#to sate her hunger. which was amusing to astarion at first but now becomes a glaring problem when ur trying to establish ur name amongst

[swordmaid]

did an ending of ascended astarion w vengeance shri’iia and I really do want to do a run for this esp with shri’iia bc the regression arc would be so fun to explore I think…! anyway I made her side with the emperor because she has no reason to free orpheus when she’s not in pursuit of her own free will anymore (and others to an extent) and it’s so interesting to me how she’s back to projecting a certain image of herself since she rejected that path of being her most genuine self and returned to how she was before. the comfort of familiarity turning into something so rotten and vile as the centuries pass bc she is forever going to be this static woman! quite literal a ghost of herself since she’s undead now and since - she’s back to disregarding her own self in pursuit of power - she’s given her body up to harleep too so now she doesn’t even belong to herself because her body is harleep’s and’s bound to astarion as creator/spawn. but her oath is reforged again, so her soul feels complete which is the only thing that matters to her - or so she thinks but in this scenario she saw what she could have had, and she’s aware that she can exist outside of her oath but she still clings on it … like that kind <- of conflict within the self so interesting to think about in this scenario bc would that turn to bitterness….or resentment….since the only reason why she’d decide to reclaim her oath again and devote herself to another person (astarion) is to have that sense of familiarity and comfort after being abandoned by ur own goddess and home. like it’s the easy way out definitely but what then?

anyway also so ! funny 👀 and interesting to me bc the high hall hag romance kiss variation was the one where he slaps her on the face and I’m just like ur really slapping her infront all these people!!!!!! and that is so canon to me now I think that’s the start of the Resentment. but then they’ll have their honeymoon phase which lasts for a handful of centuries but as opposed to good end hag romance who becomes this sort of wandering adventurers who travels the world together, bad end hags stay in baldur’s gate taking advantage of the city’s broken state to build astarion’s empire (which will be 👀! relevant much much much much later when shri’iia gone girls him) and they’re making themselves known to the patriars, establishing links and favours, all the saucy political intrigues that shri’iia was familiar with and similar to last time - she’s not a player in the game, only a pawn (and a pretty pawn that can be seen this time!). also like the idea that maybe in the first few centuries shri’iia asks if they can explore the world together bc there’s still a lot she hasn’t seen, and he’s like ok 👍 but never does it, and if she insists, he would tell her he’s too busy or distract her to make her stop asking or tell her straight up that she’s Pestering him which makes the resentment take root hehe. and it’s gonna be this vile rotting thing that’s slowly growing between them and it blooms when he decides to get a new beau because he’s so very bored of her sour face. all of my bad end hag romance hcs are like the opposite of the good end where they stick together bc they want to and they get closer bc they’re being the most genuine versions of themselves and not putting up a facade…!