Astarion and Minthara is the perfect partners in crime for a evil playthrough. I never felt the need to call them out. Maybe I did in my first goodish playthrough, I can't remember.
I can imagine Astarion being a bit annoying if you are strictly playing a good Tav, much as Karlach is a bit annoying on a evil one. As for gaslighting, never felt that.
Astarion is evil and that's why many players love his character. Zayir has some interesting psychoanalysis on why. I agree it is very important to separate fantasy from reality. It's a huge difference between enjoying horror and wanting it to be real.
I like horror in fanatsy, but the news? Nope, I can't watch it at all lately with all the horrors of war on.
I have anxiety and love horror. It's a good way to deal with it. That's why act 2 is my favourite part of the game, you are basically in Lovecrafts wet dream. And yes, it is good and healthy to separate fantasy and reality, but stories can help people to deal with quite a bit.
That said, I prefer to play good in BG3,since I just like too many NPCs. But imo, if you want, you can call Astarion out quite a lot. He will not always acknowledge it or react like a toddler, but he is changing. His conversations are more friendly and he starts approving, if you help people, has different banter and is generally more open minded. He is an evil character, but he can go one way or the other, depending on what he takes from the group. If I'd ever do an evil playthrough ( maybe after patch 7), I would use Astarion for that for sure.
Astarion certainly starts out annoying in a good playthrough and I honestly have a hard time letting him into the group after he tries to kill my character at the beach and it takes quite a lot of metagaming not doing it, but since I normally get the bite scene always very early in the game, he starts telling about his life as Cazadors slave very early and it is easy to feel sympathy, if you have a bit of empathy. So I always make the 'We watch each others back" deal with him.
Tbh, I was afraid, he would turn out to be a catering to the Twilight crowd and as annoying as most of the modern day vampire tropes, but luckily, he didn't go down that route.
