Why did Larian change Ascended Astarion's kisses from what they were? I don't want to disrespect those who like Ascended Astarion's new kisses, but I don't think Larian's original artistic intention was for Ascended Astarion to be a good ending for him. Instead, it was supposed to be an example of how he's repeating the cycle of abuse Cazador started. In the Spawn ending, Astarion treats you like an equal, but in his Ascended ending, he treats you like a subordinate. He breaks up with you if you don't want to become a spawn, which I think if he truly cared for you, he wouldn't do. He literally thinks you're degrading yourself by staying with him as an Ascendant.
None of the developers ever referred to the AA route as the Abuse Cycle. Yes, Spawn spoke of a cycle of terror, but the meaning could be much larger, such as in the cycle of power struggles that empowered vampires are obsessed with.
Welch explicitly said that Tav is an abuser because Tav chose AA because of sexualization. Read the dialogs after the ritual more carefully, much of what Tav has to say sounds abusive. Welch argued that this relationship is based on passion, not fear. So the patch 7 kisses fall more under that narrative, although I disagree with that narrative. We've asked many times to expand the roleplay in this scene because it's very limited.
