#Emcanis?

[sucksinlosers]

[sucksinlosers]

Strength for the Rook tarot ask game? <3

people are asking me things okay STAY CALM we practiced for this okay be cool be cool- Thank you for the ask! <3 Strength: Who makes the first move? How is it received? Is this reflective of their relationship dynamic in general?

It was 100 percent Emeris, and it did not go well. She tries a line on Lucanis, as is her nature, and he's immediately put off by it a little bit. Doesn't actively turn her down but plays if off. She reminds him of Illario, in a way - there's an exuberance Em and his cousin have in common. A way with words that he envies a little bit. He's seen up close how confidently Illario wields his charisma, but more importantly, how little Illario's lines and flattery seem to mean. Lucanis ascribes the same lackadaisical attitude to Em, at first. Doesn't trust it, doesn't yet know if he can trust her. She did save him, and he does have a contract with her now, but that doesn't really tell him all that much about her as a person. The more the team spends time together, the more Lucanis interacts with Em, the more he sees she's not really like his cousin at all. It's not like she stops flirting with him, but it's not cheap lines anymore. It's more genuine than that: "I don't think you can buy something for everyone and then not get something, yourself. Here." or "Hey, cuervo, you need to get out the pantry. I made coffee." or "Look, I know it's a dumb feather, okay, but I saw it and I thought of you because Crows and- Harding it's not funny stop laughing!" There's even a whole period where she actually starts being worse at smooth talking whenever he's around. Actively. It's reflective of them in the sense that neither of them is what the other is used to dealing with, so they have to work that out. Once they grow closer together, Em does bring back the terrible pickup-lines, and Lucanis rolls his eyes at her every time - but not without just the smallest smile, because now, he knows she means it. Really knows she means it.

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has anyone thought of this before

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Writing Emcanis stuff for @shinylayatha (and also me) before she beats me up /affectionate

Does your Rook fall for their partner at first sight? If not, what moment made your Rook realize they're in love with them?

‘Love’ is a very contentious word in Em's lexicon at the start of Veilguard. She's a little flighty and experienced a lot of short, volatile one-night-stands at this point, so she's not predisposed to any love at first sight situations. That's not even taking into account that breaking Lucanis out of the Ossuary is not very… romantic. He's been trapped for a year, he's possessed, the place is falling apart at the seams - the last thing on her mind is to have a long, hard look at the Demon of Vyrantium and decide “yup, that one”.

It's not until sometime after they return to the Lighthouse from this trip that Em first starts to appreciate him for purely superficial reasons. Like, yeah. He's handsome, he's mysterious, he cooks. She starts flirting with him like she's flirted with everyone else, purely out of habit at first. And it's weird. She's never gotten just… no reaction before. She's had people be into her, she's had people be explicitly not into her, but she's never had nothing before.

That's where it starts, with that spark of interest. Em doesn't recognize that she's in love with Lucanis until he makes the hazelnut torte, but there's been a buildup of feelings until that point that she either doesn't recognize or doesn't (want to) acknowledge.

When does the partner realize when they're in love with Rook?

It's a contract and a debt at first, but Lucanis falls faster and harder than Em does. Maybe it's partially due to the proximity. He's been imprisoned, tortured, and abused for a year with nothing but Spite to sustain him; you'd think that would make him wary of others, but he's missed this. Missed people. And she did free him. She's remarkably okay about Spite, too - “I'm from Rivain,” she says, and she shrugs, and that's all there is to it.

He shuts down when she flirts with him at first. He shuts down when Neve does it, too. It doesn't stop her from flirting with him, but it's the moments in between. The way she listens to him wax poetically about coffee. The “you can't buy something for everyone and then go home empty-handed”. She can be patient with him, under all that bravado. Sweet. Genuinely funny.

And he is a hopeless romantic at heart.

He's not sure until she talks Spite down in the pantry, and he throws caution to the wind for a moment to give her a taste of her own medicine. ‘You walk a little close to the edge’, he tells her, but with that little touch to his chest, she sends him tumbling instead.

He was worried that was what it was. He thought he knew, but when it hits him, really hits him, not because Spite is bouncing off the walls of his mind but because he feels it in that moment… and she still doesn't walk away? It's terrifying. Overwhelmingly so.

And he leaves.

[sucksinlosers]

When your moot makes you a painting of your hyperobsession and hides it framed under your pillow and you SLEEP ON IT FOR A WHOLE NIGHT BECAUSE YOU'RE AN IDIOT and then you don't find it until morning but it's still great because LOOK!!! AT MY BABIES?!?!!!!

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More Emcanis stuff for @shinylayatha (if I say it enough I won't feel embarrassed about doing it for myself, too!) (Grouped these together because they made sense together in my head!)

How long does it take for them to officially get together? Did any of the other Lighthouse members have any suspicions beforehand?

A while. These are both people with emotional baggage up the whazoo, and they are both very… not good at dealing with them for their own, personal reasons.

I subscribe to the theory I've seen floating around here that Illario probably fucked with Lucanis a lot as they were growing up out of jealousy, and probably still does. Little jabs to make him insecure, get under his skin. “A kiss goodbye? How would you even know? Have you seen her, cousin? Woman like that, she's seen and heard it all. This is not like one of your little romance novels, Lucanis.”

Em, meanwhile, isn't used to attachments. There was no room to get attached when she was still enslaved, and, as a pirate, you don't stay in one place long enough to put your roots down. Dating someone in your crew makes them lose respect (If they see you with your legs spread and your ass in the air, right Isabela?), if they're not already trying to sleep with you just to get ahead or more easily stab you in the back.

That said, it'd be difficult for the team not to notice that something is up. Taash and Neve are among the first who have them figured out, maybe even before they do - before the near-kiss in the pantry, at any rate. Em and Lucanis just... kind of gravitate toward each other. At any rate, they dance around each other for the longest time. I don't think they consider themselves ‘together’ together until after the Prison of Regret, but by then the whole team has clocked that, yeah, these two are down bad for each other.

Who says "I love you" first? What is the other's reaction? Who thinks it first? 

Em wants to say it, before Tearstone, but Lucanis doesn't let her. They're both on edge, both nervous about the mission in front of them, nervous about their feelings and how those complicate things. Em tries writing her feelings out instead, but that doesn't go very well, either, and… well. Tearstone.

They don't wind up saying the actual words until before the final battle in Minrathous, and Lucanis says it. It's not a shock to Em at this point - these idiots have gone through a lot, and I… I like the idea that their exchanges of “I have you, don't I?” “You do.” are kind of ‘I love you's for them anyway. 

She does kiss him for good measure undoubtedly to the 'scandalized' amusement of Dorian and the Inquisitor close by, rests her forehead against his, and whispers it back against his lips. That's probably the first time they're this physically affectionate in public (discounting the hug they share when the Veilguard pulls Em out of the Fade).

Lucanis thinks it first, though. After the near-kiss, and then it's in a panic. But honestly, genuinely, after Inner Demons. Em has seen the worst parts of him, the things he fears most, and not only does she team up with Spite to help him, she takes his face in her hands and tells him it's okay. That she's not leaving. That this, all of this, is still a mess she wants to be in, because it's him.

[sucksinlosers]

I have figured out how to take ungodly amounts of screenshots of Em, it's over for you losers

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(Doing some prompts from a Rook Codex writing thing I found. This one's been sitting in my notes for a bit. This would be #16, a letter from Rook to their love interest that unlocks after Tearstone.)

a note found in the pantry, crumpled and torn, as if read and discarded multiple times:

Hey,

You wouldn't let me say it before we left, and I know it's bad luck and all that, but I just wanted this has never hap I need I lo

We're not gonna miss this time.

- M

[sucksinlosers]

i think i have fallen down my own emcanis rabbithole enough that i have smut headcanons now.

fine. this is fine. brb planning my deep roads expedition