Agree. Or It's On Purpose. Or It's Clumsy Fanservice. Punish And Show The Dynamics Of Victimhood And

Agree. Or it's on purpose. Or it's clumsy fanservice. Punish and show the dynamics of victimhood and heartless abuse with a single evil man. No one thought about the dynamics of the ally, well, yes.

Why is it even possible to do romance with Astarion then? Therefore he is not c-h for so many reasons. He is an evil character, for the path of evil, he likes to kill just for fun...

I'm not asking for this novel to be "health and equality", I never have been, I'm asking for a complex not b&w, dynamic with care and possessiveness and love.

If “evil” didn’t love, we wouldn’t have romance with Astarion and Minthara at all.

Im not updating my game Thank you @darkurgediaries for recording all the kisses. Reasons below the cut for my decision: Don't open if you don't want to hear my opinions its fine, you guys can scroll past it no problem.

Ill be honest I hate ascended Astarions kisses besides the 3rd one. the 3rd is the ONLY one I like out of them. I do like the lip bite in the one kiss but I have issues with the kisses overall.

Im not going to get too into it bc I just went on a huge discord rant in dms to some friends about it and sent feedback to larian about it. If you like it, thats great for everyone else but I'm going to stay here on patch 5 until either modders change it or larian themselves do because im tired of feeling shoehorned into good paths if I dont want to feel punished as a player.

And thats how I feel. I feel like with the bhaalist durge ending and now with ascended Astarions kisses that the players are being punished. Thats my personal feelings on the matter and it leave a bitter taste in my mouth and just makes me so goddamned disappointed and let down. On the knees: My issue with this one is his cold facial expressions + tav / durges scared ones + the fact this is not appropriate in many settings especially in public. The expressions make this look ABUSIVE not consensual. It appears cold hearted and distant.

Lip bite kiss: I like the lip bite, its nice. However the way he shoves her face away lowkey looks like hes slapping her. Again it makes it appear abusive and cold hearted.

Karlach's old kiss turned a A!A kiss: This one I actually like but I would like if it was tied to if you chose him to be rough or gentle when being turned and this be an option for if you chose rough.

The reason all of this bothers me: To me it feels out of character The game always emphasized choices. Even on ascended path you could choose what you both would do. hes never been portrayed as abusive. Manipulative and toxic yes. But not abusive. He does love you but these animations do not show it.

In the ending if you manage to get to the end without long resting he LETS YOU GO. he doesn't force you to stay if you break up with him he respects your decision. Likewise he wont force you to become his spawn and is willing to wait until YOU are ready. This shows he respects choice and autonomy

During the scene when he turns you, you can CHOOSE for him to be gentle or rough and he'll comply. AGAIN respects choice and autonomy. These kisses do NOT feel like its respecting your autonomy in any way shape or form with the expressions and rough actions. It doesn't feel consensual because of the expressions and how forceful it is. And im someone whos kinky af and I DO like dominant men but this does not feel like a dom / sub, this does not feel like we're his consort. It doesn't even feel like we're a pet like some people like to justify it as.

These kisses feel like our choices didn't matter. Like it didn't matter what our character wanted or what we as players wanted. Because if we chose for him to be gentle, now hes being rough and our characters DO NOT look like they are consenting.

How do I suggest Larian fixes it?

I get theres people who WILL like these kisses, and im not shaming you or saying its wrong if you do. My suggestions are as follow

Fix the expressions so tav / durge looks more into it and give Astarion a more passionate / loving expression thats less cold

Make the face push less forceful or change the expressions

Make it so your choices on what im dubbing "bite night" matters, if you choose for him to be gentle have kisses different to these ones that are still dominant still possessive but more romantic, passionate and a bit gentler. Think the butt grab kiss something on that line of forcefulness. no grabbing the neck, no pushing the face, no forcing you on your knees if you chose gentle.

likewise if you chose rough have THESE animations, the ones im talking about in this post as the animations for that choice.

Everyone would be kept happy without sacrificing their "Vision" for the game or without screwing another group of fans over.

rude + t̴͕͖͓̀ẅ̷̷̢̟͇͈̒i̵͓͙̱͚̎͟t̴͕͖͓̀t̴͕͖͓̀ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊r̶̷̲͍̭͐̾̀ yeah t̴͕͖͓̀ẅ̷̷̢̟͇͈̒i̵͓͙̱͚̎͟t̴͕͖͓̀t̴͕͖͓̀ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊r̶̷̲͍̭͐̾̀ it works 90% of the time…

That person reblogged one of your posts and tagged it "can't even talk to me like an adult, but gotta subtweet" Why would anyone treat them like an adult? They deleted replies off their post and seem to be incapable of reading more than a few paragraphs. Also they seem to be confused about what website they're on if they're talking about subtweeting.

I did talk to them like an adult. I was one of the first to do so to tell them to stop stirring the pot by posting that crap to the main AA tag. I also told them that they're a hypocrite for telling AA fans to shut up but then say to "please refrain from trying to control another's blog" as if they weren't rude as hell in their post and proceeded to use Larian as an excuse for their poor behavior. They deleted my messages. How else would I have known about their replies and what was said without snooping? XD Yeah, not a very adult way of handling things if you want to be talked to like an adult. Now, they get ignored as they were just doing it for attention. I hope all of this sounds familiar for them.

Oh god, I should have known they were from twitter...

Demonstration of leadership and their rights is another reason why cats like to sleep above a person’s head. Animals, lying at the very head of the bed, demonstrate their greatness and dominance.

Hm. I wonder how long has Astarion wanted to put the leader of his group on their knees, and I don't mean in a kinky way. It would mean nothing to him at that point if it was sexual and he'd disassociate like all the times before and this mindset can extend to the other companions, but his focus would be on Tav first. It's clear he's wanted some sort of power over Tav, or he wouldn't have gotten into a relationship with them under false pretenses to make sure they couldn't turn on him. Of course, he had to walk a fine line for a while to make his plan happen so he couldn't outright demand the action. It would make sense that he would try it when he has power and hope Tav was in love enough with him to submit that way.

Does that mean he doesn't love Tav? No, he still does, he wouldn't be going above and beyond to give them a comfortable life if he didn't as he would have no reason to keep them as happy as possible otherwise, but it's not going to stop him from testing boundaries like a toddler to see what he can get away with now that he has the power and confidence to do so.

We just have to do something about that low self-esteem cuz I don't think we did enough when he was a spawn to bring that up.

Ascended Astarion does what Tav wants to do after defeating Netherbrain because he doesn’t love Tav. He doesn’t like that the party is not hosted in the palace and doesn’t want to interact with other companions, but he went to the party with Tav because he doesn’t love Tav. Tav is well fed and wears expensive clothing because he doesn’t love Tav. Tav can be poly with Halsin because Ascended Astarion doesn’t love Tav. He says he missed Tav if Tav missed him in Avernus because he doesn’t love Tav.

THIS RIGHT HERE. ALL OF THIS.

It's wild how people think Ascension is some magic love off-switch that locks him out of ever feeling real love again and makes him see Tav/Durge as simply an object and nothing more.

I know many anti-AA players say that even with these examples given, it's all just a lie. That it's all a smoke screen manipulation to keep his clutches on Tav... and if you want to roleplay that, then that is canon for you and your Tav! That's perfectly okay!

But what AA says to Tav is just as true and untrue as what Spawn Astarion says to them in the spawn ending. Yet no one talks about that.

There is no singular "correct canon" for what happens and everything you said makes that very clear.

Another case of people not understanding what the RP in RPG stands for.

THIS. Lol, it's literally true.

i'm just gonna say it.

a lot of the criticism of ascended astarion fans absolutely reeks of misogyny.

it's giving "women are too stupid to understand that abuse is bad" and it makes me want to wring necks.

"you can't romanticise AA's behavior because that can lead to harmful ideas in the real world!!!"

a few hundred women finding AA's abusive behaviour sexy isn't why men are abusive, and adult women are intelligent enough to understand the difference between fiction and reality. ironically, this demonstrates that you don't understand the difference between fiction and reality.

where is that tweet that says "stanning reylo is misogynistic, but what do you expect from stupid fucking women" because that's what you lot sound like.

2. Lord Astarion likes to sketch outfits for himself and his Constort, brags about new one every time.