Originally Posted by AkaiMikadzuki
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Personally, I find this stereotype an insult. Okay, Larian wants to make AA evil. It's normal, I saw him as evil back in EA. But being evil does not mean mocking the person who helped you. Moreover, in AA outside of kisses, there are no these traits. And what Larian shows has nothing to do with �great conscious, cunning and intelligent evil� For some reason, Larian reduces evil to a caricature. You're evil - slaughter the Tieflings, hit the squirrel, don't forget about the children and of course, kill Isobel, Night Song to your detriment, and then even Astarion makes a comment about how stupid this is. By the way, this shows that Astarion is a pragmatist, he is adequate and does not commit evil, simply in the name of evil, therefore, he has no reason to hurt Tav.

I absolutely agree. And Astarion has never been "evil" in its purest form. He is exactly that, a complex, dual, living character, a real Personality with a set of different character traits. Both anger and a deep desire for intimacy mixed with distrust. He is almost always surprised when you give him help or show him affection - in the biting scene, the confession in the second act. Narcissism mixed with a strong inner self-loathing (hence "You're degrading yourself by staying with him..."). A tendency to show off and attract attention, a sharp sarcastic sense of humor and inner vulnerability, which is felt in some little things, nuances, details of facial expressions, movements. Beautiful poses, which sometimes seem to be "broken", disrupted. This vulnerability leaves him only after the Ascension - his posture changes, his posture becomes more confident, Astarion no longer moves his whole body as he did before. And how his eyes gradually begin to open towards you - in the first chapter always squinted, but in the second act they open! No one will scoff at someone to whom he has genuinely smiled and "opened his eyes" for the first time in two hundred years. And yes, he is a pragmatist, I analyzed his " evil" disapproval regularly during the game, you can almost always find practical sense in them. Also, he approves of far more than just "evil" behaviors. And about cartoon evil - I am sometimes really surprised at how one game manages to combine both surprisingly subtle and profound things, and at the same time, some outright stupidity and caricature.

Originally Posted by AkaiMikadzuki
I defended this game and Larian very strongly during EA, now I realize how wrong I was in doing so...I was disappointed in the release and then I saw Larian brush off criticism, and now this whole situation. But I continued to play. 800 hours and 53/54 achievements. And you know, even though I was disappointed, I still believed in Larian, I even bought DOS2, even though I�m not interested in it. You really can't feel safe in the gaming industry. It is even more naive to trust the developer.

I didn't play EA just because of other players' criticism smile Then I regretted it a lot for not seeing Astarion in EA, so many interesting scenes with him didn't make it into the release. I've never been a Larian fan before (I'm a fan of the BG series), I didn't like their specific humor. When something serious happens and the NPCs are acting goofy and having fun and stuff, I don't get it a bit, it ruins the realism of the world picture for me. I quit all the Divinities I've tried before I got to the end at some point like this, like, "My husband's been killed. Would you like a pie?" (not verbatim, of course, but I hope I managed to explain the point). Probably when Astarion is burning in the sun and the others are "joking" about it somewhere from the same placeBut, when I bought the game after release, I was delighted. I loved everything about it. And when I was "hooked" by Astarion, I turned from a person who likes to play on the weekend periodically for fun, to a gamer who spits on all the real things that can be spit on, and rushes to the computer. Yes, this is the exact game that carried me away more than any other, ridiculously. Smaller studios can still be trusted, indie developers listen to the audience much more, it seems that the bigger the studio and the more money it makes, the more it doesn't care about players who take the story seriously.

Originally Posted by DarkAngelBeckons
I'm sorry, but the last few videos of the Ascended Astarion kiss and epilogue are edited to the point, where you do not see the full effect of the free cam mod. Tav's body language is still balled up fists, a disgusted look on their face, slumped body posture & total unhappiness. After the brain fight, the pre-epilogue has Astarion go into a speech where your Tav is slumped, looking sad, frowning, and unhappy up until he offers his hand & they walk out of the room, which is the only part where they do look happy. I would rather you choose to show the entire thing, than a heavily edited shot that does not show the entire thing, just to satisfy people who have the supposed dom/sub fantasy that they are acting like it is, which is their own choice & their own opinions. There is a lot left out if you don't have the full story, if you choose to edit out the shots that show why we & many others are upset, to begin with. One thing it does show in these particular videos that you guys shared, is that the fantasy of their headcannon, but to wipe out why we are upset. Unfortunately, it does not delete what Larian is actually conveying. Also, does no one else see how Ascended Astarion shakes his head in disappointment towards Tav? This was deliberately done on Larian's part & many of us, do not agree with the direction they took a character to service the few that have this particular fantasy prior to patch 6. Let the YT creators have their fantasy as well, but just please see that the clips are edited to show you only the parts where they don't have to break with their own headcannon & for them to continue to make content with Ascended Astarion. Just so everyone is fully aware. The videos are in fact, edited for the creators to continue with their headcannon & not show the parts they do not agree with or do not like. So public service announcement, I guess is what I am just warning those of you who have watched the entire forum, since the beginning. I AM NOT shaming or invalidating their headcannon either, just making a statement that may need to be there for those who do not read all the comments that this long forum has.

Unfortunately, this simply cannot be fixed with an editor. The thing is that Larian used all the techniques that can be used to "show the victim". Only a specialist animator will be able to fix it. Camera angles, cut shots are all things a video author can do on their own, just to cheer up the viewer. Your remark is not a devaluation of the author's efforts, it just further points out how "well" Larian animators did, how detailed they worked out this humiliation, that no enthusiast can fix it so easily.

The way Astarion shakes his head disappointedly and some other aspects of his facial expressions I immediately noticed back in the "original". His disdain was pretty much the basis of my own trauma from those scenes. It's just smoothed out a bit in the video.

Originally Posted by mirami
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.

Yeah, that's what I thought too once I calmed down a bit. These claims about Astarion abusing you and that the developers intended it that way come from SA fans, they pissed me off so much I just wanted to shove them "cycle of abuse" into a place suitable for "bear sex". The bear sex in the game was avoidable, though, as were the brothels, the incubus (touching video, was interesting to watch, but in my game I can't even for the sake of the Astarion scene physically do anything to Haarlep other than kill him), and everything else. I've gotten the feeling before that the writing team is a collection of talented, nuanced, thinking and deep writers with people who have "bears" in their heads.

Originally Posted by Sereda2
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.

Yeah, I too think the more publicity the better. Some gaming sites are already writing that fans are furious about these kisses, albeit rather mildly and briefly, but still.
https://www.gamesradar.com/on-your-...ved-kiss-animations-this-time-with-gale/

Originally Posted by Zayir
[quote=mirami] but now an immature anti-AA wave is huge, with bad trolling and bulling, that isn�t really cool.
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. disapprovegauntlet

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.

Originally Posted by Ametris
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 (and replaced the old one in there too). 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.

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.

Originally Posted by DarkAngelBeckons
YES! This! That is why I feel betrayed about the 180 to only one path of abusive evil & defang him are the only routes. I don't like either path now. They ripped my heart out. I don't want a bloody do gooder. I want an intelligent vampire who has emotions other than just abusive trope.

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!

Originally Posted by Seramina
I don't understand how the devs screwed this up so bad.

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.

Originally Posted by LiryFire
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

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.

One life, one love - until the world falls down.