#also fun fact i have been referring to the trio as The Rookery in my brain

[lavellane]

49-50 for the whole little rook gang? :eyes:

THANK U OWEN <3 <3 <3

49. What will always make them laugh?

honestly at the end of the day its always each other 🥺 no matter how bad they hurt one another or fall out or drift apart, all it takes is forcing them in a room for long enough until one of them (almost always evander but possibly deia) makes the dumbest, most ill timed, inappropriate joke and the whole squad loses their minds. its the great equalizer in the trio. even matthas - who is at his core a hater and a no-fun-allowed kind of guy - ultimately WILL be forced to laugh at some mean comment evander makes about some loser magister and it will make him ANGRY bc he does not WANT to be laughing at his dumbass brother. but he WILL laugh. every time. unfortunately during datv while rebuilding their relationship i do think a lot of the jokes are all at the expense of each other but hey, what are siblings for (she says, as an only child)

individually though - evander is VERY slapstick. LOVES openly laughing at people get hurt especially if theyre figures of authority. but anyone's fair game tbh. very mortifying to deal with him in public lol. matthas has an open love for deadpan/roast humour but a secret more passionate love for puns and dad jokes. he would probably love minion memes also i fear. deia on the other hand gets theatrical. loves pranks a la sera. loves doing silly little characters and bits. she WILL commit to a bit until its dead in the ground and everyone else is uncomfortable but thankfully evander shares this same obnoxious quality albiet to a lesser extent so they can and will get stuck into a good bit of banter for hours if you let them.

essentially these three are very dangerous in a room together under the correct silliness conditions.

50. Are they a mystery, or an open book?

ok kind of went on a yap-fest for this one but the short answer is: i think they are all mysteries to themselves and to each other, while also accusing one another of being shallow and surface-level.

on the surface, evander is an arrogant, impulsive, self-centered, traitorous punk who destroyed his family and ran off, leaving them to pick up the pieces. big solas fan and it shows lol. and i think even HE would agree with that assessment and would not want to (let alone try to) dig any deeper than that to figure out why he is the way he is. but there are reasons. he was the first adopted son of the family, an elven ex-slave who actually remembers those first few childhood years under those conditions. as an elf he doesnt have matthas's privilege of going through life diplomatically and cleanly. he struggled to BE the oldest sibling that his family needed him to be because socially he could barely advocate for his own rights, let alone the rights of his family. and so that fell to matthas. who resented him for it.

and matthas on the other hand, is frequently grim, uncharismatic, obsessive and a bit of a suck-up to anyone he views (and respects) as a superior (this doesnt apply to systemic powers like the magisterium obviously, hes firmly against them). and all of these are true!!! this is OUTWARDLY the exact type of person you would ascribe him to be if you spent 5 minutes in a room with him lol. seeing the reasons why is harder. the constant anxiety of being one-big-brother-down and having to fill that vacancy by assuming the position of eldest. still being stuck in his shadow even so. losing whatever autonomy he'd had by attempting to pick up the slack and lastly (and most importantly), feeling so devoid of purpose because of having to revolve your life around Family that you pick up the first cause that makes you feel Strong and Independent - ie zealously serving the inquisition. i dont think either brothers would pick up on those reasons when arguing with one another. at least not until the events of veilguard anyway.

as for deia, the middle-child-forced-to-be-eldest (they all have three younger siblings who are not fighters and arent involved in the story lol) she's probably the most mysterious of the 3. she adopted the best qualities of both her brothers growing up - evanders passion and good humor and boldness, matthas's selflessness, his responsibility and dedication - but ultimately her personality is hard for an outsider to pin down because its hard for HERSELF to pin down. how does one begin to seperate Rook from The Rookery. engaging with her kind of feels like shes perpetually trying to make up for her OWN absence of personality. or maybe its better described as her trying to force her own personality to submit as she struggles to adjust to the roles shes been forced into. she knows evander and matthas are capable of great and terrible things, so why not be THEM instead of being the riskier and far less capable Her? it makes her into a pushover, kind to the point of complacency. someone who capitulates to the people around her to avoid conflict. none of those things she WANTS to be, but by datv shes essentially the point in which the two mirrors of her brother meet. theres too much going on to seperate the yolk from the white yknow.