#OR she's badgering them about getting married and giving her great grandbabies to carry on the dellamorte name

[cybershock24601]

For some reason whenever I start thinking about post canon Rookanis, I keep thinking about Crimson Peak and I think that's because there's some huge potential for major Gothic Horror going on here. One of the enduring traits of gothic fiction is that there's something wrong with the house (the supernatural element essentially, hauntings, ghosts, etc) because there's something wrong with the family and boy is there a whole hell of a lot wrong with the Dellamortes.

Rook makes for a fitting gothic heroine naively joining this really fucked up family and culture because every Rook other then a de Riva really doesn't know much about how the Crows really operate and has gotten a very skewed view into their world dealing with Teia and Viago acting as patriotic freedom fighter, and no Rook would really know the full extent of Lucanis' very messed up family dynamics because that man does not talk about his trauma, so Rook is walking into a nightmare blind. And that's just the political and family drama, imagine how much more interesting it could get with an element of the supernatural because magic, ghosts, and hauntings are all a thing in dragon age.

The Veil usually gets really thin in places where a lot of blood has been spilled and how many people do you think have died in the ancestral home of a house of assassins? How many members of the Dellamortes do you think died inside there as a result of Crow infighting and in particular Caterina's bid to remain First Talon? How much pain and suffering mark its halls from the generational trauma of the systematic physical, psychological, and emotional abuse required to turn children into trained killers? If there was anywhere perfectly primed for a haunting, its Villa Dellamorte.

And wouldn't an upset and angry spirit seeing how miserable this terrible place is making its two favorite people be a perfect way to stir up the ghosts haunting the halls? I just think it would be fun for Spite being the unwitting source of all the supernatural problems because he's so pissed about Lucanis and Rook continuing to make themselves miserable by trying to make living in Villa Dellamorte work and accidentally bringing the literal ghosts of Dellamorte past to life

Anyways, I want to make a Caterina to face all that she lost holding onto a title that is going to end up dying with her because Lucanis was never going to be who she wanted him to be and made Illario so like her he ruined any chance he had to take her place as First Talon. I want Caterina to reckon with the literal ghosts of her past and realize everything she did was meaningless in the end. That she lost and ruined her family for nothing and all she has left are two broken boys that she destroyed herself and a crumbling, dying House.

I definitely want Lucanis to break the cycle of generational trauma and leave but I can't decide what to do with Illario because I do think that the guy deserves a win and should get a happy or at least bittersweet ending but the idea of Caterina being stuck with the disgraced grandson she ignored and will never be able to properly hold onto the title she fought so hard for and sacrificed so much for because he tried to make himself too much like her could also be really interesting because Illario mirrors Caterina enough that he might just remain stuck in the familial trauma cycle with her