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.
This hysteria-abuse-attack with AA is an attack on the real victims of abuse who are being healed by this romance. The attack is ruthless and ignorant. “You can like it, just accept, admit that it's abuse"...
Admit that Spawn Astarion's healing is deadly. Abusive and controlling relationships clearly already transitioning to reality and to real morality only begins to attach to Astarion after the Ascension. Because if it worked initially, Astarion can't be touched, he's dangerous.
I literally, actually, no joke saw someone saying this on an AA video. Something like, "You can play however you want, but you have to admit that he's abusive." Maybe one of Niraart's? I'm not sure I want to go dig it up but if I come across it again I might screenshot it. It was an old comment by the time I saw it or I would have said something like, "We don't have to admit anything, actually. We get to interact with the game however we want."
I see people saying this daily. "Like what you want, but admit it's abuse." It's so patronizing.
Not ascending doesn't suddenly make Astarion immune to being toxic or repeating abuse patterns. He's still Astarion. There's no magic cure for trauma.
It's the same argument with every vampire since the beginning of fiction. Even YA novel vampires are anazlyed as abusive. Wake me when vampirism is in the DSM. Players don't have to admit anything to like what they like in the way that they like it. We don't owe anything to anyone to have fun with a game.
This is a RP game. If you want to RP as a mistreated victim, you can. But you can also RP as evil and having fun with your evil LI. It's an included route in the game! There's dialogue options for *both*.
