#aa discourse

[lucere-aeresta]

This is kinda interesting. Idk if the take was posted recently or a long time ago. If it's been a while I sort of understand, otherwise...seriously, there are AA456 already and we all see how it goes do we not? (ik some folks would be like only 1-3 are canon and everything else are garbage that do not count. Meh.)

I think the devs def put down "hints" of the Iris/Nick relationship, just because at the time the series was ending and it is a traditional way to end a story by having the main character happily in a relationship or dead or something.

But like, for real, "btw this guy got married with someone only appears at the last chapter" is just a weak ass way of making this kind of forced "happy ending". Given the storyline, it's not as bad as Arthur Conan Doyle being "let me pull this superduper villain who was never a thing before out of my ass just to kill off the main character", but it's pretty much the same kind of crap. It's basically "marrying off the main character" for the sake of having a "traditional ending", which is straightforwardly bad writing that most writing guide 101 books would advise against. If someone chooses to abide by the canon doggedly down to every letter, it's their choice, but there is a reason why even a writer as influential as ACD had to fix his trash ending and have the story going again. Shitty writings got rejected. That's it.

Also...it's not even canon set in stone lol it's hints and hints only and you can take or leave it. It's ultimately ambiguous. Like, Wright doesn't even say I still have feelings for you or similar lines. He says "I still believe in you". The point is that he believes the girl he once cared for is not an evil person. It's about him being a lawyer who knows how to trust even in a situation the most compromising to his faith in people. "Wright trusts people and judges characters correctly" is the theme here, not his romantic feelings.

If ppl absolutely must be homophobic and insist a woman on Wright, there are like tons of female characters that could fit the job. Those who are so obsessed with Iris/Nick never give a fuck about this ship. They keep bringing it up because and only because it's "canon" as if that makes them superior or something. Ugh.

saw an ace attorney take so bad I genuinely lost my vision for a few seconds out of pure rage I felt my heart rate going astronomical levels. what's the worst aa take you've ever seen

dog for joy and whimsy

[bananasfosterparent]

"Spawn fans discuss why you love spawn without putting down, insulting, or even mentioning AA fans in any way, but especially negatively" challenge.

[brain-rot-central]

Also as a side note it's ok to enjoy dark concepts as a form of escapism.

Please do not misconstrue that as my excusing Nazism--ya'll can get fucked with that.

What I mean is liking the "bad" ending to things or fantasizing about more dramatic circumstances that have unfortunate consequences.

It's ok to enjoy tragedy in your entertainment. It's ok to want to foster concepts of tragedy, including romantic ones. If the perfect completion of a hero's journey doesn't appeal to you, don't subscribe to it.

You're allowed to enjoy things most other people don't.

People will greet you with hesitancy and disdain toward it due to their own personal feelings of discomfort. They'll project those feelings onto you because they don't know what else to do, or they've been conditioned into thinking it's "wrong" and therefore have a moral obligation to inform you that you're also "wrong" and should stop it right now!

Keep doing whatever you're doing. Don't bend to someone or feel bad about yourself just because they tell you your love of a dark character or concept concerns them because of x, y, z reasons.

If you have a good head on your shoulders and a firm grasp on the fact that this is all fantasy, then you're fine.

These are choices, at the end of the day. Choices cannot harm you unless you give them the power to. You can choose to do whatever and live however you want, so long as you're aware of the consequences.

If something makes you uncomfortable, you can very easily go "nope, enough of that for today," and walk away from it. You do not, and should not, have to police other people into agreeing or accepting what your individual levels of comfort are.

If seeing something on tumblr.com upsets you so much to the point where you write hateful messages or posts about it, please learn to kick rocks in your own yards. Oh, and utilize your block/filter tags.

You have the power to curate your own experience.

Use it.

[cringelordofchaos]

"you headcanon Pheonix as bi yet haven't even considered shipping him with the girl he met when she was seventeen years old" excuse me?

[aceattorneywhispers]

this is sort of a hot take i guess but i feel like the mlm ships are way too overrated and a lot of the really good wlw ships get extremely overlooked in the aa fandom,,,like they’re there if you look </3

i remember thinking before i fully joined the aa fandom many years ago that it was all strictly yaoi centric until i stumbled upon fanart of ema x kay and franmaya stuff and was genuinely surprised there was yuri ships involved at all in the fandom.

♡

[qwainte]

My little post about Astarion fans trashing Wyll attracted an extremely strange and troubling anon ranting about Ascendant Astarion despite my post never mentioning AA once, so I want to make my stance on AA clear as this isn't the first time someone in my inbox accused me of being a fandom "puritan":

I do legitimately like Ascendant Astarion. I typically go for the spawn ending as I usually play "good" characters but I definitely understand AA's charm and I'm not immune to it. I think both endings are satisfying conclusions to his character arc, albeit for different reasons. AA makes for a really good corruption arc that doesn't feel forced or OOC.

Fandom content should never be obligated to appeal to canon, so writing content where AA is "nice" and not purely evil doesn't bother me one bit. And while I sometimes make fun of mods that make AA more friendly, I don't actually hate them at all. Fan content is supposed to be self-indulgent, source material be damned.

What I do have a problem with is when fans think that their warped interpretation of a character and their story should be acknowledged by the official creator(s) and catered to.

I'm not talking about disagreeing with or critiquing the quality of a story/character. I'm talking about fans who fundamentally refuse to engage with a work of art within its framework and expect creatives to prioritize fanservice over crafting a story or experience. It makes zero sense story wise for the writers of BG3 to portray Astarion's ascension as a "neutral" or "good" choice. The "cycle of abuse" isn't some crackpot theory spawn stans came up with, it's a legit motif that is present in Astarion's story. You don't have to like it, but at least acknowledge that it's there and respect the writers' decision to tell this particular story and not your own.

To make things even clearer:

I do not care if astaristan101xoxo wants to write fluffy headcanons about AA

I do not care if astaristan101xoxo writes a 100k story where AA is basically Vlad Tepes Dracula in Faerûn.

I do not care if astaristan101xoxo doesn't t like the moral dilemma of the ritual decision.

I do not care if astaristan101xoxo likes the Ascension ending.

I do care if astaristan101xoxo inserts themselves into discussions and healthy discourse about Astarion and derails them by focusing on their personal feelings and attachment to him and completely ignoring story and framing.

I do care if astaristan101xoxo obnoxiously comments "Its not that deep, lmao" on posts where the OP is trying to honestly engage with Astarion's story.

I do care if astaristan101xoxo makes 30+ posts on Larian forums demanding that AA receives a full rewrite that radically changes the entire theming of his character arc to better replicate a generic power fantasy with no in-text moral implications and acts like they are a persecuted minority when they discover that the majority of the fanbase does not share this view.

I do care if astaristan101xoxo waxes lyrically about Larian "removing player choice" and "bad DMing" because their PC frowns while being choked and degraded by Astarion but IMMEDIATELY shuts up about all this once they change the PC's expression to be smiling in patch 7.

Inb4 someone claims I'm "policing" completely harmless behaviors: I'm not policing anyone. You can do and say whatever you want as long as you aren't hurting anybody, just like I'm allowed to find your specific behaviors really annoying and unpleasant.

[raptorian]

Rarepair I found in an ao3 fic, Sebastian Debeste and Clay Terran. What do you think about it?

Day🌕 31

I don’t really have a strong opinion for 2 reasons. First, I haven’t beaten the second/Apollo’s trilogy yet so I haven’t actually seen anything about Clay Terran beyond a few ao3 fics, so I don’t really have a good gauge on the character. Second, I’m not really into shipping characters in general/rarepairs unless they’re canon or if I just really like the pair (for instance: I like Narumitsu but I’m not really into Franmaya). I usually enjoy platonic relationships a lot more so like with Klavier, I guess I’d just see Sebastian and Terran as friends and nothing more. Thanks for the ask though!

[emvnah]

On the topic of addiction recovery:

I'd like for us to move away from using the word "clean" when talking about sobriety/abstinence. Addicts who are still using aren't "dirty" or inherently bad. Shaming people in active addiction never got anyone recovered better or faster.

Sober is a totally valid word to use even if you've never touched alcohol specifically. I like that it doesn't imply anything negative about non-Sober people.

[karuma-meii]

I feel like some ace attorney fans could stand to think about how many of the most beloved characters are at least cop adjacent, if not cops outright. Even a big part of what phoenix does is finding (and thus incarcerating) the real culprit (= the appropriate person to punish under the legal system). Like even if you enjoy the prosecutors (and I do! all my favs are on the prosecution) you should be aware of what system and values are depicted here. Real-life prosecutors ruin people's lives every day.

Just something to keep in mind I guess, especially with the aai port coming soon.

[mister-rad-boy]

You're not an ally you're a male. We don't want you here don't use our fucking tags

My title as an ally is something I don’t really care about. If you don’t want to see me in the tags that you use, you are free to block me.

[aperture-of-bullshit]

atla trending is never a good sign. do not be fooled by atla trending. do not click on the tag expecting news or even some cool art. It WILL be shipping discourse. It WILL be people rehashing the Same Exact bullshit that they have been arguing about over and over for the last almost two decades. And you give exactly as many shits today as you gave back then.

[pastel-starr-bitch]

Idk how much clearer I have to be with Tumblr's algorithm but I enjoy AA. Stop showing me random posts of people bitching about AA. I am very obviously into AA. Stop it.

[graverobber3457]

jelloapocalypse is a guy who can make a funny vid occasionally but whenever you let him talk too long he reveals himself to be that deadly mixture of inordinately smug and not very knowledgeable about things he has strong opinions on

[bighandsforabigheart]

been stalking the cherik fandom for a few months now and have concluded that while I will rewatch the movies over and over, go through the entire tag on ao3, maybe draw some art and love them dearly, I do not want to get involved in the fandom whatsoever because it seems like majority of the time it's just people arguing whether Erik or Charles was wrong and hating on the opposition

[qwainte]

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT THE QUEEN OF THE ASCENDANT GIRLIES NOW HATES THE GAME AND INSISTS ASTARION IS A HORRIBLY WRITTEN CHARACTER OMFG

[tavs-brainworm]

”like we weren’t ALL enabling Astarion’” we weren’t actually if you play like an enabler that’s just problem

Lol I won’t fault you for taking my exaggerated joke post at face value. I didn’t literally mean “all bg3 players do heinous things for Astarion’s approval,” but rather “many people who go into bg3 intending to romance Astarion end up doing heinous things to get his approval”

Yes, we the Veteran Astarionmancers know that you actually don’t have to do anything even remotely evil to romance him. However, this method of romancing him is really not obvious to blind players from the get go, so tons of people end up engaging in a bit of nastiness or enabling to get that approval meter up in act 1, even if they originally meant to play as a good aligned character.

Regardless of his motives, Astarion is inarguably an evil aligned character (afaik alignment doesn’t take motive into consideration), and by romancing him at all you have to at least be morally unscrupulous enough to stay with him whilst he’s fantasizing about becoming an evil puppet master and being super racist for no reason.

So uhhhh idk I just think it’s kinda cringe how some fans of Astarion (a character who is shitty and manipulative in every playthrough no matter what the player does) want to go around being the morality police, condemning people for “enabling” a fictional character’s evil ending, when they themselves are fawning over a character who was already evil to start with!

And if you only go into Astarion’s romance thinking “I don’t like him the way he is, but if I’m Kind and Morally Righteous enough he will change for the better” then I’m sorry but that’s Bad In Real Life (TM) too.

Can we not just all come together in our shared love for the poorest of little meow meows who loves lying and thinks killing people is fun?? Why are we morally one-upping each other in this quest to be the most morally superior fan of the guy who thinks torture and death is funny so long as it isn’t happening to him.