#rambling abt an evil romance with shadowheart :

[lowtideandhightea]

having some thoughts abt durge/shadowheart romance, spoilers below

to start with i wasnt really expecting this to go well, id heard spoilers that indicated shar was gonna be a little bitch abt it but that kinda worked for the story i wanted to tell - shadowheart and my durge lyss making each other worse, reinforcing their separate indoctrinations, etc etc. women's wrongs power couple would have been nice, but i was also pretty interesting in the slow tragedy of two women who almost escaped their worst impulses, that the love you wished would give them the strength to leave instead gave them the strength to stay and then rotted the happiness out of itself.

i know ive seen other people talk with disappointment about how theres no bonding over your mutual amnesia and that also sucks but man. what really gets me is the dissonance.

like, shadowheart is sooo pissy about lyss killing a selunite cleric, subjecting the harpers to shar's shadowcurse. like, yeah, the bhaalspawn enjoys the feast of death or whatever, but girliepop, that was as much a sharran win as a bhaalist one.

but yk, fine, fine, that is technically before she commits herself to becoming a dark justiciar by killing the nightsong, theres leeway there.

so why is even a dark justiciar shadowheart so judgemental abt killing investigator valeria?? what, babygirl, makes this somehow worse than killing dame aylin??? it is literally the same thing. im just as destined and chosen by bhaal as you are by shar, and we both are spilling celestial blood in an unholy consecration of that destiny. what the fuck.

and like, i get that a huge part of shadowhearts narrative arc comes from her cognitive dissonance, her desire to not be Like That competing with the fact that being Like That is exactly what shar demands. but like. it feels like if shes on the dark justiciar path, there should be more space for her to recognize the parallels. especially when last light was a p prime example that our goals can align.

idk theres such frustrating tonal whiplash constantly, as sharran shadowheart is virtually indistinguishable from selunite shadowheart in how she responds to dark urge accepting bhaal :/

it made the cutscene after house of grief a bit funny. "hope youre not trying to steal shar's favor from me." "of course i am. im much better at wickedness than you." well, thats for damned certain.

[junietuesday]

so far in bg3 ive beaten the goblin camp and am holding off on doing the tiefling party until i get more affection. (im TOO indecisive and aroallo and polyam for this what do you MEAN i cant just sleep w any of the characters i want without having to get into their full on romance routes. dont tell me every single one of these characters wants that deep emotional connection or w/e like come on 😭) and i have id say. more than half the companions now? so recording my thoughts. normally i make little posts while i game but bg3 is so addicting i couldnt even open tumblr to talk abt it. i played it for almost 12 hours i think today (with breaks in between but STILL). which is why this is so long im rambling abt everything since i started the game

i feel like me and shadowheart have a good thing going rn if she were more physically my type i think id be certain on romancing her. im attached to her we’ve been together since the start of the game (i didnt find any of the other companions until after i went to the druid grove and had made it to the goblin camp LMAO i didnt realize they were all just right there). shes very pragmatic but i also notice she approves occasionally when im nice. i like her <3 we’re besties we’re a Team

i found astarion second and. yeah i get why hes tumblr’s favorite. hes an evil flirty fruity vampire. he has white hair and pronouns. that bloodsucking scene might as well have just been a sex scene. i enjoy him in my party (actually hes my fav character to play as, i love dashing around and stabbing and vampire biting people. i originally thought id have him as kind of a spellcaster but i even paid to respec him to have more mobility spells/traits. also hes my go-to for picking locks and disarming traps, w items and keeping him fed ive gotten him up to +7 sleight of hand, it was 9 before but i think i might have accidentally removed a bonus when respeccing him lmao. hes like the most useful of my party outside of combat. anyway) and im a lesbian but im literally torn on whether or not i should accept his proposition at the tiefling party bc hes just so entertaining. i might full on romance him in another save. but the thing w him is that im a monsterfucker sure (karlach 💞) but i dont like his moral compass it makes conversations w him so difficult to navigate it stresses me out. like im playing a self-insert and kind of just choosing the options i choose right. but he probably thinks all my dialogue options are too soft and weak and wishy-washy💔 like sorry i dont think idolizing absolute power is a good thing bro. even if i get why hed be obsessed w power after 200 years of utterly lacking any. doesnt mean i have to agree w his cynicism

on that topic thats why im utterly enamored w karlach💗💗 i love her. like of all the romancable characters i genuinely would enjoy dating her. if it werent for my emotional attachment to shadowheart after being w her so long itd be a no brainer. like at the beginning i just wanted her in my party bc shes a hot buff demon lady. but shes such a joy??? her zest for even the little things in life like her dialogue w shadowheart abt nature. her just cheerfully dancing in camp. shes boisterous and passionate and enthusiastic. also shes the only one of the characters i like who approves when i go out of my way to help people and when i brainwashed this monster into cannibalizing its pack (fucked up but i didnt wanna fight the whole horde And it) shadowheart and astarion approved but she Disapproved, and idk it just feels like a breath of fresh air to see someone who’s more openly just held on to goodness after everything shes gone through, after shadowheart’s and astarion’s disregard for other people. i need to find her a mechanic to fix her engine but i dont think i can go to the tiefling camp without triggering the party scene so. 💔

i dont really like gale tbh. i mean i dont Not like him he was fine to have in my party but as soon as karlach came along it was an easy choice to kick him out. his storyline is interesting from what ive seen but i feel like. im just not charmed by him lol. i failed a roll while he was trying to teach me magic in this probably romantic scene but he just cut it off there and i didnt bother savescumming to reroll. i also have met wyll but yeah hes fine. kind of the goody type from what ive seen and hes nice enough im also just not charmed. truly i think its just that im a lesbian but i find these two boring in comparison to the three above. ive also found halsin and hes abt to join my party but i made my character a druid already so hes kinda redundant😭 i googled it and hes the only one whos down w polyamory which is so sad bc i can see why people who like men find him hot but i dont, why couldnt any of the three companions i actually like let me date multiple people 😭😭 sadness. i wish it was like sdv where you can date everyone w no consequences as long you exclude one person. i dont like any of the guys except astarion please bg3😭😭😭