YOU KNOW WHAT? This post I’m manifesting only positive interactions.

Wyll will hold your hair back while you’re sick!!!

Karlach supports small businesses!!!

Gale helps fundraisers for libraries!!!

Shadowheart can do perfect winged eyeliner!!!!

Minthara can make the perfect workout schedule for anyone!!!

Astarion.

Lae’zel cuts perfect paper snowflakes!!!

Halsin knows how to properly recycle!!!

Hot Take that's gonna get me sent to the gallows:

Of the male companions, Gale is actually the best example of a "messy, imperfect victim".

Astarion is a better example of "thinking they're above perpetuating the cycle of abuse".

I think, me personally, I want my fic to portray Astarion as I interpret his in-game self, in that yes he is awful, and an awful person for most of it, but he is also capable of change if you guide him to it. Cuz that's canonically a thing he can do.

It's weird to always classify him as inherently and irrevocably evil. It's also weird to classify him as a secretly soft twee baby who just has some traumas you need to massage out with the power of love.

As a writer, I want to show that Astarion is a bad person, but that he has the capacity, and more importantly, the will to change, once he is given the proper tools and freedom to do so.

There's also an interesting aspect of him being a video game character, who by definition must obey the player's agency. It's a difficult thing to balance, because once you take the gameplay aspect from his story out of the equation, your job as an author is to fill that space with his own in-universe agency. And people fill that space differently.

That's also probably partly why you get people who insist he's good deep down inside and just needs to shed all his bad traits ("I can fix him") and people who think he's thoroughly evil and any change for the better is OOC ("I like that he's unfixable"). Both camps are equally mad at the other because both of them are equally "correct," in that the game allows for the player to insert those thoughts where the narrative leaves room for interpretation. Nobody can win the argument because the argument is by design unwinnable. Both are correct. Neither is more true than the other.

It's easier to dunk on bad takes in traditional media where the text is fixed, where the interpretations can range from accurate to bonkers depending on your level of literacy. In games, especially story-heavy ones, there are spaces literally made to allow for player interpretation, interaction, and alteration.

So, to me, I think it's important to show that Astarion is a bad person, but that he is capable of change. That's my take on his character, his story, and what I find the most compelling. Others may disagree, and that's fine, but seeing two technically-incorrect-but-good-luck-proving-it-because-both-have-their-points teams overtake the conversation is quite frustrating to say the least.

First of all, I love, love, love Astarion. There isn't a BG3 origin companion that I don't love, to be fair, but I do love our vampire elf, and I'm all over his story, and my Dark Urge is romancing him.

Here it goes:

I think the community gives him way too many passes. They can't simply recognize that he is a complete asshole in the beginning, particularly when your character doesn't know him at all. You're expected to give him a pass because he has a tragic backstory, that you don't really find out until later on.

But in the meantime, he's abrasive, he disapproves of every altruistic choice you make, EVEN if it's arguably the easiest path to take. He tries to bite you while you were knocked out and he goes on to try and manipulate you. The guy is textbook asshole. I love this character, but he's a well written asshole.

I am totally good with his story or if people romance him (such as me!), but it's so weird that people write literal essays to excuse his early behaviour, as if it isn't at all toxic. It's more interesting when players dive right into the toxic and play along with him, but this character's coddling by this community sometimes turns me off.

I''m also so jaded with most fandoms that it leaves me wonder ing that if Astarion looked a different way, less physically attractive to the community, would he get a pass? I bet he wouldn't.

As someone who has only recently finished their first playthrough, in which I romanced Astarion, I'm admittedly new to the discourse surrounding his character.

But I just want to add some nuance to the conversation because I see it always get lost in the "straights vs lgbt" wars that seem to litter every social media app these days.

We all know the facts: Yes, Astarion is canonically queer. Yes, he can like women.

As a straight cishet woman, I was admittedly defensive over other fans' annoyance that most fan content of Astarion seem to only appeal to straight cishet women. I was quick to join the camp of "Astarion is pan so ofc he can be attracted to women!"

Now that I've had time to think, I now see where they're coming from. They feel that Astarion's queer identity would be ignored and lost. I'm not taking any sides, and I'm not saying they're right. I'm just saying it's a concern that shouldn't be dismissed easily just because it's more comfortable for us to do so.

Instead of responding defensively and with vitriol, it would be more productive to meet them where they're at. At the end of the day, queer people still are a marginalized minority. Instead of reacting defensively, we should be more mindful with the fact that Astarion as a character has many facets to him, and with that comes perspectives that might be new to us.

after reading the commentary the writer recently made for astarion’s ‘bad ending’ it’s very obvious they have no scope of understanding what it’s like to have your autonomy forcibly stripped from you for a prolonged length of time and the way you would choose ‘safety’ in the form of power so no one could ever hurt you again. In the modern world this looks like buying a gun, learning specialized self-defense, etc.

Its obvious the writer doesn’t understand or didn’t consider that so many trauma survivors (myself included) picked that option as the ultimate form of catharsis and not because they only saw him as a sex object. That’s why the sequence of scenes after I chose to ascend him were so jarring to me and gave me such bad whiplash because one of Astarion’s underlying themes the entire time is how he is almost desperately seeking power to feel safe. It feels bad and didn’t make sense once we helped him obtain that power that he suddenly treats us as some weird pet that only degrades ourself for him.

To push the narrative that the only ‘good ending’ is one where he heals by staying as he is is almost harmful to trauma survivors because it makes us feel like we are healing ‘wrong’ if we seek safety in the form of power instead of seeking comfort, love, and choosing the morally just path. The idea that these things are the only right way to heal is wrong.

I’m even more disappointed knowing that the writer used that ending to basically ‘teach’ certain players a lesson instead of doing something more thoughtful or at least thought provoking. It just feels petty and shallow after reading the comments that were made and they could’ve went in different directions to stay more in line with his story. I hope they consider a rewrite or an adjustment after receiving the feedback they have.

Why can't Astarion fans just get along? They both love the character. Does it really matter who is right and who is wrong? Does it really matter how one person plays the game compared to the next person? Stop fighting and just let each other enjoy the character. Choices are in the game for a reason...to be played. I got chased away from the Dragon Age fandom because of how I enjoyed Cullen's character and that was almost 10 years ago.

And I see fandom still hasn't grown up in the least.

I'm too old for this shit.

I just want to play the game and enjoy another character I've grown to love.

P.S. I have artwork of Astarion coming out at some point this weekend. Both Ascended and Spawn fans alike can enjoy it.

The majority of the spawn vs ascended "discourse" I've seen:

Group a: yeah ascension is sexy and I've seen the scenes three times because I love Astarion so much, but it's important to keep in mind that this is the bad ending because fiction analysis is how we exercise our critical thinking skills, and if you cannot recognize it in a video game then I'm genuinely concerned for your safety.

Group b: why are spawn enjoyers bullying us! Let us live! They just can't let us exist without a lecture! Guess they'll just never know how sexy ascension is.

Group a, which up until that point had been genuinely having fun with all the character analysis: 🫥

Where are these people who are supposedly saying that Astarion is “inherently evil” and therefore irredeemable?

Are they on twitter or something because on here I’m only seeing ppl responding to those arguments but no one actually saying it lmao

I can only find people saying that he’s “evil aligned”, which is NOT the same thing

when did we forget that being part of a marginalized group doesnt prevent you from being bigoted against that group. if you think that astarion has to be gay and that him being CANONICALLY pan is unrealistic because he acts flamboyant i dont give a shit about your orientation i am going to tunnel into your walls and scream at the top of my lungs whenever you try to sleep. thats literally just stereotyping THATS STEREOTYPING THATS SO FUCKING HOMOPHOBIC

i KNOW astarion being all flirty is a trauma response but my trauma response to his trauma response is to bash him over the head with a rock

YOU GET IT!!!

It’s worth a disclaimer that I don’t hate his character design- He behaves like an interesting and well developed person.

I just hate him.

As a person, I cannot stand him. I have dealt with too many folks who use their tragic backstory as a means to excuse their behavior instead of just explaining it, as Astarion seems to fall in to. He’s a raging flirty asshole, and while it makes sense, he needs to go to medieval therapy like the rest of us and learn how to interact with other adults now that he’s allowed to.

He hasn’t had a normal person interaction in two decades. But he doesn’t seek out the means to better. He wants to be worse. He wants to curl into himself and be everything that’s spat at him. He’s self destructive and he brings down my vibes, bro.

All the characters deal w their trauma different but this bro just really stinks up the hot tub :(

The thing that astounds me the most about The Fail Elf's fans is that they have catalogued and dissected every dev note, alternate scene, rare dialogue option, idle animation, cast and crew interview, clothing choice, world interaction and everything else you possibly could, yet still straight up ignore/deny canon information. Like there is so much speculation and discussion of him that isn't worth it because canon is right there. Except acknowledging that canon would mean acknowledging Actual Astarion is nothing like his fandom portrayal. Actual Astarion would stake his fandom self in the chest both for fun and as an act of mercy.

People get really defensive about "writing Astarion with women" when what people are actually annoyed/upset about is that people are putting him in heteronormative relationships with women.

And it's not like, "YOU, INDIVIDUAL WOMAN, WROTE HIM WITH A WOMAN? A POX ON YOUR HOUSE!" and more like "a majority of fandom is writing him in this specific way with this specific type of character that doesn't really reflect who he is in the game and shoehorns him into a generic booktok dom daddy."

Which. Yeah. People are allowed to feel annoyed/alienated by that type of trend. I think. Maybe. I've seen several fics where Astarion being with big burly men (implied to have been penetrated) was portrayed as traumatic, while being with little virginal female Tav was "healing". And yeah, you're technically acknowledging his pansexuality ... But the implications aren't great. Ya know?

And there's a LOT of conflating domming/topping/being on top. Which ends up only highlighting the heteronormative approach to a lot of fic about him. "He gets on top > so he always tops/penetrates > so he's a dom." Because for some reason penetrating others is less traumatic to him than to be penetrated? Which is a whole bag of worms that people seem reluctant/unable to unpack.

Now, the other side of this argument are people who go "lmao those delusional wamen think this homosexual twink would top them" which is. Also not great? But in the end reflects the same type of reductive and heteronormative argument, it's just coming from the other side of the spectrum. He's flamboyant and pretty so he MUST be incapable of putting his dick into someone else. And he's MORE feminine than the women he gets paired with, so obviously that's unrealistic and he must be paired with a big strong man instead. Which is like. Well you're paired him with a man but you're still being just very heteronormative about it. Even gay relationships must have a "man" and a "woman", is your argument? And Astarion, being beautiful and a presumed bottom, is "the woman"?? Hmm. Don't like that.

Maybe. Astarion is. Pansexual. And can both bone down and be boned down. Maybe he does have a preference. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doms, maybe he subs. Maybe he switches depending on mood/partner. Maybe he likes different sex positions where he's on top and ones where he's below. Maybe he's down for whatever as long as it's with someone he loves. Maybe he's neither "the man" nor "the woman" in a relationship and he's simply Astarion, a man in a relationship. Maybe in the end it doesn't fucking matter and putting him into rigid binaries is doing him a disservice.

Anyway. My nonbinary Tav's gonna upgrade his gender to Man+. Cis premium. They're gonna explore his gender and preferences and expression together. I think that might be fun and freeing maybe. And they're gonna take turns topping and bottoming and both will be soooooo healing because um. They're having consensual sex and are in love. So it's healing by default. Regardless of who's putting what where.

Well. Anyway. All I'm saying is. Stuff.

I saw a post that said “Dragon Age discourse walked so that Baldurs Gate 3 discourse could run” and that’s absolutely false. Dragon Age discourse sprinted, foaming at the mouth, so that BG3 discourse could skip happily through a meadow

So to balance things out a bit from my last post.

Here is what I do love about Astarion and why I appreciate him so much. Firstly: I'm a sucker (ha, pun!) for good vampire stories, so he's got that, right up until his choices at the end of his storyline.

Astarion is also not an "edgelord". He's not a broody dude all in black, sulking in the shadows and commiserating about his dark past, and his dark nature and warning everyone he speaks to about how "i'm not good". Astarion is out, he's pan, he's colourful, flamboyant and embraces his personality to an extent. As much as he seems to grate on Wyll, it's clear from random dialogue that Wyll would be his first choice to "bite", which I take to mean a bit of attraction there, and as a Wyll fan, I appreciate that.

He LOVES life, and he loves being in the sun, and as the song says, he wants to live. No dark, broody, gothy vampire wannabe here. He's also portrayed as an older man, which I also appreciate. And I get that most of his abrasive nature comes from literal centuries of trauma, and that story is told so well. Neil Newbon absolutely deserves all the awards for his portrayal of Astarion.

As I said. Well written asshole.

I don't care about your immersion or how you find having too many romance options in your game annoying or whatever.

I love the way Larian's Faerun is Bisexual. I love how the majority of the characters are Bi or Pan and no one is fucking weird or prejudiced about it.

Lord knows I will never get a positive environment like that in real life with all you hating bitches.