#acestarion

[meyerlansky]

gonna get REAL snippy about some disk horse tonight: i am real fuckin' fed up of seeing everyone who felt impacted by the idea that astarion might be asexual or aspec in some way feel like they have to qualify their interpretation of a canonically sex-repulsed character openly discussing that sex repulsion in a way that is very resonant for a lot of asexual people. i am really fucking tired of the fact that everyone talking about astarion maybe even possibly being some variety of aspec feels COWED into couching it in "it's just a headcanon, it's just something that felt important to me personally! i'm not saying anyone else has to agree, it's just that it resonated for me."

i get not wanting to impose your reading of the text on other people—there are a fuckton of posts floating around about how that's a shitty thing to do and how x read isn't any more canon than y read and people who insist x IS more canon than y are jerks. and i don't disagree! people who insist there's One Canon in a choice-centric RPG are fucking dicks.

but i was also here in 2014, at the peak of exclusionist discourse, when every single time someone said "it's not that i have a problem with asexual people, i just wish they weren't taking up the resources meant for [REAL gay people/rape survivors/people dealing with comphet/etc]." what they actually meant was "I will not be satisfied until you shut the fuck up and never talk about your experiences in a place where i have to hear about it again". and it fucking worked; people recloseted themselves, blogs centered on the aspec community deactivated, real life organizations stopped explicitly including asexuality in their documentation when they had the previous year. for a solid three years, the only time any "big name blogs" mentioned asexuality was to make a joke out of it. i watched this shit happen with my own two eyes.

i don't have a problem with people who disagree with my reading of a character as asexual. i don't have a problem with allosexual people who say "this same thing resonated with me too, just in a different way" and move the fuck on. what i do have a problem with is the implicit vibe that comes up any time asexual and aspec people decide to talk about their experiences and things that resonated with them that we shouldn't take up too much space when we talk about that, because there are other people who don't feel that way and their interpretations deserve to be heard too.

i have not seen a single person on the acestarion train saying "you HAVE to think of him as asexual." i have seen multiple comments saying people who do see him as asexual are delusional or reaching, or that it's insulting—to whatever other identity—to read asexuality into his sex-repulsion. and i am really fucking annoyed [not at all surprised, but annoyed nonetheless!] that not only does the compassion for different takes not go both ways, but that people discussing their resonance with astarion from an asexual/aspec perspective are instinctually or habitually ceding ground by couching it in "you don't have to agree!" kind of statements, when that should be the fucking baseline for every single conversation about any characterization choice in, AGAIN, AN RPG BASED ON INDIVIDUAL CHOICE.

and i don't have any way to express this to the people that i actually have an issue with, because, again: asexual people relating to a character that's not explicitly stated to be asexual is treated as a joke at best and an attack on other identities at worst. but at this point, to me, calling a reading of astarion as asexual/aspec a "headcanon" is minimizing what it actually is: an interpretation of the text, supported by both dialogue and action[s], that is not monolithic but is no less "canonical" and/or rooted-in-the-text-itself than many, many other readings of his characterization, intended by the character's creator[s] or no. you're not going to catch me apologizing for how i read the character and how his dialogue resonated with me. and i don't think anyone else should feel like they have to apologize for it either.

[vvenciel]

WIP of an upcoming bloodpact comic im making (might delete later? idk!) Hopefully ill finish it later this week oh yeah and if you guys have any wyllstarion art ideas drop it in my inbox

[thebearemoji]

My thoughts on the astarion romance (spoiler: they're not good)

Hoo boy going right from the wonderful bliss of karlach's romance to this.... dark mess of despair was a hell of a whiplash.

So I'm gonna assume if you clicked on that read more that you don't care about spoilers. If that's not true then dont read this. To be clear we're on the same page, astarion has two potential outcomes. You let him complete cazador's ritual and ascend to big boy vampire or you stop him from completing it.

The game made the choice to make a statement with the outcome of astarion's quest. If you don't break the cycle of abuse, then you're perpetuating it. Astarion after completing the ritual is much more cazador than himself. The romance takes this one step further, the only way to continue it if the ritual is completed is to willingly become astarion's spawn. The game implies in no uncertain terms that you will meet the same terrible fate he was so recently trapped in. Cazador's master tortured him. Cazador tortured astarion. One way or another Astarion will torture you.

He even has a line of dialogue after you reject him along the lines of "Of course I'm familiar with love. I would've tormented it out of you until you had nothing left if you'd let me." That's just the start. Just about every line to come out of a romanced evil astarion is stunningly toxic, he pretends to love you, threatens to leave you, all to get you to agree to become his spawn. You can even read his mind to find out he thinks you're degrading yourself by staying with him. It's stunningly dark, and part of me respects the writing for sticking so hard to their guns.

Speaking as a fan of roleplay focused games, this did take me off guard. I'm accustomed to games treating evil choices as options to explore your characters and develop a sense of gray morality. Because... it's a video game for fun and sometimes its fun to do silly pretend evil things and twirl my pretend evil mustache. But bg3 will occasionally treat evil choices as sins that the narrative will punish you for, sometimes immediately, sometimes later down the line. And astarion is undeniably one of these choices. A non romanced evil astarion is fine, i guess. but i know i'm not the only one out there who fell into the trap of thinking astarion could be the other half of my evil power couple.

I don't think this is necessarily inherently bad on its own. It severely reduces any desire I have to ever play an evil character again in this game, which sucks because I love minthara. HOWEVER

I got a bone to pick with the good boy astarion romance too.

So of course after the gut punch of evil astarion romance, I reloaded and made him the same good boy i did on my first play through. The subsequent romance scene is nice, and he gets the same beautiful heart-wrenching catharsis that made me sure he was the one I wanted to romance second in the first place.

But throughout all the later conversations, he keeps returning to this idea that he "seduced" my tav. ??? Where. From where I was standing, act 1 he propositions me for casual sex, my tav says yes. Afterwards he proposes continuing to have casual sex, my tav says yes.

And yet he keeps saying these words "I seduced you, manipulated you, used you." And the fact that he's admitting it is meant to show character growth.

But why is the game so determined to make my tav his victim??? Why are those my only two options? The dialogue choices didn't give me a way to say "you didn't manipulate me, I chose to be with you of my own free will, knowing what you are." There's nothing i can do to flip this narrative that my character was used and wronged, even though i dont believe she was. And that left the romance feeling very polarized, like there are only two lenses with which to view romancing astarion.

You are either his victim that he lies to for a grand majority of the game. he doesn't even like by his own admission, he claims he used you for protection. But he grows to appreciate all you did for him and even love you.

Or his helpless thrall, equal parts a victim but hell at least at that point you're embracing the kink of the whole thing.

Tbh, neither of those really do it for me.

In conclusion, astarion is an amazing character, I'm never romancing him again, and finally,

that is all

[vasheden]

Help I told him we could just be together without fucking and he gently took her hand and looked at her like this and I'm gonna combust. Acestarion real as hell.

Also this:

(Also A+ voice acting. Accidentally clicked on him out in the field and he just said "Gods, you're beautiful," in a way that sounded like he actually meant it now as opposed to the "laying it on thick" tone he had before. I actually gasped.)

[dandydanthelion]

acestarion is real to me

[waterdeepthroat]

just had a thought about the whole acestarion mini-controversy.

what if astarion wasn’t interested in sex even before being enslaved by cazador?

[serregon]

I’m reclaiming Astarion for the aces. Acestarion

[fangmich]

No one can take away Acestarion from me!

[meyerlansky]

i know i said i was gonna be extra obnoxious about making acestarion stuff for ace week but now that it's here and after the last couple weeks of the beegeethree fandom being just. deeply fucking obnoxious. about everything. i don't even wanna engage with any of it, much LESS a hotly-contested character read that people get fucking mean about

[kyshiwarrior]

acestarion beloved

[shenanigans-and-imagines]

I just want you to know how much joy Ace!bard!Tav and Acestarion have brought me. The delicate moments of intimacy and trust, the quips, the vulnerability. As an ace spectrum person myself, I really love having something wonderfully written to resonate with. And in the headcanons the bit about make outs? You're so real for that.

Thank you.

Yay! Thank you! I’m so happy you’ve been enjoying them. It really means a lot. ❤️

Astarion x Ace!Tav Masterlist

[belladonicbloodsucker]

noooooo someone took the acestarion url and theyre not even using it!!!!

[bagel-boy-sama]

I adore your thoughts on his romance (acestarion ftw), but Id like to add something to the good boy part.

(edit: added a read more thing I forgor)

With Astarion I had a very similar experience you do (manipulation where) in my first playthrough. My Tav slept with him once, and then was set on the ultimate "I can fix him" path. There was literally no manipulation to be seen except the occasional prompts to be evil ("can we run a cult together pwease 👉👈" and such). I also thought it was really weird when, in the confession, he started talking about how he wants this to be real - and then was even more weirded out later post no ritual. Because again, this was never really a manipulation moment.

Then I did my Durge playthrough and realized that Acestarion's romance, and honestly just general story, is severely negatively impacted by not seeing very specific dialogue choices or seeing certain events.

A big one is the Drow in moonrise, who I never talked to in my first playthrough - and such the confession didn't start with that context. However, in Durge the confession started because of the Drow and at some point he said that he could have done what he usually did and fight through the momentary disgust. Then you can respond.

One of the responses is to ask if he did that with you, and he said of course. That he needed someone's protection, and you were his best bet. That he knew people wouldn't feel safe with a vampire (side note I got him telling me he was a vampire in the underdark before the celebration, but he didn't try to bite Tav yet).

This. This right here is the most definitive clearest example I saw of Astarion being genuinely manipulative, and being a user. Yet it's in a single dialogue choice (as far as I know) for an action that could be easily missed (as I did first time around).

Then, going off of that every single thing he did up until act 2/confession was under the same hope: to seduce someone for safety.

Spoilers for Durge ahead:

I also think that it's more Astarion and not the game saying these things. That it's him feeling like shit and not the game devs saying that he's a bad person for this. This is because of the Durge exclusive cutscene where you are encouraged to kill him. I'm not sure if it happens in the same place for everyone, but for me this happened before the confession and after the inn fight (in which I prevented the kidnapping and didn't kill her). Stupid Murder Gremlin Man stated that Astarion cared for Tav, trusted Tav, and shouldn't. I would say this was just the gremlin being manipulative if, after you wake him up and tell him you are about 5 seconds from killing him, he didn't proceed to help you. To tie you up and - if you pass the dice rolls about being thankful - comfort Tav and say you'd do the same.

I think this shows that, even pre confession and extremely early in act 2, Astarion has left the manipulation station and genuinely cares for Tav at this point even if he doesn't acknowledge it at this point. Thus, when he's beating himself up about lying in act 3 it's guilt and not Larian saying that he was actually doing that.

But yeah honestly: could have done without it. Good post /gen

My thoughts on the astarion romance (spoiler: they're not good)

Hoo boy going right from the wonderful bliss of karlach's romance to this.... dark mess of despair was a hell of a whiplash.

So I'm gonna assume if you clicked on that read more that you don't care about spoilers. If that's not true then dont read this. To be clear we're on the same page, astarion has two potential outcomes. You let him complete cazador's ritual and ascend to big boy vampire or you stop him from completing it.

The game made the choice to make a statement with the outcome of astarion's quest. If you don't break the cycle of abuse, then you're perpetuating it. Astarion after completing the ritual is much more cazador than himself. The romance takes this one step further, the only way to continue it if the ritual is completed is to willingly become astarion's spawn. The game implies in no uncertain terms that you will meet the same terrible fate he was so recently trapped in. Cazador's master tortured him. Cazador tortured astarion. One way or another Astarion will torture you.

He even has a line of dialogue after you reject him along the lines of "Of course I'm familiar with love. I would've tormented it out of you until you had nothing left if you'd let me." That's just the start. Just about every line to come out of a romanced evil astarion is stunningly toxic, he pretends to love you, threatens to leave you, all to get you to agree to become his spawn. You can even read his mind to find out he thinks you're degrading yourself by staying with him. It's stunningly dark, and part of me respects the writing for sticking so hard to their guns.

Speaking as a fan of roleplay focused games, this did take me off guard. I'm accustomed to games treating evil choices as options to explore your characters and develop a sense of gray morality. Because... it's a video game for fun and sometimes its fun to do silly pretend evil things and twirl my pretend evil mustache. But bg3 will occasionally treat evil choices as sins that the narrative will punish you for, sometimes immediately, sometimes later down the line. And astarion is undeniably one of these choices. A non romanced evil astarion is fine, i guess. but i know i'm not the only one out there who fell into the trap of thinking astarion could be the other half of my evil power couple.

I don't think this is necessarily inherently bad on its own. It severely reduces any desire I have to ever play an evil character again in this game, which sucks because I love minthara. HOWEVER

I got a bone to pick with the good boy astarion romance too.

So of course after the gut punch of evil astarion romance, I reloaded and made him the same good boy i did on my first play through. The subsequent romance scene is nice, and he gets the same beautiful heart-wrenching catharsis that made me sure he was the one I wanted to romance second in the first place.

But throughout all the later conversations, he keeps returning to this idea that he "seduced" my tav. ??? Where. From where I was standing, act 1 he propositions me for casual sex, my tav says yes. Afterwards he proposes continuing to have casual sex, my tav says yes.

And yet he keeps saying these words "I seduced you, manipulated you, used you." And the fact that he's admitting it is meant to show character growth.

But why is the game so determined to make my tav his victim??? Why are those my only two options? The dialogue choices didn't give me a way to say "you didn't manipulate me, I chose to be with you of my own free will, knowing what you are." There's nothing i can do to flip this narrative that my character was used and wronged, even though i dont believe she was. And that left the romance feeling very polarized, like there are only two lenses with which to view romancing astarion.

You are either his victim that he lies to for a grand majority of the game. he doesn't even like by his own admission, he claims he used you for protection. But he grows to appreciate all you did for him and even love you.

Or his helpless thrall, equal parts a victim but hell at least at that point you're embracing the kink of the whole thing.

Tbh, neither of those really do it for me.

In conclusion, astarion is an amazing character, I'm never romancing him again, and finally,

that is all

[waterdeepthroat]

hello, i have genuinely just been spending my evening today browsing blogs for wyllstarion crumbs, and you are the only one to instantly have perfect vibes with an ace astarion post right after an anders post. also i lov your ask button. thats all have a nice night, peace and lov from a fellow DA trenches veteran (:

aww, thank you! it’s rough out here, being an anders fan and acestarion truther, but we gotta stick together :)