#What Are You On About

[eff-plays]

People get really defensive about "writing Astarion with women" when what people are actually annoyed/upset about is that people are putting him in heteronormative relationships with women.

And it's not like, "YOU, INDIVIDUAL WOMAN, WROTE HIM WITH A WOMAN? A POX ON YOUR HOUSE!" and more like "a majority of fandom is writing him in this specific way with this specific type of character that doesn't really reflect who he is in the game and shoehorns him into a generic booktok dom daddy."

Which. Yeah. People are allowed to feel annoyed/alienated by that type of trend. I think. Maybe. I've seen several fics where Astarion being with big burly men (implied to have been penetrated) was portrayed as traumatic, while being with little virginal female Tav was "healing". And yeah, you're technically acknowledging his pansexuality ... But the implications aren't great. Ya know?

And there's a LOT of conflating domming/topping/being on top. Which ends up only highlighting the heteronormative approach to a lot of fic about him. "He gets on top > so he always tops/penetrates > so he's a dom." Because for some reason penetrating others is less traumatic to him than to be penetrated? Which is a whole bag of worms that people seem reluctant/unable to unpack.

Now, the other side of this argument are people who go "lmao those delusional wamen think this homosexual twink would top them" which is. Also not great? But in the end reflects the same type of reductive and heteronormative argument, it's just coming from the other side of the spectrum. He's flamboyant and pretty so he MUST be incapable of putting his dick into someone else. And he's MORE feminine than the women he gets paired with, so obviously that's unrealistic and he must be paired with a big strong man instead. Which is like. Well you're paired him with a man but you're still being just very heteronormative about it. Even gay relationships must have a "man" and a "woman", is your argument? And Astarion, being beautiful and a presumed bottom, is "the woman"?? Hmm. Don't like that.

Maybe. Astarion is. Pansexual. And can both bone down and be boned down. Maybe he does have a preference. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doms, maybe he subs. Maybe he switches depending on mood/partner. Maybe he likes different sex positions where he's on top and ones where he's below. Maybe he's down for whatever as long as it's with someone he loves. Maybe he's neither "the man" nor "the woman" in a relationship and he's simply Astarion, a man in a relationship. Maybe in the end it doesn't fucking matter and putting him into rigid binaries is doing him a disservice.

Anyway. My nonbinary Tav's gonna upgrade his gender to Man+. Cis premium. They're gonna explore his gender and preferences and expression together. I think that might be fun and freeing maybe. And they're gonna take turns topping and bottoming and both will be soooooo healing because um. They're having consensual sex and are in love. So it's healing by default. Regardless of who's putting what where.

Well. Anyway. All I'm saying is. Stuff.

[outlawruben]

Rip Dutch Van der linde you would’ve loved wireless headphones to listen to your opera with 💔

[gauntletqueen]

fuck you to hell. Splatoon 1 was perfectly fine the way it was promoting true feminism for real women. Years later I come back into video games & see they made a splatoon 3 & think to myself "the first one was pretty good, I'll see what this ones about" only to find out PEOPLE LIKE YOU HAVE INSERTED YOUR WOKE AGENDA INTO MY GAMES ONCE AGAIN!!! removing male & female from the options because "waaah I'm a sheltered cuck who doesn't know anything about the real world & gender is scaaaaary oooo, it killed my family you know boo hoo" allowing people to post your lgtv propaganda "art" in the overworld & WORST OF ALL MAKING ALL THE CHARACTERS GAY!!! WHY??? WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE POISONING OUR GAMES WITH YOUR GODAMN DEGENERACY!!! ITS FORCED & DOESN'T FUCKING BELONG HERE!!!!!!!!!! VIDEO GAMES ARE AN ESCAPE FROM THE REAL WORLD NOT A POLITICAL PLAYGROUND!!!!!!!!!!! SO LEAVE OUR CHILDREN FAR AWAY FROM YOUR CORRUPTION YOU FUCKING GOT THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

heeheehee I love playing my gay women video game :3

[bayfuzzball7050]

Me fighting the will to laugh my ass off at those people who GENUINELY THINK they can shift to an alternate reality

[anarchyspider]

Rereading ASM 590-591 and losing my mind at the lover's quarrel here like Johnny stopping everything because he wants to know what Peter's face looked like like he used to (Why are you as a man upset you no longer get to see another man's face 🤨) and Peter is just trying to get back home so badly so he's being more insulting than usual and it throws Johnny off because their usual act of casually telling eachother to go die now actually has a teeny smidge of weight to it

First name basis..

Peter voice johnny can you PLEASE not be gay rn I have a family.

They kiss n make up though as always

[whumpbby]

I can't believe I've just seen someone claim that Jiang Cheng's awesome Umbrella Entrance was "Lan Wangji's in the book".

I can't.

I.. I can't. These people.

[doom-dreaming]

i've always been pretty lukewarm and neutral about charbiter but the MINUTE i hear someone say "there's no good m/m ships for chief" i start gesturing wildly in thel's direction

[hungry-skeleton]

People are getting increasingly nasty about the green dragon I drew and idk if I should feel complimented or scared

[natjennie]

girl that is metal. that is steel. what are you talking about.

[aeolianblues]

I'm not an extrovert. At all. In everyday life, I'm a yapper, sure, but I need someone to first assure me I am okay to yap, so I don't start conversations, even when I really want to join in sometimes! It's just the social anxiety acting up. God knows where from and why I lose a lot of my inhibitions when it comes to talking to people about music. I don't know where the confidence has suddenly sprung from. I've made a crazy amount of friends in musical circles, either just talking to people about common music or (since it is after all in music circles) talking to bands about their own music. I let out a sigh of relief any time an interaction goes well, because in truth it's going against my every instinct. I wish I could do that in everyday life

[ravenquingvax]

Thinking about how the twins grew up with nature as their playground, only to be dragged away to a city that was more of a prison than a home.

Thinking about, after nearly being broken by Syngorn, the twins flee for Byroden and find it gone.

Thinking about how Vex retreated into nature, finding comfort in a bear, while Vax became determined to make cities his as he robs them blind.

Thinking about how, over years of recovery, Vax fell for a druid who controls the elements while Vex falls for an inventor from a city.

Thinking about how Vex marries into royalty, has children and becomes a leader of a major city while Vax dies before his love can fully bloom into itself and he becomes a guardian of life and death who is heavily associated with snowdrops and ravens.

[floatyhands]

Normal contemporary urban area that just happens to be Chinese: *exists*

1930s English-speaking newsreels narrator: OVER THERE THEY CLING TO ANCIENT UNCHANGING CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS, WITH NO REGARDS TO PROGRESS AND MODERNITY

Context: (very illuminating video otherwise)

[beemovieerotica]

Will is a lich, another type of undead creature. So, still necrophilia

HUH???

[god-has-entered-my-body]

Are you still on the force femme bullshit

always

[kingv91]

Me seeing everyone canceling Louis as if this wasn't his baseline. Like this isn't the norm. He wasn't being rude, this is normal, if a bit sassy, for him. And as for the discourse about him "clearly" not wanting queer fans?

Where's your evidence? I've seen nothing that suggests that he doesn't want them, or does. Main thing I see here is people feeling "disrespected" because of Larry possibly but...people break up?

It's not a crime, unless I missed something?

Edit: For added context, I was there for the entire tweet spree so I saw the tweet live. If he said that in an interview, he would have said that in a casual, level voice. People are making it bigger than it is.

[kulttuurinkurittama]

How does it feel to be tumblr famous? :D

I wouldn't know, for I am not