"Astarion is actually so masculine and wants to protect and provide for Tav! He's actually really strong physically and can throw Tav around! And also he's always on top so he's clearly masculine! And him being with women means he gets an extra special vampire treat ;)"

"Astarion is such a bratty effeminate twink who complains about his nails and cares too much about his appearance! His voice and movements are sooo campy! I simply can't imagine him with a woman, he's sooo gay-coded, he's simply made to be a bratty bottom."

character in media: *has an even slightly non-standard gender presentation*

every pea-brained dork in the vicinity: ok but are they more girl-coded or boy-coded 😳

People in the ASOIAF fandom are very obsessed with passive women they can project onto. The obsessions with the characters of show!Alicent, Sansa, Elia, and Helaena are perfect examples of this.

In the show, Alicent is changed from a woman who actively seeks power and heads the scheming of the green faction into a passive victim who watches and reacts to the men around her. And yet, despite this being a much more boring characterization, the show version is vastly more preferred by her stans. They condemn her book character as simply an "evil stepmother trope" while completely ignoring how their fav is just as blank and tropey as they accuse her book counterpart to be. Alicent stans want her to be the show's blank victimized canvas.

Helaena is someone who the show changed very little in the adaptation, because both book and show Helaena have little impact on the plot other than to be victims of their surroundings. Both women are forced to marry Aegon at thirteen and have his children, go through B&C, and are the least active members of the green faction. The show only added elements to make her more tragic: her dreaming and autistic behaviors. Helaena's character makes her the perfect canvas for certain fans to project themselves onto as she simply exists to be victimized and play the dutiful wife/daughter despite her circumstances, just like the show version of her mother.

Elia Martell is a woman who we know very little about. She died thirteen years before the events of ASOIAF and, unlike characters like Rhaegar and Lyanna, she has no pov characters who think about her enough for us to learn anything about her. The only things we know are that she was loved by her family, was in an arranged marriage to Rhaegar, had his two (confirmed) children, and was brutally raped and murdered by Lannister men. She is an unknown character and, again unlike Rhaegar and Lyanna, has no known active role in the events surrounding the Rebellion. Because of these things, she is, again, the perfect blank canvas for people to project on.

Sansa is, despite being a prominent pov character in ASOIAF, a very passive character. She rarely takes action in her circumstances and simply reacts to them while trying to survive. There's nothing wrong with this, she's a young girl who has never had to fight for anything in her life, it's not unexpected or condemnable for her reaction to her circumstances to be this way. However, her passivity is something her stans obsess over. She is praised for being the "perfect lady" and they project their desires to see her rule onto her and how they view her story.

These women have been chosen by these fans because of their passivity and tragedy. They love that the women have suffered in the name of the "duty" they believe is higher than them. Because they love passivity, they hate the women of ASOIAF who are active in their own lives and fight to better their circumstances. Characters like Rhaenyra, Arya, Daenerys, and Lyanna are all massive influences on the world and purposely chose to challenge the patriarchy. Since they did not take their suffering silently, theses certain fans view them as wrong and hate them. They only love the women they can project on and who simply refuse to fight for better lives.

Far worse, in my opinion, than the famous “he wouldn’t fucking say that” is “he WOULD fucking say that, as part of his facade, but you seem to think he would mean it genuinely”

controversial opinion, but characters are so much more interesting when you are able to forget about shipping them for a moment and actually appreciate their unrelated personal plot/arc. if the most interesting thing you can think of about a character is the ship you like them with, then I don't think you actually like that character very much

Age gap discourse is surreal to me because social circles being limited by age is very much just something for when you're in school. Even in college, you can be in classes with people 20+ years older than you, especially in community colleges with people getting degrees "later" in life.

People in their late teens and early 20s are coworkers with people in their 40s and 50s. If you join community groups or clubs, you'll probably meet people decades older than you. Your neighbors probably won't be the same age you are. Neither will everyone at the bars or cafes you frequent. It's totally normal to meet someone much older or younger than you and hit it off as an adult because real life is not segregated by age.

i think some of you guys are insane 👍 it's actually possible for a 16 year old to be online friends with someone in their 20s. source: teenagers are actually people who can talk to other people about shared interests.

21 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 that 18 year old is literally your college classmate. you are the same age. You Are The Same Age

like, the moral panic about age gaps in dating is one thing but this reddit thread was literally about Being Online Friends. you can be online friends with a teenager. they are actually people you can talk to. i promise.

it's very easy to not be a creepy adult when talking to a minor. step one: don't act creepy. that's it. that's all you need to do.

tumblr is a beautiful ecosystem bc here you can see that transgender disabled mentally ill gay minorities can be just as annoying, obnoxious and reactionary as any cishet abled white person. THATS equality.

saw a stupidass take about my favorite guy but im being sooo brave about it

i think some of you dont like narratives or stories or characters i think you just like fanfiction tropes

protagonists can and will be sexist, racist, insensitive, cruel, stupid, etc, especially towards the beginning of a story. these are called character flaws and they are a surprise tool that will lead to narrative fulfillment later

One thing that is honestly discouraging to me is how genre-unaware many of The Takes in BG3 fandom are, particularly when it comes to bad things that happen to the characters. There's a big difference between accurately observing themes, allusions, and references to real-life issues, and this widespread pressure to 1:1 full stop compare fantastical dynamics and story beats with real-life relationship, sexual, or child abuse. This is a sword and sorcery fantasy RPG, not SVU - reducing every character and their personal antagonist to a played-completely-straight our-world "victim and abuser" dynamic, and ignoring/discounting/failing to recognize the in-universe context and conventions of the genre, is IMO an extremely flat and also uninteresting reading that doesn't do the better (or worst) parts of BG3's writing justice

Dragon Age discourse walked so BG3 discourse could run at the speed of light, with eyes closed, in full clown makeup, crash through several walls leaving behind person-shaped holes, trip and roll downhill, and land in a mud puddle

People were saying to me, and other folks who made similar posts, "OP you were obviously not in the Dragon Age fandom at its heyday", and we were, and the fandom didn't have "Ser Pounce-a-Lot has an incestuous relationship with Anders" discourse, now did it

Wake up it's time to get blocked and reported

Get blocked idiot

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