Fate defied
Swann Arlaud in Perdrix (2019)
Can't stop thinking about that one dialogue option between Astarion and Tav/MC if you try to break up with him:
"Oh come off! You're wonderful! I don't care what you look like. What you can not do is make my decisions for me!"
This line just struck me hard because.... Astarion is truly DECIDING to be with you, of his own free will, which he only recently got back. He only just freed himself from being a slave, of having his mind and body be under the control of someone else, and one of the first things he does with his newfound freedom is CHOOSE to be with you, and CHOOSE to love you.
Astarion isn't in a relationship with you because it's "fate", because you two are "soulmates" or you're "meant to be". No greater cosmic ineffable power is tangling your two hearts and souls and emotions together.
Astarion is actively - consciously - DECIDING to be with you. He is walking forward into loving you and being in a relationship with you - perhaps the first real relationship he's ever had, at the very least the first real relationship he's had since becoming a vampire spawn - with open eyes and (even though he's still terrified and hesitant and still healing from his trauma and abuse at the hands of his vampiric master) an open heart. There is nothing FORCING the two of you together, you could have just as easily remained close friends (and the fact that that is a very legitimate option for him and it's treated with the same amount of weight and happiness from him as getting fully romanced by you makes me SO fucking happy and I'll gush about that in another post at some point), but he WANTS to pursue a relationship with you, even with all of the insecurities and baggage the two of you have as individuals, he is making the active CHOICE to be with you.
And, idk, I think that that kind of relationship - one where the two people actively CHOOSE to be with each other, and it's not because of some prewritten "destiny" that they're meant to be together - is so much more romantic and stronger than any sort of "soulmates" scenario (not that the two can't mutually exist together but you all know what I mean).
I'm sick of "I'll die without you/I can't live without you/My life has no meaning without you" romance; give me "I could live without you in my life, I could very easily survive without you, but I don't want to, because my life is so much better having you in it" romance.
(Also "I'm not going anywhere" made my abandonment issues go reeeeeeeeeee)