#there’s just an elf that mirrors her worst qualities and she is self destructive to a fault

[imscissorbladez]

Also for anyone reading saviour complex, I’m literally terrible at writing chapter notes so I just word vomit here:

I find people pleasing to exist in the same realm as Astarion thinking he’s ‘manipulating people’. He’s scared and using all the tools at his disposal to be safe, and so is Haven. Haven is at her core a people pleaser: she cares when people are upset, she cares when people don’t like her. She does what she has to to be safe. So the entirety of chapter 3 is a double edged sword: she wants to be liked, Astarion has realised how she can like him. And she’s going to hate it, because they’re two sides of the same coin, but she can’t turn it off either and it means our sweet baby Haven is also manipulating him in turn. It’s transactional and not, and they both loathe themselves for it. And it’s DELICIOUS.