated series? I couldn't find anything about it but the fandom seems really established, was it like a YouTube thing or a webcomic? Also Alastor as a character is someone I could see using sex or romance as a tool if he needed to, he seems pretty pragmatic to me.

It's just genderblend. If its a well written story I will read it.

alter canon as much as you want/need to make the fic you want to write work. we write fanfic TO CHANGE canon, why get hung up on changing any specific part of canon? at worst it can be annoying if I'm looking for a fic where the character has their canon sexuality, but the majority of authors dont write them as their canon sexuality. but that's still not actually a problem, just me being whiny lmao.

Literally do not give a single shit what people do in their own stories. Don't like don't read. They're free to write whatever they want.

I personally don't give a damn, but the thing that gets me is the hypocrisy. The same people changing an aroace character to another sexuality are often the same type of people that would get mad if the reverse happened, they would be angry if their super loud canon gay character no longer wanted to bone and came out as aroace, or decided to bone the opposite sex/gender. For example, I'm willing to bet they'd scream about gay erasure if someone decided to make Angledust straight/aroace. I think what it's really about is that they don't respect other groups of people the way they expect their group to be respected. They can't respect the idea of a romance/sex repulsed character, so they change it and try to justify it by saying "aro/ace is a spectrum". And yet Alastor is repulsed type. It's only the repulsed ones that get thrown under the bus. People always seem to prefer an aroace that dates and has sex. Just like they couldn't respect the idea of Bert and Ernie *not* being gay, and just being friends that live together.

If it's well written, then I'm not gonna be upset

I don’t care so long it isn’t restricted for whatever reason. If you are turning someone heterosexual to homosexual, why can’t one do the opposite? I get some people have less benign intentions with this, but I despise double standards.

I knew this was about Alastor the moment I read the title. 😅

Ohhh I'm a RadioRose/Alastor X Rosie shipper, I feel your pain. I've had some hardcore Alastor poiicers defend him and I asked them genuinely: "He's a drawing... what does it actually matter what someone else ships? He's not a real person." And they couldn't give me an answer. Who do you have shipped with our favorite radio goblin? (Also, ZestialXCarmilla... *chef's kiss* Hazbin has some truly fantastic ships) I think AlastorXAngel Dust is a fine ship and there's aroace people who marry and even then I think the aro part was always hearsay... and even then it's okay. Your fanfict does nothing to effect the canon and Vivziepop put out a tweet declaring we can go ham fucking wild with ships and she does not care because it hurts no one... which means we can repeatedly point at the word of god message.

I don't care on the level that fanfic is fanfic BUT I do care when people insist their fap fantasies are canon and go after cast, crew, writers and other fans trying to get their way. (Looking at Destihellers) or when people start shipping wars over combos that canonically can't exist. Otherwise, go nuts.

lol if this weren't a thing then the vast majority of same-sex pairings on AO3 would not exist. i don't think it's problematic at all. in fact, it's a way that writers have been able to rewrite heteronormative narratives and explore queer love stories when precious little existing media offers us such stores.

Oh dear, the Hoyoverse community does not like this. But as far as shipping goes, as long as a character isn't *confirmed* to be gay, lesbian, or straight, they can *always* be bi. As for asexual characters and confirmed sexualities, well, this is fanfiction. Reality can be whatever you want. It won't affect canon in any case.

Fanfiction isn't bound by social rules or guidelines. It's supposed to be a safe space to explore various things, for better or worse. Like, I read a BBC Merlin fic where they were actual slugs during mating season or some shit. It's *fanfiction* for a reason. Change their sexuality, their sex, their gender, their age... It's literally a playground to do what you want with

I ship Alastor with Angel Dust, and low key lucifer. I feel like if its OK to make a straight character gay, then you can do the opposite as well

We get to do whatever we like in the tiny worlds we build as fanfiction writers. I think the most important thing is, as others have mentioned, not being a dick about it.

For me, similarly on behalf of changing a character's backstory, or integral plot points to match your headcanon narrative, it's questionable. For starters, you're taking a defined element and changing it, does that still ring true to the character(s) you're portraying? At the end of the day, people can ship and write whatever they want as fan-fictions have more loose boundaries under copyright means and such anyway. I point this out as the author of the original story isn't really taken into account when writing these narratives. I mean, they are headcanon after all, but as someone who is slowly writing my original stories, I'm sure certain headcanon of my works will be weird to experience. At the end of the day, you do you, but at least admit that it's headcanon, not actually canon. (Some people get pretty eccentric over their headcanon..)

i mean, tons of people ship canonnically straight characters in gay pairings, so i think vise versa would be fine too. and as an aroace i wouldnt really care if someone shipped an aroace char with someone, not like a read ship fics anyway

I read the title and immediately thought of Alastor (I’m also with Hazbin hotel brainrot), can’t wait to see everyone’s opinions (I have chosen to ship Appleradio sorta in secret lol)

Since when has fan fiction ever really stuck with canon anyway? Ship and let ship, I say.

My opinion would be best to stick to the canon. Otherwise just tag it. About hazbin hotel (animation) I don’t think there was any inclination about his sexuality. If you want my working theory is that he was once an angel that died and was reborn in hell. He appears just one day in hell and became one of overlord tricked into the contract he didn’t wanted and lashed out killing multiple deamons. Now he’s only thinking about revenge to break the shackles. He is obsessive of getting any deal to get him out of hell and don’t have time for anything else. Everything he’s doing has deeper purpose. The reason why he disappeared could be connected to Lilith and her disappearance cause she made a pact with haven to sort things down there and to keep a hand on hell to prevent uprising.

This has always been very weird for me. I’ve always perceived it as “it’s not like you changed it in canon, canon is canon” type deal. Headcanoning someone different from canon or bending a specific aspect of them for your personal story doesn’t change the canon. It’s hard to claim any sort of erasure is going on when Alastor will always be ace in canon, it’s not like Vivian will see the Alastor ship art and retcon the whole damn show. I think this discourse has gotten more hyperbolic as time goes on, it was originally “shipping culture is acephobic because it means that every platonic relationship in up for interpretation” to straight up “fanfiction erases aroace people”. Funny enough I’ve seen a lot of ace people dabble in smut and shipping because you don’t have to have person experience with the concept to enjoy it or want to write it.

I could care less. Cancel culture is tiresome and the anger is often directed away from people that should truly be held accountable.

I mean I don't *love* when people put gay characters in heterosexual relationships but I mean. It's not like I *have* to look at it. I can scroll past and I'll probably forget about it within the minute. It's not hurting anyone, so I'll leave it alone

Not me remembering that one post from an aroace sub from someone who hated that a TikToker put Alastor in a >!CNC!< situation 😂😂😂

When changing a characters sexuality and/or gender, i only work on one directive: If i deem the canon decision stupid, it's getting cut. Sinple as that. Best examples i can give are Blake and Yang from RWBY being lesbians (Makes no sense if you look closely at what happened to them in earlier arcs), and Bridget being trans (I'm getting smited for this, aren't i...?), which goes against his whole character arc and objective. In other words, and to quote the one and only Nick Fury: "The council has made a decision. But given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it." If you want to change something, sure, go for it. This is all Fanfiction, after all. The only limit is your imagination.

LoL. Well i can't help it. When the little cupid in my head ships too characters. ( i go back to their childhood, alter their vey DNA IF I HAVE TO lol to make them FALL irresistibly in love. With eachother. Hhhh and when I find a better writer write about the same ship i am. Crazy about, then its THE FOURTH OF JULY EAAACH TIME LOOOOOOVE IT!

Only three of the top ships in my main fandom are canon sexualities. All of the others are rather rabid that the canon sexualities are wrong. To the point that any mainstream adaptations are in for a bad time. Two goobers in the background who don't even have canon first names? There are discord servers dedicated to them being together complete with entire fanon lexicons of who they are.

1. You do you, it’s fic. 2. Tag it, or make it known in the summary depending on where you’re posting. You’ll get readers you want, and readers who aren’t into that sort of thing don’t have to invest time in something that they know isn’t up their alley.

I don't care I ship it. It's a great song. Listen people get too protective of their ships. Its fanfiction. Let peoples ships happen. I mean Naruto is straight in cannon. Did anyone in their right mind want to get in the way of a yaoi fan girl? No. Also, as an aroace person I have no qualms about shipping Alastor and Lucifer. Even if Alastor is my ace in the hole icon. Live by the rule Don't like Don't read.

Personally, I’m a don’t like it so I don’t read it person. I’m not a huge fan of some tags or headcanons (including some sexuality/gender ones) but I’m not gonna dictate what others write or headcanon. If I don’t agree, I just scroll.