Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Astarion romance improvements

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that Larian isn’t trying to push the narrative about abuse as some people think.

Otherwise, it means that Larian used the abuse as bait for fans… which doesn't look good, to be honest. If they really wanted to reinforce the idea that AA is an abuser, then it wasn’t really great of them to post that video with the kneeling kiss on the February of 14th (especially when they had as many as 24 animations in stock), and release 3 new kiss animations for AA. If anyone is romanticizing abuse, it's Larian in this hypothetical situation.

More realistically, they probably didn't understand the target audience of AA and decided that they needed to add spices (for marketing reasons, just like with the bear sex). Given the horny comments under the Twitter post, they more or less succeeded (many people thought that was UA’s kiss btw).

It also seems that we shouldn't expect them to take firm position regarding narrative. They remade all the characters after EA. They also changed the situation with Minthara. I'm sure they can correct Astarion's kisses.

But again maybe I’m wrong.

Personally I don’t like both version of Astarion after the new patch. UA and AA were just perfect in the patch 5, I don’t know why they decided to bring such changes when there are a lot of other companions who need more content and love (they overthinking imho cause Astarion is popular). Also right before the new patch, the UA vs AA discourse was calming down (as it should), but now an immature anti-AA wave is huge, with bad trolling and bulling, that isn’t really cool.

Hugs to ya'll.

Instead of replying to everyone individually I just want to say thank you for understanding (sympathizing) with me and my point of views in this, it's really nice to know that I'm not alone in it. I'm not a prude and I seriously do like the bad boy type, I've always had and also the "slightly bdsm" thing without going too far but definitely consensual, in my opinion a man has to be really manly and take the lead, it's just some fantasies I have and for the first time bg3 I felt that I could finally live out that fantasy a little bit with Astarion, I just love this game, his character was so well written, the perfect dark when you ascend him, otherwise he gets too soft imo. My ex husband was really mean and possessive, wouldn't let anyone else see me, I was his doll basically and we were together for a long time, it has left a lot of scars, so yeah, I do get triggered when I see the new Astarion in patch 6. I still refuse to let my past enjoy a dark romance though, this is a video game, i don't see why they are mixing such violence and abuse in it now so many months after, it's not real life and they can shape it as they want to, so why choose THAT all of a sudden and why Astarion? I just don't get it, especially not with Tav being such a strong leader.

I hope Larian reads through this thread and see how many people we are who truly are affected by this patch. So far they've "only" released bug patches and no word about them hearing us or anything.

**Hugs** I do know where you are coming from & a LOT of Astarion fans identified with him due to the story prior to patch 6 & our real life past. We wanted a dark romance that didn't push us back into therapy. Now, I can't even log into the game. So, I personally understand exactly what you are feeling & where you are coming from. You are seen and heard! I stand with you & beside you in this. **Hugs**

I'd just like to say that the YouTube video I shared was from a creator who was objecting to the new animations making their Tav look unhappy and like a victim.
Obviously, I cannot speak for the creator, but the reason I shared was not because I felt this was a satisfactory fix. Tav's body language is still very worrying, as I said in my post. So, if Larian just did something like this, I'd be very unhappy because it's only addresses one aspect of the issues we are discussing. I also feel personally, that I would like to see Tav's face, just not with the frightened expressions they have given us in Patch 6.

The reasons I posted were a link were:
1. To show what an amateur can achieve in a short time and using what is already there. I would expect Larian to do a whole lot better and I am still holding on to hope that they will.
2. To support the creator in their protest against Patch 6. They are clearly unhappy with what Larian gave us, as are the vast majority of those commenting on their work.

Sadly, Facebook and X are not places where we can express our discontent with the Patch 6 changes without being subjected to a dog-pile. So I think it's a good thing some content creators on YouTube are expressing similar views to ours. Larian may or may not take notice of the forum, but if the unhappiness is more widespread it will hopefully be harder to ignore.

I'd also like to thank everyone posting here for keeping the discussion civil and for being so supportive to those of us who have found these animations particularly uncomfortable due to past abuse. Before I posted, I was worried things might get a little rough, but I went ahead anyway because I felt I had to say something. -hugs-

@Sereda2: I was just making a basic statement. Just so people don't jump in on the forum without context....as has happened in the past. No worries, I understood what you meant. People have jumped into the forum without going back even 1 page & jumping on us, so I was clarifying......that is all. No worries. ?

Yes, I 100 % agree. I don’t think this either. I do think they want to please their players and see them happy, that’s why they worked out romance kisses for Valentine’s day (So a big, big thumbs up! )

Just, the thing is, and that's the crux of the matter, they DID indeed push the narrative about abuse on the player, because they in fact implemented sexual abuse (Tav is unhappy and disgusted by Astarion = nonconsensual). *Facepalm*
It's stupidity. And that’s why some came up with the idea of Larian inspired by sadistic content for men, instead of consensual D/s dynamics. So they may just mistook two things.

Most players are complaining about Tav’s nonconsensuality. The minimum they have to do is to change Tav and make him enjoy the kisses. No woman (better to add, "sane") wants to see a romance kiss, where their Tav is sad or disgusted. [To add: I don't want to exclude men, but I can't really speak for them.]



Which twitter post do you mean? The „kneel kiss“ or have there been another one, with all 3 kisses?

I don’t know what their main audience is, but I myself talked to aaaa lot of players who ARE into BDSM or Astarion being dominant and would do like these scenes, IF Tav would enjoy them. So for me it's not they misunderstood the target audience of AA, but misunderstood what BDSM / D/s dynamics is.

About the hot comments: the „kneel kiss“ is indeed incredible hot (for most D/s dynamics lovers I at least assume), but ONLY until the point where Tav is shown with a disgusted and non-consensual face at the end, it indicates, that the kiss wasn’t consensual. (which but isn’t very much seen in a low-resolution Twitter post.) [To add: There IS a microexpression of contempt smiling at the beginning on Tav's face, when he starts to move, before Astarion "stop" shows up, but hard to see for everyone, and if you don't see it, you don't know it. This expression definitely has to be changed into a real smile.]

Just to say: The terrified face of Tav before the kiss wouldn't be the problem for everyone, it just shows that Tav is frightened of what is coming. But there is no sign of any abuse at this point, and a consensual kiss is starting right after, so no problem, people could find it hot, if you roleplay e.g. "Tav is captured by a vampire"
(But for our story, really, it looks a bit stupid to see this everytime, Tav should know, that Astarion is not about to do him any real harm, lol)

Ergo, it makes sense that a lot of players found this scene hot in that twitter post, without seeing them ingame or without seeing all kisses with their Tavs being unhappy.

Astarion's animation and facial expressions are up to 100 % great for me. I do love and enjoy them But Tav being unhappy isn’t okay, as he and I am into it, and I don’t like to see non-consensual kisses (which are infact abuse)

I am, and not the only one, very, very grateful, that Larian is thinking about us and wants to point out more that Astarion enjoys this sort of thing since act 1. It could have been great kisses. I have my finger crossed, that they are already working on them and make them consensual and Tav enjoying them.
And I do have my fingers crossed, that they don't decide to take them all out, they have a lot of potential. I do would love them reworked.


Yes, this is not cool.. a lot of players are bullied now, when they want to express their concerns about their Tavs being unhappy.. And the fault is on Larian, to have made the kisses non-consensual.

Thank you, hugs back <3

I'll tackle individual posts when I have more time. For now I'd like to repost my improved image I've originally uploaded on page 17 (I've deleted that one since I can't edit my post anymore). I did this to demonstrate how nonsensical this change is and to ridicule it. Sorry for the large images but I want this post to be very visible.







Larian, Astarion won a couple of awards and has been the face of your promotional material from the beginning.

This is Neil Newbon's beautiful and emotional speech that shows how important this character and game has been to us:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pCAUfDn5SYE

I'll quote his words: "Your community has felt seen, represented by this game when they lost hope, they felt isolated, they felt alone and this game brought them together and gave them something to push through to help them all."

Many people love Astarion so much, because they see themselves in him (myself included), romancing him has helped them deal with their personal traumas, gave them comfort, helped them love themselves more and by giving Astarion everything in a way we gave ourselves everything. We received justice that we might have been denied in real life.

Please don't ruin him now with the inconsistencies, questionable replacements, bring back his Early Access scenes, stop taking away the agency of the player. We paid for this game months ago and enjoyed a lovely dark romance. We want to see it improved, not destroyed. You are doing him and everyone who loves him a disservice by turning him into an abuser.

I'm gonna jump in here as someone who has knowledge of the BDSM scene for a bit since people are bringing specifically SM up, which is not what the kisses are portraying and I think it's important to understand what the specific terminology here since BDSM is often misunderstood to a harmful degree. SM in kink culture is about pain and pleasure, not about fear (unless it's a specific scene you're role playing but I highly doubt the devs thought about putting a sub-culture of a sub-culture into the game, and if they did they failed in their portrayal). Spanking is SM, for example. Very vanilla, basic SM, but that's what it is. It's meant to be consensual and enjoyable to both parties, even when roleplaying a non/dub con scene (which you could argue the kisses are but it's executed so horridly I don't think that holds water here). The mind control/noncon stuff aren't actually BDSM, they're their own specific kink, and they shouldn't be lumped together with BDSM where trust and respect are integral to a healthy dynamic.

With that in mind, in my opinion the kisses are trying to display D/s dynamics, not SM.

Dominant/submissive dynamics are usually misunderstood (look at 50 Shades for example), because a lot of people don't understand the submissive thing (wanting to not be in control). It usually boils down to people thinking submission is humiliating/degrading/lesser what have you; it can of course be about those (if both parties agree and it's enjoyable to them), but more often it's about being able to safely give up control to a trusted party and just not having to think; it can be about pleasing another person, or just being taken care of. People also think the domination thing is just about being able to boss someone around, when often it also involves caring for another and meeting their needs and showing that you are worthy of your sub placing their trust in you so thoroughly they let you have complete control of themselves. One big misconception is also that it's always about sex, when it's not. D/s is often more psychological, and it's always consensual and enjoyable to both parties. It's also one of the more fundamental parts of BDSM because the power dynamic thing is kinda baked into it all, but D/s is also its own thing and to me it seems like Larian wanted to go specifically for that.

Kneeling is one of the most basic D/s things, as is face grabbing. Grabbing someone's face is a control thing; in this case, it's about who controls the kiss and it's so vanilla people who don't do BDSM do it. It's even common in movies and books (and everyone seems to agree it's hot so I don't understand how Larian screwed that up here). It can just look a little different in D/s scenes. Unless you're doing a dub/non con scene, the sub should visibly enjoy it because it's meant to be enjoyable.

And kneeling is one of the the first things you're introduced to in D/s scenes. That's how basic it is. The thing about the kneeling here is that you're doing it for a reward (the kiss). This is where the sub should be ecstatic because they're getting a reward. The moment Tav realizes they're getting kissed they should be beaming in a D/s situation. They've done the right thing, they've "pleased their master" and that's what you aim for as a sub. If your sub looks scared (and you're not doing a scene where that is expected) you immediately stop everything and check on them.

The animations look like they're made by someone who heard "D/s power dynamics" and just put their frankly insulting misconception in the game. It's like someone who thinks kink is weird and gross just assumes that D/s is all about humiliation or something and thought that if you have to kneel you're not going to enjoy it (which makes me think the animations were done by a straight man with no experience or knowledge of BDSM because they're often the ones who think kneeling is supposed to be humiliating). There's a set amount of expressions coded for the characters and they just slapped the scared one in there because they thought it looked best for this. They probably assumed that having Tav not be into it would be good because "normal" people don't enjoy submitting or something. Astarion can enjoy dominating since he's evil, though (because evil=not normal I guess), and maybe that's why they made Tav scared? Because of course you'd be scared of the vampire lord? In reality Tav should look happy. They should be smiling. Astarion should be delighted his partner trusts him (which I reiterate is an essential part of BDSM!) and listens to him.

Portrayals like these are extremely harmful to the kink community since they reinforce the idea that kink is "gross" and abnormal and "normal" people (the player) don't enjoy it. It's inaccurate and disrespectful. They took a dynamic where trust and respect are the core elements and turned it into the complete opposite of what it's supposed to be. If their goal was to show toxic D/s dynamics I guess they succeeded but nowhere in the game did they give a heads up that this is what the dynamic would be. D/s, sure, it fits Astarion, but nothing about his character suggests he'd enjoy an unwilling partner. I'd say the opposite should be true just based on his history. Astarion should be a borderline service dom, at the very least he should want a partner that's into what he's offering.

I don't understand how the devs screwed this up so bad. At least the fix is easy (some changes to animations; nothing needs to be changed from the ground up), so hopefully Larian gets on it. Right now the kisses are triggering, abusive, and harmful to an entire kink community that's already misunderstood and rarely portrayed well. That's an accomplishment in its own right and if the devs wanted that then congrats they succeeded.

Personally I'm gonna play other games until the animations are changed, and I've already sent Larian feedback on this. I recommend others do the same since direct feedback is something they can't ignore and the more direct feedback on this they get, the clearer it will be for them that something needs to change.

I don't know if this is of interest or matters to anyone, but since the topic came up I thought it good to at least offer this information because even from the BDSM side this is really bad, and knowing why should matter in this discussion.

That's the point


Given the climate in the fandom where AA fans are the adopted children of goblins *sad violin playing* these kisses with a frightened Tav-face maximize the AA audience's lack of understanding (reminder this is a fanservice kiss for February 14, if I want to trigger Lord Astarion, I'll press the "yo, let's break up" line his evil is shown by this, kiss for balance)

And when someone strangles Tav (while Tav's face is horrified) and says "that's bad, enjoy how wrong this is or look, over there is good" - what the fandom has been doing nonstop, you're never going to choose "good". You're more likely to just choose nothing, which is what happened to some people.
Literally the reason some people give up on church and faith is they were taken to church too often in childhood, and forced, at a time when they wanted to play.

I think someone said "he approached abruptly, Tav got scared " when you first watch it seems logical, but still… it out of context.
In context, Tav has step to the dark side and knows Astarion, not afraid. (the night before, Astarion: doing the Devil-thing non-stop)
It doesn't seem logical when you study the novel in depth and don't split Astarion into two halves.
He doesn't split what's canonically confirmed.

I'll leave the continuation of my reasoning in another thread. here
Larian has lost balance - the tower is collapsing.

Agreed Seramina

Agreed LiryFire

THANK YOU for your Insight! <3 I hope Larian will read your entire post!
And thank you for pointing this out. Whenever I said "SM" I meant D/s dynamics, I am NOT a professional into the terminology. So if someone wants to know more about it, stick to Seramina's explanation.


That's what some of us are thinking, it would make a lot of sense. They may be inspired by some "non-con" stuff or as you said, think Tav wouldn't enjoy to kneel down or to be slapped. (I really do like that little harmless slap in the "bite kiss"...my Tav would never look pissed-off after this.. he would be aroused. ) The whole kiss contradicts itself. Contempt, disgust, fear, but if you don't enjoy a thing, you wouldn't close your eyes and kiss someone back, and right after show Disgust again. It doesn't work out either way. Insulting misconception is the right word.

This.


Thank you, this! It's triggering and a huge dissservice. I hope so too!


I appreciate someone made this clear and support our thought about these terrible non-consensual kisses!

Thank you for linking this

There are a lot of really evil people out there. The very idea of suppressing and "correcting" a person under the sauce of morality, presented as a "good" option gives ground for this kind of thing. "Beware of morally indignant people: the sting of a cowardly malice hidden even from themselves is inherent in them." - Friedrich Nietzsche's "Evil Wisdom." I always give a like to all AA fans and their content if I see it, and if it is possible to give a like - if we support each other, we will not be a minority.


Yes! Yes! It's just heartbreaking. Previously so beautiful compared to everything else. We've always done it gently too... *sometimes I want to cry from that hand kiss, it's one of my most treasured and favorite moments of the game.

Your captions for these shots are perfect.


Indeed! There has never been a game for me where the word "good" has caused such wild rejection, on the verge of hate, after all this. Astarion Ascended only and forever!


They screwed up because they confused SM with sadism and used the techniques, facial expressions and body language of the victim from the sadistic 3D content. I wrote about this a bit earlier in the thread, for example, if you take a screenshot of Tav's face and a screenshot of the victim's face from sadistic content, you won't see the difference. That's exactly what sadism is, not BDSM. Why they did it that way may be out of ignorance, but for all intents and purposes we have sadistic content in the game now, not SM content.


It's the only place (other than the new kisses) where his "evil" is shown in the story, it's the only argument made by those you ask "Where in the game does he abuse?". I don't need that line, I don't use it, I would gladly remove it from the dialog so it doesn't get in my way, so I don't inadvertently click it by mistake and have to restart. A lot of the options in the game that the player doesn't care about is variation and choice. But right now, they leave no choice at all.

I saw your comments and while I do agree with you and I respect you for looking into that stuff, they're also part of why I felt the need to clarify that what's in the game shouldn't be compared to SM because it's not trying to be SM to begin with, it's D/s done wrong. Yes, the expressions and body language might be more reminiscent of noncon fantasies and sadistic 3D content and such, but that doesn't mean it's got anything to do with SM. Saying that the devs confused sadomasochism with actual sadism is not helpful because what's in the game is not SM, it's your basic dominant/submissive dynamic that can exist without any SM elements because SM is not a requirement in D/s dynamics.

To be clear I don't disagree with you on anything but your usage of SM. Like I said in my initial post, SM in BDSM is about pleasure through pain. It's not about kneeling for a kiss or grabbing someone's face, so calling what's being shown "sadistic content, not SM content" is not correct because where is it trying to be SM to begin with? Even if both parties were happy in the scene it would not be SM. That's why I wrote a clarification on the terms and explained that it's D/s done wrong, not SM done wrong. SM doesn't even begin to factor into what's being shown. It could be SM if Astarion pulled out a whip and started spanking Tav, but as it stands it's just your basic D/s done very very badly.

I will reiterate that I agree with you. It's willfully ignorant at best and actual "I want my sub to suffer for real" misinterpretation of D/s at worst (a thing that is not allowed in BDSM), but it's not trying to be SM, and the distinction is important even if it might not seem like it. I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything but the terms used in the BDSM community exist for a reason, and using the correct ones will hopefully get the devs at Larian to look up the right terms for their research at least, and if they want dominant Astarion and submissive Tav, they need to look at D/s stuff, not SM stuff. Unless they want to add a scene of Astarion spanking Tav in which case they could look up SM, or just D/s punishments.

As it stands the only actual SM in the game is Abdirak beating you with a maze, and he's actually a pretty good dom with his encouragements and praise so how Larian fucked up a much simpler D/s dynamic where kneeling (which is like the starting position of a D/s scene) is as far as it goes is beyond me.

Also just so this post thread doesn't get clogged with things that aren't about the content in the game I'm not going to start engaging further on matter of the correct terminology (unless someone wants me to explain things or clarify myself etc. of course, I like sharing my knowledge) so if you want to keep comparing it to SM and saying the devs confused SM with actual sadism when it would be far more accurate to say they confused D/s with actual sadism you do you, I'm not gonna stop you, I'm not gonna correct you again, I'm satisfied knowing I have tried to educate you (and everyone in general) on the terms and their meanings. What you (and everyone else) do with it is your business.

You explained it very well & it matches my experience with it as well. Bravo @Seramina! Thank you.

Hi all. I started reading the forum after the release of the 6th patch. I decided to register and express my opinion about what happened. Of course, I also wrote feedback by email and on discord. I hope they hear us.
I use Google Translator, sorry, it took me a long time to compose such a large text.
So. I was really looking forward to the release of the update, and of course the first thing I did was go check out the kisses with AAstarion. I understand the game is not about dating and sex, but this is a large and important component of this game, my desire to look at the love interest is completely justified. And what did I see? Should I say that I was shocked? This is a small part of what I felt. It just didn't make any sense with Tav and AAstarion's behavior earlier. The kisses are incredibly beautiful, and very suitable for Astaran and our character, but not the expression on our character’s face. For what reason does it depict fear and hostility? We ourselves go to kiss, we want this, and our character simply cannot experience fear at this time. What did Larian want to show by this? That Tav suddenly became unhappy with Astarion? For what reason? We were always on the same page with him, always for Astarion, for his dream, we love him as he is, we didn’t want to change him or break him by taking away the ritual. He is grateful for this and loves our character and appreciates, in his own way, but this is so, he says that he has everything, but the only thing missing is us, he says that he will never hurt us, and he really never harmed our character.
So why would Tav look scared? We are aware of Astarion's predilections for torture, for example, and we expect it, and would enjoy it rather than fear. Of course, it was possible to play a character who doesn’t like the "changes" in Astarion, but I never chose this path, I play for Durge - even scarier and worse than Astarion, why should I be afraid of my partner. We have an alliance of two strong partners, where Astarion is in a dominant position. Now it’s as if the opportunity for such role-playing has been taken away. Larion wanted to say that Astarion controls us? But this is impossible, because we have a tadpole in our brain. Or did they want to say that Astarion has become an evil evil, don't go down that path? But why then do you need an affair with such a partner? why make different remarks on: what are we to you? Doing three different versions of the kiss? Throughout the game you can feel each other’s support, but when we kiss, we are suddenly afraid and unhappy. Then it's easier to break off the relationship. But this is simply absurd and makes no sense. We chose AAstarion because he is real, we want a better life for him, not a constant escape into the underground, I think SAstarion is unhappy, he will play along with Tav, he has no choice, we broke him, he will always remember this, his intonation and facial expressions indicate this, but that’s another story, I digress, let’s not talk about it.
AAstarion values ??his partner, and we value him.
After the ritual, his feelings worsened, yes, but he is still the same Astarion who is not indifferent to Tav, he is obsessed with us, and does not want to let us go, but we don’t need this, in the sense that he would let us go, we never spoke to him about this theme. We are together and at the same time, we cannot feel fear.
Another option why we have such an animation is that we wanted to show the "game" of Astarion and Tav, just Astarion’s remarks and his face after the kiss, which changes from serious to satisfied, suggests that it was a game, BUT it is not organized correctly , before this there could be some kind of dialogue leading to Tav portraying fear on his face, and Ast enjoying it, and also at the end of the kisses Tav should show and say that he also likes it and enjoys what is happening. Then everything would have been perfect, but the animators either overdid it with the animation or misunderstood the task, did what they did and did not think about the reaction that would follow from the players. I hope that this is a flaw in this scene, lines and animation, and not that they want to show us how bad Astarion is, and how our character is a victim, because this makes no sense and no one would want to have an affair with an abuser. Astarion is not an abuser, but he is an egoistic owner, cruel and domineering, but he values ??Tav very much, it’s all in the game. It’s a shame both for AAstarion and for our character. Hugs to everyone. I really hope that they listen and read us, and that this misunderstanding will be corrected.

Hello everyone , I am trying to express in English as much as I can because it’s not my first language.
I’ve been following everyone’s input for a while, and I think I would like to express how I feel too, but not with the kisses specifically.

AA fans being targeted , bullied and mocked has been trending on the mainstream for long time, a lot of people believe that they have the right to “Educate ” AA fans by telling them to go seek help for being into abusive behavior , that they are just delusional , that they must be some illiterate teenagers that have wrong images of dark romance or their choice is concerning.But the thing is the game is targeted to adults! I myself am a 41 year old married woman that would like to enjoy a good story-telling fantasy game , I like both route, AA or UA, for my taste maybe AA makes more sense to how I understand his story line, but I also find UA redemption arc very touching.

I don’t seek for negative content on the internet on purpose (who would?) but everytime I get on internet trying to look for some Astarion content to enjoy as everyone does, there would be tons of attack on AA fans, it’s very difficult to avoid.

I understand that Larian maybe wanna make people understand that choosing AA is a bad ending, but so as becoming Bhaal’s chosen , so as slaughtering emerald grove, so as Shadowheart being dark justiciar, but I don’t see so many people attack the players for choosing these routes and they can rationally believe that the players who choose these are simply enjoying the games while choose AA is just sick and delusional , why?

While I sincerely believe that Larian was actually trying to make AA fans happy by creating new scenes , even the smirk that matching the poster, but by a very unfortunate and insensitive execution, now the UA fans truly believe that Larian is siding with them and the bully just got even worse , are you really siding with UA fans Larian?please don’t break my heart like this.

I said this on my last post( I later deleted for some reason), what Neil said was probably how AA fans feel now, isolated , left alone , it’s almost impossible for them to engage with any discussion without being attacked once they mention they prefer AA route, how unfortunate!
Don’t look into comment while browsing then you might say , but why? Why can’t AA fans be part of this amazing fantasy world?

AA has always been promote material , and I believe that Larian knows Astarion always brings out a lot of topics and controversy which is good for marketing , but please be sensitive about your audience , you created this wonderful , all genders equal , embracing all sexualities fantasy world with such touching written stories and characters, I don’t understand how come AA fans have to feel left out .

I’ve been gaming since I was 12 when the game was on DOS system ,and Video games were for nerds at that time not even mentioning I am a girl, so seeing how video games become the way it is now I feel so proud!! But even now if I have to be involved in some social activities with so called “trophy wives “ community , I am still a weirdo by liking video games , so the game community is really my true home in my mind.I love games with good stories, for example god of war , the last of us or the Witcher , its like reading a good book except better because you get to be part of it ,my husband talked me into bg3 because I’ve never really tried crpg, and I was hooked!!but this is also the first time as a gamer I feel unwelcome by a community simply by a choice that I make is not in majority, which is sad.

I am sorry I post this here because it’s not really related to the topic but I literally don’t know where else since most male players won’t care and probably say “if I ever see another Astarion post!!” ,and UA fans would just ask you to go look for therapy.

Love to everyone !

So I wanted to put my thoughts here on the topic. From release day until now, fans of ascended Astarion have been accustomed to him being strong, dominant, yet GENTLE with the player whom he calls his “treasure” and “little love.” He says things like, “don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” and “you need not fear anything.” He was on the dark side yes, but like vampires from the classics, he loved his bride. 

When becoming a spawn, the player can either ask Astarion “be gentle” to which he gently kisses their hand before making them a spawn, or the player can choose “oh come on, make it hurt” to which he sensually chokes the player in a sensual way before turning them to a spawn. This right here is called player agency, giving the player control over what side of this character they get. And ascended astarion has always had a gentle side you can choose.

Now, whoever has been put in charge of his romance (and it’s clear some staff changes have been made) has a personal vendetta and bias against ascended Astarion and yet none of the other evil characters. Evil shadowheart, evil gale, and evil minthara all have lovely gentle kisses and hugs, yet this person has chosen to destroy the romance with ascended Astarion. How is this bias not clear to everyone involved? Larian has always been about catering to the 1% of players, ascended Astarion should be catered to those who actually love choosing him and his path, not the players who hate him. 

The animators have even chosen to make the player look scared and angry during ascended Astarion’s kisses, further taking away the ability to roleplay or choose. An evil style player or a dark urge for example wouldn’t want to react this way! And moreover, when you choose “oh come on, make it hurt” during the romance scene, it’s clearly implied that the player is enthusiastic about this pain, not scared. The scared expressions are completely out of place, who were they trying to please here? Because it’s clearly not the people who enjoy ascended Astarion.

I suggest giving the agency back to the player, if they chose “be gentle” when becoming a spawn, Astarion should keep his gentle kisses from before ascending, or even get a kiss where he kisses the players hand and bites the wrist before going in for a bloody kiss to mirror what he does in the spawn turning scene. If the player chooses “oh come on, make it hurt” then, and only then, should he give the rough kisses that were introduced with patch 6, and the scared expressions should be replaced with enthusiastic and passionate ones.

Please Larian, cater to the fans who are actively enjoying ascended Astarion, not the people who hate his character and wish to see ascended fans suffer. Don’t end it on such a bitter note for us.

It makes me terribly upset and angry that in the discord, for example, more and more feedback appears that nothing needs to be changed in the scenes with Astarion. That this was done so that we would understand how bad he is, that he is an abuser, and everything like that. That we are stupid and do not understand its true essence. Reading messages like this just gives up. Why are they doing that? It seems to me that they are trolling us, or they really do not understand the character of AAstarion, perhaps they never ascended him, but they are sure that this is bad and he becomes very very bad especially with his partner. But this is not so, and it is impossible to prove anything, they are confident that they are right, and they put pressure on them. This makes me very upset. I'm scared if Larian listen to such messages rather than us, who want the best for both Astarion and our character.
I’ll write again, I know that Astarion is not a good guy, and we accept him for who he is, our character may not be good either, but this does not change the fact that they are happy together and enjoy their union. My Durge would never show fear on his face, he would be happy. Don't take away the opportunity to play your character the way we want. Please correct our character's facial expression. I still believe that it’s not all bad, and Larian didn’t want to punish us for choosing AAstarion, they just chose the wrong facial expression for our character.