Given there are also players on here, on both sides, even, saying the kisses themselves are triggering, if we're speaking of a toggle, would it not make the most sense to toggle kisses themselves? Make it hurt in dialogue leading to the patch 7 kisses, be gentle on dialogue leading to the patch 5 kiss? Just throwing that out as a thought.
if you mean the make it hurt / be gentle options you get in the night he turns tav to a spawn, personally i would not put a flag there. i explained it earlier, but personally i think the dialogue is misleading. for me personally, "be gentle" option is arguably more painful to be bitten in the wrist first and then the neck, instead of only the neck. it can be interpreted differently of course, but that but this is how i feel about the scene and i am sure many others do too.
personally i would not want to revert back all the way to patch 5. i think it is important for UA and AA to have different animations and the difference should be how tav reacts. i think the better solution would be to have two options past the "can we talk about us" option, something like "may i kiss you" which would trigger patch 6 (again, not scared, but tav asked if THEY could kiss him and instead Astarion approaches them, which just surprised them), or "i want you to kiss me" triggering patch 7 (tav asks confidently for a kiss which astarion does equally confidently). i just watched my recordings from patch 5 AA and it just doesnt look right, i find personally.
i understand that you dont want to see the shocked face on tav because you just dont see astarion that way. i want to be clear, tavs shocked face does not equal noncon or abuse, i also dont agree with the term that has been used of "face of horror", you can just as much interpret it as surprise (like my durge). but like mentioned plenty of times, its just over the top in general. but this is only between patch 6 and 7, patch 5 has nothing to do with this right now.
maybe a true face of surprise, big eyes, a quick breath, would have been perfect? you could interpret it as surprise at the sudden confidence and find it irresistible for tav, or not. but at this point we really cant ask larian to make yet another face animation.
edit: even in patch 6, you can see that tav is reaching for him, once their lips touch tav is totally into it. same with the "slap" kiss, they reach out for another kiss before astarion turns them away (in whatever way you want to interpret that), tav is into the kisses in general, i think its just the movement leading up to it that surprised them in patch 6. in patch 7 they just play along, flirty playful eyes etc.
