#Freedom to Dialogue

[nat20composure]

Astarion and Agency- The Necessity of Discomfort to Self Discovery and the Infantilization of Victims

Minor Astarion discourse ahead that mentions the treatment of SA victims post-abuse:

I want to open this post up just with like. The statement that I don't think there is a correct way to enjoy media and that I LOVE to see individual head cannons and takes on characters in media. I think that is also, to a degree, an integral part of video games because of how unique the experience of playing a game will be to every person who plays it. But it has been making me feel so incredibly sad looking through fan content, art, or discourse for BG3 specifically because of how many people have taken the route of infantilizing Astarion.

I understand the instinct to shield or protect an individual that you love and care for. I also understand that because of the nature of the things that Astarion goes through, a lot of people also feel very deep emotional stakes in him. I'm one of the many fans of the character who is a victim of SA and CSA, I really do get it. That is also why for me personally it is so demoralizing to watch so many people treat him like he is a child who cannot make his own decisions or stand up for himself. Part of that frustration stems from it feeling like a media literacy issue, and the other part of that sense of defeat is just because it feels indicative of a broader attitude that people seem to hold towards victims of abuse, particularly those who are victims of SA.

To explain what I mean by people infantilizing him: I see so many people refuse to allow him the opportunity to be hurt, or to feel uncomfortable. They see this character who has been through an immensely horrible and traumatic experience, and their instinct is to try and shield him from anything else that has the potential to upset him. I get that the people who want that aren't doing it with malicious intent, but frankly it is not really...Helpful? To try and prevent victims from Experiencing Discomfort tm. I also think it kind of disregards the entire thesis of Astarion's character and arc.

When you go through something that robs you of your selfhood and agency, the world can become a crushingly terrifying place. In Astarion, that fear presents itself in a desperation for power, control, and at the core of both of these desires- Safety. One thing the game is clear about is that he has a right to kill his abuser. He has a right to escape his situation. A lot of Astarion's personal arc is centered around being able to finally do that. But the game doesn't just leave it off at getting him to safety. So much of it is also about him needing to take responsibility for himself and his actions, with needing to learn who he as a person is.

The inclusion of the Gur children and Sebastian as characters is a good example of ways in which the game gives Astarion the opportunity to take responsibility. I think that if the intention of the arc was meant to be that "Astarion should never ever have to deal with being afraid or uncomfortable again", then the Ascended arc wouldn't Come with such heavy moral ramifications, like sacrificing the other people just like him, killing the victims he lured in, literal child murder. The game infers that he doesn't deserve to die because of the things he Needed to do to survive, but it also makes it very clear that there is a difference between addressing an Active Threat and using your fear as an excuse to hurt others. Breaking that cycle of abuse when he finally gets the chance to is what separates Spawn Astarion from Cazador.

Taking responsibility for himself, and letting himself sit in the discomfort of vulnerability ultimately ends up being a thing that he is very proud of and cherishes. If you tell him you will make sure nothing like that ever again he himself says that he doesn't want you to be his protector. And so it blows my mind when people go into all of these discussions about Astarion with this...Weird moral high ground for never, ever making or letting him make choices that might hurt him?

I see this the most when it comes to discussions about the possible polyamorous relationship with Halsin and the interaction with the drow twins in the brothel. So many people are just...outright angry? At other people engaging with either of those options? And I feel like that anger is one) rooted in the projection of their Own feelings on non-monogamy and what a victim of SA can or cannot look like. and two) Relies on undermining the agency that Astarion BEGS you for at every turn.

When it comes to the drow twins, the game adapts Astarion's response to them based on where he is in his own personal development (a really cool thing imo). Obviously, if he still doesn't feel good or safe about engaging with sex he declines and says you can feel free, though he hopes you aren't just doing it because he hasn't had sex with you. I think this makes sense: He's just gotten out of a situation where his Safety and worth were directly tied to him having sex. I imagine he feels afraid that not wanting to have sex with you makes him replaceable or inadequate because at this point in the game, he feels like that's all he has to offer. The interaction is relatively the same if you ask him for a poly amorous relationship with Halsin: He just asks you to reassure him that you aren't only doing it because he hasn't had sex with you, and then tells you he isn't worried about it otherwise.

A lot of people have taken the expression of that insecurity in combination with him still allowing you to go forward and do these things as him just "sucking it up" because he's afraid of losing you. (I am aware Shadowheart says he wouldn't be able to handle it when you ask her if you can date both of them- But keep in mind, Astarion says she wouldn't be able to either, and THAT obviously isn't true of her. For the purposes of this discussion I'm only including interactions with Astarion as a judgement of his character.) I understand that concern, but I feel this take disregards so many other points of dialogue, and is also continually rooted in the baseline vilification of discomfort.

To further go into it, the way that he speaks about both of these interactions changes significantly if you speak to him about it once he is completely free from Cazador, and has had time to allow himself to start reconnecting with himself and his sexuality on his terms. He has absolutely No reservations about an open or poly relationship with Halsin, and says he trusts that things will be ok because he one) feels secure in Your relationship and two) Knows Halsin is experienced and trusts him to not be a messy bitch about it.

I think that shift, in combination with the in game explanation of why he isn't ok with being in that sort of relationship with the other Origin Characters (for Lae'zel and Wyll, he says they'd never agree to that. For Shadowheart, he says she's not experienced with open relationships and that he doesn't think it'd work out. For Karlach, that it would break her heart. And for Gale, he says you need standards.) is a pretty good indicator that he doesn't actually care about polyamory or monogamy. I think the vilification of that choice relies on you picking and choosing when you do or do not believe Astarion or just outright not liking non-monogamy in the first place. This interaction has more to do with the player's choice and comfort level, and so is not as important to the broader discussion I am trying to have in this post.

The interaction that is more pertinent to not Allowing him to make decisions is, I think, the drow twins. If you interact with the drow twins after the completion of the Cazador questline, he is outright giddy at the prospect of interacting with the Drow twins. Specifically stating that he is excited to see how he likes these sorts of things now that he's free.

NOW- I do NOT think that he enjoys the act. The game makes that abundantly clear, and I'm not arguing that he has a great time. He obviously does not, and dissociates during it. That being said, allowing this interaction to happen does not make a player evil or selfish. You are not playing the hero if you decide to moderate his choices just because you do not think he is ready for it. Once again, no one is evil for Not doing it either, and I am not saying anybody has to want to. I am just saying that treating this choice like it is an evil choice to make relies on completely disregarding what He wants to do.

Astarion says so many times in the game that he is anxious about finally having the freedom to find out what he wants to do, and I think that his excitement for the drow twin exchange is one of the opportunities the game gives him to make a choice. He makes that choice- And it sucks for him. He doesn't enjoy the act, and having done it he would be able to move forward knowing that. I think it's really cool and important that the game represents that facet of recovering as a victim. While you are trying to renavigate who you are, you are going to make a million new choices you never had before. And sometimes those choices are going to suck ass. It would be a different matter if he knew these things would hurt him and went ahead and did them anyway. But so many people expect him to move forward avoiding even the Potential of being hurt, and I think that is extremely reductive of his arc and who he is.

Beyond the matter of interpersonal relationships, the choice between Ascending or not Ascending Astarion is not a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. It is a choice between his fear and his humanity. Between letting his trauma and his fear define him for the rest of his immortal life, and allowing him the vulnerability of deciding who he is when he isn't running from the world. When he's willing to listen to the parts of himself that want to do right, that wants meaningful connection, that wants to be proud of himself. That wants to meet himself. To confront who he is when someone else isn't deciding that for him.

Astarion as a character is extremely ambitious, inquisitive, and adventurous, three traits that only become more and more evident as he breaks free from letting his own fear dictate how he lives his life. I don't understand how so many people can see him and want to take the core of his character away from him, when he spends the entire game fighting desperately to take it back.

Victims are not casts of the abuse they have gone through. Their shapes may be changed by the hands of others, they may have to relearn how to be the person they want to be. But they are not broken or irreparable or fragile. They do not need to be freed from the grip of one person to be held tight in the grip of another. It is so fucking unfair and self-important to think that your hands will be the ones that fix them. That your hands know better than theirs. I think the kindest thing you can do for a person is to trust them with themselves, and to listen when they tell you who they are and what they want. Please listen to the voices that have only just learned to speak. It is the only way they can get better at doing it.

[too-many-rooks]

if you'll be my model?

[squarebracket-trickster]

You've heard of using AI to write a novel. Now, get ready for the (infintely better) sequel: using a human to write an AI!

Join me in a hell of my own making, where I intentionally try to write sentences that sound like they were pasted straight from ChatGPT.

Why am I doing this? Because I hate myself. Why not just use ChatGPT to write the AI parts? Because I respect myself. The machines are not better than me! I can do everything ChatGPT can do, even sound like ChatGPT. It wants to take my job. I'll take its first!

[dreadfutures]

...

the very second time I get a DALISH option it FORCES ROOK to say they didn't grow up Dalish????

So your DALISH option is that you adopted a closed practice from a culture you don't belong to without understanding what you took and why? just "they're sacred"???? do you even know what design you took? what god it represented? did you get it done in some minrathous back alley or did you even get it done BY A DALISH CLAN????

:')))))))))))))))

[newspecies]

something so fascinating about Ramb saying the backstage game is freedom meanwhile there are no choices except murder. sure you can pick who to murder first, but its still just murder. the only real choice is whether to kill or to walk away. which parallels the actual game of Deltarune, where the choice is either to play the game and possess Kris or to walk away and not play at all

[dykealloy]

random person in the replies of my personal post telling me to go to therapy, wouldn't that be nice. To have the funds and stability and not have to weigh the pros and cons of the added cost of mental health expenses on top of fuel, food, rent and savings. To go to someone in my limited free time (or take more time off work, hence losing even more money) who may or may not be able to talk me through problems that I have deeply thought through several different ways over the course of my life to come to the conclusions I have. "Go to therapy" is so easy when you live at home, don't work and/or have rich parents

[quaddmgd]

Behold, HD Aya!

(including both her dyed and natural hair colors)

I was getting gradually more annoyed about my only 3d reference of her being pretty much anime looking, so I decided to recreate her in Monster Hunter World to share a bit more realistic look at her.

That's largely how I initially imagined her, aside from a few minor feature changes inspired by her mom's looks. I'm happy with how she ended up looking and I think she fits FF7 pretty well. Now it's probably going to be much easier for me to imagine her around other FF7 characters too.

Here's her in an outfit that kinda fits her future self:

She looks kinda smol which is lore-accurate.

Here's her front-facing portrait:

[howifeltabouthim]

'Here I am an irrelevant outcast, but I can at least do as I please.'

Iain Pears, from Arcadia

[vaguely-concerned]

sophia seeing cailan's body hanging there when they go back to ostagar, and suddenly all she can see even through the rot and the ruin is just how much he looked like alistair...... :'(

a mental image that totally will not haunt her through alistair's many years on the throne as rebellions and assassination attemps come and go. doesn't send her unhinged and unwise even a little

[krumpkin]

George Orwell got this quote spot on . I'll say that while I still can 🙄

[lunarharp]

"Found out" set in kind of a made-up chapter where the girls are in trouble, or something.

[lemodoe]

wait. hear me out. what if ramb has unrequited love for tenna.

i could sort of see that.tenna doesnt exactly feel the same because he doesnt know this guy at all and doesnt seem to care to, but I feel like there's something there with ramb maybe reminding him of spamton somehow.not really in that they actually act similarly, but in just the feeling of chatting with your business partner* after a long day. tenna talks to him on the Regular but doesnt actually know jack shit about him, just sort of using him as a stand-in. could also explain the whole 'tenna wont let me touch the POINT's.' and the 'i knew he was a good for nothing!!!' stuff. ramb's done absolutely fuckall but tenna seems to have like a baseline of distrust of Him Specifically for no reason. if you see their relationship as tenna reliving his memories with spamton, then it'd make sense for him to unknowingly project that sense of Inevitable Doom onto ramb as well.

*(slash employee? unclear whether or not spamton was working for him or the other way around. sounds like it ended on a more equal partnership, but im not sure if thats how it Started.)

[talesfromthecrypts]

War of the Rohirrim…. Revan/Bastilla cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see

[a-typical]

“The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.” ― Carl Sagan

[barra400]

June pt. 4

"The machine itself is only the top part of its apparent body, the rest of which is a plastic shell in the form of a human, which they seem to have built themselves.

The plastic body serves no function and is only for aesthetic purposes.

Despite it being a waste of resources, Mindflayers will use everything in its power to protect the plastic body from harm, even if that means destroying itself in the process."

-Mindflayer's terminal log-

[hibernating-stag]

Hell yeah get his ass...!