Originally Posted by ahania
Overall I think a truly neutral expression would be great

It may not end up satisfying either side in the end. I, like many of those who want to express their love for Astarion, will still have to install mods, and those who want a different romance will still get a rather bland version, and may well use mods with more extreme expressions, once they are available. Maybe we should leave in the game what Larian already planned to release, and that allows for different interpretations among other things? Besides, it's already been done and done excellently.

Originally Posted by Elly
There is a lot of content in the game that could negatively affect someone. For example, in Act 2, Tav can
coerce Astarion into sleeping with them
after his confession. As long as potentially triggering content can be avoided by being locked behind options the player doesn't have to choose, like the OP of this thread requested for the kisses, I don't think the game or its characters need to be censored.

The scene you cited can be found by game testers, certainly. But it's led to by such explicit lines that it's almost impossible to get to it by accident. Unlike the request for a kiss. Plus, the scene you cited describes mistreatment towards a companion character, while the non-consensual kissing scene applies the mistreatment to the player character itself, and many players associate themselves with their characters, and that can be a trigger.

There are also official rules for rating movies/video games, rules that require a warning, etc. The scene you cited does not require a warning, although it may cause a severe emotional reaction in the player. But:

1. The action takes place behind the scenes. The video sequence does not directly contain any violent scenes. The content is conveyed through the story and not in the form of a video sequence, unlike kissing scenes.

2. If you ask an expert to evaluate both scenes, in the case of the kissing scene in patch 6, the expert evaluation (the magazine has already done such an evaluation, Zayir has already written about it here) will show the need to set a warning. I don't think an expert would say the same about the other scene you cited.

One life, one love - until the world falls down.