included that disclaimer to clarify yeah this is about astarion lmao. people are big mad that shadowheart was statistically the most romanced companion because astarion (and gale i think) are clearly female coded so

you know. it's misogynistic to not fuck them ig?

...but... but they're both male?

I... wtf

Astarion is barely even a Twink

he's a dandy man

more so than a twink

Exactly

People be wildin

but he's a fandom twink alongside loki and sans undertale

There are a lot of fandom people who really need to learn that 'fandom' as they understand it, is a very very small subset of people who engage with any piece of media

this also isn't really just about bg3, it's a fandom trend that i see pop up a lot in twitter and tumblr fandom that's really irritating when talking about male characters. people did it with fucking. spike from buffy. the guy who growls out "women!" before running away in his introductory episode.

who also has a deep rooted complex about women that is between fear, resentment and worship that specifically stems from him being a man that couldn't live up to the expectations of masculinity of his time period

i've seen this done with bruce wayne, dick grayson, jason todd, tim drake with weirdly conflicting aspects. jason is female coded because he really represents female rage against the patriarchy (not murdering people) and that he's not afraid to express his emotions and be upset, while tim is female coded because he isn't as angry as the others and lacks that

FEMME CODED?

FEMME CODED FOR THE MOST GAY MAN CHARACTER I'VE EVER SEEN????

masculine aggression that dick, jason and damian have and he's super nurturing to men in their 40s or... something?

beelzebae: YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND

HE'S WOMAN CODED BECAUSE HE'S (checks notes) A VICTIM OF SEXUAL ABUSE

woman coded means women are able to empathize with him, which is unique for male characters

my god, we've found him

the legendary Strong Male Character

(i should note that was sarcasm. i really hope it was obvious that that was sarcasm. the joke is female characters get this shit all the time)

finally, the culmination of all feminist writing

anyway this is just a different way to use the same F slur for astarion

like gale i have ZERO IDEA what they're talking about but with astarion i'm like "you can't just. call gay men femme. you. you know how that's shitty right"

or rather sorry. i don't give as much of a fuck about femme but "female-coded" sets my hackles off and i don't even like dudes

astarion you deserve better than this honey

now we don't have time to unpack all that.gif

gale is female-coded. source: wears a dress (it's robes)

hey

he has long hair too

He wears robes and is implied to be the camp cook.

he cooks and cleans! those are woman traits! this is woke feminism - no misogyny!

I was just thinking "This is the logic that homophobes in high school used to use"

yeah it's just

rephrased in a totally woke way

This is the logic that insists one member of a gay couple has to be The Woman

(Or The Man in a lesbian relationship)

this is also the logic that denies men can be sexually abused

its basically "tav and shadowheart have a handmaiden/feudal lord relationship so it is that ship that is in fact misogynistic and bad" allover again

Homophobes in high school 🤝 The Enlightened Discourse

You like cooking, don't like sports, and have long hair? You're actually a woman, actually

astarion is like a twunk, maybe a twunk, he's not even femme!

he's just flamboyant!

worldtype: ok what

i should also clarify than when people say this they don't actually mean they interpret them as a woman (like, a trans woman.) it is never used in that context.

no one who has ever called a character "female-coded" has meant trans women unless it was to get that character away from their ships without getting their head ripped off

LMFAO ok so its this infamous post in the Legend of Korra fandom where someone was like "Korra and Asami have a relationship that's like a handmaiden and feudal lord so that relationship is actually misogynist and heterosexual unlike Mako and Korra"

"which is progressive and actually gay"

(Neither do the homophobes, really, I was just addressing the logic.)

ohhhh my god

yeah it's basically just trying to use language to say "thing I like is good, thing I don't like is ontologically evil and should be destroyed."

Handmaiden and Feudal Lord - Fanlore if I did a bad job at explaining it

Tag your ship, who's the handmaiden and who's the feudal lord

worldtype: What the actual batfuck nonsense is this

Platinum: "Well Kaworu/Shinji is actually more heteronormative than Asuka/Shinji because..."

i haven't watched korra but she's also like. the chosen one. so reducing her to a handmaiden feels.

I forgot how long ago that post happened and how its been lost to time. I think about it every weird shipping drama like this one

vaguely racist.

oh okay asami's the handmaiden

help

yeah congratulations you've looped back to misogyny and homophobia here fandom

no they haven't they're using words you can learn by skimming a pamphlet about gender studies

Also like. The mystery of Shadowheart being romanced is not discrimination (????) against Gale or Astarion, it's that the demographic most likely to romance Shadowheart isn't as vocal in certain fandom circles. the end.

baldur's gate 3 is actually homophobic because I want to date shadowheart but im too afraid to break up with lae'zel

where's the slowfade lesbian break up optoon

^

lae'zel is actually pretty chill about breaking up, you just say you want to break up and she's like "ok? you're nothing to me."

hahaha the only way to break up with her is so mean!!

meanwhile karlach cries, gale probably threatens to nuke the country, astarion makes astarion noises.

listen

she is unbothered i promise.

she just says it wasn't even a fling.

Gale pretends he's not crying

no matter how mean you are to her she will always be meaner.

i don't even think lae'zel disapproves of anything she just makes lae'zel noises and dumps you instead.

That’s true but what if I break up with her and can’t date shadow heart!! What if my stupid tav is alone!!! What if I have to kiss gale!!!

(Ok no more derail)

worldtype: i can't believe you would complain about having to kiss gale. this is misogyny, you hate female-coded characters

Only handmaidens and feudal lords for me 🥰

Handmaiden and Feudal Lord meme on Bakerstreet when?

i don't even go here but frankly i'm not surprised fandom is Like This lmfao

LMAO fandom is always like this... I lived through "loki is coded as a black woman" tumblr and never quite got over it

also re: astarion being gay it's also like. they're all gay. every single one of them. none of them are gayer than the other. they are all having copious amounts of gay sex.

loki is coded... as.....

extremely belatedly but i want to clarify. the poster later clarified that when they meant "male characters" they actually just meant astarion

not gale. gale they also hate.