#not looking forward to that stupid customs form i'll need to get at the post office tomorrow tho 😩

[authorwithissues]

The Emotional Support Tapir is ready to be mailed 🙌

[wetcatspellcaster]

First of all, thank you so much for all you do! Your work has gotten me through a really rough few weeks dealing with the first anniversary of my mom's death. I'm so excited every time I get an ao3 notification for one of your stories. ❤️

Also I'm a huge Buffy fan and your Ascended Astarion has such presouled-but-in-love-with-buffy Spike vibes I love it. Especially his not understanding why his super romantic gestures of murder and abduction are not working on the object of his affections. I love how frustrated and baffled Astarion is by Rose's refusals. "These things are the *height* of vampire wooing? how's she not swooning?? She must be playing hard to get."

Also every time they get into a physical altercation, it absolutely feels like it may end in building destroying sex. 😏

I did have a question about Astarion's expectations about Rose (which feel free not to answer if its spoilers or you dont feel like it). I know he dumped her after she wouldn't be turned by him post ritual but it seems like he's definitely spent years getting things ready to have her living with him since then with the custom bedrooms and the rose gardens. Did he expect her to come back on her own since then? even after telling her he basically wanted nothing to do with her?

Anyway this was long 😅 but thanks again for sharing your talent and imagination with us. good luck with your surgery! ❤️

Hello anon, thank you so much for messaging me. I use fic writing as a mental health lifeline (and guess what! I have also bereaved a parent in my time!) so I'm glad I can pay that comfort forward to you and anyone else, in some small form. I hope the anniversary and any related feelings that come up pass smoothly.

(also, Ascendent/Spike parallels are such a call out at the particular moment I am in drafting. I think my approach to souls in D&D is very coloured by what meaning they hold in BtVS).

To your question! I'll try to answer as best I can.

The initial reaction and break up is obvious dictated a little by canon, but in my version of events, it's also coloured by the violent/traumatic nature of the Ascendent's 'birth'. On the one hand, Ascended!Astarion is drunk on power and his first real sense of freedom, but on the other, it has come at a dramatic and awful cost that everyone around him witnessed and cannot deny. Also, not to spoil, but I have aligned my reading of the events with the fanon interpretation that a romanced Astarion justifies his desire for Ascendency through Tav, or fear of losing that relationship. So Rose's initial rejection causes a lot of anger and deliberate cruelty, because of the confusion and pain behind it: he did the Rite, partly for her, Rosalie watched him do the Rite and didn't stop him, and now? she's suddenly having second thoughts? When it's irreversible? When he's stuck here, now? And she refuses keep him company?

The anger and pain around that was real, I believe, and causes him to lash out. Hence, the break-up. Much with the way I write the Ascendent in all guises, he does an extremely stupid thing, then commits to the bit and doubles down. Oh, he's dumped her now? He kind of didn't mean to do that, but now he can't be desperate and take it back, so he has to lean in and pretend that was what intended to do all along, etc.

Then she leaves for real? Well, fuck her. He didn't need her anyway - that's why he dumped her, after all. Nothing to do with the trauma, or his mistakes. So then, he commits to the bit, twicefold. He leans in further. Starts to perform the exact life he'd said he'd have without her. Gets new friends, new lovers, an underground network of power, etc. That takes a few years.

Oh. Wait. Why does none of this feel good? Why does it all feel awful???Must be because his girlfriend, the one he did this all for, isn't here (and who's fault was that again? by this point, he's forgotten).

But pride is still a major factor in the way the Ascendent conducts himself, and he can't go to her - he can't look desperate, or unhappy, or like he regrets his decisions. I've used this in a justification of why he never sought her out in places he couldn't pretend he found her by chance, even though he can smell her blood and knows she goes to Waterdeep - he can't be the one to go to her. And she must be miserable, right? He is. So he starts to engineer things for her return, because she'll be the one to cave first, and besides, he's got eternity anyway. He's so patient (lol).

And then, inevitably, when Rosalie continues living her life avoiding him, he's like "welp. I can't go to her (pride), and she isn't coming to me. Time to make her come to me (murderous intent)" and that's how he kills a ballroom full of people. He genuinely thinks what's keeping them apart is the distance, not the element of choice (because. um. we've seen what he thinks of free will). He believes that once they're in the same room together, it'll be impossible for her to resist. He can charm her. He did it once before. And he's not sad or conflicted about it this time. And he's the same person, right?

[author laughs in REDACTED]

So basically, his expectation of Rose was that she would be the one to break first. They both love each other, and she's a nice person. She's the bleeding heart. She's the one who was seduced the first time round.

When none of that happens, he decides to engineer the same set of circumstances in a lab, assuming that forcing her into returning will have the same outcome as her choosing to return (you may notice a pattern of behaviour emerging). So once the Ascendent has created forced proximity and given himself the chance to seduce Tav all over again, he's certain he'll win, because he knows the playbook, and it worked on them, and since he Ascended he's had proof it works on everyone else.

But unfortunately, a successful romance in this scenario relies on Ascended!Astarion not being awful, for 5 minutes which... um.... he hasn't achieved once in this fic, not once.