#i don't want to wind up with a blocklist that's a mile long or a!a girlies at my door yknow

[invinciblerodent]

I'm rambling cause I'm bothered and saw you mentioned it once so lol, feel free to ignore this is you want hun xoxo I genuinely did not want to believe that people were complaining about the lack of consent/the fearful/uncomfortable expression and body language on tav in the ascended astarion kiss scenes, like I straight up couldn't believe it, but i just looked at the patch notes for a hotfix in patch 6 and saw three separate people commenting to complain about it being "traumatizing" and wanting it to be more consensual and for him to be more dominant rather than cruel.... losing my mind i hate it here, gg on missing the point to those ppl. Rather than asking for maybe like a pop up saying "hey you chose the evil route, he's going to be evil and manipulative TW" they want it completely changed to fit their narrative and ideas. He isnt dominant hes meant to be bad, I feel so defeated they got what they wanted... Larian literally giving in and changing the point of that route is so frustrating wtf, that completely alters the whole thing...

No yeah, I totally agree with you on that.

I think I'm not even frowny about it being the way it is-- I'm obviously okay with people misunderstanding the whole route (I'd be having a really bad time if I wasn't okay with people misinterpreting media on the misinterpreting media website lol), it's not a big deal, if they want to entertain their whole "sexy dommy vampire daddy" fantasy (which, lol, this guy? really? this sopping wet rat whom I love?) it doesn't bother me-- usually I just block the people whose takes I find obnoxious or tone-deaf, and I don't even mind the expression being more ambiguous than straight-up fearful, because it allows for it to fit with a wider variety of characters.

What I dislike, upon further reflection, is how much this now comes off as if the changes are being made because of the complaints.

Even if the expressions were always intended to be more ambiguous and they just took it a slight bit too far on accident, even if it was always meant to be the way it is going to be now (which I agree, is a better way for it to be, just from a character customization point of view- i can imagine a number of characters who wouldn't look at A!Astarion like a scared bunny even if they're not "into" his cruelty), just because there was such a vocal minority responding so loudly to it and it's being changed the way they want it, it kind of makes it seem like it's setting a precedent I really don't like. Which is a precedent that says "instead of examining the actual story being told and examining the choices we made that lead to the outcome we dislike, we should just complain and yell loudly enough until all the uncomfortable aspects of it are edited out of existence". I really don't like that. (Have these people never played an oldschool otome game, with actual bad endings? Have they never had a handsome anime boy sneer into their face about how much he hates them because they didn't give him enough gifts on day 5???? Have yall never gotten friendzoned by anime boys???????????)

I already don't make much of a secret out of how much I'm not a fan of the kind of access fandom has now to the creators of the piece of media they enjoy-- how uncomfortable I am with people, like, referring to actors and game developers by their first names as if they were trusted friends, how prone people are to going through someone's twitter likes with a fine-tooth comb, and how much insight (even if we don't want it) we are given to people's completely innocuous comings and goings. I already don't like how much control people feel like they have over art created by other people.

Idk. I know Larian is trying to be a "cool game studio", and they're trying to please fans to retain their darling status, and I think it's to their detriment. I love the game they made (of course I do, I've been talking about it non-stop for the past year lol), but I genuinely hope the chunk of change they got from its success will allow them to just take a breath, and put out their next game with the confidence, and the finality it deserves.

please let's just go back to releasing a game fully and not futzing with it beyond bug fixes a year after release still, please let things just be finished and done and jfc please let's all just collectively grow some media literacy, we can't keep pissing on the poor like this they're already soaked to the bone, please