@caitlincat-95 / caitlincat-95.tumblr.com
Commissioned from Scarlett O'Shee 💜
He looks so AMAZING!?
Just thought of one of the reasons I am disappointed in Spite and Lucanis. Why doesn't Spite take control of Lucanis during an emotional stressful time. We get it when Illario kills Zara sure. But nowhere else do I see Lucanis struggle against him. I saw it so much with Anders and Justice. And based on how Lucanis almost lost it in the wigmakers job and had to have Illario shake him out of it, Spite should be feeding off of Lucanis' struggling emotions. Lucanis should be having to struggle with holding himself back more. Or he should be having moments of spanning at people because of emotions. Like Caterina. Or Illario. Or davrin. It should have been more abrasive because of Spite adding into it. Or Spite should slipt through during those moments.
An analysis (and vent) on the poor writing of the whole romance situation. A long post for those that want to read. I need to get it out of my system because more than anything this ruined my first playthrough. I know this has been talked to bits but i was recently reminded of this and it ruined things for me again while playing.
NO NEVE HATE ALLOWED, don't come here with that home wrecker bullshit.
Alllll of this. While I do love Lucanis, I have had to make up.my own romance moments with him. Which is sad. And no not sex scene with him. I'm talking just a sweet moment of just holding his hand. Or sweet smiles at each other. This game gave me nothing
And I am so annoyed that they let all the potential that Lucanis had, go to waste. I wanted to be able to see his struggle with Spite more. Show me that he is a malicious demon, not just an annoyance to Lucanis. I wanted him to keep everyone at arms length and him to slowly have those barriers broken by spending time with the group and Rook. I think Illario should have been called out for his betrayal but the same time for Lucanis to be called out on how he treats his cousin. And I wanted to see Illario get a chance to express everything he has had to deal with that lead him to the point of betrayal. I wanted both of them to be able to START to reconcile, not it all magically go away but for them to slowly rebuild trust. And Illario and Lucanis together could have challenged Caterina and made Illario First Talon with Lucanis to support him. It would have broken the mold both of them have been forced into at such an young age. Lucanis would be free from Caterina's control and Illario would finally have the recognition he deserved.
Thank you for tagging me @paxvoik2 !
GENERAL:
FAVOURITE:
HAVE THEY:
ARE THEY:
FAMILY:
I tag.....anyone who wants to since I don't have anyone specific to tag hehe
Been too busy to do the other prompt, buuut I did have one picture done that fits today's prompt!!
Seventh Day of Illario Appreciation Week by @captastra :First Talon
Drew a family portrait of @paxvoik2 's Rook, Marcus, and Illario in his First Talon outfit and their son Matteo. I love them! Illario deserves his happy ending! ❤️
First Talon Illario Dellamorte, his husband Marcus Dellamorte and their son Matteo Dellamorte.
art by: @caitlincat-95 💜
I love them and probably one of my favorite pieces I have made lately
Mature content
Commissioned from @theredtrails 💜 Thank you again, I love them so much!
This post may contain content not suitable for all audiences.
As someone who is acepec, the whole demi Lucanis debacle just doesn't sit right with me. He has so many dialogues that just cut off suddenly, scenes that feel like they're missing (that missive in Act 2 where he talks about dealing with Spite once and for all that just became a completely different scene with Zara??) All the concept art for the romance that was never explored. The massive difference in relationship progression between Rookanis and Nevecanis in terms of both emotional and physical intimacy.
Lucanis' romance is so clearly incomplete even in a game where the romance arcs are sparse on the whole. His character without the romance feels incomplete as well - we get two or so big moments of characterisation and everything else is just the same scene about coffee repeated as infinitum.
I have no issue with a character being awkward and inexperienced, wanting to take things slow, not recognising flirtation or romantic cues, wanting to figure out their complicated situation before jumping into something. I am that person! It took 6 months after my partner and I acknowledged we had feelings for each other for us to start dating because I was not in the right place mentally to do so. Both of us are demi. Both of us have had very few previous experiences with romantic relationships. But that doesn't preclude a person from understanding or wanting emotional intimacy.
The Lucanis situation does not come across as 'he just doesn't have sexual attraction to Rook yet', it's just complete shutdown of conversation on all fronts (something he does not do with Neve, btw.) I too find flirting scary from people I don't know and agonised over it before my partner and I were together. This is not how he's written. His expressions do not reflect shock or awkwardness when Rook flirts, nor does his tone when he responds. Do you know when he does do this? With Neve right at the start of their banter. And he overcomes that shyness quickly. He just does not acknowledge Rook speaking at all the same way any video game character does when their conversation tree is bugged, the game decided to cut some response dialogue and just transitioned directly into the neutral follow-up line. He isn't rejecting emotional intimacy because of Spite and the Ossuary prison because during the ambient dialogue it's clear he's sharing that emotional intimacy with Neve waaaaay before Rook helps him.
I just want more of his writing. Where is he and his character in this story? He's so incredibly inaccessible to us. And I know people will say that characters do not have to be emotionally available to the player (which is true! A great example of this working well is Vivienne, who is warm but not directly open if befriended.) But that should then be a consistent character trait, and it's clearly not. In fact, Lucanis is incredibly declarative about his feelings for Rook romanced or not once you hit Act 3, he's just completely missing in Act 2. Which to me is a flaw in the game's structure. And that 'missing-ness' is being read as demisexuality instead of 'hey this character's writing is actually incomplete and needs restructuring and additional scenes.' Those additional scenes could very much be as awkward and non-romantic in tone as you please, but we needed more of them. Have Lucanis visit Treviso more often to do things other than drink coffee. Have him visit other locations as well! Teach Rook how to cook a local dish, the gondola fight we saw in the concept art. Deciding after the game's poor reception that a character who is clearly only 3/4s of a character, who is lacking in so much characterisation, is the demi character? That feels bad man. Demi characters should be written with just as much care and attention, should get to express themselves in as wide a variety of circumstances, show us more of themselves and how they interact with the world. The reality is that Lucanis has the weakest romance arc in the game, and posthumously attributing that to demisexuality feels like an indictment of acespec people's ability to read the room and express emotional intimacy rather than a true attempt at representing us.
Just as Cullen's heterosexuality and preference for elves and humans is in fact a game development constraint rather than a character writing decision, and Solas' heterosexuality was a result of running out of dev time to record voice lines and re-rig cutscenes, I think we should be able to acknowledge that this version of Lucanis is not a good representation of his character in multiple ways. And that is due primarily to the development cycle rather than writerly intention.
We've had beautiful slowburn romances that were also deeply affected by character trauma throughout the Bioware series. Lucanis' is (in its present state) not one of them. Leliana, Cullen, even Alistair. I think using demisexuality or even slowburn as an 'excuse' for Lucanis' incomplete character isn't a useful way to think about his writing.
Note: This post is purely about quality of writing wrt emotional intimacy. I have zero issue with virgin Lucanis and think that fits his wider writing. I also don't wish Lucanis to be someone he's not - Zevran or Davrin or some other flirty/dommy archetype. I just don't like the casual conflation of awkwardness and inexperience with asexuality. These things do go together but also I don't think we should use demisexuality as a bandaid for poor writing because it reflects poorly on our understanding of ourselves and the community.
