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wetcatspellcaster · 6 months

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Not only do I love your writing, with many a snippets living rent free in my head, and now you are spoiling us with these DVD commentary posts! Oh, and here's on:

As her arcane vision opened, and she was greeted by a hexagonal chamber, wrought from white marble. The proportions of the chamber were briefly dizzying, and off-putting enough to require adjustment to - its walls were high, suggesting a tower, with long, thin, arched windows and a mural in the domed ceiling. Everything was deathly still, and quiet.

And at the chamber's centre, a pristine white coffin.

Its lid was carved into an ornate frieze of flowers, foliage, and winged birds. All its fastenings were pale white gold, the clasps inlaid with rubies. Rose felt her consciousness tugged like a boat anchored, as the hairpin focus called her forward.

When Rose approached the coffin, she heard stifled, harried breathing within. This was truly Astarion’s resting place, then - and close enough for him to cross planes in the time it had taken them to make it to their own sanctuary. He was already inside, recovering from the death she’d willed upon him. If she’d been real, in this moment, Rose would’ve laid her hand upon the surface of the casket.

Echoing from within the coffin, came a long, gravelly groan, that ended in a series of stuttered breaths.

Ah, Rose thought, skin burning in the material plane. Not in too much pain, then.

And... definitely Astarion.

She hastily backed herself away from the coffin, rising up through the centre of the strange, pristine room to the nearest window. It seemed the quickest way to find out more information on their current location, and to leave him to whatever… that was. She felt the connection finesse itself and stretch taut, finding the limits of her own concentration as she drifted up-

Rosalie felt the temperature drop drastically as she came up to the arched window. Its glass was rimed with frost, small glittering starbursts of ice lining the edges and patching the view in places with fronds of glimmering crystal. Beyond, a pale, snow-covered landscape with no signs of life, only mountains that were impossible to scale, and a sky that was brutally dark. A night blue as ink with not a single star to light it, only pulses of colour in an aurora of paler blue and deep, bruise purple, fluttering in and out of existence and rippling through the endless, dark sky like a wave.

Rosalie did the disembodied, arcane equivalent of pressing her ear against the glass. The metal of the window frame felt so cold, it burned across her mind like flame. Though the air inside the chamber was still, she thought she heard the high, roaring howl of a merciless wind.

...why did I not realise that when I offered up DVD Commentary the 'is he wanking in his coffin' segment was bound to come back to haunt me :-)

Curse you, anon (affectionate).

I spoke a lot about where I wanted to put the coffin in the endnotes, but there are many spoiler-y reasons why I decided on Cania as the ideal place, to the point where it caused me to ignore the fact that it technically broke Scry. I'm going to try and give teasers here for the fun of it, but unfortunately a lot of my commentary on this section is going to be [REDACTED] bc it's setting up some (I think) very fun and sexy plot-twists later. Maybe I'll just use this space to be really indulgent and point out some instances of foreshadowing just to annoy readers into guessing what they might mean.

I really love the Hells in general in D&D - I'm not just brain poisoned by the House of Hope, I've always been obsessed with the very D&D specific distinction between Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil and what Hell, as the Lawful Evil plane, looks like as a result.

Cania is Mephistopheles' domain, I based the choice that they would be in contact not just on the fact that the Black Mass is Mephistopheles' plan, but also on that one line in Ascendent!Astarions dialogue with spawn!Tav when he mentions 'Mephistopheles' gifts', as if they're on first name terms and pals now.

The description of Cania was based on what lore I could glean from online searches and also Descent Into Avernus. Cania isn't actually spoken about in great detail to be honest, it's basically lifeless, cold, and barren. Which...was already prime Gothic vampire imagery, tbh, but then I found this line on the wiki: 'Preserved corpses were frequently uncovered after collisions between glaciers.' I see Ascended!Astarion essentially, at this point, as a 'preserved corpse', particularly when contrasted to Rose's aging, so I figured it was fate.

Also idk if people have googled Mephistopheles but based on his wiki description... it seems like him and Ascendent!Astarion would get along :)))))

The flashes/aurora in the sky are meant to be a sign of arcane activity, Cania is characterised by Mephistopheles 'overseeing endless experiments with arcane magic [...] conducted throughout the wastes of the layer.'

The inside of Astarion's infernal palace registers to Rosalie as warm, but the world outside is very, very cold. There. That is my only piece of foreshadowing that I can highlight here. Make of it what you will.

Also.... yes, he was wanking in the coffin :') at least, in my vision as an author. But tbh the responses in comments were so valid, and I now also have a very funny image of it being a combination of a wank and a panic attack, which... you know... if you're an invulnerable, all-powerful vampire who's become alienated from your own humanity and your own emotions, maybe being scared *does* get you off?

Also shout out to the commenters who imagined what she overheard was actually just a Blood of Lathander style temper tantrum. Imagining an alternative version of this scene where Rosalie goes over to the coffin, here's a tea kettle high voice going "Power Word Kill! Power Word Kill!!" and goes "...ah, that's Astarion alright. Just like the old days." and then moves on with her life.

DVD commentary ask

#wip: pieces still stuck in your teeth #asks #anons #dvd commentary ask #ask games #lovely words from lovely people #schrodinger's coffin endures :')

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