I would like to clarify, I do not want the new expressions Larian announced to be changed or not added. All I'm asking for is the possibility to keep the ones that are already in the game, too, because that was the story I experienced with my character. It's really not my intention to upset anyone, or for the fearful expressions to be forced onto other people's player characters again. I understand the faces that came with patch 6 messed up the roleplaying aspect for a lot of people, and I feel that the same thing would happen with my Tav if the coming change is mandatory for everyone. I am only asking for the option to play my character the way I want to, not for others to share my narrative or play the same way.
I understand that some people may like to see such facial expressions on a character, some people even bought the game after patch 6 in order to create a character of their own liking and enjoy seeing such scenes (however, let's not forget about the large number of players who were so offended and disappointed by the game that they quit the game for good, completely disappointed in a company that considers it possible to introduce such near pornographic content into the game as a "Valentine's Day gift"). I don't mean to offend you in any way, your enjoyment of the game is your right, all I'm saying is that many people who simply updated the game were suddenly confronted with triggered traumatic content and suffered emotional damage and abuse from a game they loved and voted for before as "game of the year". Those players who had been victimized by SA/DA in the past were hit particularly hard - the trigger scenes caused them to relive their traumas and triggered PTSD. The gaming magazine GamePro wrote about this in their article
Neue Astarion-Küsse in Baldur's Gate 3 wirken verstörend auf Fans und das ist der Grund("New Astarion kisses in Baldur's Gate 3 have a disturbing effect on fans and here's why"). Please note the full warning about disturbing content at the beginning of the article - this indicates that the content has been peer-reviewed. Leaving this content in the official version of the game would oblige the company to put such a warning. Therefore, such scenes should not be present in the official version. You can ask modders to do this, or you can use the extensive new modding tools that were promised in patch 7 to bring these facial expressions back into your game. To do this, you will simply need to replace the keywords that programmatically set your character's emotions during kisses with "scared, sad and pained". These keywords were discovered by modders in the game's code, and they were the ones used to paint the facial expressions of a rape victim on the faces of player characters. I, for example, was only able to play this game again after the Nightingale mod came out, which gives much more joy, and fits the love story of my character and Astarion much better, and I will probably continue to play with it after patch 7. Or with a combined version of this mod with the Happy Faces mod. For many players who choose this romantic path, the mod is better than the original, and that's fine, good thing there is such an option.
The choice that really should have been introduced into the game is the choice between "Gently" and "Let it hurt", because adding the possibility for D/s romance is a really great and pleasing idea for many people, much more interesting and needed than sex with a bear or the idea of a "toxic white abuser", hopefully other developers in the future will also appreciate the possibilities of such romance and there will be more games with content for the BDSM community. But still, I would like to see the inclusion of D/s romance be completely voluntary and desired by the player, rather than forced, because people choose these relationships with joy and desire, rather than, like the Little Mermaid in the fairy tale, sacrificing their voice to the witch, signing a pact that "they like to degrade themselves" and putting their face under slaps, in order to save their beloved from the cruel fate of remaining a spawn forever, and be close to him at least that way. And the rescued prince-Astarion is sure his beloved is enjoying themselves in the process. Maybe I would have liked it though, if indeed in the game itself there was some powerful evil being that had to sign such a pact with, it would have made the possible "abusive narrative" much more interesting and realistic. But still, a "Gently" option with romantic kisses, or a softened option where Astarion is dominant but softer, in a way that would also be suitable for those players who weren't initially ready for a D/s relationship (e.g. when choosing "Let it hurt", Astarion gives that little slap after the bite, but when choosing "Gently" accepts the kiss, and the bite ends with Astarion and Tav passionately kissing) would be ideal and express care for all players. Or, in terms of Tav's emotion choices, a choice between neutral and happy faces. As a person who is very far from loving humiliation, however, I can say that I enjoyed the kneeling kiss with the Happy Faces mod, where my Tav clearly adores Astarion and enjoys giving Astarion pleasure, and is willing to show the middle finger to any social norms and rules while doing so - it's fun. So adding the ability to choose a happy facial expression for Tav would also be a good option to mitigate D/s scenes for those players who didn't originally plan to be submissive in a romantic relationship, as it were - for me personally, D/s scenes are much better received with happy facial expressions, whereas with neutral ones it's still a "mermaid story".
It seems to me that the idea of "toxic white abuser", as well as the idea that the player should suffer if they dare to truly love Astarion and want to see their favorite character happy, comes from the same "Discord shit-posting hole" as the idea of sex with a bear. Unless about the bear former Larian writer Baudelaire Welch explained everything in their lecture and interviews with game magazines. "Discord shit-posting hole" is a quote from the article
"How the Baldur's Gate 3 bear ...watershed moment in game history'" . There are more articles on this topic if anyone is interested:
“Baldur's Gate 3 writer labels Ha...ot; wasn't originally a romance option
“Bear sex 'a watershed moment in game history', says Baldur's Gate 3 writer”It's a bit odd, of course, that the author calls fans of their art "shitposters", come on, maybe it's such a cute joke among themselves in their fanfiction community. But still, shit-posting hole romance stories shouldn't be forced on other people who aren't part of that community. With zoophilia, to everyone's delight, it is, no problem, it's a choice for the player that they can easily ignore. I'd like to do the same with the out of place, "abuser story". Still in
"Patch 6 Destroyed Player Agency with Astarion" - a topic for 59 pages, where there is a huge number of posts from different players, explaining all the plot inconsistencies (many thanks to LiryFire, for explaining everything in this thread again in detail!), how bad it is to traumatize real people for the sake of the author's "abuser" ambitions and dictate to the player how to feel like a failure after you naively bought RPGs and was sure that you have a good game in front of you, also in this thread you can also find quite a few posts from people who have never played this way, hate and insult Astarion, and really, 100% agree with KiraMira, they just want to "burn down the neighbor's house". Oh, or else it's ugly - the "toxic white man" must apologize and burn in the finale, while the "strong and independent woman" can only condescend to this "comic character" and become his educator, or "make a mistake", "want freedom", whine and suffer. The capacity for real love and fidelity is something unmodern, of the dinosaur era, obviously, and women and homosexual men with this approach to romance should be immediately silenced, "canceled," made a showy victim (for others to see because it's an "unhealthy relationship"). In the movie industry, a somewhat similar approach in recent years has led to a lot of failed "movie masterpieces", Disney's biggest stock plunge, etc. In the game industry, making the player feel like a failure, making them a victim, imposing an "abusive narrative" is not the best approach either. They experimented, they saw the result, and that's probably enough, because classic good love stories always make people happy, at all times, don't create "toxicity" and hatred, don't offend or traumatize anyone. Larian have always been a good studio making great and fun games, and I believe that will continue to be the case. The change of course to turn the focus towards players rather than "narrative" and "agenda", which I definitely see in the promise of fixing facial expressions in patch 7, is great and very welcome, for which I thank the studio very much. If Larian also add a kiss to Astarion's epilogue, and make their players even more happy (well, really, the patch 5 kiss is cool, don't throw that scene away please!) - that would be great in general, and for me personally it would mean that Larian's next game will have good stories, and I can trust the studio again and remain their fan. I'm all for love, joy and deep sincere romance without toxicity and "abusers"!
