i've been seeing so much top/bottom & dom/sub discourse on X/twitter, it's so damn annoying, everyone one being all, "it doesn't matter, this discourse is so fucking pointless" to the point that I gotta say my (very unoriginal) truth on here with my chest out: top/bottom & dom/sub discourse does absolutely matter, thank you very much.
because who your preference is for the top/bottom & dom/sub position in a ship is based on your personal interpretation of the characters; it is never simply a matter of which is which in the bedroom. i'm way too jaded to accept that as the truth; that's not the truth, that's just a shallow statement seen through rose-colored glasses.
if it didn't matter to people as much as they claimed it didn't, even on this hellsite, none of us would be having this conversation.
it's like when travel vloggers on youtube talk about Paris, and every single one is like, "the Eiffel Tower is so overrated, skip it, it's a tourist trap" but guess what?! for travel vloggers who don't think the Eiffel Tower is all that significant and a waste of money, they've sure got a hell of a lot of opinions about it.
because the truth of the matter is, every single one of us has biases, and those biases influence how we view the characters we see in fiction. in turn, how we view the characters influence whether one sees them as a top/bottom, dom/sub, as well as their enjoyment of how those positions are portrayed in fic, art, edits, etc etc.
i can no longer recall how many fucking times i've seen so much fandom drama cropping up because of top/bottom & dom/sub discourse and all of it at the end of the day being reduced to, "it ain't that deep."
No. No no no no, it IS that deep. it IS important to you, or why else would you be so fucking defensive by hand waving it away? Anyone who says the discourse isn't that deep is either 1) not willing to examine their own internal biases or 2) pretending not to care as some sort of virtue signaling, when internally they very much care as much as everyone else or 3) doesn't have enough self-control to keep quiet, so they gotta throw in their opinion into the ring (that's me lmaooo)
fam, all of us have got to be fucking honest with ourselves, aka say it with me: we all have biases that will influence how we see fictional characters, and there will always be disagreements, because biases and life experiences are never the same for every individual.
Top/bottom and dom/sub discourse is gonna exist so long as fandoms with ships exists, so the sooner people accept that, the sooner they can block who they need to block and get a move on in finding their own small community within their fandom.
