Look, I love Jon as much as the next person but I think some of you have gone so far along the ‘Jon is a sad little man who did nothing wrong’ route that you’ve genuinely forgotten all the times he held power in a situation or like. Made a decision that hurt people

i do feel kind of bad for the person who made that biggest bottles post because she was far from the only person who shipped makorra and was really pissed off, loudly, on the internet for months after the lok finale aired. i remember this due to the sheer schadenfreudic glee i used to feel scrolling through people’s rants about how makorra was supposed to be endgame and korrasami was just lazy pandering to seem progressive and wasn’t even established well, unlike makorra, who were clearly perfect for each other if you only ignored the majority of books 1, 2, 3, and 4, including their many fights, fundamental incompatibility as a couple, and their pretty final breakup at the end of book 2.

but people didn’t care about any of that as long as they finally saw the fire nation guy get the water tribe girl. i mean, admittedly, mako is like a slightly more sympathetic zuko (autistic and swagless) and korra is just a slightly more powerful katara, so if you’re into that, i can see the appeal. but at the time, i had no sympathy for makorra shippers, and assumed they all just didn’t get the obvious sublime beauty of korrasami because they were being homophobic and for no other possible reason, so i derived a lot of enjoyment through witnessing their melodramatic shippers' laments.

but we really dogpiled on this one woman in particular, huh? like, her post is a meme to people who have never even seen lok. and her greatest crime was simply liking a straight ship in a show that had never before implied that they knew what gay people are. even among korrasami fans, the percentage of people who genuinely expected it to actually happen onscreen were in the vast minority. nothing like this had ever happened before in a kids’ cartoon. it wasn’t even a decade ago, but 2014 was a vastly different time, and both avatar shows had been painfully heterosexual up until that point.

i expected makorra to happen in the finale, and resigned myself to that eventuality, despite not liking them as a couple. most of us did. so that post is such a beautiful thing specifically because it documents the excitement we all experienced upon witnessing this monumental paradigm shift wherein korrasami had suddenly happened. if you weren’t there, i cannot convey the sheer joy so many of us felt, and the bitter tears of people who really wanted heteronormativity affirmed for the millionth time only further enhanced the rich flavors of our victory soup.

but this woman had no way of knowing that korrasami would happen, and she wasn't actually being intentionally homophobic. her only real crime in this post was displaying questionable taste in ships. yes, of course, we all know that she doubled down hard on her stance after the finale, but if you were being harassed by thousands on the internet for an ultimately insubstantial reason, wouldn't you double down too?

we're only a year away from that post being a decade old. i'm sure she no longer cares about being harassed online back in 2014. but i nevertheless want to clarify something: when i look back on this post today, the joy it brings me is not the joy of schadenfreude, not any more. it is a joy of celebrating the wonder in the unexpected, the poignant affirmation in a beautiful surprise that paved the way for so many other lgbt characters in media. and whether or not she likes that this is how her post has been read over the years, i am celebrating with her, not against her. no one deserves to be subjected to such vindictive mockery for such a truly negligible reason. so i wish her all the best, the author of one of my favorite posts on the entire internet. and i am popping the BIGGEST bottles.

idk i kind of think that using the imagery and aesthetics of mental hospitals is in poor taste unless you’ve been personally victimized by a psychiatrist

once again, thee only time dean is reckless with Baby is when he's fucking staring at cas for five minutes straight while driving

I think it's important to note that I do believe Orym wasn't totally thinking straight when he nodded to Laudna. Because if he'd have been thinking straight, he'd have gotten in front of her and then very efficiently killed Bor'dor himself, and he'd have still been correct for it. Hope this helps. 😌

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.

ST fandom wank but i saw that anti post that said billy hargrove lived and died a piece of shit and it's like, did we even watch the same death scene 😭😭

you really sat down, watched el delve into his memories to see that when he was a child, his mother abandoned him and his father abused him, saw him get the tiniest bit of emotional validation ever from el, watched that small exchange fuel him enough to break the mind control of the gigantic alien creature he knew nothing about except that it possessed him to step in front of it and literally protect el, a girl he doesnt even know, with his actual life--like he actually died! taking a hit meant for el!!!--and then as billy, an 18 year old lifeguard who teaches kids how to swim and who's had an abusive father practically his entire life, lay on the floor of a mall dying from the wounds inflicted on him by a creature he knew nothing about to save a pre-teen who is a stranger to him, you saw as he apologized to his (step-)sister with his dying breath, and you're telling me that you sat there and watched that whole entire scene and thought, "well, he's still a piece of shit."

where's your compassion?????

i think something that is misconstrued is that ratio is always seen as abrasive and harsh. yes , he is a people displeaser and he is unflinching in his candour but there should also be emphasis on how he informs in soft tones and with room for questions if need be , because he seeks to educate and spread knowledge to those less fortunate and to those who simply wish to expand on what they already know. just take a look at the messages he sends trailblazer. so , i don't think he should be viewed as a coarse figure but instead , he's someone who filters out the nonsense and puts forth the purified truth.

I’m a little annoyed at this but eh whatever. However… it is my blog so I can complain.

If y’all are going around saying Bad is in lore/rp mode 85-95% of the time, which is practically all the time with the hours he streams. Then Bad also vaguely says it and also acts like it when he takes moments people thought were out of lore into lore. THEN YES PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THINK HE’S IN RP MODE ALL THE TIME OR AT LEAST MAJORITY OF THE TIME WHEN IT ISN’T GLARINGLY OBVIOUS!!

People aren’t going to be there for every single moment to determine if he is or isn’t in rp especially when he is so vague about it. Along with this some people have a lot of trouble picking up on social cues so will not pick up on when he is or isn’t loring, so do need clarifying. Personally I have a really big time struggling what tone a reply is in but I know for sure when Foolish is or isn’t in lore because it is obvious to me.

one of my friends once had a discussion with me about how he didn’t understand aros and how queerplatinic relationships work. snippet of a discussion we had at ye old lunch table below (i’m blue text, he’s pink text).

”so, aromantic people— at least, how i personally experience being aromantic— is like.. i don’t know, less capacity for romantic love? imagine this.” (i lay out my hands on the table, visualizing two tubes of different lengths) “these are tubes, meters— whatever the fuck. they measure someone’s romantic love for someone else, right?”

“yeah?”

“yeah, nice. stay with me here. one of these tubes has more capacity for love, one of these has less. you can only fill the smaller one so much, but what matters is that it’s full. that’s the maximum amount you can love someone, even if it’s different from tube to tube.”

“okay, yeah, sure, but you still only love them a little. how would someone be willing to date another person who doesn’t love them that much?”

“i don’t know, man. they’re willing to settle, i guess? or they know the other person loves them as much as they can, and that’s enough for them.”

“but you don’t love them as much as they love you.”

“you love them as much as you can. people are all different, including how they love. like how you’re really not capable of liking girls, yeah?”

“no, i do like girls. i just choose to like boys more.”

“but that’s not how it works for most other people. if you’d talk to another guy who uses the gay label, you’d probably find they aren’t attracted to women at all. that’s the thing about labels— they tell people about you. you saying you’re gay is a label you choose to inform people that you’re not interested in dating women.”

“yeah. but what about the topic from earlier??”

“aro is a label too. it informs people that you don’t have the same capacity for love that they might— like a warning, kinda.”

“but you don’t love—“

“dude, i genuinely don’t wanna hear it. you’ve never dated an aro person.”

“i dated [his ex’s name], though, and he didn’t love me like how i loved him! that’s what made us break up, he didn’t love me as much.”

“but he wasn’t aro, and he didn’t love you to full capacity, dude. he didn’t love you as much as he could, and that’s the difference between him and an aro person in a queer platonic relationship.”

“you’ve never dated someone, how would you know?”

“i have, actually. don’t assume things, please— it was a while ago, though. we were both kids, confused definitely. we ended up breaking up because i didn’t spend enough time with him. i loved him as best i could, though.”

“maybe you just didn’t like him enough.”

“(pause, silence)— please don’t say that. please don’t, that’s seriously fucked up.”

“okay, but you didn—“

“[friend’s name], i’m going to cry if we keep this up. touchy subject— horrible subject, even. let’s stop.”

“..okay.”

obviously, some details and context are left out here. what matters the most to me is the aftermath— he ended up apologizing for bringing up his ex, but still held his stance in the argument. i said it was all fine— it actually wasn’t, even if i could keep my shit together at surface level. as soon as i got to the staff bathroom i threw my jacket on the floor, started getting in my head about it. rest of the day was terrible, but i can spare the details.

moral of the story, be nice to aro people. be nice to everybody, even if you don’t understand them. your actions have consequences.

You are allowed to think what you like, obviously, but since you said that you weren't following the full coverage on it i just wanted to let you know that there were only five people (plus the pilot) on board the "submarine" and they were all billionaire business men.

okay ty! yah like i said it wasn't an informed opinion on the situation, just an inarticulate reflection on the current state of my dash haha. mainly it's just a generalised personal discomfort with media coverage of tragedies lol. obvs billionaires are inherently unethical and don't need defending so it's not even rly about them tbh. intended as more of a personal post than serious commentary yk (honestly i assumed there were some kinda employees on board along with them sjdjgjf - i'm uninformed mostly on purpose lol, i feel uncomfortable looking for details. but thanks for clarifying + not being rude dw i hear you)

not to keep vagueposting about animal welfare discourse, but i happened to run into one of the blogs that was shitting on scout for their cow husbandry and the shit they were saying was so fucking stupid...it was something along the lines of 'rabbits aren't social animals because their wild ancestors have a social group set entirely by mating/the HRS tries to force you to bond rabbits unnecessarily and is a peta-affiliated organization/its unnecessary to spay female rabbits because the 85% association between uterine cancer and not spaying is only supported by two studies', all of which may make sense for breeding rabbits is complete and utter bullshit when dealing with pet rabbits.

Rabbits are indeed social animals that grow anxious when alone and should have SOME form of companionship most hours of the day. This does not have to be another rabbit, and the urging to establish a bonded pair is typically done for people who are OUT OF THE HOUSE most of the day. HRS and shelters don't 'force' pairings, they encourage them because having someone around 24/7 isnt always viable in American households. When I tried to get Celeste bonded because I was worried about her welfare (this was when I was 14 and new to rabbits), both the HRS and shelters talked us out of it because she very clearly did not care about other buns, and didn't need to be bonded because there was always someone around them. But if you're a singular person who's away from home most of the time, then yes you need some sort of partner animal because it reduces stress in your rabbit.

Those social structures are ofc going to be different if you have unfixed breeding animals, but the core aspect of it is still the same. Rabbits are social animals. They are comforted by the presence of others around them, form bonds with other rabbits, and feel more secure in groups. Just because they are more territorial when unfixed (as they should!) doesn't reduce the fact that they are social prey animals, it just means that you need to keep them in different conditions than you would a fixed creature with less hormonal urges

The HRS is not aligned with PETA. They denounce affiliations with meat breeders because they're entirely based on improving the welfare of rabbits that are kept as pets. I can see why some might feel offended on their stance against meat rabbits, but rabbits are still primarily viewed as livestock, and after hearing enough comments about people wanting to eat my rabbit, I can understand why they'd be so clear on it. People are assholes about pets that are commonly viewed as feeder animals.

There is indeed a high risk associated between UNBRED unspayed female rabbits and uterine cancer. This is supported by several studies on animals with similar breeding lifestyles by multiple veterinary institutions. You won't notice it in your breeding females because the risk is SPECIFICALLY for unbred animals, aka most pets. So yes, spaying is necessary for your doe's health if you do not intend to regularly breed or have stopped regularly breeding

Even if there wasn't a very real danger to their health, you'd still need to get them fixed to reduce behavioral problems. Unfixed rabbits are much more territorial, destructive, and aggressive, making them more difficult to keep in a home environment. They will growl, they will lunge and bite (and rabbit bites are not something you want to fuck with- I have scars from Celeste's nips), they will piss and shit to mark their territory and it WILL be pungent and unsanitary even if they are litterbox trained. They can still be cuddly with you, sure, that won't reduce their value as pets, but a perpetually sexually frustrated and territorial animal is not fun to deal with and is arguably unethical for the rabbit. If you want a pet rabbit, you need to get them spayed. And I say this from personal experience- Celeste wasn't spayed when we got her, but after she did get spayed, she became much more manageable and less likely to bite. She was still manageable beforehand, but afterwards she was a hell of a lot more relaxed and not stressed

There's nothing wrong with having significantly different husbandry because you are a meat/fur breeder; unfixed animals have different temperaments, different needs, and are typically kept in different conditions that are more economically and behaviorally suited to turning a profit. But those care requirements change drastically when you have only one to two fixed animals in a home environment, which means that you cannot pass judgement on pet care requirements when you're a meat breeder, and visa versa.

pussy so androgynous it causes a major fandom schism approximately 194 times a month

The story i told in the tags of a previous post made me remember a real funny thing

One time i was threatened over making a joke about yoyo, comparing him to ghiaccio from jjba

That person?

The same one who created the tab hot take

On a fucking series anniversary no less

Remember this happening very clearly cuz i just got into jsr back then

So yeah small world

Happily sitting in the little aspec sandbox I made for L at the start and her entire deal with Im*gen and I'm very happy for them and I am also broadening the tags I have blocked because allos are about to be very annoying. And that is their right, but no thank you.

over the years ive noticed that a lot of fandom discourse is just people pointing out something that's part of a character's personality but sometimes exaggerating it a little bit bc why not, n then people getting mad at others for that n calling it "out of character"