Originally Posted by Ametris
To me the only things that are unacceptable in the kisses are Tav's facial expressions and body language. Tav should look happy and actually touch him instead of standing there with clenched fists. I love the dominant, cheeky behaviour of Astarion, his promo smirk and the smug faces, that's how a confident Vampire Lord should act. He is perfect the way he is, only Tav is acting OOC and it ruins everything!


How I'd like AA kisses to be improved:

1. Tav's facial expressions and body language should be that of a joyous, passionate lover, not a mortified victim.

2. When we ask about the relationship, there should be two options:

a) Kiss me gently.
b) Kiss me roughly.

Contrary to what's being asked in that survery I don't want it to be dependent on the choice made during the romance scene and to be locked into one thing. Sometimes my Tav may feel like doing it this way or another. The more options the better!

3. Astarion could first verbally ask Tav to kneel and they can say they'd rather move it to a more private place. That kiss would trigger the next time he's asked for one.

4. Give him a unique end of the world kiss. I'm looking at you, Gale!

5. I want to be able to kiss him in the epilogue after he says that power is nothing without my Tav.

This! Agree!
(Nr. 3 I don't need, but understand, when people don't like to kneel in ingame public)

The picture nailed it. Most of Neil's ingame voice lines for Ascended Astarion doesn't fit Tav�s portrayal/non-consensual kisses(=sexual violence).
How someone can screw this up so much is beyond my imagination. How they could even release it and harm so many players - That's a galaxy further away beyond my imagination. Self-destructive so to say. I hear from more and more fans, also content creators, they are feeling betrayed, left alone, excluded from game and community and are moving to other games � a pity.

I hope the current Larian Team/current Writers get the point across that no one wants to see Inconsistency and non-consensual kisses in their own romance, no matter what route they go.
Only resentful people or who enjoy the suffering of others or who simply don't care about other people applaud. rolleyes


Originally Posted by Gunsumber
I also agree about the face expressions of Tav being just about the only bad thing in patch 6 with the exception of Astarion slightly slapping her in one of the kisses and then shaking his head with a very disgusted look in his face like he thinks "look at you, you're disgusting, such a low life nothing".

I can completely understand how you and everyone, who is not into it, feel, especially now with this non-consensual misconstruction of the scene..

But:
I just want to add my personal opinion: I see in Astarion no disgust in this mentioned expression, the smirk and head shaking, on the contrary, it�s pleasure and a sadistic joy that he mocked his lover, but that is different from real disgust, especially if Astarion is into BDSM and gets pleasure in humiliating others ( we see it in Act 1, so for me it's in character for him). Also, IF he would feel real disgust, he wouldn�t kiss his partner. (And also it doesn't necessarily mean that he sees Tav worthless or �nothing�, it just looks that he gets a lot of pleasure dominating his partner. (If anything, the expression could be more a mix with contempt because it's a bit one-sided, but not as much as the poster smirk and I would think it's just because of that.)

The only one who shows real disgust here (a mixed disgust-sad-anger face) is Tav after the playful shove, what makes this mentioned scene looks so extreme terrible (besides of that, that Tav isn't enjoying a thing in the whole (!) kiss, not even at the start)
I do like that playful shove/slap, it�s not even physical pain, so Tav�s disgusted expression makes no sense at all.

For me, Astarion's sadistic joy and his shaking of the head are very pleasant, to put it nicely. I would like to keep Astarion�s animations, though they could balance the kisses.

But as I said, I can very well understand if people feel differently, that�s why I

100 % vote for Ametris suggestion:
To have 2 options when asking for a kiss: gentle (old kiss) and rough (new kisses, but of course consensual and Tav happy and enjoying them all)

Sometimes we feel into kink, and sometimes we want to kiss gently.

Last edited by Zayir; 28/02/24 11:54 PM.
"I would, thank God, watch the universe perish without shedding a tear."