#i miss it here sometimes... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wolfsong-the-bloody-beast · 11 days ago

Text

Not to focus overly on my Rookanis feels, but I love the dialogue cutscene where Lucanis and Davrin are drinking together, sharing stories, and invite Rook to sit with them, for so many reasons.

I mean, I love the dialogue cutscene in general and both the guys in it. The mood is great. The dialogue is just so damn funny. It's a friendly dick measuring contest between our favourite boys. After the initial antagonism and tension, they've become friends. There are bizarre lore drops. The stories are entertaining and frankly wtf? A big writhing ball of angry nugs? Created through blood magic? The stuff of nightmares! I wish I could see Lucanis deal with that. I wish I could see Davrin figure out the big heap of tentacles. I love the way the guys are just a little tipsy in a cute way. Lucanis talks a little too loud in comparison with what we're used to. Davrin is starting to have trouble articulating. The "Of course we're getting along. We're PROFESSIONALS," as Lucanis raises his cup a little towards Davrin always cracks me up. Also, Lucanis, are you drinking wine from a coffee cup? The way they both invite Rook to stay and participate. The prospect of slightly drunk cooking and snacking and sharing stories. All in all, it's a beautiful scene that makes me smile every time.

But let me also yap about Lucanis for a moment. (Of course you will let me. It's not like you can stop me. No one can stop me. Not even me.) I want to focus on how Lucanis interacts with Rook in this scene.

It's obvious he's let himself relax a little. He's a bit intoxicated. Clearly he's having fun. He smiles easily and flutters his eyelashes at Rook. When you choose the dialogue option that mentions ruining Solas' ritual, Lucanis insists that Rook tells the story. "[Neve and Harding] don't tell it the way you would," he says, encouraging Rook to talk about something, from what he says, he seems to have already heard, because he wants to hear them tell it.

Then he decides he'll cook something while they chat, but he emphasizes that he will only do so "if Rook's staying," nudging them further. It couldn't be more clear that he wants them there and that he enjoys their company.

I feel like I don't see enough people feral about it, because come on, he's so sweet in this scene. He obviously wants Rook around and their presence makes him happy.

And, yeah, I know this scene also happens with "just" friendly Rook. The thing is, I don't give a fuck. I don't think it diminishes the interaction in any way. The context matters. It's sweet with friendly Rook and even sweeter when they're more. Also, I played Lucanis' romance first, and I did not know that. What I saw in this scene during that first playthrough was the man absolutely delighted by Rook's company, repeatedly and enthusiastically asking them to stay and spend time with him, and it made my day. Still does.

When I keep babbling about how much I love Lucanis' romance, it's not just about all the hearts I get to click to see where they lead or the beautiful post-Tearstone love scene, it's also interactions like this where you see how much he wants Rook to be there, all the more or less subtle signs of affection (and yes, also friendship, because that goes hand in hand) that happen throughout the whole game.

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age: The Veilguard #DATV #Veilguard #Lucanis Dellamorte #Rookanis #sometimes I look at certain posts that say that Lucanis' romance made someone/their Rook feel ''unloved''#and I think that whatever feelings one might have about it are valid - I'm not here to tell anyone how they should or shouldn't feel #we all have our own tastes and ideas about what good romance consists of too #but oh boy I can't relate at all #as far as I'm concerned‚ and taking his personality into consideration‚ Lucanis couldn't be more clear he wants (to be around) Rook #and I find their bond to be so special and deep #but they both also approach and cultivate it so carefully and slowly because of all the circumstances and I think that's beautiful #though I admit I don't understand complaints from those who think he's supposedly somehow more interested in Neve than Rook #I mean don't get me wrong - they're a sweet couple when that happens #but on a Rookanis playthrough? seriously?#do they actually pay attention to the man or do they just look at him #is Lucanis a different man in their game than mine?#have they somehow missed all the interactions between him and Rook - romanced or not - throughout the whole game?#vs a few friendly lines he has with Neve?#idk man couldn't be me #I didn't even know they could get together under different circumstances during my 1st playthrough 😂#I learned that outside the game #I mean I suspected it might be the case because the devs talked about NPC romances but I also suspected Lucanis and Davrin 😆#I only got confirmation later online #but anyway LOOK AT HIS DELIGHTED LIL FACE here

237 notes · View notes

beannoss · 11 months ago

Text

Something I think about a lot and wonder if maybe gets overlooked in Twilight’s story and as vitally indicative of his character is actually in the very first chapter:

Anya isn’t needed for Strix. Twilight decides to adopt her anyway.

[Spoiler warning: Mostly this post deals with early chapters already in the anime but there is reference to chapter 62, which has not yet been animated and will be in season 3]

Twilight decides it — “I’m going to rework the mission so it doesn’t involve a child because that’s too dangerous” and he’s 100% right! Donovan Desmond is canonically a far right warmonger with fascistic authoritarian aims. His government made liberal use of the SSS — a group to mirror the Stasi — who continue to operate in morally dubious ways (much more likely they’re actively morally reprehensible, though we’ve mostly only had rumours of that so far). From what we can tell, Desmond is at best an absent father and likely actually worse than that: if that's how he treats his own children, imagine how he might treat others. And the timeline seems to indicate that the experimentation performed on Anya was done under Desmond's government — even if Twilight isn't aware of experimentation on children, he is aware of both human and animal experimentation under Desmond's government. Taking all that and also the complexity of Strix's aims, undoubtedly there were other things that could be done, more straightforward if not necessarily easier.

So. Why? Why entertain the change at all? And then, having entertained it, why go back when the reasoning is indisputable?

On the Doylist level, I think Endo wanted to ensure that Anya had some agency within the set up — Endo also does this with Yor. It would be much harder to be on Twilight’s side fully, or to trust him on an ethical level/take him as any sort of moral authority, if he were just straightforwardly using these two people. To have them be active and consenting participants (arguably to actually be affirming the arrangement: Twilight sets it up, but Anya and Yor actually make it happen) even if the audience only knows the depth of their knowledge/motivations/etc currently, shifts the power dynamic in important ways.

But it also the set up tells us important things about Twilight. He is largely impatient, cold, detached in chapter one. His overarching feelings towards Anya are, I think, real annoyance, real confusion, and real impatience. He just doesn’t understand this damn kid and it turns out she’s a person which is frankly unacceptable — he’d needed and anticipated an automaton, ideally of himself in miniature form. (Though I think one could ponder whether Twilight was, in many ways, an automaton himself at this point, but that's maybe for another meta 🙃)

He’s not entirely unmoved of course — we're given to understand he’s affected when Franky tells him how many times Anya’s been adopted and returned, and isn't amused by Franky's joke about names. Franky's comment — "Just don't get attached" — reinforces this. The prospect of “the future” perturbs Twilight when he’s reading the parenting books. His initial reaction to Anya’s kidnap is horror. All these are true too.

Then there’s also this, from earlier in the chapter:

It’s exposition, yeah, and it’s also exposing. "Hopes" and "joys" are very specific words to describe those events. It could simply have been "A marriage? An ordinary life?" but describing them as such — hope for marriage; joy in ordinary life — expose something of what Twilight feels about those two experiences and, on the flipside, they expose what he deems he's lacking. No hopes of intimacy; no joy in (an ordinary) life. There's an argument as well, of course, that he's being ironic but I don't think that actually invalidates the above analysis. Drawing attention to 'hope' and 'joy' at all are revealing, regardless of Twilight's tone in thinking of them. I think it's also interesting this panel, taken in conjunction with a pair of panels in chapter 62, Twilight's backstory. The above is almost a pulled out version of this below panel of Twilight's recollection of his childhood, and of course the returning image of not just a rubbish bin but a rubbish bin on fire when it comes to disposing of his identity:

Back to Strix. Both his final interaction with Karen and the whole everything of the framing of Strix is making Twilight think (and feel, ahem) things that he hasn't for some time. Twilight decides, I’m reworking this. It can’t proceed this way. Not because Anya is a pain in his ass, not because she’s not as (apparently) intellectually advanced as he’d originally thought, not even because he thinks he can find another child who would better be exactly what mission parameters called for. No:

And what changes his mind is Anya asking to come home.

One of the important parts of this to me is this:

He seeks consent.

This moment is a keystone, I think, to understanding Twilight. It’s also more telling than he maybe realises. Twilight is decisive — we all laugh because he spirals at the drop of a hat when his daughter or wife look even mildly upset but outside those (also very telling) scenarios, he makes decisions and he pursues them. Often he makes decisions quickly. He’s a dab hand at it; it’s a large part of why he’s as good a spy as he is.

He’d decided to change Strix.

Anya asks him, in essence, not to.

So, he doesn't.

But it's wild that he entertains keeping her request at all — why? Why even entertain it? It’s dangerous; it’s impractical; there are too many moving parts outside his direct control; Anya isn’t the sort of child he’d wanted for the mission if he’d spent any time thinking about what a child might actually be like; Strix is in many ways an extremely long shot anyway, Desmond could just stop attending for reasons unknown and unrelated; etc.

So, yeah, why? Maybe because of this —

In conjunction, I often think of this moment in the cruise arc:

Twilight first naming the feeling as lonesome, and secondly tacitly conceding that he perceives Yor as a companion and that that relationship is important to him, something to be missed. What makes this for me though is that Anya calls this out "Papa's you're so sappy" and Twilight's reaction is that of someone caught-out. He doesn’t say “nuh-uh!” but he may as well have. Essentially, something landed a bit close to home, hm? Maybe some of that hope for marriage? A soupçon of joy of an ordinary life?

Twilight’s loneliness underpins many of his decisions with his family — probably without him being fully conscious of it. I think he is at least somewhat conscious of it, but also if he looks too closely... Well, best not to. I could fill this post, I think, with images that demonstrate his loneliness throughout the series; that sorrowful/pensive close-up of his eye(s) is one of the abiding motifs for Twilight throughout. I'd probably start with this one from Twilight's backstory arc:

Anya's request plays directly off his loneliness. Still though, he doesn’t immediately capitulate — he emphasises Anya’s choice. Is she sure? The last day has been scary for a child (and for him, but he's ignoring that part) and Twilight, in his increasing recognition that Anya is a person, is probably aware in the back of his mind that he hasn’t exactly been warm or welcoming or at all patient with her. Things that people respond to — he's otherwise excellent at manipulating people, so of course he understands this. So. Given she'd just had this scary experience, given he hasn't exactly been great with her: Is she sure? She wants to come home — with him?

I think the moment may get a little lost because Anya says something riffing off his own earlier thoughts and self-revelation (featuring that shadowed, lonely eye motif again!)

Were this a post about Anya, I’d talk about how it’s an important character moment for her as well by way both of demonstrating her agency/choice and also that she isn’t nearly as dumb as Twilight thinks (and the audience, maybe, also thinks).

But in my view, she didn’t actually need to say anything about it making her cry. I think she could simply have said yes in that moment and Twilight would have agreed.

Twilight’s an unreliable narrator; he’s disconnected from his heart and that shrouds his own motivations from himself — something he actually also concedes in this chapter!

And it shrouds from us just how much he actually understands himself. He’s also a master of deflection. Easy to assume or say that bringing Anya home is just to align with Strix. Nothing more to see here; nothing else going on. But also that ripping off of the mask in the panel above — and the literal 'riiip' sound effects — also indicate to us that this is an unveiling to himself.

In my view, Twilight agreeing to Anya's request, deciding to go back to original mission parameters, actually shifts his motivations, subtly. Now he’s committed not only to the original mission goals, but also to Anya. He needs Anya to succeed at Strix, not only for Strix's sake, but also because otherwise the mission will end and she’ll have to go back to the orphanage, and he’s just agreed with her not to do that (not right away, in any case). I don’t think at this point he’s thinking it’s forever — his thoughts throughout the manga indicate he still expects the Forgers to be temporary. I don't think the shift in motivation is necessarily even conscious, but given the set up, I think something inside Twilight recognises that agreeing to bring Anya home is a compact, jointly engaged. Mostly all this has become subsumed into Strix: he makes decisions. He pursues them. He deflects, even from himself. Of course it's just for the mission; this saved him the trouble of reworking it, of figuring out something else. Nothing more to see; no need to think any more on it. And to be fair to him, Strix is very high stakes, resting pretty solely on his shoulders, so of course that is, objectively, motivation enough. Why even consider beyond that?

But I personally think that to the extent he's aware of it at all, there is something else going on, that he wants to have Anya for as long as it takes him to work something else out for her. If that's the case, then of course, we have Occam’s razor: the simplest solution may be the best one.

Maybe Twilight should just keep Anya himself, eh?

[Image description: gif from Spy x Family season 1, episode 1. Twilight and Anya have just found out Anya passed her entrance exam and are overjoyed. Celebratory, Twilight picks Anya up and swoops her into the air as they smile at one another. End image description]

#spy x family #spy x family meta #agent twilight #loid forger #sxf manga #sxf manga spoilers #i haven't talked too much about yor in this but ofc she is also an important part of this dynamic #i’ve been in my thoughts for weeks about twilight and they’re all pouring out 🥲#i tried to work them out in fic first but it was not enough 😤#should I put some of this post behind a cut? pls lmk if yes #also caveat that ofc i'm working from translations which may sometimes miss nuance/be somewhat off from endo's originals #here fandom take this!#gif #and i had a whole section about the complexity of consent in children and particularly a child with anya's background #ultimately tho this is fiction we're discussing and i'm sticking within those parametres pls and thx

444 notes · View notes