Just a quick reminder, Welch uses they/them pronouns.
I'm skimming over the talk because I find that I agree with a lot of points Welch talked about so I'm not super interested in discussion, but, to clarify a few things I've seen: The transcriber transcribed it as "no lollies" but they said "no lolis". Lolis (or lolicon) refers to a manga/anime archetype where characters who are or look like underage girls are sexualised. So yeah, it was pretty rational to say there shouldn't be any in a game.
The scene where Astarion sleeps with you in act 2 is pretty well described in the talk, basically you ignore what he's telling you and say you want to sleep with him, you do, and then he breaks up with you once he realises that was a horrible thing for him and that you made that terrible choice. If you have the heart for it and aren't triggered by that topic, it is a great poignant scene. It's very painful but I was in awe at the guts it took to write something like this in a videogame, or rather, a (soon-to-be-done) romance.
I'd also say I find analysing what Welch is saying in this talk to redirect it into AA discourse (which they didn't go into in this talk, at all) to be kind of in bad faith.
Thanks, I didn't know that. I changed earlier posts to match their pronouns.
I think your last point is fair, but the connection I'm making is the fact that they said they're interested in portraying abuse in a game, and the discourse around AA has largely centered around whether or not he's abusive, and making players who choose the AA path feel bad because they picked the "abuse" path. If they are in the fanfiction scene, there's a non-zero chance they're aware of this discourse and aware of how AA fans are treated and talked about, and I think if that is the case that they are aware, there's a certain amount of responsibility they have to address it now that they've been given this position to actually shape the canon of the story. Plenty of creators will call out bad behavior of their content's fans, and I guess by not addressing it, it makes me feel ways about stuff, like maybe they agree with it. I'm really not trying to approach this in bad faith, but the connection in my brain is, "People are telling me AA is abusive and I'm stupid for liking him > Writer says they are interested in portraying abuse in the game > Does this mean they endorse the idea that AA is abusive?"
