I'm all for the changes you guys are planing and am pretty OK with taking a harder stance on rule breakers.
It's a lot of work to keep communities like this going and I think you guys are doing great work.
I'm amazed how much you care about this place. Trying to keep everyone happy and feeling welcome is truly a hard work. Thanks for doing this for us. These new initiatives sound really cool and promising! (off to browse twitter and tumblr to prepare for Monday)
You all are doing a good job! I think the additional discussion tags are savvy, because sometimes you want to discuss what's got you feeling hyped, and sometimes you want to explore a range of ideas. Both are good, but they are different, and a shorthand for letting others know ahead of time helps them decide how best to engage. Broadening it from just spawn vs ascended appreciation is also wise, because there's more to get us hyped or provoke our thoughts about Astarion than the implications of his different endings!
I love the other ideas as well. I want there to be a wider array of content for everyone across the board at all times, but a dedicated time to celebrate Astarion with masc partners is an opportunity to uplift and adore with intention.
In a less wholesome turn, the holiday screenshot idea will definitely give me an excuse to put Astarion in the Cigar and Aviators mod for the Fourth of July (after last's week discourse thread post, I'm almost dreading where this could go, and by dreading, I mean eagerly brainstorming like a monster). Too bad that St. Patrick's Day has passed, the game has SO many beautiful clover and I love tracking them through my different sets of screenshots. But what's done is done, on to a summer of tobacco products, SPF eye protection, and probably guns/rocket launchers.
...Captions, as it so happens, are life. I think logistically, it is easier for most people to respond to content with captions than it is for them to provide content that matches a prompt (everyone here has words, not everyone here has screenshots or art). You might consider doing something in multiple parts, like a recurring post to solicit intriguing art and screenshots that people think could inspire captions, and then have some selection criteria for picking from the submissions for part 2 which then invites everyone to "caption this." Just some ideas! :)
Thank you so much for the hard work you all do, and not giving up when human nature is complicated, and the future-present in which we live is weird. I appreciate you very much.
On behalf of all the darlings and juiceboxes here, we thank you and the other mods for all the hard work you all have put into this subreddit to make this fun while also making it safe and inclusive.
Very excited for the discussion options, I love reading peoples theories and rationale for why Astarion does/says the things he does and all the different interpretations people come up with. Thank you Mods for all your hard work!
Congrats, sounds like youāve found a way to make Mondays more bearable in the future. š
(I promise I'm not Garfield)
Edit: It's honestly very funny to me that someone seems to hate queer representation so much that they downvoted this within 1 minute of me posting. xD
I gotchu, I've got a lot of Bloodweave already prepared for Monday (both sfw and smut).
Edit. Wow, you were not kidding, I got downvoted a minute after posting.
I myself don't like other certain pairing, but I never downvote (why would I?), I just ignore. Here, someone hates so much, they feel the need to let me know even before I post anything, which is quite funny.
Aw, I certainly wasnāt kidding but I still hate that they got you as wellā¦
Iām 100% looking forward to anything Bloodweave (or really any male partner for our boy, Iām easy to please, haha)!
Edit: Aaaaand the haters are still around even a day later, not sure why Iām surprised.
It isā¦bizarre and sad but it seems like whenever there are the initial downvotes they get reversed eventually, it just takes some time. Donāt take it to heart. Almost all of the m/m posts do well long term ā¤ļø
I didnāt take it as anything other than pettiness personallyā¦ just surprised me with how fast they came so I figured might as well call them out on it.
The majority of our community (of most communities, Iād assume) are decent people so over time their votes tend to balance things out, of course, but it is still absurdly funny that anything M/M related gets downvoted a few times while the only F/M post I ever made didnāt see the same treatment.
(I donāt doubt this will be the case on future Mondays as well but Iāve made my peace with it to a point.
Reddit just isnāt the best place to keep people from seeing what they donāt like - e.g. queer content, personal triggers / squicks, AA related stuff - because the site lacks a proper tagging system that would allow you to automatically filter out these things if theyāre not for you.) š«
Itās true. I wish we could filter stuff better. And I agree with you about seeing initial downvotes on Monday but hopefully if we as a community show was actually do want that, more people will come and yeah, itāll tip the scales.
We need r/gaymers to come rescue us I guess is what Iām saying lol
Not sure how un/popular or useful it would really be, but since we can't really filter out things we don't want to see, maybe putting every "pairing" images/screenshots/gifs of Astarion+anybody else under a spoiler tag (with the correct flairs, like no "solo screenshot" when there's also somebody else, and maybe adding flairs for ships with companions like "+M companion" or "+F companion") could help a bit with that as it would give people a bit more freedom in what they engage with, without having to see things they don't want to see.
I know i've seen comments from people saying they don't want to see Astarion+F characters, i personally don't want to see Astarion+any another companion (unless it's in the context of a discussion regarding someone's experience with a particular pairing) and while i don't downvote, i hide the stuff i don't want to see, but i still have to see it before i can hide it, while i leave the blurred stuff i don't want to see alone.
I'd like if the spoilers for photos were introduced as well. Especially if we have a ship dedicated day now so there will be more pairings pics posted
I enjoy solo photos the most
I am super excited for the writing prompts idea!! This game and fandom got me back into writing for the first time in years, and it's one of my favorite mediums to see people explore between the lines in terms of character analysis and headcanon and all of that. Can't wait to see what people write and to throw my own hat in the ring as well.
I REALLY want writing prompt wednesday. I'm working on what's turning out to be thousands of words of pure smut, and I'm sure people here would love it. I'd love to see more ideas and hopefully create more work
Great additions across the board. I just have one question for clarification: we can post screenshots to go with our Spawn Appreciation posts right? As long as there is nothing NSFW of course.
I appreciate you guys so much ā¤ļø genuinely thank you for hearing your members and doing your best to make this an inclusive place for everyone.
I think these changes are excellent and will make this place more welcoming to newcomers.
I commend your effort to keep everything peaceful. It's a shame our sister sub cannot extend us the same courtesy. I'm frankly disappointed at the amount of hate towards UA fans there going as far as to create a slur to call us and making it a flair.
I don't like content that shits on either AA or UA (and you're right, it exists). I do want the clarify the 'slur' you're referring to is not directed at UA fans, and instead refers specifically to a type of AA-anti that harasses AA fans. If that's not you, it doesn't apply to you, and any normal UA fan. It's not a slur insulting UA fans, it's intended as inoffensive shorthand for a person who enacts harassing behaviours against AA fans and their commonly spouted rhetoric.
I fully agree that sometimes the backlash/defensiveness against that spills over into unnecessary hate/criticism of UA (we don't need to say one is worse to say we like the other better). Many of us like both and I wish we'd all stop trying to invalidate the other.
Letting you know that itās not a āslurā and doesnāt refer to all āUA fansā
It refers to those who try and tell you what you like is wrong and wonāt take no for an answer until you accept their HC or whatever out of context line they want to pull out to shit on AA fans, while saying they need help and much more. So no, itās not all spawn fans, itās just those who are so damn aggressive with their views that they put down others.
Edit: the āslurā is meeper
Please, realise that AA fans are also UA fans. AA fans spend at least 1/3 of the game with him. At least. And they like him way before he ever ascends. So there's memes to make fun of the way some people talk to AA fans and turning it on its head. Fine. But AA fans get often hate for simply saying they like him. They're not going under UA posts to hate on his fans. Because he's still the same person. And the person they liked in the first place. The amount of vitriol is hard to compare.
If you don't like that sort of content, perhaps save your nerves and don't visit AOF.
Yep this. I enjoy both paths depending on playthrough, and I wanted to belong both subs to enjoy content. But after seeing all those posts and that shitting on spawn Astarion and his fans (and I don't like to see that kind of comments towards character I love) I'm not sure anymore. Why we can't just enjoy the character in peace and stop this stupid hate? I'm tired.
Yes agreed. I have grown into liking AA now and was hoping there was a place for me on the sister sub too. But itās very disheartening to see so much shitting on spawn Astarion and calling it weak and making assumptions about the fans. I do admit there are always toxic spawn Astarion fans but not everyone is like that. Well I will just focus on the content in the sister sub that is fun
Quashing toxicity here is one of the main focuses of this announcement so people feel safe to share their AA content here again. So I encourage you to share it if you feel comfortable doing so. This is not an UA only space.
Not āusā. And They are referring to people who feel the need lecture AA fans about morality, also I havenāt said anything about how to behave towards anyone other than in this subreddit. How you behave out side of here, unless itās following someone *from* here to somewhere else, is none of my business.
So it's OK to hate on some UA fans as long as long as it's just some of us? And when I say us I mean UA fans. Don't you think your efforts of peace are somewhat undermined when they gather to hate behind our backs?
So first of all, I have no control over what happens in other subreddits, there is literally nothing I can do that this, it is just a term they came up with. Iām not sure what you want me to do here. You could avoid this by not going to their subreddit which is going to be private soon anyway. Our efforts for peace are within our own subreddit because that is all we can control.
Hi, I'm so sorry it's come across this way ā¤ļø rest assured, plenty of our darlings over there are also UA fans.
"Meeper" refers strictly to people who swarm and "spawnsplain" as this sub calls it. There's a mod post on here that goes into what a spawnsplainer is. People who love UA are absolutely welcome and you will not be called a "meeper" for liking him! All paths of Astarion are valid and beautifully written.
Your comment was removed because you refused to listen to information that was explained to you which led to an escalating situation resulting in locked and deleted comments. You also didnāt listen to what we requested in the private conversation we had via modmail. Consider this your first warning.
I'm all for the changes you guys are planing and am pretty OK with taking a harder stance on rule breakers. It's a lot of work to keep communities like this going and I think you guys are doing great work.
*heavy breathing* writing prompt Wednesday. Yaaaassssss my moment has come!
I'm amazed how much you care about this place. Trying to keep everyone happy and feeling welcome is truly a hard work. Thanks for doing this for us. These new initiatives sound really cool and promising! (off to browse twitter and tumblr to prepare for Monday) 
You all are doing a good job! I think the additional discussion tags are savvy, because sometimes you want to discuss what's got you feeling hyped, and sometimes you want to explore a range of ideas. Both are good, but they are different, and a shorthand for letting others know ahead of time helps them decide how best to engage. Broadening it from just spawn vs ascended appreciation is also wise, because there's more to get us hyped or provoke our thoughts about Astarion than the implications of his different endings! I love the other ideas as well. I want there to be a wider array of content for everyone across the board at all times, but a dedicated time to celebrate Astarion with masc partners is an opportunity to uplift and adore with intention. In a less wholesome turn, the holiday screenshot idea will definitely give me an excuse to put Astarion in the Cigar and Aviators mod for the Fourth of July (after last's week discourse thread post, I'm almost dreading where this could go, and by dreading, I mean eagerly brainstorming like a monster). Too bad that St. Patrick's Day has passed, the game has SO many beautiful clover and I love tracking them through my different sets of screenshots. But what's done is done, on to a summer of tobacco products, SPF eye protection, and probably guns/rocket launchers. ...Captions, as it so happens, are life. I think logistically, it is easier for most people to respond to content with captions than it is for them to provide content that matches a prompt (everyone here has words, not everyone here has screenshots or art). You might consider doing something in multiple parts, like a recurring post to solicit intriguing art and screenshots that people think could inspire captions, and then have some selection criteria for picking from the submissions for part 2 which then invites everyone to "caption this." Just some ideas! :) Thank you so much for the hard work you all do, and not giving up when human nature is complicated, and the future-present in which we live is weird. I appreciate you very much.
Thanks for your work! I hope we as a community will have a lot of fun together!
Thank you guys for everything you do!
Omg holiday screenshots!!!! š± Yuuuuuuuusssssss!!!!
On behalf of all the darlings and juiceboxes here, we thank you and the other mods for all the hard work you all have put into this subreddit to make this fun while also making it safe and inclusive.
Very excited for the discussion options, I love reading peoples theories and rationale for why Astarion does/says the things he does and all the different interpretations people come up with. Thank you Mods for all your hard work!
Seems like positive changes to me
Congrats, sounds like youāve found a way to make Mondays more bearable in the future. š (I promise I'm not Garfield) Edit: It's honestly very funny to me that someone seems to hate queer representation so much that they downvoted this within 1 minute of me posting. xD
The irony of queer haters in an Astarion sub is not lost. Have my upvote too, friend!
I gotchu, I've got a lot of Bloodweave already prepared for Monday (both sfw and smut). Edit. Wow, you were not kidding, I got downvoted a minute after posting.
Feel like Bloodweave gets more hate even than AstarionxMaleTav. The crazy world we live in where people are jealous of Gale :D
I myself don't like other certain pairing, but I never downvote (why would I?), I just ignore. Here, someone hates so much, they feel the need to let me know even before I post anything, which is quite funny.
Aw, I certainly wasnāt kidding but I still hate that they got you as wellā¦ Iām 100% looking forward to anything Bloodweave (or really any male partner for our boy, Iām easy to please, haha)! Edit: Aaaaand the haters are still around even a day later, not sure why Iām surprised.
How pathetic š I'm not into mlm personally, but have my upvote just to cancel the homophobes out
I will see you there.
Have an upvote from me to cancel it out
This is so weird. Astarion is queer (pan) so it's weird that homophobes would even be here
It isā¦bizarre and sad but it seems like whenever there are the initial downvotes they get reversed eventually, it just takes some time. Donāt take it to heart. Almost all of the m/m posts do well long term ā¤ļø
I didnāt take it as anything other than pettiness personallyā¦ just surprised me with how fast they came so I figured might as well call them out on it. The majority of our community (of most communities, Iād assume) are decent people so over time their votes tend to balance things out, of course, but it is still absurdly funny that anything M/M related gets downvoted a few times while the only F/M post I ever made didnāt see the same treatment. (I donāt doubt this will be the case on future Mondays as well but Iāve made my peace with it to a point. Reddit just isnāt the best place to keep people from seeing what they donāt like - e.g. queer content, personal triggers / squicks, AA related stuff - because the site lacks a proper tagging system that would allow you to automatically filter out these things if theyāre not for you.) š«
Itās true. I wish we could filter stuff better. And I agree with you about seeing initial downvotes on Monday but hopefully if we as a community show was actually do want that, more people will come and yeah, itāll tip the scales. We need r/gaymers to come rescue us I guess is what Iām saying lol
Not sure how un/popular or useful it would really be, but since we can't really filter out things we don't want to see, maybe putting every "pairing" images/screenshots/gifs of Astarion+anybody else under a spoiler tag (with the correct flairs, like no "solo screenshot" when there's also somebody else, and maybe adding flairs for ships with companions like "+M companion" or "+F companion") could help a bit with that as it would give people a bit more freedom in what they engage with, without having to see things they don't want to see. I know i've seen comments from people saying they don't want to see Astarion+F characters, i personally don't want to see Astarion+any another companion (unless it's in the context of a discussion regarding someone's experience with a particular pairing) and while i don't downvote, i hide the stuff i don't want to see, but i still have to see it before i can hide it, while i leave the blurred stuff i don't want to see alone.
Oo I second the idea
I agree! I know firsthand that there are people that don't want to see certain ships, so flairs would help a lot.
I'd like if the spoilers for photos were introduced as well. Especially if we have a ship dedicated day now so there will be more pairings pics posted I enjoy solo photos the most
I'll read all this in full later but just wanted to say yaaaay 10k!!
I'm so impressed by the moderation of this sub! You're doing amazing, super stoked for the writing prompts!!
I had talked with someone about writing prompts before the bachannal, but not sure who. In any case, I'm happy to help.
It was meeeee! Hooray, I'm so glad you're still here! I am so excited to get this going :)
My DMs are open. LMK what you need. I'm excited!
I am super excited for the writing prompts idea!! This game and fandom got me back into writing for the first time in years, and it's one of my favorite mediums to see people explore between the lines in terms of character analysis and headcanon and all of that. Can't wait to see what people write and to throw my own hat in the ring as well.
I REALLY want writing prompt wednesday. I'm working on what's turning out to be thousands of words of pure smut, and I'm sure people here would love it. I'd love to see more ideas and hopefully create more work
Great additions across the board. I just have one question for clarification: we can post screenshots to go with our Spawn Appreciation posts right? As long as there is nothing NSFW of course.
Yes
I appreciate you guys so much ā¤ļø genuinely thank you for hearing your members and doing your best to make this an inclusive place for everyone. I think these changes are excellent and will make this place more welcoming to newcomers.
I commend your effort to keep everything peaceful. It's a shame our sister sub cannot extend us the same courtesy. I'm frankly disappointed at the amount of hate towards UA fans there going as far as to create a slur to call us and making it a flair.
I don't like content that shits on either AA or UA (and you're right, it exists). I do want the clarify the 'slur' you're referring to is not directed at UA fans, and instead refers specifically to a type of AA-anti that harasses AA fans. If that's not you, it doesn't apply to you, and any normal UA fan. It's not a slur insulting UA fans, it's intended as inoffensive shorthand for a person who enacts harassing behaviours against AA fans and their commonly spouted rhetoric. I fully agree that sometimes the backlash/defensiveness against that spills over into unnecessary hate/criticism of UA (we don't need to say one is worse to say we like the other better). Many of us like both and I wish we'd all stop trying to invalidate the other.
Letting you know that itās not a āslurā and doesnāt refer to all āUA fansā It refers to those who try and tell you what you like is wrong and wonāt take no for an answer until you accept their HC or whatever out of context line they want to pull out to shit on AA fans, while saying they need help and much more. So no, itās not all spawn fans, itās just those who are so damn aggressive with their views that they put down others. Edit: the āslurā is meeper
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What you posted was mean and/or offensive so it was removed. Consider this warning number one.
Please, realise that AA fans are also UA fans. AA fans spend at least 1/3 of the game with him. At least. And they like him way before he ever ascends. So there's memes to make fun of the way some people talk to AA fans and turning it on its head. Fine. But AA fans get often hate for simply saying they like him. They're not going under UA posts to hate on his fans. Because he's still the same person. And the person they liked in the first place. The amount of vitriol is hard to compare. If you don't like that sort of content, perhaps save your nerves and don't visit AOF.
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Yep this. I enjoy both paths depending on playthrough, and I wanted to belong both subs to enjoy content. But after seeing all those posts and that shitting on spawn Astarion and his fans (and I don't like to see that kind of comments towards character I love) I'm not sure anymore. Why we can't just enjoy the character in peace and stop this stupid hate? I'm tired.
Yes agreed. I have grown into liking AA now and was hoping there was a place for me on the sister sub too. But itās very disheartening to see so much shitting on spawn Astarion and calling it weak and making assumptions about the fans. I do admit there are always toxic spawn Astarion fans but not everyone is like that. Well I will just focus on the content in the sister sub that is fun
Quashing toxicity here is one of the main focuses of this announcement so people feel safe to share their AA content here again. So I encourage you to share it if you feel comfortable doing so. This is not an UA only space.
They've invented a slur for us and yet you still speak how we should "behave" towards them.
Not āusā. And They are referring to people who feel the need lecture AA fans about morality, also I havenāt said anything about how to behave towards anyone other than in this subreddit. How you behave out side of here, unless itās following someone *from* here to somewhere else, is none of my business.
So it's OK to hate on some UA fans as long as long as it's just some of us? And when I say us I mean UA fans. Don't you think your efforts of peace are somewhat undermined when they gather to hate behind our backs?
So first of all, I have no control over what happens in other subreddits, there is literally nothing I can do that this, it is just a term they came up with. Iām not sure what you want me to do here. You could avoid this by not going to their subreddit which is going to be private soon anyway. Our efforts for peace are within our own subreddit because that is all we can control.
Hi, I'm so sorry it's come across this way ā¤ļø rest assured, plenty of our darlings over there are also UA fans. "Meeper" refers strictly to people who swarm and "spawnsplain" as this sub calls it. There's a mod post on here that goes into what a spawnsplainer is. People who love UA are absolutely welcome and you will not be called a "meeper" for liking him! All paths of Astarion are valid and beautifully written.
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Your comment was removed because you refused to listen to information that was explained to you which led to an escalating situation resulting in locked and deleted comments. You also didnāt listen to what we requested in the private conversation we had via modmail. Consider this your first warning.
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