#sexy that people reclaimed it! but me i don't want to be called weird. i am what i am and that's not weird.

[sciderman]

I've always headcannoned wade as genderqueer! :3 Big wide umbrella term! Something that can't be pinpointed. Un-describable to the outside world but makes sense to him and only him. Tho maybe I'm js projecting😭 I think it fits her pretty well! And I always eat up any genderqueer rep!!!

that's cool and allowed! i mean, i use nonbinary as the umbrella term because the literal meaning is "outside the binary" so it kind of encompasses everything. but it's also because i've kind of never sat comfortably under the q-word. i sooner use "gay" as an umbrella term than the q-word. but that's personal. different strokes.

[sepulchral-pulchritude]

I understand the difficulty ppl have around using the word "ugly" in any sort of positive sense (e.g. "support ugly trans people", "there's nothing sexier than an ugly [x] person") because there definitely is a factor of "who are you to be calling me ugly? screw you!"/"you couldn't get through a positivity post without insulting me?", but.

idk as a fat person some of the conversation kind of reminds me of how we were talking about using the word Fat back in like 2011. which is, if we don't reclaim this word, it's just going to keep getting used to hurt us. and we can come up with as many linguistic workarounds as we want ("chubby" "friend shaped" "plus size") but ultimately they will often end up grating and/or imbued with the same visceral disgust as Fat, with a veneer of plausible deniability.

and for ugly-- ugliness is both real and not real. it is based on societal beauty standards, which are NOT real (and are themselves based on racism, homophobia, transphobia, ethnic hatreds of all types, white supremacist ideals... etc). beauty/ugliness is also arguably to SOME extent based on some basic, rough core concepts (to varying degrees): symmetricality, the visible perception of youth/health (e.g. even, unblemished skin), confidence, effort put into appearance (looking like you care about how you come off to people is very often of baseline import for attractiveness. again, this is a messy thing where the exact amount of effort you're supposed to put in varies culturally but it's important to most people that you look like you care about something. even when people are into someone looking bedraggled and rumpled, usually part of the appeal is either confidence (she doesn't care about how she looks she knows she's That Bitch) or implied effort into something else (he is too focused on identifying plants to give a shit about mud on his pants, I live for that)). sorry, got off topic for a moment there. ANYWAY.

my point is that even if most of what ugliness is is essentially false (and many of the more "objective" qualities are mutable-- you can gain confidence and become "less ugly" without changing anything in your appearance), I know the face I have and I know how I am treated for it. and I don't know how useful it is to pretend otherwise. and I don't see the point in using euphemisms for being, by the standards of the society I live in, ugly.

I would rather be celebrated and told that my "ugliness" does not make me less sexy, less desirable, less worthy of love.

I don't feel represented by euphemisms-- when someone says "everyone is beautiful! even people with Unique Features and Non-Normative Faces and Bodies" I feel that they don't believe that. but when someone says "I love ugly girlies, with acne and scars and weird noses. not joking please hmu", you know what? I believe them.

I think there is something worthwhile in reclaiming ugliness and removing the disgust assumptive in it-- we did it for Fat, we can do it for Ugly.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

I actually think it’s weird how many people are praising this as if it’s like the ultimate sign of him having the perfect relationship?? Like no offence, truly, but how unstable does that marriage of his have to be if that man feels like he can’t even do his job properly lest he be “disrespecting” his partner by doing so? 😭

I really don't know, nonny, and I don't want to judge someone who I don't know and whose personal life I have no knowledge of, I'm not in his bedroom (for the record I don't want to be, but Blake Lively, if you're reading this...) but yeah it does feel very... I don't know it does raise questions for me.

Frankly I'd probably wonder more about the state of one's marriage if this wasn't merely the latest in a concerning movement from people to misunderstand and co-opt legitimate conversations about consent and respect (including in the acting/filming space - intimacy coordinators becoming the norm is fantastic, for example) in order to re-introduce censorship and sexual shame. While I personally liked the second season of Bridgerton better than the first, for example, I was concerned that quite a lot of people were saying it was better because the second couple weren't fucking all the time. The lack of sex being the defining reason for people and the pearl-clutching over the sex in the first season was a really concerning issue for me that I think got lost in all the (understandable) love for a good slowburn and Kate and Anthony's relationship arc.

Censoring sex, having shame around sex, thinking that movies are only ever rated 'R' because of sex/nudity, acting like sex cheapens a film or story or that a sex scene in a film is the same thing as porn, are all deeply, deeply concerning to me. This doesn't lead to better conversations about consent, respect, and healthy sexual relationships. It just leads to trying to control people's bodies and shame people who want sex, and in case nobody's made the connection by now, historically the bodies and actions they most try to control are those of women and queer people.

I'm an adult. I have had sex before, I will have sex again, sex is a part of my life and the lives of the people around me. Even if you are asexual or abstaining from sex for another reason, sex is still a part of our society and should be approached in a healthy and open manner. Just because I don't live in a house and won't ever live in a house doesn't mean that I shouldn't fight to tax billionaires and reclaim the middle class so my fellow citizens can buy a damn house if they want to, y'know?

Taking sex out of our stories doesn't make them better and it doesn't make us more aware of consent or how to have a healthy sexual relationship. It only shoves sex back into the closet, out of sight and out of mind, never to be spoken about so we remain ignorant and scared of it.

Also frankly if you think sex scenes are in any way sexy for the actor you haven't actually paid any attention to how sex scenes are filmed. Someone - I forget who - once described it as trying to act sexy with a camera shoved up your nose. It's 8am you got four hours of sleep and there's 20 people standing around you making you feel like a goldfish. There's a sock on your dick. It's way too cold in the room. Someone's giving you instructions while you and your costar struggle not to laugh because you both look/feel ridiculous and also your neck's at a weird angle so that your face is in the lighting. Hell, from everything I've seen and heard, filming murder scenes is more fun for most actors than filming sex scenes.

That's not to say "all actors are miserable filming sex scenes so we shouldn't do them." I think every actor would agree filming a sex scene is more fun than filming a scene in the rain and mud for ten hours with a 2am call and it's January. You're gonna be in physically uncomfortable situations to film things, that's just how it works, but you do it because it's what you love, and you believe in the story you're telling, and at the end of the day you are still finding ways to have fun.

Anyway this got very long and very serious but basically I want to say that I don't want to speculate on the state of a stranger's marriage, although it does make my eyebrows rise, partly out of principle but partly because I really don't think it says as much about the man's relationship as it does about a growing and deeply concerning trend in our society.

[haldenlith]

2023 Tumblr Top 10 (with commentary)

(This was apparently the year of Astarion... If only most of my art could get this many pings. 😢)

1. 164 notes - Sep 19 2023 I've probably talked about this before, but I'll say it again: The banter between Astarion and Gale about "oh never felt the...

I still periodically get activity on this post. People have had opinions on it, it seems, which have been interesting to read. I've seen people say that Ilmater and Elistraee both would've helped him, and saying my take was kinda BS, to which I counter, again -- vampire. Faerun gods don't seem to be particularly fond of undead (also Astarion wasn't exactly a good person before getting turned, soooo...). (Also-also, Eli girl was dead for a chunk of Astarion's time under Cazador, so not much she could do anyway while trying to reform herself. Eli - 0 Lloth - 1)

Still, it's been fun to see people's thoughts, even if they differ from mine. Another testament to the interesting writing in BG3, that even a brief bit of banter can spin up a bit of thoughts and discussion.

2. 52 notes - Oct 6 2023 Rambling a moment in response to something someone thought of on another post (and I don't want to piggyback on their post), but...

An art post in my top 10? Shock! And it not be normal sexy Astarion, but weird headcanon AU Astarion? There's a trend here, considering the last time I had art do any form of numbers, it was my cyberpunk-ish Astarion. I keep trying to draw and write more Witcher-AU stuff, but it requires more spoons than my brain has available. Until then, you get beastie batty Astarion, who, rest assured, is still a gremlin. Worse, arguably, since he has the ability to go invisible...

4. 26 notes - Sep 10 2023 Family Ties

I still maintain the headcanon that the Ancunin Family are probably shitty people. I know people want to imagine they're this poor nice noble family of high elves who are just so sad about their son but... let's be honest. You don't get an ass like Astarion from a sweet and nice upbringing, especially not from a noble family.

5. 22 notes - Nov 9 2023 KAYN CAN GET STUCK IN SHIT?! ... That is fucking hilarious and exactly what that gremlin deserves.

... I don't get why this got as many notes as it has, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Kayn deserves what he got and found it hilarious. (I love seeing dumb gremlins get bullied by comedic circumstance.)

6. 22 notes - Jul 13 2023

Knowing what we know now about Astarion, I'm less into bullying him in a sexual sense. Still was an interesting little thought, though. Could be interesting to explore if he wanted, in his journey to reclaim his sexuality and such.

7. 22 notes - Jul 13 2023 My brain has, like everyone else, been going "brrr" on the mention of a "heartwrenching ending" that was mentioned for "one of...

Twenty-two is the magic number, apparently. Anyway... hmm... I'll refrain from further commentary, since, well, spoilers.

8. 19 notes - Aug 25 2023 Not only did I get the game working, but I managed to get my saves to work, and I went down and kicked Cazador's fucking ass....

A very spoiler post for BG3. I will say that, in the future, I may wait a tic on really playing future games on release, even if I've purchased them. Even with Early Access and all the work they did to catch bugs, BG3 was still a bit of a mess for me. I can ignore most little bugs, but Save-breaking bugs... Those get to me. I'm glad it all got worked out.

9. 17 notes - Sep 4 2023 Why must we constantly headcanon living-Astarion not having white hair? He's an elf! Elves can have lovely, luxurious white...

*shrug* I still don't get this headcanon people have. I get the idea of stress-induced-hair color change, but... eh. The logic doesn't logic for me.

10. 13 notes - Oct 12 2023 Just random musing. Genuinely not calling anyone out or anything, but I find it... interesting? Yeah, we'll go with interesting....

I still see it when I poke around Astarion/whoever fandom, and still feel it's incredibly suspicious and telling that people can't seem to separate BDSM/kink from "being evil". At least that's how it looks to me. I know, I know, it's fantasy and people find being evil and kinky hot, but still... the prevalence of kinky Ascendstarion vs not-kinky Spawnstarion makes me scratch my chin in thought. Then again, I could ramble forever about how this is probably an interesting reflection of society's views on BDSM and whatever.

Part of me wants to write that thought-exercise-analysis essay, but from the bits of Ascendstarion vs Spawnstarion discourse I've seen, I think I'd rather not even graze nor get near that hornet's nest... Oof.

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