Latest Posts by blazingquill - Page 2
VEILGUARD FIC RECLIST
these are mostly (but not all!) lucanis/rookanis centered bc that's what i'm into. i have taken the small liberty of truncating some summaries since this is such a long list (with apologies), and tagging the authors where i can find them on tumblr. if i mistakenly tagged you and it's not your fic, or if i didn't tag you and you'd like to be, please let me know! not everybody has their urls in their ao3 profile so i had to cross my fingers and hope for the best lol. please make sure you read the tags for content and spoiler warnings.
How It Sang in Other Days by @viagothots [M, rook & viago, 26k]
Long before Rook de Riva took the contract on the elven gods, she learned to survive as a compradi of House de Riva. More importantly, she learned to survive Viago.
rec notes: ok, so i'm a little biased bc i helped beta read for this one, but the sheer depth of the characterization here is bananas. rook and viago's relationship is so much more complex than platonic or romantic, love or hate. it's a hard, unflinching look at the dark side of the crows that veilguard skirted around, and its take on the crow characters is both perceptive and honest. my favorite four words in this fic are "not like i was." you'll see what i mean when you get there. mind the warnings, but don't miss it - it's such a ride. and if you love a good torment nexus, i can promise you the rest of this series is just as mind-blowing as this installment. i can't rec this one highly enough.
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The Killing Kind by @teddywesworl [E, rookanis, 3.8k]
Lucanis was at Zara Renata’s mercy for a year. That sort of thing will leave a man with scars.
rec notes: absolutely my favorite rook/lucanis fic ever. please definitely mind the warnings on this one too, but it paints such a perfect picture of lucanis's character and the issues he might face after the ossuary, the spite voice is SO good, and the slow burn being somehow even slower is actually a fantastic choice. bonus rec for this author's other fics, particularly and any thing that may not misbecome the mighty sender, which has the best inner demons take i've ever seen, the eagle, which is competency porn, and the baseless fabric of this vision, which is actual porn but with fantastic character work.
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When the Floodwaters Come, I Will Help You Swim by @itsrainingpandas [E, rookanis, 5.5k]
They've been taking the relationship slow, as agreed. But after a freak storm isolates Rook and Lucanis in Treviso, and there's a fireplace and a bed, the desire between them becomes harder to ignore.
rec notes: i absolutely LOVE this entire series to pieces. the author has a MASTERFUL command over tone and mood and is able to shift both effortlessly. this rook is funny and brave while still being ruefully self-aware of and in touch with her own emotions, which adds a refreshing balance to a closed-off character like lucanis, and i'm constantly charmed by her. it was almost impossible to narrow this series down to a single fic to link to, but i chose this one because of how good the sex scene is; the dynamic here between rook and lucanis feels really good and natural. honorable mentions to Your Heart is a Haunted House and The Social Habits of Crows, which both feature illario and nearly got put on this list instead.
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How You Come Home by @punishandenslavesuckers [M, lucanis & illario, 3.2k]
Lucanis Dellamorte takes his cousin out for a night on the town after Illario returns from a rough contract. He doesn't seem like himself and Lucanis will do literally anything (including bar hop in Treviso) if it will bring Illario back home. Properly. AKA: Being a Crow is a nightmare sometimes and Illario commits the crime of decompressing in a 'frivolous' way. Lucanis has his back though.
rec notes: the way the shape of illario's damage is to clear to us without necessarily being clear to lucanis (whether it's because he can't see it or doesn't want to) is masterful, and when so much of their relationship both in canon and fic involves turmoil it's nice to see them just...love each other, even if it's difficult to show or say. this author is very good with characterization, and i also really enjoy Your Inexorable Company and Unseen Influence in this series, though as always, please be mindful of the warnings.
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Phantoms by @thewitchofelpis [T, rookanis, 700]
“It’s a nightmare, Spite. Lucanis is having a nightmare.”
rec notes: short and sweet, but i like how deftly it and evenly it covers all three characters' issues. i love the coziness of this author's style, so if you like this one, definitely check out the others.
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In Spite of You by @blazingquill [E, rookanis, 11.4k]
Lucanis lets himself be vulnerable. It takes a while. OR: Spite watches Lucanis’ slow breakdown over Rook. It lasts months.
rec notes: the pov/pronoun work in this one wrt to possession is extremely twisty and fun and refreshing, and the last line hits SO PERFECTLY. everything here feels so earned.
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Lucanis's Logbook, 6 by @flowersforthemachines [G, rookanis, 3.3k]
Lucanis’s journal kept throughout the time between Rook’s disappearance at Tearstone Island and the day she’s rescued from the Fade.
rec notes: this feels so well-integrated with canon, and the style perfectly matches the style of lucanis's actual logbooks from the game. having the fic itself use the actual look of the veilguard interface was such a wonderful touch and added immensely to this experience.
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Other Plans for the Evening by hollyvipe [M, rookanis, 5k]
Inspired by the Nick Thornborrow concept illustrations showing some very intriguing concepts they didn’t go with, like Rook and Lucanis in a lake in Treviso?! In this reimagining of a world where we got the lake scene, our lovers have already done the ‘commit to a relationship cutscene’ but Rook is still a bit unsure where that leaves them. Sure, he made her a dessert and remembered her drink… but are they actually together? And something I think a bit more exciting happens after his ‘I’ve got other plans for the evening’ tease.
rec notes: this one ties a lot of "missing scenes" together in a way that is satisfying, and it also scratches the itch for a romantic moment here than was in the game. i really enjoy the mood of this one!
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feed me promises, keep my heart well by @alltears [G, rookanis, 3.9k]
a month after thwarting the gods, rook falls back into the fade. sort of.
rec notes: rook walking through the mansion at night is just creepy enough to be that extra little bit unsettling even though we know what's up, and lucanis and spite's solution to the problem is very clever. i also really enjoyed their dialogue with each other: it's tetchy without being openly hostile, and funny without breaking the more serious mood.
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Tomorrow We Die by @thecaryatid [E, rookanis, 2.8k]
Rook has a breakdown. The obligatory romance scene rewrite.
rec notes: this fic has the most interest after-affect of the fade prison i've come across. it's really compelling, sad, and also just a little spooky. i really enjoyed the comparison between solas and spite as entities inside rook and lucanis's heads.
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Volcanic by kaienne_pepper [E, rookanis, 6.1k]
Caldera de Riva, elder sister to the Fifth Talon currently going by "Rook", is no stranger to using unconventional means of distributing poisons. Unfortunately, on this minor of contracts, her mark doesn't mind distributing substances non-consensually either. One glass of wine later and two little Crows find themselves in a very compromising situation. Or: Lucanis and Rook both end up drugged during a contract and work each other through the effects.
rec notes: this is one of the first rookanis fics i ever read, and though i'm not normally a sex pollen girlie, i really enjoyed the vulnerability in this one and how in-character it was.
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Say The Desires That Are Your Deepest by @purplesauris [E, rookanis, 12.4k]
Lucanis finally allows himself to indulge in a late morning now that the world has ceased trying to fall apart around them.
rec notes: pegging fic of all time (even though there is technically no pegging) and one of my favorites. the way lucanis and rook navigate the New Sex Thing is really good, and the smut itself is both hot and incredibly intimate. it's nice to see lucanis still struggling with spite now and then even after the events of the game are over, it paints a more realistic picture, and i love the way they talk with one another when things are more settled, the spite voice is great.
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A Mirror to the Void by @wishforhome [E, rookanis, 1.9k]
Lucanis is not inexperienced with sex, but it's been more than a year since anyone has touched him. Since he's touched himself. He's worried about Spite, but Rook is asleep next to him and her presence makes him feel safe enough to try.
rec notes: sexuality is such a fun and complicated thing to navigate when there's a literal demon up inside you, and i thought this was a good portrayal of it.
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Just Wanna Hold You by whoframedjessicarabbit [E, rookanis, 400]
Lucanis is too stressed to get it up, and is surprised when he receives love and affection.
rec notes: short and sweet, but the tag #hold dick gentle like a hamburger was too compelling not to click on, and it does not disappoint if you're a fan of broken dick fics.
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Of Kindling Expectation by @nelsynoo [G, rookanis, 2.4k]
The Lighthouse is awake again after centuries of lying dormant. With a new host of inhabitants, the Lighthouse tries to figure out what they need and re-shape itself accordingly. Rook and Lucanis might not realise it yet - but they need each other.
rec notes: i've never read anything quite like this - it's from the lighthouse's pov, which is such an interesting and creative idea. the pov makes me feel as cozy as if i were an inhabitant of the lighthouse itself.
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thank you for reading the reclist, and hope you enjoy <3
nona the ninth will always be one of the most beautiful and most painful books in the world to me because. it is about love in its every possible form. it's about the love you have for someone who takes care of you and the love you have for those you care for. it's about loving someone after seeing all their rough edges and ugly sides and choosing to love someone even if it hurts and even if you know it might doom you. it's about not choosing to love someone, but loving them anyway because sometimes it's not up to you to choose. it's about loving the dogs on the street and the stranger you met at the park and the child that never speaks to anyone in class. it's about loving the creases in someone's face when they laugh and the way their hips sway and how they can't stand still. it's about your love for the sea and the pang of grief at the tought that it is being poisoned. it's about the immense pain that comes with the loss of someone you loved. it's about bearing that loss, it's about letting that cut burn because its presence means that there was love. and that cannot be taken away. you have loved, you have been loved, and you always will. and the fact that it hurts and it ends doesn't erase the fact that at the end of the day, it's always love at the core of it all. in its every form and expression, by turning into rage, or kindness, or utterly destructive force, it all starts and ends in love. you can't remove that. you can't take loved away.
not aromantic but I believe in their beliefs.
"there's no platonic explanation for this" try harder bucko
Average leverage episode
Victim: please mr. Leverage. They bought my orphanage and they’re going to sell all the orphans I need you to stop them
Nate “Leverage” Leverage: I think we can get you some… leverage
Sophie: I’m going to start a bullshit argument now
Nate: please dont
Sophie: it’s going to last the whole episode
Nate: 🙄women (laughtrack)
Hardison: alright this is our mark Mr. Monopoly. He owns 16 weapons companies and took in 100000 billion million dollars last year. He just got into the orphan business and on the weekends he plays puppy golf.
Parker: whats puppy golf
Hardison: it’s like golf but you use puppies
Elliot: I’ve seen it. (snifffs deeply) not fun
Hardison: this guys ruthless. we’re going to be exploiting his one weakness. He really likes having a lot of money
Sophie: how?
Nate: we go steal an abstract concept
*they steal an abstract concept*
The mark: hello. I was impressed by your ownership of an abstract concept
Sophie: we’ll give you 50 trillion dollars for the orphanage
Mark: Zamn!!!
Sophie: 😏 we got him
*1 day later*
Sophie: here’s the 50 trillion dollars (holds up briefcase full of crimes)
The mark: I don’t want your money any more. I have a new plan. I’m goijng to dress all the orphans in hot dog costumes and start a theme park
Sophie: 😦
Elliot: we’re blown
Nate: Sophie throw the briefcase 💼 in the lake
Mark: whoa!! Thats wet money
Sophie: I can give you 5000 more orphans. Meet me at this unmarked warehouse in 6 hours
Mark: awooga
Hardison: Nate do you have a plan?
Nate: not yet
*Fade to black*
Nate: alright the marks on his way. Hardison what’s your 20
Hardison: I need at least 30 minutes to finish this Lego Taj Mahal
Nate: ok I’ll stall
Nate (playing bit character): I cooka da pizza!! Ohhhh (drops full pan of sauce on the marks head instantly killing him) mamma Mia (walks into the sea)
Parker: guys we have a problem
*6 Bad Men materialize out of thin air*
Elliot: 😒I got this 👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊🤛🤜🤛🤜✊🩼✊🦶🦵✊🤛🚪🦶✊🦵🤌✊🦶👊🦵✊✊👊🎷👊👊👊
*the Bad Men disintegrate*
Elliot: shit hes here (dives into a trash can)
*the mark reaches the building. There are orphans waving at him from the windows*
Mark: ok I’m here to take the orphans
The police: SIR YOURE COMING WITH US
Mark: what?? This is a completely legal orphan deal
Police: theres no orphans here
*police man grabs an orphan. Hes flat. Flashback to Hardison setting up 5000 cardboard orphan cutouts*
Mark: but what are you arresting me for??
Police man: sir you filled all of city hall with gravy
*flashback to Nate filling city hall with gravy while wearing a T-shirt that says “Im bad businessman”*
Mark: you can’t do this to me!!
Police: (arrests him)
Nate: heh. You could say he got... Leveraged
Parker: i have autism
Everyone: oh my god Parker shut up
Y'all be like "be a freaky queer" and then have a problem with polyamory, premarital Sex and being attracted to gnc Trans people 😭
Veilguard in many ways is reductive while being the most directly moralizing of the Dragon Age games, which makes it impossible to play a character with politics, ideas, or morals different from those the game espouses.
The game continuously tries to convince the player that these options do exist, hints at the fact that you will need to make sacrifices in order to win the war against the Evanuris, and ultimately, to stop Solas. But it fails to actually deliver on any of those promises by providing only three major choices, and a handful of minor choices. Not to mention that most of the dialogue options won't allow you to be authoritarian with a sole focus on defeating the Evanuris.
In my mind our three major decisions are:
The City you choose to send other people to defend, resulting in it being Blighted and captured by the villains already vying for power.
The person you choose to lead the other group when attempting to kill Ghilan'nain.
Whether to provide Solas closure & redemption, trick him, or fight him.
My issue with the first decision is that it does not go far enough. In a game that is ostensibly about hard choices, the fact both cities come out of it still standing, even if one survives in very bad shape and under totalitarian rule, doesn't make sense to me. The city you help should barely survive thanks to your presence, and the one you leave others to defend should be blighted and uninhabitable.
Additionally, you should be able to give a reason to your companions, in game, as to why you chose one city and not the other. For example, my Grey Warden Rook chose to help Treviso because they knew Minrathous' history with Blights and thought they might be able to handle it without them. But there are other Rooks who will save Minrathous because they hate The Crows. There are Rooks who will flip a coin and follow its lead. There are Rooks who think Minrathous does not deserve to be saved.
But this game does not, textually, allow Rook that kind of anger. It does allow Rook to say anything at all about the choice, other than that they had to make it, and that they are sorry. The game tells us we must feel bad for not being able to save everyone. But why?
Part of my issue with the second choice lies with Lucanis, and the fact the game does not allow you to dismiss any of your companions. He fails to strike when it counts most, and Rook and the whole team seem understanding if frustrated by it, but are willing to give him a second chance. But why? Because it is the morally right thing to do? Because he needs a shot at redemption?
Those are not good enough reasons for my Rook. But the game does not allow Rook to dismiss him after a catastrophic failure. It insists he remain, despite it being more than reasonable to kick out the guy who had one shot and missed.
Which relates to my real gripe with this choice: you should be able to choose any of your companions to lead the group, resulting in any of their deaths. And they should be the one to strike the final blow, not Lucanis, unless he is the person that is chosen. This, to me, is far more narratively satisfying, and puts the choice back into Rook and the player's hand.
The final decision is the one I feel is the most well done, but I still have issues with it.
The Inquisitor, romanced or not, and Morrigan, should be there in all endings. Morrigan should always help you defeat Solas, and the Inquisitor, based upon decisions they made in the prior game and not solely relying on whether or not they romanced him, should either fight with or against you. If they meet that criteria in the ending where you trick Solas, they should be the final boss. Additionally, the Inquisitor should get to choose whether or not to go with Solas if they have high enough friendship or romance in the redeemed ending.
My frustrations with Veilguard overall are the way it tells you it is doing something, without ever showing you, the severe limitations it imposes on actually roleplaying, and the way it glosses over previously established cultural issues and flaws within its narrative. It reduces the Venatori and Antaam to shells of their former nuanced selves. References to slavery within Tevinter culture are almost entirely removed. The Crows have morphed into an illusion to an Italian Mafia rather than a brutal group of spies who take part in child slavery and kill those who do not live up to their expectations. I cannot be a dalish elf, or a city elf, in a way that at all reflects the culturally distinct upbringings those two groups have. I cannot make Rook into anything more than they already are. I cannot make a Rook that falls outside of what the game deems as acceptable.
This game sanitizes the aspects of Dragon Age that were most interesting to me personally, trying to tie up all lore questions in a nice little bow, in aim to appeal to the widest audience possible. But it fails to do that, because in doing so, it lost the identity that makes it appealing.
I have said this before, and I will say it again: All art is inherently political because art is both a reflection of and the means by which culture is facilitated. And the illusion of choice in this game, the illusion that you can make hard decisions or play a character that's antagonistic or authoritarian, feels very inline with what capitalism presents to those who live under it. The choices we are presented with are a facade. The representation we are given is surface level and largely unsatisfying. We must act, even in our fantasies, in a way that corporations deem acceptable. We must maintain the status quo.
Hawke family fleeing the Blight
I have some thoughts on my Hawke having to deal with another Blight and keeping her family safe again. But that's too long for this post, so I'm just gonna add it to my list of Dragon Age fics that I still need to finish...
not doomed by the narrative but saved by the narrative. yeah i know you'd rather die than keep suffering but the story doesn't actually care what you want. you have to keep going, even when it hurts. even being erased from existence won't stop you from being salvaged from the wreckage of un-being. get up. keep pushing. keep bleeding. keep living.
Talking shit about a certain crime boss!
an extremely self-indulgent comic set a little post-Veilguard, ft. a new baby wyvern for Lucanis <3
A crow suddenly finds out he's appreciated not only for seduction and murder
loveee reading multiple fics by the same author and seeing little nods and references among them like yes! this is a multiverse to me!!!! i giggle and squeal everytime i catch a reference!!!!!!!!
Blue Hawke calls it their diary
Red Hawke calls it, flatly, a journal
Purple Hawke calls it A Detailed Accounting of the Rigorous and Remarkable Struggles Faced by One Fereldan Refugee in the Singularly Capricious City of Kirkwall, as Experienced by the Illustrious Author
✨️This Group Is Full Of Weirdos!✨️
When I started this Oracle Cards project in January, I wanted to create 10 cards with all of the companions and origin characters (all of the cards have been updated since I first showed them!).
Well, mission completed, but I'm not ready to say goodbye to this series, and I am going to create 4 more cards with my(and probably your) favorite NPCs.
"If you meant what you said Alistair, then swear on the divine. 'Tis not often you get to be in her presence" "I- It's- You never stopped being mean, do you?"
there’s going to be a difference sometimes between the stories that you find masterfully crafted and the stories that mean a lot to you personally and those two things don’t have to overlap completely or even at all to make that story worthwhile
and that’s a good thing to remember as a reader/viewer/etc but also as a writer because even if whatever you ultimately write is full of mistakes, someone out there is gonna take it so to heart that it fundamentally changes them as a person. and that is. Huge.
why are people pretending that sex is the only axis upon which some people willingly enjoy things that hurt/scare them
he’s a successful novelist he’s a criminal he’s the mayor he’s a father figure he’s a short king he bets on losing dogs he’s my best friend
Rook oversharing while helping Lucanis with cooking (so I can put more backstory details bc I can’t draw out his entire life)
I’m curious if anybody can guess who the mage he’s referring to is :>
Update: The mage reveal