#deep-worn

[spielzeugkaiser]

The ages in this show!! I have made some jokes about this before, but it gets me - with aging Ciri up and bringing her closer to Jaskiers age when they meet I can not help but draw parallels. Like Geralt bonded way differently with both of them (which makes sense because Ciri has been his Child surprise since birth and Jaskier just randomly turned up one day and followed him like a puppy) but it's so funny to me. also I'm 100% sure Jaskier was horny as fuck from the beginning so there was a whole different vibe from the get go

[aeb-art]

i thought it'd be cute 🥺💕

[bluespiritshonour]

[lunarkittenn]

I rarely take pictures anymore. It’s like I just don’t want to remember any moment from this part of my life lol

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

feeling super bombarded by "if you're over 30 and a woman, you need to be using lots of expensive and inconvenient methods to preserve your youth starting NOW, and it's probably already too late" messaging lately, and i'm just like "wtf, i'm basically still 12"

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

Neuvillette's body language in my mind ranges from curious feline, to Long Cryptid that lingers just outside the door when you're falling asleep

[detectiveneve]

I think there’s a definite problem though with the amount of art and fics being HEAVILY Astarion with cis women. That reeks of his queerness being erased. There should be a healthy balance of Astarion with different partners, but the “default” in the fandom is always him with a woman. As a gay man it’s very frustrating.

Okay so. in however much any of this matters. 1. Shoving this under a cut for people who are tired of seeing the discourse (I am too, I tend to scroll really really fast past it.) 2. I know the fandom discourse machine looooves super firm and snarky opinion jabs summed up in 169 words or less but I am literally incapable of not elaborating so. sorry YOU asked. since it’s also probably relevant, Im coming at this with the Mega Dyke with the fuck around and find out perspective irt my life experiences and queerness. I don’t generally care about niche queer internet discourse and I don’t generally care about fandom discourse, so you can tell how bored I am at work rn that I’m deep diving into this. tldr yeah you’re not wrong I agree that astarion’s queerness is erased in certain spaces but that has nothing to do with being attracted to women. my funny hot take is once again that astarion is a he/him evil femme to me so. let’s MOVE.

I received the second one within the first few minutes of the first, and I’m goingggg to proceed on good faith and with the idea that I think we’re all in agreement for the most part, because I think we are. But I’m going to address the most obvious thing that. I don’t really…. think is necessarily the point in this. first of all, I empathize that it suuuucks to not see as many works made for your main pairing of choice (there’s generally a deficit for literally everyone BUT astarion to boot too.) however ultimately fanworks are exactly that: fanworks, and they’re made For Free and posted by a Fan Author who has done this As A Hobby, “a problem nobody is addressing” in this context is……. you are one google doc and keyboard away from writing what you want to see in the world. or, I don’t know. encourage + comment + follow up on fic authors that write what you enjoy. fic is not paid content and the fic authors in bg3 are writing for themselves and what they put out, that they wrote for FREE, is up to them. I once again empathize with not seeing as much of a specific thing as you would like, and I definitely empathize with seeing a popularization of specific characterization that makes you want to scream, cry, throw up, etc. which brings me to what I can actually comment on and critique here. (general note: if you proceed to misread me on the basis of “people can do what they want!!” I assure you. you can do whatever you want forever. I do not care. I am not mad. I am minding my business 90% of the time. do I like domstarion? no. but it is NOT my concern nor my judgement.)

“That reeks of his queerness being erased. There should be a healthy balance of Astarion with different partners, but the “default” in the fandom is always him with a woman.” <- so! now that we have “it’s all for free man idk what you want me to say here” out of the way. we CAN critique something real in this that I do agree with. the sort of…. honestly kind of fascinating (derogatory) trends of what I’ll call Straightifying astarion for lack of a better word.

this brings me to the point I kind of offhandedly made in the previous post, about how there IS nuance to be said on astarion’s queerness getting erased. I do actually agree with you that in some spheres of the bg3 fandom, his queerness has been heavily sanitized and he’s become something of a placeholder for Sexy Vampire Boyfriend romance tropes. he’s mostly there to be a stand-in for a sexy dom vampire man; MANY of his complex character traits that have literally Nothing to do with romance have been basically entirely removed to serve a specific idealized idea of him that suit the scene. it’s frustrating! I find it frustrating. I also agree that within this specific Brand of Mischaracterized Astarion, he’s been so……….. reduced down to this that his more overt queerness is basically entirely removed. however, the issue is not that he’s with a woman in this? the issue is that the writer is not incorporating a sort of.. overarching queer lens, for lack of a better term, to the characterization they’ve got going on. you can write whatever you want forever, but it’s not written in a vacuum, I agree.

Since these are all popular straight romance tropes, he falls directly into the pit of Sexy Man (straight) very quickly, and his attraction toward others (let alone, good god, his complex relationship to sex, sexuality, desire? good fucking luck finding something thoughtful in there about that) tends to fall by the wayside as a result. It is what you would expect but it’s not without room for critique in what I think we’re aligned on; which is seeing astarion’s queerness erased is maddeninggg. And it is EXTREMELY frustrating to see if you’re someone like me, or possibly yourself, who’s into 1. really analyzing characterization and 2. really into exploring queer dynamics in writing + lit + media many different formats. THIS—the sanitization, the removal of astarion’s queerness—this is what is irksome as a queer reader.

however. the issue I’m seeing is that ^^^^^ this brand of mischaracterization is 1. being conflated with simply that he’s with women, and 2. the frustration of having less content (understandable) is turning into a very WEIRD dialogue in which the extreme of “well actually he wouldn’t even want to fuck women!!” is the stance to take (very weird) (kind of misogynistic) (kind of also reeks of continuing to talk about women as sex objects that astarion would not or would want to fuck) (astarion himself doesn’t even want to fuck for about 90% of his romance so maybe we should talk about that too) — rather than that it would be nice if his queerness would be addressed more openly and with more nuance and clarity than it currently is in That Particular Sphere Of Astarion Characterization. and, of course, the idea that it would be nice if he was portrayed with other kinds of partners! which I agree with and equally appreciate.

but there is no default. literally, there’s no default. what you’re seeing is what people are making of their own tavs, and maybe you would like to see more of another kind, but it doesn’t hold up as an actual fandom critique. what holds up is when we dive into how people write him; how do they write his personality, what traits are being exaggerated and what traits are being ignored; IS his queerness remembered within the text at all? and beyond that, how is that queerness treated when it is written? because I’ve seen the other extreme in which it’s The Homophobic Gay Stereotypes That Maybe We All Agreed At One Point Were Equally Offensive To Exaggerate To The Point Of Horror. half the discussion I see AROUND his queerness amounts to “omg he’s such a slutty flamboyant little fag” but in a quirky haha internet way. very “fruity is a nice alternative to saying queer!” “calling a gay guy fruity in the real world will get you punched out.” vibes in here sometimes and it is EQUALLY weird.

anyways. Astarion’s a multifaceted character which means the first thing everyone did was pick one or two traits to exaggerate and cling to and these color the entire reading of his character rather than taking in the whole. i agree that means his queerness got put to the wayside in some formats of him, and that’s deeply unfortunate + very frustrating. but fanfic is free, so I’m not with you that there’s a Problem That Needs Addressing so much as that’s what people are creating, and you should add to what you want to see in the world.

I’m not going to go on a tangent about how “oh let m/f be a thing!!” because I ALSO agree literally no one needs to be told “m/f is okay to do ❤️” we live in the real world here. and it’s really mindboggling how in some iterations he’s been turned into Straightstarion rather than his CANON QUEERNESS being applicable in every format of every relationship dynamic he could ever possibly be in. However. However. the answer to that is not? acting like the baseline attraction to women is the problem. if the way you’re talking about attraction to women feels rooted in upset about not relating to it and feeling like you’re forced to either relate to it or simply not engage, I do Get It, but at the risk of opening up an entirely different can of worms that needs an entirely different essay to address, gay men are not immune to misogyny and if the language used while talking about women is also objectifying or belittling women to some extent or acting as though attraction to women makes his queerness lesser. newsflash. that is still misogyny (and biphobia). it is not about defending straightness here, it’s entirely that reducing women down to sex objects even in the conversations about not seeing women sexually is alive and well (and repulsive), and that’s what I mean when I say I can hear the “lol I don’t fuck WOMEN that’s DISGUSTING” behind some of the other side of the conversation here. also this is an entirely separate essay but queerness will almost never exist in an easily consumable binary and trying to type him by his character traits is also. kind of weird. just as a thing.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

my experience with maxing out the twins' friendship is just-

Hawke: So, Carver, my dear baby brother who I love and adore, I only need +10 more points to max out your friendship. I've done the grind; through gritted teeth I've kissed templar ass so that we don't raise suspicion. I've supported and defended you and let you take the lead whenever I could. You're my favorite warrior. I took you to the Deep Roads with me because you desperately wanted to go and then made you a warden and you found a place, a purpose. I've practically written my own guide on how to earn as much friendship with you because I love you and it's totally worth it so can I please please have the last +10...? Carver: Hawke: Carver please I'm begging you Carver: Carver: +5 Friendship Hawke: AAUUGGGHHLKSAJDLKAJSDLK-

Hawke: So, Bethany, my dear sis- Bethany: +50 Friendship Hawke: Bethany: :)

[anachronistic-falsehood]

qlandduo are LITERALLY the guys ever. there is something about what bad has with foolish that he does not have with anyone else

[dribs-and-drabbles]

The Thai Communal Wardrobe item #9

Enchante ep 1:

Vice Versa ep 1:

Vice Versa ep 4:

Middleman's Love ep 2:

Bake Me Please ep 5:

[synelven]

what if ensign tila'ave got assigned to ds9?

[sunnnfish]

The fucking uh. Moments Hirano remembers that oh. Kagi loves him. Like. Loves him. Romantically and all. He doesn’t remember it often nor does he put much thought into it. But like. In moments like that ten second touch when Kagi takes both his hands and bows I have to wonder if Hirano thinks oh. This is something deeper than I understand right now. But he is trying to understand. He wants to understand. Love is a conscious effort and I think Hirano wants to love Kagi. Above all Hirano wants to make Kagi happy and if he has to love him to do that then he will and is that not already love. Is that not already love.

[lllsaslll]

The Thunderbird Cape

June 30th, 1973 at Atlanta's Omni Coliseum: Just before the first show of the day, someone told Elvis that a five year old Robbie Barnes was attending the show and that he would be dressed up like him in his own lil' jumpsuit. During the show Elvis asked to turn the spotlight on the boy and at the end of the concert he gave Robbie the cape off the Thunderbird suit he was wearing that night. The Thunderbird's cape is regarded as one of the heaviest and most expensive of all of Elvis' jumpsuits. And in addition, J.D. Sumner mumbled to Elvis, "Elvis, give the boy your belt too!" and naturally Elvis did.

[stormyrainyday]

this entire year has been flop after flop why am i losing so bad your honor i am literally just some guy

[buck-yyyy]

sorry for telling you all about my personal philosophies on life and how that ties into the art form that is the apartment i built in my head, do you still think i’m hot

[youngerfrankenstein]

…Actually Megatron IS a Fire Emblem villain.

Head of an evil empire

Wants to take over the world

Heavy on the Social Darwinism

Sometimes portrayed with sympathetic goals but still needs to be stopped

A stoic and intensely loyal right-hand man

Another right-hand man who’s a snivelling, backstabbing coward