I also want to add that I am strongly against making the faces more “neutral”. They are neutral as it is, it could have been done better at some points, but it's tolerable. The kneeling smile is done just perfectly! I really like it, and I absolutely do not want it to be replaced with something similar to what was in the gif in one of the announcements for patch 7. I also like the smile in the Bite kiss when Astarion pushes Tav away slightly. They both look playful now, I started to like that kiss, I rethought my attitude towards that act of pushing away, it stopped being excruciating. I couldn't stop sobbing like Astarion in the ritual rejection scene when I updated after patch 6 and saw that kiss. Now, thanks to good, rational and logical explanations from other forum members regarding Astarion's motives for this action from D/s's point of view, the fact that he doesn't feel contempt for Tav in this scene and, very importantly, thanks to my Tav's playful smile that matches perfectly with Astarion's grin, I no longer feel any emotional discomfort from this scene. I don't want more neutral faces, I can only play with smiling faces. These D/s scenes are still in some aspects a bit harsh for me, as a player who was not familiar with this theme before, and is playing D/s dynamics for the first time. Softening these scenes by adding a happy facial expression for Tav is necessary including for those players who Ascend Astarion for Astarion's sake and not for the dynamic itself. The option that came in patch 7 I like, suits me, and makes it possible for me to play with Astarion in a way that doesn't torture myself in the process. Larian, please leave the smiles on Tav's face! Don't make the faces more neutral! I can't speak to what expressions are more appropriate for the members of the BDSM community for whom these scenes were made, but for a “newbie”, happy faces are perceived much better than neutral faces would be perceived, and it's much easier to play that way. If a player has to vary their romantic preferences for the sake of their LI, then they need to make that “input” as easy and painless to perceive as possible, I think that's fair enough.
