Since it's ace week, I would like to use this opportunity to say that claiming that a fictional character who is ace can never be interested in sex is aphobic. It's erasure of a whole range of ace identities (such as demisexual, grey asexual, cupiosexual, etc.) and general oversimplification of ace people's experience.
There isn't much ace rep out there as is and it's gross when people deny others rep.
If you're ace and you absolutely don't want to see an ace character in relationships - that's absolutely valid, but please don't act like your experience is the only one. Telling aces they can't put a fictional ace character in sexual situations is still aphobic, even if you're ace yourself. Same goes for the aro counterparts.
A good example of this behavior is the Murderbot Diaries fandom, who are ready to harass anyone, including aroace people, over shipping Murderbot with anyone, despite the fact that even sex and romance repulsed aroace people can and do have sex or relationships IRL.
Next, can we stop assuming that characters are aroace when only one part of this identity is confirmed? It's absolutely valid to headcanon them as such, but I've seen people harass others in such instances. A good example would be Alastor from Hazbin Hotel. He's canonically asexual, but his romantic orientation has not been confirmed, meaning he could be aroace or he could be allo ace. Despite this lack of confirmation, people who shipped Alastor with other characters got tons of harassment. Not only do the previous points apply, this is also a case of allo ace erasure.
Asexuality is one of the most marginalized identities, with ace people being shunned by both cishet and fellow queer people. Which is why it's extra heartbreaking to see aphobia within the aspec community. Especially over fictional characters. Come on, we can do better than that!
