#this is something i would never ship if it werent for a couple specific tumblr blogs

[kayden-i-guess]

The Bois are smitten.

[floaty-pickle]

ok so i’ll preface this by asking you to please not reblog this post. you can like or reply if you want to, but please dont spread it around. i will also use slashes or asterisks to make sure none of this shows up in any tag.

ooook, i wanted to make my position on some things clear. some of you have probably noticed that i have been very vague about how i stand on some... themes... in this fandom and that i only speak up when something enormously fucky is going down. that was on purpose, but im gonna stop doing that now.

when i joined tumblr eons ago i used to be (past tense) pretty indifferent to and kind of ok with r//pf content. it happens to actors, creators, etc in a lot of fandoms and it never outright bothered me. i never specifically sought out or even wrote r//pf content, but i knew a few bloggers who did and sometimes i saw some edits or a short fic and i was like “aww thats cute” and went on. in my mind “speculating about whether or not two celebrities are a couple/saying two people would be a cute couple” wasnt that far away from “creating stories where those two are together”. i also fully bought into the ‘the people in the stories are fictionalised versions of the real people’ thing.

over time i finally acknowledged that being shipped with a colleague or a friend would be uncomfortable for most people, so that would apply to celebrities, too. i still wasnt exactly anti r//pf, but my main concern was that the subjects of the r//pf should never, never be confronted with the fic or the other romantic content created about them. i was already convinced that dark and twisted shit like r*pefic or heavily kinky stuff was unacceptable for r//pf. i went by these rules for the longest time: if r//pf content isnt fucked up and if its guaranteed that the people its about will not see it, its ok. you cant be uncomfortable with something you dont know anything about. i still held onto this for some time after getting into b//fu.

then some severely sinister shit happened, which im sure most of you remember. i saw the lengths some people would go to defend writing fucked up r//pf or r//pf in general. i had gotten to know (although know is a strong word as im not really ~in~ the b//fu fandom and im notoriously bad at making friends on here or just responding in general haha) a few bloggers, some of them shippers. this happened after i made a few angry posts about the fucked up shit, so i knew the few shippers i met werent those kinds of monsters. i know they arent bad people and i know they wanted the boys or their friends/partners to never find any of it. 

but in the meantime (like, a few months ago?) weve learned that the boys DO know about the r//pf (as does s*ra apparently) and theyre uncomfortable with it. r*an even made some not so subtle comments about it. if you remember, one of my main rules was that for r//pf to be ok, they cant ever find out about it. and suddenly i noticed the big flaw in my logic. deep down i always knew that r//pf in general wasnt ok and i was just kidding myself with the “if they never find out about it” bit. if something is only ok when it happens behind someones back and is suddenly not ok anymore when the person knows about it, it hasnt been ok from the start. what you dont know wont hurt you is bullshit.

the reason why i didnt say anything for the longest time is because i thought “ive been ok with and condoned this for so long and have even played with the thought a few times myself, so i would be a real hypocrite if i started posting like ive always been against it”. but now i AM saying it. so if there are any shippers left following me even after i got put on a blocklist (and ive earned my place on that one): i know not all of you are irredeemable monsters and i know i cant convince you to stop. i know i wont be able to do that, but please think about some of the things ive written and ask yourself if youre only ok with projecting romantic or erotic stories onto real people because “they wont ever find out”. if you are, then please remember, that they already HAVE found out and are uncomfortable with it. if youre now feeling guilty thats the sign for you to stop. it took me some time to figure this out, too.

[yoonstanha]

im just going to make this post right now and try to not say any more about this whole subject (we’ll see how that goes though yikes,,,)

just to clEAR THINGS UP: im not hating on riley. she apologised, cleared up the misunderstanding within her post, and explained herself. but i want to use this situation right now to highlight what i think our fandoms fault is, and this rEALLY REMINDS M E OF IT

we want everyone to think the same way, and some people (hi not gonna name names but im sure u could guess a couple) are practically force-feeding ideas to (especially new) aroha. if i were to put it into my own words: its brainwashing. we’re telling people that what they think is wrong. we’re telling people that “if you dont think this way (aka dont sexualise astro) then get out”. i completely understand that we want to keep this image of a fandom as being pure, unproblematic, but we’re having the opposite effect. anyone who has these thoughts is practically being forced to keep them to themselves because if they do say anything that they genuinely think and doesnt align with what some of the “”bigger blogs”” say, then they’ll be practically, in a sense, kicked out of the fandom. abandoned by people.

from my actual personal experience: i was spoon-fed this idea that NOTHING sexual abt astro AT ALL was to ever be said, and if u did say anything u werent a real aroha and u didnt love them :( it wasnt until this year that i realised this mentality is !!!! stupid !!!!! before becoming an aroha, i had absolutely no opinion on the matter. i didnt care about sexualising, i didnt care about shipping, i didnt care abt smut or anything of the like. if people wanted to enjoy that, that was their decision and not mine. when i did join aroha, i was practically told that “our fandom is so good because we dont sexualise members !! sexualising members is bad bad and shouldnt ever be done so we dont do it!”, but what i failed to recognise at the time is that there are people out there who dont believe in this at all. there were people out there who couldnt share their own thoughts and ideas, because they feared receiving hate.

rather than becoming a fandom who accepts anyone and everyone and what they believe in, we’ve become a fandom that supports a one-track mind, everyone believe in the same cause and having no different opinions from eachother. we’ve shunned people for having some kind of humanly trait, we’ve shunned people for being attracted (sexually !!) to someone, despite it being human !!!!!! we’re failing to realise the flaws in our thought process, we’re failing to recognise the aroha who can’t speak out, we’re failing to accept what comes with being on the internet.

this isnt something that has come to mind solely because of riley’s original post. this has been a long-standing issue within our community that many people have noticed (wow guys its not just me), and to be honest, i think its about time we opened up our minds.

im not saying this means u gotta go read up on some smut aaND GET  DO WN N DIR TY. in fact this change doesnt have to affect you at all, and it never had to affect anyone in the first place. you had the choice to block whatever made you uncomfortable (um note: you isnt directed at anyone in particular im just trying to be impactful on you, the reader), you had the choice to ignore what made you uncomfortable. in some circumstances, it almost seems as though this “quest to protect astro because theyre all babies and need protecting from lots of girls most of whom are younger than them !!!!” has been some kind of gross competition to be the best aroha, to be the morally correct and protector(tm) aroha. its become less and less about genuinely caring about astro, and more “what can i do today to prove that im an ok person”.

i think that as a community, we are smart and respectful enough towards astro to know where to draw the line. personally, anything on tumblr (unless its about a minor) is fine for me. the artists dont see it, and therefore dont know and dont care about it. where i personally draw the line though is places where they may often check - twitter (specifically in the astro tag and replies to their own tweets), youtube comments, fancafe, etc. tumblr just isnt a place where idols are going to see it. i’ll hold this view until any member of astro specifically states that such comments, jokes, and statements make them uncomfortable. just as we can’t assume what aroha are comfortable with, we cannot assume what astro are comfortable with, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT. it is not your duty as a fan to “protect” them. your duty is to support them and love them. gentle reminder that theyre NOT FIVE. if something bothers them, they are in fact old enough to speak out for themselves

please, aroha, i know we can be respectful for one another, even if our opinions and views differ. i would absolutely hate for such a trivial matter to split aroha into 2 groups, because in the end we’re all here to support and love astro.

thank u and good night

(ps yes i expect to get some backlash for this lol and im here to take other opinions and views into account though. i understand that different things will  make different things uncomfortable. thats fine. ur human. how u react to it is important tho)