Not sure if this is a hot take or not, but I’m going to say it. Astarion is more than his trauma and he doesn’t need to be treated with kid gloves.
I say this as someone who relates hard with his backstory, and as someone who has heaps of C-PTSD from years of abuse.
I love his soft moments and absolutely think he deserves to be with someone who makes him feel safe, physically and emotionally. But, I also love that he’s an asshole, is flippant, is egotistical, is rash and that he is flawed. It makes him into a fully realized person.
A person who, rather than being fixed, needs someone who will accept him and be patient with him. A person who, rather than needing a protector, needs someone who will give him a safe space to figure shit out and make mistakes.
As someone who struggles with sexual trauma and body autonomy issues, the way the fandom treats his character sometimes really makes me cringe. People with sexual trauma are still allowed to want and enjoy sex, whether it’s with a longterm partner or a one-night stand. That’s okay, just as long as it’s their decision and they feel safe. People with sexual trauma are also allowed to be hot, and people shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for thinking so.
Unless someone is being a creep, I’m always flattered when I’m complimented on my looks. It makes me feel good about myself and I’m not ashamed of that.
People with trauma are allowed to be strong, capable, successful and powerful. They are not damsels in constant need of soothing and saving. They are also allowed to be flawed, ignorant, rude and capable of making really dumb decisions. I’ve made plenty.
They are also allowed to be motivated by more than just their trauma.
Let’s not take Astarion’s autonomy away once again by making him into this fragile little lamb who is in constant need of hugs and soothing.
Let him be a sassy asshole who is capable of protecting himself and the people he cares about. Let him be more than just a damsel in distress and actually listen to him when he says he wants his autonomy.
Autonomy also means being seen as something more than a fragile babygirl in constant need of protecting.
I’ve played through BG3 both as a custom character who romanced Wyll and as Origin Wyll. My initial plan as Wyll was to flirt with Lae'zel and ultimately romance Karlach, but as I played I ended up questioning many things about what I thought was the best possible road for him to go down. After fumbling things like two days in with Lae'zel due to Wyll’s desire to take things slow wounding her pride (which was hilarious), and the timing for starting things with Karlach feeling… off given I knew how depressed Wyll becomes after he’s punished for sparing her life, I ended up romancing Astarion instead.
That was a highlight. It created a compelling narrative about Wyll being pushed to be less self-sacrificial and to question the ideals that were drilled into him from childhood. He had constant arguments with Astarion from the outset, and at least one brutal late-game one that left Astarion in tears, but it was valuable and I think showed Wyll that he can be loved unconditionally—that he doesn’t have to earn love by being gentle, noble, calm, and selfless 100% of the time. It led well into RPing Wyll choosing not to sacrifice himself at a pivotal moment. I was surprised to see that a lot people really like this pairing, so I’ve decided to post the key moments of that story in case fans want to see them all in one place! I recommend only looking at these excerpts if you’ve finished the game once already, because they spoil almost everything and won’t make much sense without context:
One of my friends asked me the other day if I would suck one thousand dicks for a billion dollars, and I love questions like that because not only are they so demonstrative of the no-homo society we live in, but they also show a fundamental lack of understanding that some people have for the value of money. Like, do you realize just how much money one billion dollars is? Do you realize I could live my life in the lap of luxury buying literally everything I could ever want and still have a fortune to leave to my children?? For sucking some dicks?? We are talking 1 million dollars per dick sucked!! That’s just economical like come on man.
1 billion dollars and all you’d have to do is suck a dick every day for the next 2.7 years. That’s it. Plenty of people already do that. You could quit your job and literally suck dick for a living. You could suck two dicks a day and only have to suck dick for 1.4 years. You could suck 5 dicks a day for about 6 months. 5 DICKS A DAY FOR 6 MONTHS FOR A BILLION DOLLARS, OF COURSE I’LL FUCKIN DO THAT. THAT’S THE DREAM, THAT’S FUCKIN HEAVEN.
and here i was thinking about sucking dick for free
Grant O'Brien could do it in 3 weeks, and have a day off in the middle.
i was playing scrabble and i had a B, U, R, G, E, and R and i thought “aha burger, one who burgs, but my mom will never accept that as a word” but then i remembered burger is actually a word
one time I played the word “am” and I thought, they can totally let that slide because of AM radio and A.M time.
then i remembered
Scrabble does things to your mind that you can never come back from.
I once was playing and put down ‘cow’ but in my mind I was saying it so it rhymed with ‘crow’ and I told my friend that it might not be a real word but I’m playing it and he can’t stop me and he looked me right in the eye and said it like how ‘cow’ is supposed to be said and I was so mad at myself I nearly flipped the board.
My brother played the word ‘scrabble’ and my mom said, “I actually don’t think that’s a word.” And I said, “yes it is? ‘scrabbled eggs’???”
