I Know Many Would Disagree, But.

I know many would disagree, but.

I really think we need more media that go against the pervasive narrative that what happens in abusive relationships is never love or at least any form of real attachment. You hear it all the time, on tv and in real life: “if they loved you they wouldn’t act this way!”.

It is for sure a well-intentioned message and I understand what these people are trying to say: that what you are experiencing is not good for you, that you deserve a better, healthier, happier life. All true things. And for sure there are cases in which abuse has different configurations. 

But from a logical standpoint, labeling abusive dynamics as universally “not-love” is a fundamental misunderstanding of how a lot of them work and I think - in the long run - it only leaves people confused as to how to recognize and eventually navigate them. Most of the times, the abuse comes from the love. It may be twisted and unhealthy and selfish and ugly, but it is there and it’s usually being expressed the only way it can. If there wasn’t love all the obsession, the love-bombing, the fear of abandoment, would make little sense. One may argue that abusers project these things on different people in their lives and so they don’t really do it because of love towards a single one. But don’t we all do the same with our issues and the people we love?

I am not in any way saying this to justify abusers. I am saying this because I think, as a victim, having your point of view constantly invalidated by people telling you that you are stupid, that what you are perceiving is not real, that love doesn’t look like that, only leaves you feeling even more silly, unsure and completely fucking confused. Because saying that love is always unselfish and pure and beautiful is something so easily disproven. And it’s infantilizing and obtuse as fuck to think that every abuse victim just walked in a relationship that was 100% bad, without having any of their needs (as fucked-up as they may be) fulfilled, had a complete brain-freeze and decided that was the new normal.

The creation of a binary division between almost essentialist cathegories of Not-Abusers - who are capable of Love - and Abusers - who are not capable of Love - is a way for people in society at large to mentally exclude themselves from any hypotetical participation in abusive and toxic behaviours, to convince themselves that there is a Good side and a Bad side, and they are for sure on the right one, without examining their own actions.

Anyone who has interacted with more than two people in their life can see that this is not how it works. Abusive and toxic behaviours in relationships exists on a spectrum and they are strongly correlated with love and attachment and the way we express them. Of course there are degrees to this and I am not proposing we condone or celebrate the worst of these conducts. But what good does it do to anybody to pretend they are some aberration born out of nothing, instead of instincts we all carry within us to some extent and that we all must learn to face and manage?

Lord Astarion and his dagger happy Consort :)

(From this "good boy" meme)

also people forgot that in DnD which is WHAT BG3 IS, your headcanon is canon, people need to stop treating this like dragon age or mass effect or call of duty,

people go play a dnd campaign at least once I'm begging

Why are you not ascending him? Why are you ascending him? Why are you romancing him with a female/x companion? Why are you putting long hair on him? Why are you dressing him with this particular thing? Why are you making him a dad? Why aren't you? And my personal favorite, why are you healing him? Oh no, oh my, why are you "defanging" him? How dare you prefer the elven part rather than the vampire part???????

Why are you having headcanons and why are you enjoying your own personal stories differently than I am???

Rarely have I seen a fandom that is gatekeeping every single tiny detail, like the Astarion fandom does. It's really quite tiresome.

Yeah, there are headcanons others have that I am personally not into, but I'm not gonna scream and throw tantrums about it.

Just enjoy your stories and whatever tickles your brain and let others do the same.

Other people's stories and headcanons do not threaten yours and none of us has a doctorate in Astarionism, nor do we own the character.

Sorry for disappearing, got into modding consoles and playing some games I haven't in ages XD

Anyway, while I'm waiting for my Steam Deck OLED to come in, I had this thought.

I think Ascension fails to be the "Bad route" because it doesn't give Astarion any downsides. It was only designed to provide a ROMANCED TAV with a bad end if the player wasn't aiming for an evil character but still found a reason to ascend him while romanced. Astarion has a lot of things in his favor with Ascension but doesn't lose anything unless he's romanced a Tav who decides to leave him after choosing to ascend him. Otherwise, everything else goes his way.

It's not like Shadowheart who loses her memories and more and faces possible punishment if she fails to live up to her new status or Gale who will lose his sense of mortality and possibly be consumed by Karsus magic in time or Lae'zel who will lose her life. Astarion doesn't have anything like that, not even in a future sense.

Astarion can now openly be the prick he is with little consequences but doesn't have anything really rivaling him as a downside. It's not like he's defenseless. He never was, really. The only one he had no control over is now dead. He won't become the next Cazador because his personality is different, has plans for his own spawn that Cazador would have never allowed, and still seems to have a heavy reliance on consent or his entire group would have been turned into spawn long before the six-month reunion.

So yeah, looking back at Ascension compared to the other endings, there really isn't much stopping Astarion from having a good ending with it. Yeah, you can speculate that he'll have issues with trying to take over Baldur's Gate but it wouldn't be much different if he was a noble. The game really doesn't give us a downside for his ascension other than the "my Tav is not evil" schtick.

Anyone know what type of wine this is??🤔