#but i feel like vax gets much more of that treatment?? like okay the dude likes to Walk Away

[aeoris4lovers]

seeing the beginning of campaign one again, it's so wild to me that vax became known as the Broody Emo One.

i know he gets more broody as the campaign goes on and shit goes down, but his main personality trait at least at the beginning really is just like...charm?

like the dude's A People Person, he's buying drinks for a whole inn's worth of people and lightheartedly sympathizing with npcs about how his friends are all idiots and giving vex surprise hair ruffles while stealthed and generally just so far from the way he's portrayed by a lot of people.

he's such a likable person (very intentionally so) when things are more relaxed and i feel like that makes it hit way harder what he does withdraw bc that's not just what he's always like.

[agnesgoesadventuring-blog]

Honestly as a bi person the C/R fandom’s attitude towards bi people can be very frustrating. There was debate over whether Tary was gay or bi and the moment he was confirmed gay there were some mean spirited posts going “fuck you for thinking he was bi”. And Molly is confirmed bi/pan but I have yet to see him shipped with a woman and if he was I worry people might start sending anons like “wow you’re a homophobe for not shipping these other popular Molly ships.” Seen it happen in other fandoms.

(Part 2 of biphobia anon) Also, Yasha. While I absolutely agree with the collective fandom headcanon that Beau is a lesbian, this rush to claim Yasha as a lesbian and ignore any possibility of being bi rubs me the wrong way. In the first ep, obviously she and Beau had a bigger moment, but she and Fjord were kinda flirting. I mean, that shaving Caleb moment was potentially shippy, and yet I think people are afraid to ship her with anyone but other women, even though nothing is confirmed by Ashley(Biphobia anon, part 3) I realize all this might come off as “waaahhh but what about the het ships” but that’s my point that those ships wouldn’t be het. If people started h/cing Yasha as bi or pan and shipping her with dudes, there would 100% be comments saying they’re only doing it bc they don’t want to ship a gay ship or bc they have het goggles on to deny B/Y, never mind that Beau gets shipped with other women despite all the B/Y. And I love B/Y, but I worry about the possessive attitude.(Biphobia anon, last part hopefully) or Allura- she’s confirmed bi but I would be shocked if anyone accepted a crackship between her and a man even though they’d accept crackships of her and women. Because she’s in a big f/f ship, her bisexuality is ignored/erased by fandom. Keyleth & Vax never stopped anyone from shipping Vax with dudes, but popular gay ships w bi characters stops people from shipping the bi characters with other genders bc it somehow erases their sexuality (it really doesn’t).

It seems like there's been a sort of over correction, the pendulum swinging too far to the other side.

As I've said so many times before, the discussion about the heteronomative culture we live in leading to m/f ships in general being the most represented and m/f bi ships being less effective as queer representation in general is an important one that needs to be had. It's a problem that needs to be acknowledged and remembered.

But a lot of behavior toward bi characters and their ships ended up swinging way past that and into this area where bi characters in m/f ships, whether those ships are canon or fanon, are dismissed at best and blatantly attacked as "not good enough" or characterized as being bigoted or hateful at worst. It's led to this fandom culture where so many people (and I specify, not everyone, because clearly people flip out and try to misrepresent your words if you allow it to merely be implied) treat the only valid queer ships, or the only valid ships for queer characters, are same gender ships.

And that really ignores a lot of the nuance of the discussion around bisexual representation. Because while the over representation of m/f ships in general and the heteronormative culture making m/f ships less effective as queer representation less effective is something that needs to be recognized, it also needs to be recognized that there are a lot of problems in a great deal of the way m/f bisexual relationships are presented that lead to some negative and problematic cultural perceptions of bisexual people in relationships with a different gender. Things like a character being labeled as being bi, but then never actually demonstrating attraction to characters of the same gender when they're in a m/f relationship, or treating past relationships with people of the same gender as a phase and erasing their bisexuality. Among other things. That's something that needs to be acknowledged as well. And it needs to be recognized that positive portrayals of bisexual characters in m/f relationships that don't do the above things can be really important in that regard.

Thankfully, we live in a world where more than one thing can be important at a time. The importance of one thing doesn't remove the importance of another thing.

That's especially true when it comes to people identifying personally with characters and ships, being drawn to ships that represent what they most feel matches their experiences and identity and being happy to have something that represents that. It's possible to be disappointed that a certain kind of representation didn't happen without ignoring the fact that another kind of representation can be incredibly important to other people.

And that goes for people's headcanons and fanon ships as well. Wanting a character to be a certain sexuality, wanting them to have a certain kind of relationship, hoping for and feeling that it's important doesn't mean you have to dismiss and attempt to invalidate those things for another person. As long as they're not erasing the fact that a character is queer, they're perfectly valid in wanting those things that appeal to and connect to them personally. And shipping a bi character or a potentially bi character with a character of a different gender is not erasing their sexuality.

We're still at the point in season 2 where none of the characters' sexual identities have been definitively confirmed. We know that Beau is interested in women and that Molly enjoys sex with both men and women. Beyond that, nothing for any of the characters is confirmed. Beau could be gay, bi, pan, aromantic, demisexual, etc. Molly could be bi, pan, asexual, aromantic, etc. And most of the other characters could be pretty much anything at this point. There might be some people who have to reassess their ships, or the way they frame their ships, once definitive confirmation for these characters is provided. But right now, most of this stuff we just don't know. In general, people insisting that others adhere to what they think the characters are and how they think they should be shipped just isn't okay. That's especially true of treating people like they can't ship potentially bi character in m/f relationships, or acting like doing so is bigoted and hateful.

Acting like there is something inherently wrong with shipping bi characters in m/f relationships really is erasure. And gatekeeping. And just awful behavior overall.

In general, this fandom isn't great when it comes to non-monosexual identities. I've experienced first hand the way asexual people and people with aroace headcanons are treated, and I'm sure most people who follow me have seen it as well. So much ignorance about asexual and aromanticism, so much hostility toward ace/aro headcanons (that usually demonstrate ignorance as well). It's hard to find people who discuss the possibility of characters being pansexual, and really the same issue that exists with the treatment of bi characters, ships, and headcanons would exist there as well. Erasure, exclusion, and gatekeeping happens a great deal, and it's incredibly disappointing, especially considering how open and inclusive the cast of the show is. It's a shame that so many people don't follow their example.