The only way you can keep the romance status is to tell Astarion that you care about him without any reservations. Especially in the Post-Araj scene this is jarring, since in this version his confession that he only used you, comes without remorse, worse he is making fun of you for having been so easy. If you keep the whole "circle of abuse" narrative in mind, this would have been the perfect moment to show how his exploitative behaviour while understandable, is also harmful and very much not ok. Yet the PC is not allowed to have conflicting feelings, to be torn between being in love with Astarion but also feeling hurt by him, to maybe even feel disgusted by themselves for involuntarily having added to Astarion's discomfort.
I take this confession a little more lightly. This whole thing started out as a fling. Everybody's trying to seduce Tav in one way or another. Not today, not tomorrow, everyone could grow tentacles. As soon as Ast starts to sense something else, he informs the player that, "here's the thing...(further down the line)". Without using metagaming or knowing the backstory, most Tavs agreed to his offer of a night with the calculation of "why not or well finally, what, fed you for nothing", not out of deep feelings, no matter how charming he was. So, the fact that Ast is worried that he's so bad that he decided to seduce you to help him, but realized that you're awesome and fell in love.... well, it's like a teen movie from the '20s where the prince of the school falls in love with the nerd for fun, but then for real. (Ha-ha, pardon the comparison).
And scolding him for it is questionable, in my opinion. You already forgive him, saying, "I also want to something real.". Saying him, well you are certainly a fruit and hurt me, but I forgive, to someone who has problems with trust and manipulation, well...he can further just not say then truthful, but hurtful things to you, so as not to offend and further pretend that all is well. But that's my opinion and vision.))))). But I agree that the scene with Yugir is better than the scene with Araj and less selfish.
I wouldn't see expressing hurt at being manipulated as lecturing. I think Tav's dialog option would have to be worded carefully, but in this scene Astarion is basically suggesting you take the romance to the next level and officially become partnered. If I'm partnered with someone, I need to be able to be honest with them. I feel like my Tav would say something like, "I wish you hadn't felt like you had to manipulate me. But thank you for telling me." I don't think she'd be mad or not want to be with him, and I think she'd understand why he did it, but she'd want to make it clear that going forward, those sorts of tactics won't just be unnecessary, but they'd need to be off the table.
