Sorry For Disappearing, Got Into Modding Consoles And Playing Some Games I Haven't In Ages XD

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.

I'm finally happy with his face! Although something tells me I have many, many more hours to go...at the very least I want to have a presentable WIP for when I meet Neil Newbon at Fan Expo Chicago (where I'm tabling at booth A210 BTW :3)

At some point I think you guys need to seek out your mean asshole girl characters and fandoms outside of franchises directed toward the teething demographic.

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.

some wip

Lord Astarion and his dagger happy Consort :)

(From this "good boy" meme)