#i contain multitudes (or inside me is two wolves etc.)

[wetcatspellcaster]

Personal question! What has been your favorite thing to write about the Ascendent (that you either can or can’t share YET)

ooooooh, this is such a fun question anon!!! I like it a lot!!! Thank you for asking me :D

There are two things that are my favourite but they are complete opposites, so I'm happy to include them both here:

I, like most humble fic authors, love to write a big fucking flirt. I hope that's clear from Party Favours, where fake dating gives Astarion the excuse to flirt on steroids. Here, Ascendency provides the same narrative device, only the steroids are evil! I've said this in previous asks... there's a reason that the Ascendent gets so many fucking speeches. While I haven't ascended Astarion in game, A!Astarion's dialogue objectively slaps, and this is what drew me to writing an Ascendency AU in the first place. I just love writing flirt dialogue (also, side note, this is making Act 3 of Pieces fucking hilarious bc Astarion can't flirt anymore. The Ascendent made it weird. His rizz is tainted now - or so he thinks, with all that guilt).

The Ascendent was like, my first attempt at writing a monster, the same way Pieces ended up being my first attempt at writing a horror. Which is, as it turns out, a really really fun exercise for any author, I would 10 out of 10 recommend! I knew from the vibes I wanted I couldn't endorse a fully sympathetic Ascendency ending (no shade to those who do) so I had a lot of fun creating a monster that genuinely scared me, but that I could still sympathise with when I was required to write dialogue from his perspective. I hope that when I reveal what I decided the Ascendent is, people find it rewarding or interesting, but ultimately? It was me creating my personal monster from fears I hold in my day to day life, and that was honestly a very fun and rewarding experience for me as a writer!

The second one is why I keep reiterating that I do not think the Ascendent is a canon take on Astarion's evil ending. It was very much a writing exercise in Gothic horror, and it produced an outcome that was increasingly very personal to me. I think writing a monster became this weirdly intellectual exercise that made me think about what frightens me, so that I could write scenes that I genuinely thought were frightening! I'm excited to share the results with everyone :) xx

#asks #anons #wip: pieces still stuck in your teeth #he can be sexy but i also wanted him to be evil? you know? #i contain multitudes (or inside me is two wolves etc.)