#bc i want the freedom and like | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nat20composure · 5 months

Text

Astarion and Agency- The Necessity of Discomfort to Self Discovery and the Infantilization of Victims

Minor Astarion discourse ahead that mentions the treatment of SA victims post-abuse:

I want to open this post up just with like. The statement that I don't think there is a correct way to enjoy media and that I LOVE to see individual head cannons and takes on characters in media. I think that is also, to a degree, an integral part of video games because of how unique the experience of playing a game will be to every person who plays it. But it has been making me feel so incredibly sad looking through fan content, art, or discourse for BG3 specifically because of how many people have taken the route of infantilizing Astarion.

I understand the instinct to shield or protect an individual that you love and care for. I also understand that because of the nature of the things that Astarion goes through, a lot of people also feel very deep emotional stakes in him. I'm one of the many fans of the character who is a victim of SA and CSA, I really do get it. That is also why for me personally it is so demoralizing to watch so many people treat him like he is a child who cannot make his own decisions or stand up for himself. Part of that frustration stems from it feeling like a media literacy issue, and the other part of that sense of defeat is just because it feels indicative of a broader attitude that people seem to hold towards victims of abuse, particularly those who are victims of SA.

To explain what I mean by people infantilizing him: I see so many people refuse to allow him the opportunity to be hurt, or to feel uncomfortable. They see this character who has been through an immensely horrible and traumatic experience, and their instinct is to try and shield him from anything else that has the potential to upset him. I get that the people who want that aren't doing it with malicious intent, but frankly it is not really...Helpful? To try and prevent victims from Experiencing Discomfort tm. I also think it kind of disregards the entire thesis of Astarion's character and arc.

When you go through something that robs you of your selfhood and agency, the world can become a crushingly terrifying place. In Astarion, that fear presents itself in a desperation for power, control, and at the core of both of these desires- Safety. One thing the game is clear about is that he has a right to kill his abuser. He has a right to escape his situation. A lot of Astarion's personal arc is centered around being able to finally do that. But the game doesn't just leave it off at getting him to safety. So much of it is also about him needing to take responsibility for himself and his actions, with needing to learn who he as a person is.

The inclusion of the Gur children and Sebastian as characters is a good example of ways in which the game gives Astarion the opportunity to take responsibility. I think that if the intention of the arc was meant to be that "Astarion should never ever have to deal with being afraid or uncomfortable again", then the Ascended arc wouldn't Come with such heavy moral ramifications, like sacrificing the other people just like him, killing the victims he lured in, literal child murder. The game infers that he doesn't deserve to die because of the things he Needed to do to survive, but it also makes it very clear that there is a difference between addressing an Active Threat and using your fear as an excuse to hurt others. Breaking that cycle of abuse when he finally gets the chance to is what separates Spawn Astarion from Cazador.

Taking responsibility for himself, and letting himself sit in the discomfort of vulnerability ultimately ends up being a thing that he is very proud of and cherishes. If you tell him you will make sure nothing like that ever again he himself says that he doesn't want you to be his protector. And so it blows my mind when people go into all of these discussions about Astarion with this...Weird moral high ground for never, ever making or letting him make choices that might hurt him?

I see this the most when it comes to discussions about the possible polyamorous relationship with Halsin and the interaction with the drow twins in the brothel. So many people are just...outright angry? At other people engaging with either of those options? And I feel like that anger is one) rooted in the projection of their Own feelings on non-monogamy and what a victim of SA can or cannot look like. and two) Relies on undermining the agency that Astarion BEGS you for at every turn.

When it comes to the drow twins, the game adapts Astarion's response to them based on where he is in his own personal development (a really cool thing imo). Obviously, if he still doesn't feel good or safe about engaging with sex he declines and says you can feel free, though he hopes you aren't just doing it because he hasn't had sex with you. I think this makes sense: He's just gotten out of a situation where his Safety and worth were directly tied to him having sex. I imagine he feels afraid that not wanting to have sex with you makes him replaceable or inadequate because at this point in the game, he feels like that's all he has to offer. The interaction is relatively the same if you ask him for a poly amorous relationship with Halsin: He just asks you to reassure him that you aren't only doing it because he hasn't had sex with you, and then tells you he isn't worried about it otherwise.

A lot of people have taken the expression of that insecurity in combination with him still allowing you to go forward and do these things as him just "sucking it up" because he's afraid of losing you. (I am aware Shadowheart says he wouldn't be able to handle it when you ask her if you can date both of them- But keep in mind, Astarion says she wouldn't be able to either, and THAT obviously isn't true of her. For the purposes of this discussion I'm only including interactions with Astarion as a judgement of his character.) I understand that concern, but I feel this take disregards so many other points of dialogue, and is also continually rooted in the baseline vilification of discomfort.

To further go into it, the way that he speaks about both of these interactions changes significantly if you speak to him about it once he is completely free from Cazador, and has had time to allow himself to start reconnecting with himself and his sexuality on his terms. He has absolutely No reservations about an open or poly relationship with Halsin, and says he trusts that things will be ok because he one) feels secure in Your relationship and two) Knows Halsin is experienced and trusts him to not be a messy bitch about it.

I think that shift, in combination with the in game explanation of why he isn't ok with being in that sort of relationship with the other Origin Characters (for Lae'zel and Wyll, he says they'd never agree to that. For Shadowheart, he says she's not experienced with open relationships and that he doesn't think it'd work out. For Karlach, that it would break her heart. And for Gale, he says you need standards.) is a pretty good indicator that he doesn't actually care about polyamory or monogamy. I think the vilification of that choice relies on you picking and choosing when you do or do not believe Astarion or just outright not liking non-monogamy in the first place. This interaction has more to do with the player's choice and comfort level, and so is not as important to the broader discussion I am trying to have in this post.

The interaction that is more pertinent to not Allowing him to make decisions is, I think, the drow twins. If you interact with the drow twins after the completion of the Cazador questline, he is outright giddy at the prospect of interacting with the Drow twins. Specifically stating that he is excited to see how he likes these sorts of things now that he's free.

NOW- I do NOT think that he enjoys the act. The game makes that abundantly clear, and I'm not arguing that he has a great time. He obviously does not, and dissociates during it. That being said, allowing this interaction to happen does not make a player evil or selfish. You are not playing the hero if you decide to moderate his choices just because you do not think he is ready for it. Once again, no one is evil for Not doing it either, and I am not saying anybody has to want to. I am just saying that treating this choice like it is an evil choice to make relies on completely disregarding what He wants to do.

Astarion says so many times in the game that he is anxious about finally having the freedom to find out what he wants to do, and I think that his excitement for the drow twin exchange is one of the opportunities the game gives him to make a choice. He makes that choice- And it sucks for him. He doesn't enjoy the act, and having done it he would be able to move forward knowing that. I think it's really cool and important that the game represents that facet of recovering as a victim. While you are trying to renavigate who you are, you are going to make a million new choices you never had before. And sometimes those choices are going to suck ass. It would be a different matter if he knew these things would hurt him and went ahead and did them anyway. But so many people expect him to move forward avoiding even the Potential of being hurt, and I think that is extremely reductive of his arc and who he is.

Beyond the matter of interpersonal relationships, the choice between Ascending or not Ascending Astarion is not a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. It is a choice between his fear and his humanity. Between letting his trauma and his fear define him for the rest of his immortal life, and allowing him the vulnerability of deciding who he is when he isn't running from the world. When he's willing to listen to the parts of himself that want to do right, that wants meaningful connection, that wants to be proud of himself. That wants to meet himself. To confront who he is when someone else isn't deciding that for him.

Astarion as a character is extremely ambitious, inquisitive, and adventurous, three traits that only become more and more evident as he breaks free from letting his own fear dictate how he lives his life. I don't understand how so many people can see him and want to take the core of his character away from him, when he spends the entire game fighting desperately to take it back.

Victims are not casts of the abuse they have gone through. Their shapes may be changed by the hands of others, they may have to relearn how to be the person they want to be. But they are not broken or irreparable or fragile. They do not need to be freed from the grip of one person to be held tight in the grip of another. It is so fucking unfair and self-important to think that your hands will be the ones that fix them. That your hands know better than theirs. I think the kindest thing you can do for a person is to trust them with themselves, and to listen when they tell you who they are and what they want. Please listen to the voices that have only just learned to speak. It is the only way they can get better at doing it.

#astarion #astarion bg3 #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion ancunin #I know this is kind of overdramatic #but like pls pls pls pls #ask yourself why you feel the need to protect victims from the experience of growth #and then consider if that attitude is a fair or helpful one #because freedom includes the right to make choices. even stupid painful ones.#that being said this essay is more for people who played the game exclusively making choices they thought would make astarion comfortable #like ascending him or not participating in polyamory #this essay is NOT for people who just ascended him for dom dialogue with him #bc I think it is a bit silly to tell people who wanted a toxic make him worse dynamic #that they are enabiling toxicity and making him worse #this is just an alternative pov for people who genuinely think it is for the best to do these things

604 notes · View notes

mattodore · 4 months

Text

playing with dionte's hair bc i'm procrastinating

#river dipping #dionte duval #lykos #ts4 #i do really love how dionte and nicholas kinda have a b4b (bald for bald) thing going on.... but that first hair........#he looks so good... the urge to keep it is gonna make me develop a twitch under my eye...#i love the shadows the locs add btw like i personally loveee when hair creators add shading #like the DRAMAAA it adds!!!#also don't look too closely at him here bc i actually haven't updated him yet hence no proper edit of him (tho i probably won't change much #i'm really just supposed to be cleaning out the hundreds!! of duplicate households in my library dkhjnkfgh i just. get so distracted #i also have to fix mattodore's households bc i think i accidentally deleted the updated version of them at 20...#like there are multiple other saves?? but they're all with matthias's old chin??? like literally WHERE did the updated version go #so i need to clean out my library from the top down and fix their sims #i really messed my sleep schedule up the day before yesterday when i was working on those edits of delphi btw #but i did enjoy rewatching secretary and watching charade while staying up all night to do them <3 #also listened to the first two chapters of freedom is a constant struggle! editing may take me forever but i do do other things as i do it #...........talking a lot in these tags bc i'm seriously procrastinating jdkhnf i do NOT ! want to clean through my library it's a mess #OH. ALSO GOOD MORNING I FORGOT TO SAY THAT ‼️#seeing this again two days later and seeing the amount of notes....... y'all weren't meant to reblog this kjhdkfjhndkjgnh #now i'm like damn... is there any reason to make his intro edit like i did for ria and delphi 😭😭😭😭😭

335 notes · View notes

finngualart · 9 months

Text

im gonna write my thoughts about this in the tags

#look it makes me real nervous when actors interact with fanart i made #i feel a little less nervous when it comes to mr o'neill bc its clear he enjoys all this and shares fanart that is much hornier than this #i made and posted this drawing nearly 1.5 years ago so my man must have dug a bit to find it <33 #and of all art i made of izzy i kind of wanted him to see this one the most #bc i love this character and i see his suffering and i want him to be freeee #and this was an exploration of what that sense of freedom would look like on him #(also an excuse to draw his chest hehe)#hope mr o'neill appreciated it!@!!!!!#despite the initial shock of seeing his name pop up in my notifs #im so pleased haha #i love him1!!!!#ofmd #izzy hands #con o'neill

413 notes · View notes

arkaix · 4 months

Text

And with the new sprites, time to take out an old meme which hasn't aged a single day.

Sorry buddy we love your characters, but you sure did Not make our life easy.

#pastra #pastraspec #doai #arkaix talks #It's not even that there are too many like Clyde usually is depicted with 32 teeth which is the right amount of teeth to have #and I say usually bc the number and height often changes #which is an advantage for us bc we have pretty much creative freedom to do the smile however we want #but it's horrible if you want to be consistent and on model #you just gotta get used to draw them #my art

180 notes · View notes

cubbyyyy · 19 hours

Text

Okay I’m gonna do a little controversial post. I thought long if I should say it or not but with some comments I saw recently I kinda have an intense need for it. So yea, here I am.

Andrew doesn’t have to be thick.

There I said it. I saw many posts regarding Andrews appearance recently and people are throwing the fatphobic card when you don’t make him thick as hell and that’s just not it. Of course you can draw Andrew thick if it’s what you imagine him to be - there is absolutely nothing wrong with it BUT shaming others for not doing it bc it’s so unrealistic is just not true. Bc yea there are arguments for why he could be thicker - but there are arguments why he could be not as well. so it’s free to imagine him how you you want to without it being problematic for ignoring canon. Andrews body size was never actively described in the books, so it’s mostly interpretations.

He could be thicker bc he lifts weights and eats a lot of candy. But he could also have a good metabolism and is still in a sports team where he does have to work out. He’s also known for jogging all the time with Renee there. In the EC it was said he later on in life joins Bee on marathons to help her with her health. It’s also known that his body doesn’t look that different compared to Aaron since they can still body swap.

Do I wanna say it’s unrealistic to imagine him thicker? No. You can do what you want and I get where you come from. And I sure as hell can’t imagine andrew as a twink either, like no. But I don’t like how it starts to become problematic to imagine andrew not-thick since it is not like he has a set body type people actively ignore. so I wanted to shine some light on the other side and how it’s okay to imagine him that way too. Maybe I just saw one too many comments shaming art for not drawing andrew the way they hc it.

Thank you for listening and I hope you get where i come from :)

#im actually a little scared to post this #Bc I don’t want ppl to take it the wrong way #but at the same time I think it’s important to say this #bc I hate how ppl start to slander others for interpretation #I like how we have so much interpretations freedom with aftg #but it can be exhausting sometimes #aftg #andrew minyard #all for the game #the foxhole court

70 notes · View notes

rottoons · 1 year

Text

would u like to upsize ur fries with that?

bonus sequel

#team fortress 2 #tf2 #tf2 soldier #tf2 spy #freedom fries #soldierspy #digital footprint (my art)#there r 30 million “finals” of this art bc i kept getting annoyed by it #i wanted to do something intimate where haha they both hide their face #but the more i looked at this art the more i felt like i was going insane

698 notes · View notes

beaulesbian · 5 months

Text

wano spoilers

feeling some kind of emotional about rayleigh and roger flashbacks in wano, with smol shanks and buggy. and later oden and toki and their kids :'(

rayleigh has so much patience for them lmao

just few of my favorite panels:

(their captain is an idiot; a shared sentiment by whoever's captain wears the strawhat, probably)

(this is so cute and sad especially knowing this playfulness and love from roger never reached ace ;-; sorry)

"reminds me of the old days." - i wonder if rayleigh means by this shanks or buggy (or both? im not that far yet, if we know more of their backstories, but they were already very young on the roger's ship, so it would make sense if they found one of them as a baby and basically were raising him together ;-; *cries again*)

no really, these flashbacks said rogerray with kids rights, and rayleigh was the only one with a parenting braincell

and this last thing reminds me how often it's one of the strawhats (cough. zoro) reading luffy the news, mostly about their new bounties

smth smth captain and his first mate

and then this angst.... with the goodbyes, and rayleigh possibly keeping roger's pirate hat after he left.

these flashbacks were so emotional! so good and informative how roger's pirates worked, how oden went with them and their journey to the places we've seen luffy and strawhats travel from beginning of one piece - skypiea and the poneglyph text that oden wrote there for roger. water 7 and meeting young franky!, fishman island and roger and oden hearing that voice but rayleigh not hearing it. that was all so interesting.

it was both so fun and joyful, but also sad and devastating, what it must have been to part in the end, for the rest of the crew (and rayleigh especially.)

#one piece #wano arc #wano arc spoilers #silvers rayleigh #gol d. roger #rogerray #one piece ch 965-973 #mine #gif:op manga #..... sorry i want to tag this as zolu. bc its zolu adjacent ;-; the angst potential of 'it better not end like this for them'#zolu #the parallels between roger and luffy. zoro and rayleigh. are insane #i would also say oden and luffy parallels. like very similar characteristics about the joy of adventure and freedom being so important #(and something something if luffy sun and zoro moon. then oden x toki and luffy x zoro parallels are there too!)#its just.. so much #i love this arc #and the way oden was smiling in his very last end... like roger... like luffy is always smiling. oof #long post

106 notes · View notes

rustedrocket · 5 months

Text

thinkin about these dudes as teens.. what're they up to, y'know? what're those kooky kids doin

#sonadow #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #sth #shth #i cooked up some lore for them and didn't realize how much it was until i wrote it all down. really didn't feel like much in my head #basically the conceit of this romance is that shadow has trust issues and sonic just wants this cool guy to chill out and like him. y'know?#it was fun to think about bc i pulled from the sonic bible for some stuff and got to giggle maniacally about that #i know sonadow is not a word in the sonic bible your honor but it is my denomination #religious freedom is a beautiful thing #anyway yes lore exists. there is background. but the vibes are all here on this page #and then something something they grow old together and i cry about it

135 notes · View notes

bhaalsdeepbat · 5 months

Text

i really, really love that lae'zel is DISGUSTED by the idea of ever having to deal with pregnancy, but like. genuinely loves being a mom to Xan. and just loves that baby so much.

#bat plays bg3 #there are four companions i could see enjoying having and raising a baby #and that's wyll halsin lae'zel and minthara #gale and karlach would be good parents if they had to be but they both strike me as like #karlach just got her freedom back she needs time to just. live life and be free #i think she'd have one or adopt one eventually #astarion would be a terrible dad at first but eventually be decent lol #but never be actually good at the raising part just the #taking care of the brood and making sure they don't die #he'd be a terrible role model #shadowheart is in the same boat as the other two #i just think she needs some time to figure shit out and exist before even considering that #she wants her animal sanctuary and to chill for a bit #also minthara would raise little hellions but like #just bc she's evil doesn't mean she wouldn't be a good mom #her children would be raised like royalty and treated as such bc they're future conquerors

75 notes · View notes

sadisthetic · 2 years

Photo

hanbok!!! for fun!

#just because i wanted to see my favorite boys in them #ninjago #ninjago jay #ninjago kai #jay walker #my art #i feel like with the sheer amount of orientalism thats in the show i feel like i have full freedom to draw the fuck i was as an asian dude #for the record i actually dont headcanon either of them as korean i hc kai as japanese which like #i feel like he couldnt be anything else? as the one of the two characters in this show who are actually strongly japanese coded?#like waves hand he could be mixed but he at Least needs to be part japanese #but thats not my personal headcanon tho i just generally headcanon him as japanese #and ninjago doesnt have fucking countries and theyre just legos i know but like #the world is def still based on this one. so gestures very hard.#i do what i want.#and also i headcanon jay as a one fourth chinese wasian who never fucking realizes hes part chinese BC HE NEVER MET HIS MOM #this is funny to me personally #he will never know..... im normal about jay never meeting his mom i swear.#anyways all these tags are irrelevant to the art drawing them in hanbok was just sheer indulgence #lemme have this #(bc sometimes i think about s4 specifically and scream)#closes eyes. at least s4 had best episode ninja roll at least.

1K notes · View notes

carnivalcarriondiscarded · 9 months

Text

hm ok so for a while i was thinking that Wally, for the most part, only perceives reality as "Home", the neighborhood. that's his entire world, it's all he knows

but then i slapped myself and went wait. the Live Interview. Wally has been outside of Home, and has interacted with humans (presuming that the interview did actually happen, of course). and through Wally's interactions - or rather, attempt at interactions with Us, the QA, and the WHRP, it can be strongly assumed that he knows that there's an Elsewhere. there are places outside of Home. maybe he doesn't quite understand that there's another reality of sorts, but there's no way he's unaware that there's more than just the neighborhood out there

(and then of course there's the fact that Clown has said that humans are deeply involved (not a direct quote, im paraphrasing) in Welcome Home. maybe Wally interacted with them / regularly interacted with them. there could have been an adjustment period after he gained consciousness where humans helped him learn how to walk/talk/fine motor skills - this could be why he has such a seemingly inherent / desperate trust in Us & the WHRP & the QA... humans made him and cared for him. it's possible he could view them as a sort of higher power to trust & have faith in

& maybe he's been off-set or could go off-set. i mean, the houses' rooms were all different sets - the buildings themselves were empty husks, right? who's to say Wally wouldn't physically walk to the individual set pieces whenever he went over to someone's house (but then that leads me into speculation on how the puppets' consciousness works and how multiple copies of them could co-exist and wondering which is the - im getting off track. but there's all of that and then the two part "you're okay!" art pieces of Wally & Eddie, which are technically canon - dont quote me on that - and that's Another ramble/theory post i could go on about & have strong feelings on. Anyway!)

"but wait," i hear someone protest, "what about Barnaby? he was in the Live Interview too"

but was he? was he really? was that Barnaby, or was that a person in a suit playing the character Barnaby B. Beagle? i mean, if it was Barnaby, there had to be some memory fuckery going on that prevented him from either fully comprehending/realizing the situation, or just made him forget as soon as it was over.

and actually wait, Wally has to be aware of the reality discrepancy. because it was certainly him in the Interview as himself. He had to have understood on some level that either that wasn't really Barnaby, or that Barnaby wouldn't remember the interview.

(there's a connection in my head between all of this & how he would view an apple pie. "it isn't the same anymore. something's different". but i can't pin it down for the life of me.)

and with the Talking Telephone calls, Wally explicitly tells Us that he's not going to tell anyone who was behind the calls. i remember listening to the "original" prank call audio tests, which while were very similar to the canon in-website ones, have a few changes. one of which was Wally - in the tests - saying that the others weren't ready to meet Us yet. now in canon that tidbit has been swapped out for "You have to go too. You have work to do" but i think it's still implied through Wally's purposeful withholding-of-information that he doesn't think the others are ready to know. or he straight up doesn't want them to know

i mean, one little theory i previously had is that Wally wants them all to catch on to the nature of their reality and situation, but he doesn't want to - or Can't - tell them outright. they have to figure it out. and that can't was either something keeping him quiet, or because if they learned too soon / inorganically, their little puppet heads would pop into confetti like Red Guy's in dhmis 4

However my views have Changed and i'm pretty sure Wally is purposefully not telling anyone to maintain the illusion that everything is fine and can continue on as it always has. maybe it comes from a place of protectiveness, of love? whatever the motive i think he wants them all to keep being unaware and dare i say, Complacent while he "fixes" their situation.

which is delusional, but we all know Wally is digging his metaphorical claws into a desperate bid to keep everything the same / return it to its original state, leaving bloody scratches in something already rotted. or something like that!

all this to say i think it's interesting how it seems that he's the only one aware of humans / an outside/other world, yet he's so determined to stay in his lane. he wants connection & communication yet he doesn't want to leave or change. he wants help in keeping things the same (some could say in keeping Our reality & his separated) but in the process he's dooming everyone/everything and tearing down those walls himself

(Wally: i'm going to stay where i am, and you're gonna stay where you are, and we're gonna help each other keep me and my friends where we're meant to be. anyway i wonder what this sledgehammer does)