#also i found out im arospec so im definitely not getting into a romantic relationship lmfaoooooo | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kusuokisser · 8 months

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oomf reblogged a bunch of aro stuff and in honor of pride hour (i made it the fuck up Dont ask me any questions i dont talk to paparazzi) i want to talk about MYYY experience being arospec because it is Isolating and even if this reaches literally no one id rather at least have tried to share my feelings. Spreading love! 💝

growing up i very quickly realized that i wasnt getting crushes like the other kids were. as early as second grade i started trying to force myself to like the boys in my class. id, like, look around the classroom at the start of every new school year and look for the next boy to have a "crush" on. It sounds kind of funny looking back but like i remember how desperate i felt doing it. i remember one year i genuinely hated every boy in my class with a burning passion and, if nothing else, i remember the feeling of being wrong. i, a 4th (maybe 3rd?) grader, felt isolated and gross because i couldnt force a crush for a year.

i had known none of the other ones were really crushes, but it wasnt the romance i wanted it was the connections. i wanted to be able to join the girls talking about their crushes and i wanted to have a reason to try talking to boys; i wanted to be liked.

in 6th grade i think was the first time i didnt try to force a crush. i dont remember much from that year but i know that i didnt feel good. youd think that, as an arospec, i would have enjoyed the break from faking romance but at that point i didnt understand that my feelings werent quite real. i knew they werent like everyone elses, but i really wanted them to be even if it meant lying a bit to myself on the way. i felt wrong and weird.

in seventh grade that was when covid hit and everyone was quarentined, and also that is the year that holds my worlds most obvious example of my aromanticism ever. genuinely think back to this and go "how didnt i figure it out sooner"

i convinced myself i had a crush on my at-the-time best friend. there was no crush by the way, i judt knew i liked him more than all my other friends and to my socially deprived brain that meant it had to be romantic right? well he didnt like me back and literally i went, watched like two YouTube videos on something or other, and was over it. because the feelings were never genuine. it was never love it was a desire to be close with someone

8th grade was the first time i actually fell in love. by then i had figured out im a lesbian, and i met this girl named Jane. She was literally everything you could want in a girl and i fell HARRDDDDDDD i was so in love dont even. but I found that my capacity to love her fluxuated. the love was always there, but some days it was more platonic than anything. sometimes thr platonic periods would stretch for weeks. sometimes it would switch between platonic and romantic multiple times a day. it confused me and honestly? it scared me a lot. i distanced myself from her and eventually we broke up (for seperate reasons but this def contributed)

that really messed with me because now i was left with two understandings: i can definitely experience romantic attraction, and the romantic attraction can change at the drop of a hat.

after a lott of time and research i finally realized and accepted that im aromanticflux (will go into detail if necessary) and you know what? it didn't make me feel better. if anything it made me feel worse; i felt like such an asshole for getting in a relationship if it was always going to end.

now i am. Still coming to terms with my identity but i am learning to love and be kind to myself. the point of this whole thing is. youre never alone. there are eight billion people on earth, at least one of them is going through the exact same thing as you right now. you are not any less of a person because of your attraction or lack thereof

#Mimi gets serious wtfff #gross never do it again #faun talks about something other than saiki???#aromantic #aroace #aromantism #arospec #Umm how do you even tag this #If it finds you it finds you. Love yourself ☺️💝

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aspecpplarebeautiful · 2 years

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okay so!! i think i’m aromantic, i’ve never had a crush but some things confuse me so i was wondering if you could possibly help?

i’m going to explain and rant now, you don’t have to help obviously but thank you if you do!!

i often find myself imagining doing romantic things like holding hands with people im close with at the time, it’s not like a crush - i know that much - but i also don’t know what it is because i haven’t heard many people talk about it b4. Also, i tend to compare me and this friend to fictional characters relationships that i’m obsessed with at the time. I used to think these were crushes because i didn’t know what else they could be and had never experienced anything else so i have acted on them b4. When i found out one of these friends liked me, i ‘confessed’ and i felt super excited at the time because ‘omg i’m gonna have my dream relationship’ but after the excitement i didn’t feel anything at all. I didn’t blush when they spoke to me or anything which confused me (because other people seemed so happy in these relationships) but i just ended up telling myself it was because the relationship was online (kinda unsafe of me lmao). This is kind of what has convinced me i’m aro but here’s the thing, the idea of romantic stuff doesn’t disgust me (but i do want it to stop because i know i don’t like them like that so it just feels random and pointless atp and isn’t even fun to imagine anymore) and i even find myself having butterflies around close friends which has made me doubt myself a lot because when i tried searching it up, all i could find was people trying to tell me i probably liked my close friends - which i don’t so it made me kinda mad. Idk if any of this was understandable but thank you for reading and i kinda needed to get this stuff out because it’s been causing me a lot of doubt because i don’t always find myself relating to other ppl on the arospec. Ig i’m asking if you know of any other aro ppl who have experienced these things, like just to quieten the doubts. Tysm for reading this and i’m so sorry if this is annoying!!

So I'm going to throw out two labels you may find interesting. The first is aegoromantic. Someone who is aegoromantic may like romance in theory or enjoy romance in some contexts, but experience a disconnect between themselves and what they find romantic. So for example they may have romantic fantasies but not want to participate in romance themselves.

So it sounds like you have fantasies, but when actually trying romance out with a real person you're not really feeling anything. Which is what made me think of this label.

The other label is akoiromantic/lithromantic, and that's someone who has romantic feelings or experiences romantic attraction, but doesn't want or need it reciprocated.

So this is a bit of an umbrella term, but for some akoiromantic people they will get romantic feelings around certain people, but when those people return the feelings or they try and start a relationship, these feelings fade or disappear. Other akoi people are just in general not interested in dating the people they're attracted to, whether the feelings disappear or not.

These labels can overlap sometimes, so if you relate to both that's totally fine. Though it's also fine if you don't connect to one or both.

In general sometimes romantic feelings can just work that way, you can not really experience the full range or attraction.

But yeah, definitely I've seen other aro people with similar experiences. You're definitely not alone in that.

All the best, Anon! Take care.

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marinsawakening · 5 years

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So ive been questioning whether or not im aro. I used to ID as panro but ive been soul searching lately as well as entering the dating world a bit and i just dont know. I think i might be quiroromantic? Any advice for trying to figure this out? Thanks

Aaalright, so it’s been a while since I was questioning, so I’m a bit out of the loop on this front, but I’ll do my best to direct you to some resources.

@aromantic-official is pretty much aro central, and they have a resource page that includes resources for questioning aros and a glossary of aro terms, which should be a decent start. Their questioning tag also contains a variety of posts that are aimed at questioning aros; I haven’t gone through all of them, but it’s hard to imagine that there won’t be at least one that’s a little helpful.

@anagnori also has a very extensive resource page (although some may be out of date; I haven’t checked all of them), and also wrote this post aimed at questioning aros.

AUREA is a fairly new website/organization dedicated to aromantics, and it has a resource page (again, haven’t checked all the links, but since the site is new, they should at least be up to date)

For quoiromanticism specifically, this post is a good 101 introduction (idk how relevant that is to you, but I feel contractually obligated to include it). The coiner of the term is @epochryphal, who has a quoi tag that is likely to include relevant info. @shades-of-grayro is a good blog for everyone on with a grayro identity (’grayromantic’ is both a specific identity and an umbrella term), and while they don’t seem to have a consistent quoi tag, the quoiromantic search on their blog yields good results. I don’t follow any quoiro blogs, but a quick search turns up @quoisitively-queer, who I’ve seen around (idk how active they are though), and although it’s not especially relevant, I remember @official-quoisexual from when I was questioning whether I was quoisexual, and although the blog is dedicated towards quoisexuality rather than quoiromanticism, and since the quoi community is small, ze might still be able to help you find more specific resources.

Some other aro blogs I recommend (note: I don’t follow everyone on this list, but they’re all good blogs as far as I know):

@aro-neir-o (lots of research)

@aroworlds and the creator’s other blog @alloaroworlds; the first is a blog centering around aro creativity, and the second is an allo aro community blog.

@fandomshateaspecs (community blog, run by a variety of mods)

@biaroace (coiner of the ‘oriented aroace’ term)

@black-aros and the creator’s other aro blog @official-angledaroace; coined the term ‘angled aroace’, which the second is a community blog for, and the first is a blog centering around black aros.

@aro-soulmate-project (originally a blog for deconstructing the soulmate trope, still pretty vocal about this, but has turned into more of a general aro blog with good posts)

@aroarolibrary

@aroacepagans

and uuhh definitely a whole lot more but my brain is blanking at the moment, if you’re an aro blog feel free to like or reblog or reply to this post to make yourself known! I strongly recommend speaking to arospecs directly about your doubts/questions; often, personal conversation can help clear things up in a way that resource posts just can’t. Getting involved in the community can also help; while there’s no guarantee of this, personally, that’s what made me feel secure in my identity.

On a personal questioning note: I can only speak from personal experience as an aromantic with no romantic attraction whatsoever, as well as someone who was lucky enough to have a fairly stereotypical aro experience and get through questioning relatively easily (and with no internalized issues around the aromanticism), but the biggest issue that I found in my aro questioning journey was that the aro label felt so final and definitive, when the aro identity, by nature, is hard to figure out/’prove’ because you can’t prove a negative. I can’t prove that I will never experience romantic attraction; it’s entirely possible that I will, in the future. Hell, I can’t even really prove that I haven’t in the past; there were several instances where I very well might’ve gotten genuine crushes.

But ultimately? Being aro made me happy. The idea of being aro was appealing in a way that being romantically attracted to people/dating never was. For me, at least, being aro is honestly more about making the choice to reject society’s planned romantic path than about the certainty that I will never experience romantic attraction; I feel no desire to ever experience it, the instances in the past that might’ve been romantic attraction annoyed me immensely, and the aro community and the aro label make me happy in a way that I never was when I didn’t have those. I might experience romantic attraction in the future. I might have experienced it in the past. But, ultimately, I cannot relate to the alloromantic experience at all, so either way, I’m somewhere on the aro spectrum, and the ‘aromantic’ identity makes me feel happy, so I’m using it and you physically cannot stop me.

(Obviously, this isn’t a universal experience: many aro people still have the desire to date/marry/have a romantic relationship, many aro people still experience some form of romantic attraction, many aro people may struggle with internalized self hate due to being aromantic or mourn the loss of their pre-planned romantic lifepath, or experience being aromantic in a completely different way. This is just my personal experience, and I wish I’d heard it when I was questioning, so I try to tell it to questioning aros now that I have the chance to do so.)

So, to close, I’ll repeat the same thing I always say to questioning people: ultimately, it’s more important that you’re happy with a label than that it fits. If identifying as aromantic, quoiromantic, or any other arospec identity makes you feel right, happy, or gives you the language to talk about your experiences in a way that you currently can’t, then you shouldn’t worry too much about whether or not the label technically fits, honestly. If IDing as panromantic makes you happy and accurately gives you language to talk about your experiences/describe your feelings, then there may be no need to ID as arospec, even if you fit the definitions. But if IDing as arospec makes you happy or helps you in any way, you can always start IDing as such, even if you’re not sure, don’t entirely fit the definitions, or if you later change your label.

#aro stuff #asks #my posts #Anonymous

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anti-mistajules · 5 years

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For the aromantic asks, would you pick which ones you want, or if you could do all of them? I’ve never heard about it before but I’m really curious and would like to know more from your point of view

Well bc you’ve never heard of it before here’s a little definition I got from here (if u wanna read more about it):

An aromantic is a person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others. Where romantic people have an emotional need to be with another person in a romantic relationship, aromantics are often satisfied with friendships and other non-romantic relationships.

What arospec label(s) do you identify with?

I’m just plain ol Aromantic

Sexual orientation?

Bisexual

Are you romance-repulsed?

To a degree? I don’t usually mind seeing romance in media, I just get a little uncomfortable with seeing PDA and when people view me in a romantic way I feel like physically sick.

Do you relate to voidpunk?

Do I relate to what now?

What kinds of attraction (romantic, sexual, aesthetic, sensual, platonic, etc) do you experience?

Sexual, aesthetic, and platonic definitely! Im not too big on sensual attraction and I don’t feel romantic attraction at all.

How do you like to show people you (platonically) love them?

I’m a huge ‘acts of service’ and ‘gift’ person! I do whatever I can to make things easier for my friends and try to give them gifts they love and deserve! I also like to spend time with them when I can and talk about whatever! Basically if I can talk to you on the phone or in person past 12am, I love you friend!!

Do you want to remain single all your life or do you want to have some sort of life partner?

I wanna remain single, I really need my alone time I couldn’t imagine living with someone for an extended period of time.

If you want one, what is your dream partner?

no!

Which is your favorite of the 3 aromantic flags?

Uhhh fuck im not too flag savvy??? I like this one:

Your opinion on soulmates?

allonormative as fuck and perpetuates the idea that you need another person in your life to ‘complete’ you which is complete garbage!

Your opinion on shipping?

Shipping is fun but I don’t get too into it.

Do you ship characters in romantic/sexual relationships, or do you only ship characters in familial and platonic relationships?

Honestly all of the above but mostly platonic and sexual.

Are you out to anyone in real life?

My close friends and my immediate family. Or at least I tried to come out to them but they were just like “you won’t get married?? Ya right lol ur stupid” and I didn’t use the word ‘aromantic’ so I guess technically im not out to them?? Its not something I hide, but when explaining it to others I don’t use the word bc I don’t wanna explain or want people to think im one of those “tumblrinas’ who ‘make up orientations’ bc there’s a lot of negativity to unpack there so I just don’t bother

How did you come out?

Once I found out what aromanticism was I immediately related to it so I told my best friend first and we had a conversation about it and then Id just be like “hey I don’t get why people date people…I don’t wanna do that” to everyone else.

Do you know any aromantic people in real life?

Nope! I would love to meet some!!

How do you feel about your aromanticism?

Honestly its so freeing…I feel very validated knowing there’s a whole community of people who feel the same way I do about romance. Im pretty proud to be aro with my friends and online but irl to my family and acquaintances Im not as open with it.

What is the worst part of being aromantic?

The lack of representation and the constant erasure. I highkey hate being grouped with asexuals so much bc not every person who is aro is ace and vice versa! They’re separate orientations but they are NEVER treated like it and its so annoying. (THIS IS NOT ACE HATE!! I SUPPORT ACES WITH ALL MY ARO HEART!!! LOVE YALL!!)

Also the constant fear that you cant be friends with the opposite sex bc they’ll always want to be romantically involved and that your allo friends will leave you for their S/O lol

ALSO WHEN UR PHONE CHANGES AROMANTIC TO AROMATIC >:///

What is the best part of being aromantic?

Not being in a relationship lol people complain so much about their relationship troubles and im like ‘damn COULDN’T be me’

How did you find out about aromanticism?

I found out through either Tumblr or google I cant remember which??? Or maybe I saw it on Tumblr and googled it? Either way Tumblr was a factor

When did you know you were aromantic?

I tried dating my best friend and ended it in like 3 days bc I felt so fucking weird about the whole thing like very uncomfortable??? Like I felt like I couldn’t talk to him about certain stuff anymore and just being called someone’s “girlfriend” makes my skin crawl. I always had some weirdness around romance but I thought it was just bc I haven’t “found the right person yet” but if anyone was the “right person” it was my best friend and I couldn’t do it. So I did some research and found out about aromanticism, related so hard, and have been very happy with the label ever since.

Do you have any aromantic headcanons?

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG AND BRUCE BATMAN WAYNE ARE AROMANTIC AND YOU WILL PRY THOSE HEADCANONS OUT OF MY COLD, DEAD HANDS YOU COWARDS

What would be your dream representation of an aromantic/aro-spec character?

An aromantic character who is allosexual (preferably bi) who loves their friends and family and would do anything for them! Doesn’t go “EW!!! GROSS!!” At romance but is just like “nah ill pass, loving my friends is all I need!” and isn’t super oblivious to romantic gestures or infantilized/made into a joke for not being interested in romance. Also if they call out allonomativity that’d be tight

Who is your aromantic icon/idol?

NOBODY BC THERE ARE NO AROMANTICS IN MEDIA

What is your favorite song that relates to aromanticism, or is simply not about romantic love?

Analysis Paralysis by Awake at Last (At least I don’t get a romance vibe off of it??) and Sonic Youth by Crush 40 for all you Sonic fans out there. (And honestly most sonic songs are aromantic BANGERS)

What is your favorite movie that is not focused on romance?

BATMAN V SUPERMAN !!!

What is your favorite tv show that is not focused on romance?

POKEMON !! Im gonna be honest with y’all I think the reason Im aro is bc I watched nothing but Pokemon until I was like 10 (I didn’t stop I just also watched other things) and it is the least romance oriented show ever like….while y’all where out watching Disney princesses ‘fall in love’ or whatever I was crying over Pikachu’s Goodbye so don’t talk to me about heartbreak. Also Ash and Pikachu’s friendship (and of course his friendship with all his traveling partners) really fucking resonated with me and I think thats why I hold my friends above all else.

What popular romantic pairing do you see as only platonic?

SONAMY

Do you experience squishes?

I think I’ve had maybe one or two but they went away quick once I realized that I just like this person bc I think we’d be good friends and I get excited at the thought of making longterm friends.

Do you own any aromantic pride merch or outfits? What are they? If not, what would you like to own?

I do not but id love to own a flag or two

Do you have any advice for anyone who may be questioning if they are aromantic or on the aromantic spectrum?

Just own it. I’m actually actively trying to take my own advice bc like I said I don’t use the word irl but like,,,if you think you’re aro or somewhere on the spectrum, find a label that speaks to you and just own it. Being Aromantic isn’t cringey, its a valid orientation just like any other and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Ive spent too much time pretending to be alloromantic just to fit in, I’ve embarrassed myself too many times by pretending to be allo, Ive gone too far into my life pretending to be something im not just because its easier for others to understand. Ive gone through too much to discover my orientation to have some fucking losers on the internet tell me that its ‘not a real orientation’. Im aromantic. I feel comfortable in that label and no one can take that away from me.

#ask anti #Anonymous

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marinsawakening · 6 years

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2 3 4 and 7 for ur meme >:3 let the salt come forth

2: Most amatonormative ship?

UHHHHH of all time??? or just in FMA??? oh shit should’ve probably thought this one through before making the ask meme lmao

okay so I’ll do in FMA first because it’s the easiest and uh. that’d be alm/ei. there’s literally no reason for either al or mei to have a love interest, its clearly used as a gag in canon, it was pretty much 100% onesided in canon, but for some godforsaken reason the fandom just?? loves it???? and considers it canon that they’d get married later in life?????? I mean I’m not gonna say that Arakawa wouldn’t agree with that but. she and everyone else is would be wrong. Al is aro and Mei is lithro and they try a relationship post canon but it doesn’t work out bc they’re arospec babe so they decide to be good friends instead and its a relief for everyone involved and that’s the truth.

Of all time…. that’s tough. I’m gonna go with Ca/leo (calypso/leo from the heroes of olympus franchise) even though I’m sure there’s worse things out there because I remember being FUCKED UP MAD when good ol’ uncle rick decided to pair off literally the only character from the original series that didn’t get a love interest because that was LITERALLY HER ENTIRE POINT and then decided to pair of leo because amatonormativity I guess AND THEN decided that they wouldn’t actually work as a couple so he just fucking. changed calypso’s entire personality. and I don’t mind that change much bc I like her better in HOO but YOU CAN’T JUST CHANGE CHARACTERS YOUR NOT HAPPY WITH RICK ESPECIALLY NOT FOR A ROMANCE THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS. anyway im still salty about HOO can you tell.

3. Most amatonormative ship fic trope?

*slams my fist on table* HANAHAKI DISEASE. yes I know that the aro community as a whole is really Done with soulmates and I totally understand and respect that (even if my own feelings are a lot more complicated) bc they’re amatonormative as heckie and much more widespread but like. the entire concept of hanahaki disease is ‘if someone doesn’t love you back you will get TERMINALLY ILL” and I mean??? who the fuck???? thought this was cute????? seriously what the fuck.

4. What popular ship has the least chemistry?

Well I already used alm/ei so and I’m disqualifying ro/yed on grounds of wanting to make this fun so…. pissing people off lets go with edw/in. it sucks. its bad for winry’s character development and completely superfluous to the story. we gain absolutely nothing by having ed and winry be romantically involved. they work way better and are way cuter as friends, and we would lose no story beats whatsoever except for the proposal at the end which was awkward as fuck in my opinion. like if your ship contains canon dialogue like “were his shoulders always so broad” (or something either way it was winry busing about Ed’s shoulders which…. is that a thing? that I missed?) and “wait at home and bake me an apple pie” (again, something among those lines), that’s…. not great chemistry. sorry you guys i just don’t see it.

7. Which ship discourse is the funniest?

*pulls out my time in the VLD fandom* LET ME TELL YOU A THING

(under the cut because this shit is too fucking long)

okay so for the most part the VLD fandom wasn’t actually…. that bad. I mean it was childish and volatile as fuck and everyone was really hostile to each other don’t get me wrong, but honestly, it’s not the worst fandom experience I’ve ever had, and once I managed to carve out a little niche for myself it was pretty enjoyable (also a lot of the fans were autistic which. neat).

but there was one event in that fandom that just fucking. killed me. and I’m still not over it.

so once every three months or so (on average, sometimes it’d happen multiple times a month and sometimes it’d say quiet for months on end) we had some Major Bullshit happen that got on top of the regular ship wars. sometimes it was something a cast member (Pidge’s voice actress, usually) had said or reblogged, sometimes it was new age ‘confirmation’ that just added wood to the fire of the regular discourse, sometimes it was a new Hot Take™ on the show that everyone loved for a while until someone inevitably pointed out that it was ooc/problematic/etc. and then everyone hated it, etc. etc. pretty standard volatile fandom stuff, all things considered, with the vast majority of the discourse having valid points but being taken way out of proportion because of the sheer size of the fandom.

the shaladin discourse is definitely a good example of that. the main point of the anti side in that discourse is ‘hey don’t ship shiro with the other paladins he is an adult and they are teenagers’ and the point of the anti anti side is ‘don’t tell me what to do you pearl clutching purists’ which. i mean im clearly biased here. but the discourse was blown so far out of proportion, primarily because, again, this fandom is too fucking big, but also because a lot of people involved in the discourse were kids themselves. you basically had a bunch of 14/15-year-olds who by and large haven’t quite mastered critical thinking yet yelling at each other in debates that got very emotional very easily. (not saying this to be condescending, lord knows we should all be happy that I wasn’t into fandom when I was fifteen or I would’ve 100% been the person going ‘well actually it’s called ephebophilia get your terms right’ so we all dodged a bullet there. but im just saying that, historically, young teenagers don’t have the best trackrecord for rational, calm discussions, and it really showed.)

so, why am I taking the time to tell you all of this? so that you have proper context to how stupidly ridiculous this discourse was on a regular basis. many (most) of the people in this fandom seemed to totally forget that, while telling people not to ship pedophilia or stuff like that is generally pretty important, it’s ultimately still fandom bullshit and doesn’t really, actually matter that much in the grand scheme of things. it very quickly became a very strong ‘us vs. them’ mentality on both sides that resulted in actually pretty seriously toxic behaviour like death threats (although the anti side definitely had more of a tendency to go witch hunting after people, shaladins were absolutely not exempt from Bullshit, as you’ll see below). like i shit you not we were all genuinely waiting for the time someone would get stabbed irl over it or something, it was so tense.

and at some point, at what I consider the height of this stupid discourse, came Operation Shalanonymous.

I might be getting the name wrong, but they genuinely called it something like that, with a serious graphic behind it. I shit you not. This whole thing was so, so surreal.

Operation Shalanonymous was literally a spyop. A 15-year-old shaladin (and maybe some others, I don’t remember) who at the time went by the url ‘theblackguardianofsheith’ or something similar (they deleted, to my knowledge, and I hope they’re living their best life) pretended to be an anti and went ‘undercover’ in an anti discord server, with the purpose of ‘exposing’ the antis for what they really were. they gathered a bunch of screenshots and such, and then released them all as ‘damning evidence’ onto Tumblr, claiming that they showed evidence of sexual harrassment and hypocrisy, among other things.

I can’t remember all of the accusations, but some were pretty serious, so I took the time to go through the screenshots and found… very little. there were some distasteful remarks here and there in the form of ‘i wanna kill [insert shaladin]’ that the mods shouldn’t have let slide, and a childish, kinda sexualizing derogatory nickname for the shaladin in question in the form of ‘hunty’, but those two things were really the worst of it. yes, this behaviour was bad and the mods shouldn’t have let it slide or participated in it, but all in all? not worth an entire spyop. if anything, what I found much more damning was that the shaladin (who, as a reminder, was 15 as well) had written a couple of little notes on the screenshots drawing attention to some particular messages of a then 13-year-old anti who said they had a crush on shiro. the notes themselves would’ve been nothing more than childish IF that same 13-year-old hadn’t just come out of a massive dogpiling attack where they were repeatedly misgendered and accused of wanting to have sex with adults themself despite them being a csa survivor. so attempting to throw back to that discourse to ‘prove’ some kind of hypocrisy was distasteful at best and honestly, it did not make them look very good.

so yeah. as you can imagine, the discord members and mods took that very well, and just. for a while, Operation Shalanonymous was this actual Thing, where shaladins were crying that the antis were finally exposed and the antis were accusing the spying shaladin of sending graphic rape porn into the chat to shock users, which the 15-year-old shaladin refuted by saying that they were attempting to get them to do something about it (apparently they were trying to get it taken down or something, but I genuinely have no clue why they thought the antis could help with that, but then again, this whole situation was so far-fetched and there was little evidence provided that this was actually ‘graphic rape porn meant to scar csa survivors’, like the antis claimed either, so like. i don’t fucking know), and accusations went back and forth for a while. it was a mess.

and this, this right fucking here, is hands down the most childish, most distasteful, most useless ship discourse that I’ve ever encountered. not only did someone actually take the time and energy to pretend to be an anti for quite some time in order to ‘spy’ on antis, they also decided to, in all seriousness, release the screenshots under the actual fucking name ‘Operation Shalanonymous’, dropping them like they were the fucking panema papers. like guys??? you know this is the fucking voltron fandom, not goddamn wikileaks, right???? these are not state secrets you’re releasing. they’re screenshots from a fandom chat. it. doesn’t. matter. that. much.

there were some genuinely horrifying things that went down during this whole debacle, and I probably shouldn’t find it as funny as I do, since this really was a prime example of how toxic people can get when they think they’re in the right, especially when the person in question is a teenager (who, again, don’t have the best track record for emotional regulation and foresight). but I just fucking can’t take this shit serious. you gotta remember that a 15-year-old was mostly heading this thing, and it really shows; the whole entire set-up and pay-off was just overwhelmingly childish, and it makes me so, so glad that I wasn’t into fandom at that age, because who knows what shit I would’ve pulled. and I just can’t stop imagining what everyone involved will think of this shit when they’re in their twenties or thirties. because god. ship discourse does not matter this much, guys. it really, really doesn’t, and this whole debacle was nothing but an embarrassment for everyone involved.

so anyway that was hands down the most ridiculous ship discourse I’ve ever witnessed, thanks for coming to my history lesson.

#Anonymous #aro stuff #diskhorse #i see i have some other asks in my askbox as well and i'll answer those tomorrow its too goddamn late here #my posts

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