Why TF is the player a Bottom in a Gay Astarion Romance?

[👁]

I mean come on, a gigantic bear of a man, Grog Strongjaw from Vox Machina Body Type 2 giant barbarian dude, jumping on him and leg straddling him going Full Bottom in the cutscene.

I would get it for Halsin, but Astarion? He's the twinkiest character in this game, clearly the player would expect him to be a bottom when romancing him.

Did they just recycle the female animations without thinking about it?

[Mick Savage]

That's one of the biggest draws of the game, forget the DnD adventure.

[alanc9]

Never seen it for myself. But based on the Minthara scene, I'm betting that they didn't want to do a completely different animation, yep. Just matching sizes was probably hard enough.

[artemisone]

You must have failed an intimidation or athletics check. Save scum and repeat until you come out on top (so to speak).

[Rockerstone]

Its the same animations as female Tav would get. There are actually no gay or straight companions in BG3, everyone is player-sexual and will 'F you in the exact same manner for the same reasons as they would any other player character. It'd be a nice touch of personification if any of them commented on sexual orientation at all ever let alone had different ones.

[👁]

Originally posted by alanc9:

Never seen it for myself. But based on the Minthara scene, I'm betting that they didn't want to do a completely different animation, yep. Just matching sizes was probably hard enough.

That's probably it, but I swear, Astarian is the most bottom coded character I've ever seen in an RPG.

And Vampire strength be damned, he should have fallen over when Grog Strongjaw jumped on him and wrapped his legs around him.

[alanc9]

Come to think of it, Astarion is obviously going to bottom with Halsin. Bear version anyway. Never saw the other path, but I presume it's similar.

The thing about CRPGs is, no matter how much stuff gets put in, there's always something else you can think of that they could have spent money on.

[Orion Invictus]

Why would you assume a twink would be a bottom? More to the point, why does it matter?

[IlluminaZero]

Friendly reminder that; mechanically, Astarion is the strongest character in the game. Ascension Astarion in particular would heavily disagree with these "bottom" assertions.

[Metallicus]

Maybe that is what gay people want? I have no idea, but it seems like Larian has a lot of knowledge about the gay community so you should trust that they know their gay audience.

[jonnin]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Why would you assume a twink would be a bottom? More to the point, why does it matter?

I think he is butthurt over it.

[IlluminaZero]

Originally posted by jonnin:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Why would you assume a twink would be a bottom? More to the point, why does it matter?

I think he is butthurt over it.

Isn't that the point tho? It ends the same way.

[Minnzy]

This makes me wonder now if the Laezel scene plays out any differently. Since everything for her is a battle to win it starts with her being like "You sit down and I'll take charge" and you can do a check to take control but I wonder if ANYTHING is actually different if you win or lose that check scene wise.

I just mentioned this to a friend who loves Astarion and she said "I was surprised too he's so dominating given his character but there is a huge fantasy behind having a vampire use and control you which is probably what they went for"

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by IlluminaZero:

Originally posted by jonnin:

I think he is butthurt over it.

Isn't that the point tho? It ends the same way.

No?

[Levianne]

Originally posted by Minnzy:

This makes me wonder now if the Laezel scene plays out any differently. Since everything for her is a battle to win it starts with her being like "You sit down and I'll take charge" and you can do a check to take control but I wonder if ANYTHING is actually different if you win or lose that check scene wise.

I just mentioned this to a friend who loves Astarion and she said "I was surprised too he's so dominating given his character but there is a huge fantasy behind having a vampire use and control you which is probably what they went for"

Except Astarion is not a vampire, at least not before ascension, as I take it. He's a vampire spawn, a thrall to Cazador Szar, so he can't really dominate you through vampire powers, only through his personality, which is something YOU let him do, or more specific you must allow him to dominate you, there's no way he'd dominate you on his own.

[👁]

Originally posted by Metallicus:

Maybe that is what gay people want? I have no idea, but it seems like Larian has a lot of knowledge about the gay community so you should trust that they know their gay audience.

I trust that they made the scene for Astarian Romance with a male and female paring and just kept those animations as default for a male on male paring.

Because a gigantic barbarian jumped on him, wrapped his legs around him while kissing him, and got lain down to bottom for Astarian in exactly the same way using exactly the same animations as for a female character.