My dream is only you

the things it adds to both of the characters involved that lucanis used to have a thing for viago could not have been more tailor made to be for me. literally the ideal thing to come out of this game for me personally and specifically and spiritually. I mean I'm teia x viago trash until the day I die and nothing will ever change this (and with the best will in the world and even the power of lucanis' big beautiful soulful eyes, that would never have worked out even if viago DID somehow understand he was being propositioned. which I'm not convinced he did. the mutual 'so. snakes are pretty cool huh. and. knives. also' awkward energy without someone of teia's charisma and people skills involved to mitigate it... it would have been dire), but on so many levels I find it so incredibly charming for what it says about them both that the (one-sided) attraction was there once.

what's more, it means the man about whom this legendary paragraph was written:

Viago was not a typical Antivan. He liked facts—checklists, numbers, precise measurements. Heart palpitations, clammy hands, tight pants—Viago did not like these things. In fact, he would go so far as to say he hated them. Mild curiosity was his favorite mood.

has got some of the hottest coolest deadliest people in thedas down so catastrophically bad it's got them acting unwise. teia had to wait a UST-drenched decade for him to be ready to take his fucking gloves off for her. and she did!! the tetchiest most neurotic least approachable little vetinari knockoff of a man you ever saw has game for days and days and lives rent free in heads for years. in eight little talons viago consistently feels so inadequate up against dante and it's like. man I'm shaking you by the lapels you have what he'll never have. the ability to bewitch body and soul with your terrible personality and long thin legs. do not waste the gift you've been given go get her she's waiting!!!

(lucanis is really good at reading people, so I wonder if maybe he saw through all of that to some of the steadiness and incredible capacity for warmth and tenderness in specific interpersonal relationships you see viago have with teia when he finally opens up enough, and maybe that was part of it. either way it's so perfect that both he and teia have regarded viago with this affectionate intrigued amusement. lucanis still seems pretty fond of him in a 'viago continues to be exactly himself no matter what else happens or goes wrong. comforting universal constant' sort of way, he brings him up quite a lot in party banter.)

you've seen lucanis' game in this day and age, arguably or at least hopefully older and wiser -- can you imagine how catastrophically bad it must have been back when he presumably handed viago, most paranoid man in thedas all years running, a knife like this expressed everything it needed to. people give him so much shit for the cake moment being his big romantic lock-in, but considering where we started that is GROWTH and I for one am so proud of him fhsdkjaf.

also I wonder at what point vis-a-vis that whole Situation teia and viago met for the first time, leading us to ask... just how much was it a matter of lucanis simply being ignored out of a lack of interest on viago's part (tbf, not entirely unlikely). how much was it lucanis truly not managing to make himself understood. (all but certainly. literally how would one understand that. I think it says some sweet things about rook and lucanis' dynamic that they -- somehow -- DO pick up what he's putting down in a similar scenario presumably b/c they know him pretty well by then haha.) how much was it viago interpreting the romantic move as a death threat from one of the most dangerous people alive and freaking out. (1000% and indubitably.) and how much was it andarateia steal-your-girl cantori turning up and thus setting off whatever spectacular, volatile, awesome-in-the-original-sense chemical reaction between the substances of her and viago's souls that goes on to this day and makes everything else kind of a side note at best. a gentle mix of several of these things, perhaps. ...god I love all these characters so much

lost in the solas and mythal and lavellan dynamics, thoughts percolating

mythal prodding wisdom towards pride; lavellan coaxing wisdom from pride

mythal, all-knowing, but blind to solas; lavellan, painfully ignorant, but sees solas

mythal in a position of power treating her best and closest friend as an inferior; lavellan, in a position of power, treats him as an equal

mythal valuing solas' knowledge; lavellan valuing the man

i promise i am not veering into caterina apologism i think lucanis and illario fans should unionise to kill her. but it is sooooo fun to me to think of how all her children and almost all her grandchildren are dead and all the terrible, abusive lessons she taught (presumably that she herself was taught by her own parents) were for nothing. it didn’t make them strong enough to survive in the crows. and then she becomes guardians to lucanis and illario and she carries the guilt and the cycle continues. the lessons just have to be even harder this time, and then it will stick. what it creates instead is a man who doesn’t want anyone to suffer as he did, and the spare who is convinced what happened to his family was inevitable. house dellamorte is so cooked

hang on, hold on, now I'm really in my feelings about Harding for a moment

like ever since I heard that conversation where Lucanis (very insightful tbh, short king to short queen I guess) points out that having been a tiny dwarf girl raised among the big, intimidating, human Fereldan farmers probably impacted Lace's personality more than she realizes (beyond making her adaptable and capable, it also seems to have made her... kind of malleable, unwilling to rock the boat, people-pleasing, more limestone than granite), I already haven't been able to quite shake that thought. But her being so startlingly low on that recent "who's your favorite character" poll I reblogged... it really drove that point all the way home.

a core characteristic of Lace Harding seems to be that she always tries, and tries, and tries, to be liked- she tries to always be kind, and compassionate, and caring, and sweet to everyone, and it works! everyone likes her! people like being around her, both inside and out the narrative!

... but she's very few people's favorite.

it's a really interesting take on pleasantness being a shield (honestly kind of a very accurate, but subtle expansion on her character in Inquisition, when she was just... Nice and Capable Little Lace Harding and Little Else) and even her story, while it's about her own repressed feelings (literally fighting a physical manifestation of her rage, and sorrow, and pain, is. wow you don't get more clear a metaphor than that, the metaphor is literally punching you in the face on that one), it's still not about herself- or not only herself, but all of the dwarven people, all that was taken from them, all their rage, and sorrow, and pain, condensed into her tiny little body....

there is definitely more to expand on this, and I'll probably get more into it in subsequent playthroughs, but for now, I'm finding it really interesting how Lace Harding is almost an afterthought in her own life, purposefully made a footnote in her own narrative, and that in itself serves to color it in further. she lives in the silences between the titan's heartbeats.

truly the fucking textbook interpretation of an eldest daughter of all the dwarven people, and I'm fucking emotional as fuck about her right now

Lucanis knits. He truly is perfect. I hope he knits something for Rook.

"You like to walk a little too close to the edge..." "So do you."

LUCANIS DELLAMORTE ❤️‍🔥 Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024)

lucanis and his contract negotiator

Lucanis is gonna unionize Thedas if its the last thing he does.

Hugely funny to me that while Lucanis Dellamorte is indeed a disaster bisexual who needs to work on prioritizing his own needs and probably a lot of therapy (maybe an exorcism too) he immediately starts talking shit about the group’s eating habits and goes shopping so they don’t all die of malnutrition. He’s got that one thing handled and under control, at least.

Gotta love how during Weisshaupt Davrin and Lucanis are all like 'hey man, we've had our differences but this is it. If you die killing that archdemon, I'll make sure to remember you. And yeah, you go out there and kill that bitch, I know you can do it man.'

And then right after Weisshaupt they're like "looks like SOMEONE was pulling their punches and its why we lost"

no im not thinking constantly about the early game hilarity of when its just the ladies of da:v lounging around the dining room watching a freshly freed Lucanis bus about the stoves making food for his new strange flock of poorly fed women.

Ohhhh man of course Lucanis finds Rook’s voice comforting!! Of course he does!! Rook’s voice was the first kind one that he had heard in a year!!! It was Rook’s voice that guided him out of the Ossuary both physically and later mentally!!!! It has been Rook’s voice that wakes him when Spite takes over!!! Of course it’s a comfort!!!!

oh i'm for real cooked about this romance, huh

Weisshaupt mission was insane I still think about it ghghghhg