Up until the end of patch 5 I had autonomy over everything I did with my romanced AA. That autonomy has been taken away by patch 6. but it's been done in a way which makes no sense. If I kiss him once after ascension and get these sadistic kisses I am never going to kiss him again and without those kisses he is basically the patch 5 version in every other respect - but that is after ascension. Without several playthroughs and a lot of meta gaming I am not going to assume that his personality will do a 180 after ascension. It makes no sense for it do so either as that's not how people behave. Sure his more controlling personality traits are going to be coming more to the fore but again - he's still Astarion and will still have all the personality traits that I liked from before as well.
He's also not a traditional vampire lord, he's an Ascended Vampire, something that has never been seen before and is supposed to have (according to Raphael) all the appetites and feelings of the living (so it can only be assumed that includes love) but that bit seems to have been thrown out with the bathwater and we are left with basically Strahd (Dnd fans will know who I mean), which shows a serious lack of imagination on the part of writers - who dreamed up a new type of vampire and then gave up on the idea to just make 'yet another evil vampire lord' in patch 6.
Before patch 6 I had no difficulty head cannoning the vampire bride route (I think its from Ravenloft setting of DnD - bride being a descriptor of role not gender) in which a bride is basically not controlled by their vampire lord although she/he may not know that immediately due to the vampire in question not telling them so as to be more controlling - which utterly fitted with Astarion.
He's still going to be Astarion, the man I fell in love with, helped and supported him in his quest to obtain his freedom and who - in most dialogues even after ascension tells me his life isn't complete without me by his side. By his side - not scared to death of him because I had the temerity to ask for a kiss.
I find the new kiss animations for Ascended Astarion in patch 6 to be a fan service to sadism due to Tav/Durge's facial animations more than anything. They are disrespectful to players, taking away autonomy and role playing which should be left to the player.
