#im being melodramatic lmao. it barely hurt.

[orcelito]

Today I transformed from someone who has never zapped their hand with a bug zapper into someone who has zapped their hand with a bug zapper Once

Everyone send me your well wishes in this trying time. For I fear I may never recover.

[gayregis]

tbh i feel like the way ppl approach dandelions sexuality is kinda sus ngl. like oh hes promiscuous and flighty and a serial cheater Obviously hes bi! hed fuck anything lol!! as if thats not grossly biphobic lmao. like im not saying its bad to think hes bi thats perfectly fine but the way people talk abt it and how they get so attached to his womanizing and all when in the books its mostly just kinda gross and unnecessary is like. can you please focus on anything else about him lol

(this is kind of a follow up idk) i also feel like. idk if you remove the Miss Ogeny of the author dandelions whole womanizer schtick is less abt just attraction as is and more abt him being a libertine and treating romance like a game. like it doesnt matter if he actually wants the person hes flirting with it matters that They want Him. idk what im trying to say other than dandelions a horrible narcissist and it doesnt matter if he likes women like hcs are hcs just dont make him het

i agree with this take. a lot of the time, it seems as though fans try to overlook his cheating and rewrite it as him just being polyamorous with open relationships. i think this subject especially is different for everyone on how they feel about cheating - for some, it might be a trigger, and so i feel like everyone should just engage with this subject how they feel is best for them.

for me, i think dandelion’s cheating is representative of his largest character flaws - arrogance and flightiness/noncommitiality. speaking from a canon standpoint, he thinks he’s better than others he engages in relationships with or flirts with (you can see it in how he engages with them thoughout the series), and seems to be never actually emotionally vulnerable with any of the women he dates, and jumps around from partner to partner making promises but never fulfilling them. as you said, “[he treats] romance like a game. it doesnt matter if he actually wants the person hes flirting with, it matters that They want Him.”

to me, it seems like an extension of his stage persona, he flirts using poetic flattery that’s really completely devoid of any true substance. of course, this relates to how sapkowski seems to equate committment in a relationship to true love (again, canonically speaking, yennefer and geralt for instance are not a “good relationship” in the beginning, solely because they can’t commit, and this is where their various behavioral issues stem from). 

it also is of course part of his comic relief, the concept of a poet in poetic love being actually primarily driven by lust and not by love is humorous, on albeit a basic or primal level. additionally, “man gets his comeuppance from his partner for offending her love” is also a comedic trope. this can have a variety of executions and it depends on context to me whether it’s offensive or not - to me, scenes like the beginning of eternal flame are funny because of how the dialogue is comically melodramatic (with insults flying), dandelion is obviously in no position of power over vespula and is not violent at all, and the whole thing is treated comically in a “no one got hurt, this is petty drama with comic supporting characters” sense. i’m able to find humor in this because no one is the butt of the joke, except dandelion, who has wronged his lady and now must face the consequences, which defangs the idea of cheating in my perspective. of course, others might disagree, this is just my personal response to scenes like this. i try not to read too much into dandelion’s canonical love life scenes other than treating them as comic relief, because i feel that is their intended purpose (for example, i have seen takes that anna henrietta sentencing dandelion to execution was abuse on her part... to me this feels extreme and i’d rather just see it as the humor it was intended to be, for reference i just explained why i am able to find it funny and accept that others may not be able to).

but back to the subject - yes, i think that dandelion’s cheating and wronging his partners is more representative of his character flaws, and this is why i think they need to be acknowledged when addressing his character. if you remove the context of cheating and say, “see, he is only ever flirty and sweet,” i think it removes a lot of the imperfections from his character. and these imperfections are significant, because he later demonstrates commitment and humility in other ways -- mainly to geralt, who he follows into brokilon in time of contempt. 

as an aside, i find their dynamic interesting on dandelion’s side partially because of dandelion’s behavior elsewhere - he never gets emotionally attached to the women he engages with, but for geralt, he’d risk his life constantly just to be by his side, and also bare his “true self,” not putting on poetic airs and acting truthfully to who he is? it’s partially due to just the misogyny in the writing and dandelion’s character (like how yennefer never really spends time with geralt so their relationship by the end seems like we skipped 10 years of relationship development), but the dynamics still stand.

for this subject specifically, i think it just needs to be treated with a lot more carefulness than “we can erase this, he’s just very flirty and promiscuous, hey, he’s bisexual now,” because as you said, this is pretty biphobic. i think it’s fine to headcanon dandelion as bisexual, i headcanon him as bisexual, but i think there needs to be more process involved in coming to the headcanons, or the headcanon needs to be entirely divorced from his behavior.

i headcanon him as bisexual for different reasons, not because he’s promiscuous, that factor is besides the point. i’m willing to accept his canon relationships with women and i also read subtext between him and geralt, so, logic has it that i see him in canon holding intimate relationships with both women and men, that’s bisexuality. i think he also represents in the series a great love for people overall, he seems to find beauty in the world where others would rather overlook it. 

tldr dandelion’s love life in canon demonstrates his character flaws and needs to be analyzed with more depth than the biphobic “he’s lecherous, thus bisexual”. as you said, he treats romance like a game, and this is unrelated to his sexuality. derive your sexuality headcanons for dandelion elsewhere than his promiscuity.