Thank you so much LiryFire, Sereda2, DarkAngelBeckons, and starryophonic for such a kind welcome! <3 I'm glad this forum exists so we can discuss this romance together in a non-judgmental way, rather than just sticking to one narrative like in some other places.
Thank you LiryFire for sharing those new lines that were found, I loved them, very interesting! I'm happy that
even if you decide to go to the Hells, A.Astarion doesn't break up with you and wants to continue your lives together when you see him again during the epilogue party! That is awesome.
I'm excited to see if more does get added to the romance with the next patch, too. Here's hoping our concerns will be addressed! I love Larian, I just feel strongly about certain things needing to be changed.
Sereda2, I completely agree about how heavy the narrative is on Reddit (and other places) about the whole cycle of abuse and why going down the AA route is awful etc. Aggressively so. I see people getting attacked just for having a different opinion on it than that. I never saw it as something so negative, and I do prefer his Ascended version very much. It's so much more nuanced than "Oh he becomes the next Cazador and is abusive." No. He's such a great character either way, but me personally I prefer the feel of the AA romance, and even the dark aspects of it. I hope you will get to play to the end to watch that ending scene! It made me emotional in a good way that they added that in, especially since I wasn't expecting it at all. It felt like they were bringing things full circle for us. It does seem like that patch was inconsistent – it's almost like it was an incomplete idea that they were still workshopping, but the abusive kisses still got through. I agree, I feel like those kisses and other things about the romance should be based on options we made during the game (as mentioned before, for example, when we tell him "Be gentle" or "Make it hurt"). And that's a great point you made about the fact that we can't respond to the mind reading part. That always bothered me too. We should be able to bring it up to him.
YT comments are like this too. If I hear one more person say, "cycle of abuse" I'm going to scream. That's not how the cycle of abuse works.
Originally Posted by Celesti4
Also -- not sure if this has been talked about on here before, but I would love for them to add in the party banter between Ascended Astarion and the other companions, where they talk about his relationship with the player. Someone found those dialogues in the official game files (I can look for them and share) and they're intriguing, it gives more insight into his feelings / the relationship dynamic and how others in the party view it. Not sure why these banter dialogues can't be triggered in the game right now (I think they've already recorded the voice-overs for them?), but it's such a shame that they're not in the game currently. I hope those will be added in the future because some of those were great.
Sorry for the wall of text <33 Thank you all again!!
Oh man, I would love to read those. Someone else posted the cut lines party members have with Astarion regarding Ascension/turning Tav and they are just incredible. Wyll's bit might be my favorite. https://shiakihades.tumblr.com/post/737825265777033216
