#these are the type of animations we need come on Larian

[a-cabin-in-midgard]

Lesbian moment

Had to do make @basketobread's baby girl Lunara in Daz. (Creating 3D versions of people's art on this platform and for this fandom is becoming problematic, but it gives me much needed serotonin)

[sailorgundam308]

i hope you don't mind me saying this here and, i think i remember you mentioning about body types nd, ofc can ppl make their tavs how ever they want and that's fine, but it really is saddening, and annoying at the lack of variety in female tavs. my tav is bt3 and whenever i try to look for mods or just interaction clips i always come across body type 1 with their ever so boring considered pretty disney all the same faces. and that one neck tattoo seems to be everywhere. i also don't like how ppl just default to calling bt3 a masc body when i don't see it that way. i adore my tav, shes soooo pretty, strong, but also soft, i know that's all that matters really🥺 but body type 3 really needs more love.

Honest to gods, yes. That’s very frustrating. I think I’ve found only ONE mod for heads for body type 3. It’s depressing and annoying, really. A lot of talk about body diversity but in the end most players will go to the beauty-conforming types, especially when it’s female characters. Pretty and petite.

And tbh Larian also played very “safe”. The first female body (lol I LOVE when modders call bt1 the “normal” body type - please shoot me) is the picture perfect of the feminine beauty ideals shoved up our asses by patriarchy and heteronormativity for centuries. Like, the muscular one, bt3, is ALSO tall as fuck. Why? Because you have to double down on stereotypes ofc, that is a woman is buff she also has to be tall af… it’s very lame. Why not buff and average height, slender and tall af? Too wild apparently. And the fact they decided to tie their sex animations to the body types is insane to me. Bt3 tops because…? Her size? That’s honestly pretty offensive imo. But hey.

Sometimes I also forget we are in the minority here, and preaching to the choir. Most players are straight dudes who want exactly a pretty petite cleric to be their love interest- and they got one, obviously. What is a bit concerning to me is that a big part of the queer community who plays bg3 also embraces these heteronormative ideals and then labels body 3 as “masculine”. Most don’t even realize the problem behind saying that. But before I go deeper into ranting mode, I’ll stop lol.

Body type 3 is amazing and I love it. All my main tavs are 3 and they are cool af.

Game is great al all that but it’s not perfect. If you look at it critically there’s a ton of shit that’s very concerning. I just wish more players (and tbh modders mostly) saw the beauty in the buff 😂

[dammons-forgefire]

https://www.tumblr.com/arctophyllax/735707485263085568/actually-theres-a-way-to-ask-larian-to-give-us

Omg i found this!! Request send already! Spread it my love our men needs a hug at least!

Hello anon, thank you for sharing!

I'll definitely ask them to give us more interactions with our favorite tieflings, but I will be completely honest; I think there are limits to what we can realistically ask for here. Do some expectation management, if you will.

So far we don't even have hugs for our direct companions and lovers in the game, so if hugs for NPCs are to come, it might take a while. Perhaps even a long while. I still think they would definitely implement them should they see the demand. Larian is overall great when listening to fans and players.

But there are also a lot of things I doubt we can expect them to implement.

The way a lot of the NPCs are written feels like their story should take place off-screen as well, and making more of it happen on-screen would probably take a very long time of writing and recording more dialogue, among other things.

I doubt they will add any new permanent companions, as that would mean an insane level of additional effort for them. And while Zevlor, for example, is extremely strong and I would have loved for him to help us more under Moonrise, I think overall, the area was supposed to be difficult but manageable, which it already is, even in Tactician difficulty, especially if you have Aylin to aid you in the fight. Adding him to fight with us there would probably not be too difficult, but it feels as though they would have to buff Ketheric in order for things to still be balanced.

Now this might just be me, but as much as I adore Zevlor (among a lot of other NPCs), and even though I would have loved to hug him or even flirt with him during the party in Act I, accepting something like that or even having him sleep with Tav there doesn't seem to be in character to me. He seems more like the type to be caught off guard and flattered, but not like someone who would ever act on it, even if he did have a little crush on Tav. I could be wrong, though.

There is also a big difference between changes like that during early access and now that the game is released. It is no longer in active development, even though they are still working on a lot of things. But the game is released. It's out. I don't see them putting in thousands of work-hours into completely new character quests that they didn't at least already explore during earlier stages of development.

I know they had something else planned for Zevlor in Act II, but from what I heard, that was about him intentionally betraying the refugees, which I'm very glad they didn't implement.

Now, as much as I understand some people wanting to ask for romances of their favorite NPCs (I've seen Zevlor, Dammon, Rolan, Raphael, Omeluum, Abdirak, Kar'niss, Gortash, Orin, Nere, Barcus, Rugan, and a whole bunch more that people want to romance), writing a whole new romance that doesn't just feel like an afterthought, but fleshed out takes a lot of time. And you can already tell that, because even most of the main companions don't feel like they ever finished those. Which also means that the companions need to be the top priority here.

Wyll was rewritten a few months before the game was released, and even now, months AFTER release he is still hours behind in content compared to other companions. It just takes a very long time to write, produce, record, polish, animate, then fully implement things. Even with mocap, there are still animators who have to properly animate everything. Mocap doesn't do the full job here, so even smaller animations take time.

Something as fleshed out with as many scenes and dialogue options as Astarion's romance took them 4 full years of constant development, recording and many iterations to get things right. And even there they still have to keep working, fix things, rewrite smaller things, add more dialogue, etc.

Larian worked on the game for years to get it to this point, so another romance, a fully developed quest line, could easily take a year during active development. Outside of development, it could take much longer, so to me it doesn't sound feasible to create something like that for a character that isn't part of the main group.

They already have their hands full with hundreds of things they still fix and develop, the entire upper city was cut fairly shortly before release, so it will probably be put back in. And I wouldn't be surprised if that meant some changes as to what we can see and who we can meet in Act III, but even then, I doubt they will make smaller NPCs romanceable.

Hugs? I would like that. A few more one-night stands with some extra dialogue? Sure. But I don't think we will get any more companions, or full romances. (Which is, by the way, the reason I think Frazer has been told not to hype up a potential romance with Dammon, not to inspire hope where there is none. He is a big part of the story for Karlach, that was already written in Early Access and developed quite a bit before being ultimately dropped for now. But creating a full romance with him is not in scope of what they can realistically put out with the level of quality they aspire to have.)

[galedekarios]

For the ask game: Baldur's Gate 3

thank you for the ask, i really appreciate rambling about my favourite game at the moment! 🖤 @ayrennaranaaldmeri and @vayne also asked me about baldur's gate 3  🖤. here we go:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most): this will totally come as a surprise to everyone, but mr waterdeep. funny fact is that i didn't even notice gale in the companion line up larian released way back when, but the more i played, the more i came to love him. it was probably the cat, wine and library line and then spiralled from there and now he's my favourite character. 🖤

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression): mirkon. my drow oc altonaufein would like to file adoption papers, please.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave): lae'zel. she's probably my second favourite character in the game. it's sad to see that there is so little content for her, like for most characters who aren't ast*rion, and what i do manage to find is usually quite negative. she deserves better and i can't wait for my characters to earn her friendship in the game and, hopefully, forge a bond with her.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week): raphael, for sure. i love the way he's introduced in the game and his voice actor is fantastic. 13/10, would sell my soul.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave): kagha. she grew on me a lot and i wish she was a companion. twisted by her need to protect her family, her grove, set on a path of redemption, learning and betterment? yes, please.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason): aradin. i love him, but he seems like the type of character i'd love to annoy on purpose. i don't know why, but he reminds me of carver for some reason.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell): ast*rion. my least favourite character in the game, which is weird to say now because i think it was him that i looked forward to most, but he turned out to be a character who approves of tormenting children and animals, abused his position of power, was a slaver, very much is into racism, etc., and, on top of it all, the way fandom treats him just turned me off of him entirely.

[mybg3notebook]

Astarion Analysis Summary

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were made up to the game version v4.1.101.4425. As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information.

This will be a summarasing analysis integrating most of the main characteristics shown and proven in the post (Astarion Analysis)

Additional disclaimers about meta-knowledge and interpretations in (post)

The number between brackets [] represents the topic-block related to (this post), which gathers as much evidence as I could get.

Alignments are usually a topic of discussion since characters can be so complicated, that they are hard to put in some place on the spectrum. However, for Astarion’s case, it’s clear that he is an Evil-aligned character, like Shadowheart and Lae’Zel. Whether he lies on a Chaotic side or a Neutral one is a bit less important (personally, I believe this small shift is the most you will be able to change Astarion through the main game, but I will explain that in another post Astarion and Power -Part 2). 

What is most important is to understand that we are analysing an Evil char, so his personality will lay in the negative characteristics. He likes all degrees of cruelty [3,6], violence [2, 13], and murder [2], having a particular taste for animal cruelty [4]. He finds this cruelty funny.

When it comes to animal cruelty, he has a broader concept of what’s animal than most Tavs would consider: he includes kobolds, goblins, and gnomes as such [5]. So all the cruelty upon them would be labelled, for his standards, as “animal” cruelty. This is why I specify he has a particular taste for this type of cruelty: he doesn’t only enjoy the death and torment of animals, but also of races he considers as such [5].

He has many racial biases [5] (hardly any char in Forgotten Realm lacks them): he only sees valuable elves and some humans (not all, since he despises the Gur) probably as a consequence of his backstory. Let’s remember that a group of Gur put him at death's door, forcing him into accepting Cazador's proposition. However, it’s also important to keep in mind he put himself in that situation with his corrupted magistrate role as a mortal (Swen’s interview).

He supports the most common biases about Tieflings and Gurs [5], and mocks halfling and Dwarven Tavs. He sees goblins, kobolds and gnomes as animals. Probably the list is broader, since all this information is what's present in the EA game at the moment.

Astarion as a character has a play of concepts with the duality animal/owner [14]. He speaks about choice as the element that separates animals from humanoids. Animals react out of instinct, thinking creatures choose to act. This speech doesn’t end with him claiming choice but being an animal desiring to kill. If in any other instance he would show a hint of empathy, one would be inclined to think his character is about the overwhelming reactions of a wounded animal installed by the abuse. But I hardly see it like that. He was twisted before turning into a vampire.

As such, he speaks about “survival instinct” [14]. With the little we see and can read in his approvals and disapprovals, he is looking for acceptance from Tav about his vampire nature, for the sake of survival. This character is an extreme survivalist. Astarion would care nothing about endangering or even killing innocent people to guarantee his survival. Once more, we see in the way he speaks about survival, the constant repetition of the symbol of “animal”. 

He is greedy [1], no matter if what he gains is little or not; as long as it gives him a small reward (he hates to help for free), or if it causes pain, torment, or the death of the person he is interacting with, it’s enough. If Astarion doesn’t have a radical change in his background, we can be assured this greed comes from his past mortal life, when he was a corrupt magister to the point to double sell criminals to a local vampire lord and to slavers. 

Manipulation [7]is the main characteristic in him. His words and mannerisms change as the game progresses, playing with the tones and the half-truth/lies he keeps saying. During his first interactions with Tav, Astarion is very careful in sharing his opinion about the events, —his judgements are always vague—while he tries to appraise Tav. This can be easily seen when he has no opinion about Kagha’s snake killing Arabella and playing an obvious mind game to Tav. For further detail check (Astarion and his Standards).

He is sometimes considered a prankster [3], but I prefer to call him Evil Trickster (pretty much like Shadowheart, who has trickster domain as cleric) who enjoys pranks to a higher degree of torment, ending sometimes with the death of the person in question. He enjoys, following this Trickster nature, the humiliation of people in general and outsmarting small people in particular [6]. He is aware that outsmarting powerful ones can bring consequences hard to deal with [7] (as he warns when Tav thinks about outsmarting Raphael), but applying all these torments to weak people is inconsequential, and therefore, enjoyable for him without risks.

We already stated that he enjoys the suffering of people [2,3], but he has a particular taste for the torment of the weakest ones [6]. The root of this pleasure for humiliating weak creatures comes from his desire for power. Astarion is a char deeply related to power [11], not as a goal itself (not power for the sake of power), but as a means to obtain revenge, and in the process, become a Master. I will analyse this aspect in another post  (Astarion and Power part 1/ part 2). 

However, I think it’s worth noting that Astarion’s descriptions of Cazador reflect not only his need for power but also his desire for that kind of power applied in a similar goal. Astarion despises Cazador’s obsession for power, but he has little problem to aspire to it. The obsession with any kind of power, especially the one given by the tadpoles which bend the will of people (mind control) [11], his paranoia, his constant desire to become master [14], his pleasure in cruelty and humiliation [2,3,4,6]… all these characteristics are very descriptive of Astarion too. Cazador and Astarion seem to be each other’s mirrors ( for more details check post  Astarion and Power part 1/ part 2). .

Despite hating to be involved in anyone else's problems [9], he encourages and supports most acts of revenge [8,16], especially the ones against figures that can be interpreted as master. This will occur if and only if Astarion perceives the victim of such a master as a strong and resilient creature worth the trouble, i.e. Karlach [16]. 

He enjoys most Intimidation options you can pick [13], since they can result in the humiliation of a certain NPC, as a demonstration of power, or simply as elements for tormenting NPCs that would lead to murderous situations which are “funny” shows for Astarion. In general, most intimidation tags will be approved by him, except the ones that could be used to defuse violent outcomes.

All these evil pleasures can be considered as “the result” of turning into a vampire, but if we stick to what Swen has explained during the first demonstrations of the game and interviews before the release of EA, we know Astarion has been an Evil character during his mortal life. He was a corrupt magistrate in Baldur’s Gate, who fed the local coven of vampires with criminals. Being greedy, and trying to bite more than he knew he could chew, he sold this food into slavery to earn more money. As a consequence (directly or plotted by Cazador, we don’t know) he was attacked by a group of Gurs who almost beat him to death. Cazador appeared soon afterwards to grant him immortality with the curse of Vampirism. As we can see, he is not better than he was when he was a mortal elf.

A deeper relationship with concepts such as power, abuse, and victim will be explained in another post ( Astarion and Power-part 2). From Astarion’s brief background we can see that he has been an abuser in his mortal life. Due to his own actions, Cazador grasped him into his power and inflicted torment, humiliation, and violence of many kinds, for two centuries, twisting his personality into evilness even more than before (we also need to remember that not only torture may have twisted his personality, vampirism via Dark Desires causes a natural perversion of the persona as well). He now aspires to become more powerful, a reflection of Cazador himself, as a way to acquire his freedom. He wants power to be free [7, 11, 13, 14], and the power of mind-controlling others excites him [10,11] to no end, ignoring completely the cognitive dissonance of his own mind as an ex slave [12]. Although he suffered slavery in his own flesh, he is pretty apathetic (or even supports) slavery [10]. Some players may understand his narration of Cazador’s torments as a means to manipulate Tav, others, as a self-dismissal of his own traumatic experiences. 

His story seems to narrate the story of an abuser who found a greater abuser and became a victim of the latter, seeking to return to a stronger power position (the greatest vampire of the world—description in Larian web page—). Despite suffering this abuse, that could be understood as poetic justice to certain degree, he never developed empathy for those sharing his condition. He cares little when he sees others in the same situations he had been ( for more details check post (Astarion and Power part 1/ part 2). 

Some fans see that Astarion detests slavery, and he is just putting a show of a thick-skinned survivor, pretending that it does not affect him. I can’t see it with all what we see in EA. This “supposed” repulsive emotion should be a matter of narrative (we should see it in clear approvals or disapprovals as meta-knowledge), not a baseless imagination/wish of the player. We know that there are hundreds of resources to show hidden emotions in characters. Remorse or a desire to improve can be perfectly shown without being explicit, even when he may not be conscious of them. We can see how this is managed with Shadowheart, and we know there is something going on under her cruelty despite knowing little about herself (she knows less of her past and still yet we manage to see some degrees of goodness in her despite her evil inclinations). 

So I don’t believe that Astarion has some remorse going on, because if it were the case, it has not been shown in any scene so far. To me, it makes much more sense for him to develop as a full evil character inside the spectrum of evilness. After all, and following the tradition of the mechanics seen in BG1 and BG2, a redemption arc of an evil char of this magnitude makes little sense (We can remember Edwin,Dorn Il-Khan, Sarevok Anchev, Viconia DeVir, Baeloth Barrityl, Xzar, or Hexxat, all evil chars whose development was always inside their evilness or showed, in few cases, a slight shift of it). But further details and reflections will be addressed in another post (Astarion and Power part 1/ part 2). 

As a last detail, we can or cannot believe his statement of having lost his memories (he can perfectly claim it to hide his evil past from the main character to have a better manipulation of Tav) but considering Larian has kept most of the DnD vampire characteristics, I would like to bring awareness of a particular vampiric effect named Dark Desires (here). It’s the twistessness of the mortal-desires, which due to the fact that Astarion’s had always been dark, changed little with his vampiric nature, or just deepened in its perversion, and may cause sometimes the loss of memories (he was greedy and cruel before, now he stays the same, but darker and morbider.)

In short we can summarise Astarion as a moral bankrupt narcissist, a survivalist no matter the cost, a power-hungry character who wants to bend people’s will. He uses manipulation as his main tool, and enjoys violence, murder, and humiliation. Despite his slave past, he enoys acts of cruelty and torture on innocent or weak creatures. All his actions and words seem to ominously display a similarity with Cazador, as if his fate is to become the next Cazador.

This post was written on April 2021. → For more Astarion: Analysis Series Index