Personally, I'm not hurt, but I did talk to people who are and I sympathise with them and want them to feel validated when they post here. I myself am bemused, tired, annoyed and disappointed that Larian is clearly undecided how to write Astarion, slights the evil path and romances, and we end up with contradictions and errors each patch. I'm also fed up with seeing "Ascended Astarion is an abuser and should be presented that way" being thrown around wherever I go (which is a result of this patch). I just want to have a nice dark romance, because there is no one else in the game who can give it to me. I also want to romance Minthara as Ascended Astarion but her romance is broken and unfinished. My first reaction when I saw Tav's animations was "WTF, that's supposed to be my Tav?! Who is that person?" The kisses are so absurd to me I just can't help but make fun of them. I think I'll do some more work in Paint. I'm trying to take this in a humourous way.
I couldn't agree more with this. I'm also into the whole dark romance thing and I loved what they did with Astarion, so much that I couldn't get myself to romance anyone else in the game but with this new patch, as I've expressed so many times, I almost can't stand to look at him anymore, I hate his character. It is not the Astarion we had and knew, why change him now 6 months after release? Also I've been saying that it doesn't trigger me the way he now behaves but perhaps that isn't true... I think I do get triggered, as a victim of severe abuse and possession it does trigger me I think, they made Astarion into everything I hate and despise. I really liked his character, he was that perfect dark with a touch of evil but he wasn't abusive and he would never hurt my Tav, now I see him as he could hurt her no matter what and whenever he pleases, she is dead scared of him doing so and it shows in those new scenes.
I posted just shortly on Facebook about how I thought these scenes looked abusive and quickly a bunch of guys jumped my throat to defend them saying I should get off my high horse cause Astarion was always evil and bla bla bla, of course they will defend it, they get to live out their fantasies now about strangling and abusing their sexdolls!!
The kisses are so absurd to me I just can't help but make fun of them. I think I'll do some more work in Paint. I'm trying to take this in a humourous way.
