#cathedralposting

[antivancathedral]

@teyrnacousland what do you mean "according to mary kirby" I thought I was pulling that out of my ass 😭😭😭 Do you have the tweet by any chance? I never knew she talked about this!

(continues to be insane) I can’t get over the fact that Spite asks for help.

Spite is often treated childishly by several characters—Taash, for example, and even Lucanis depending on your dialogue choices—but I actually…don’t think Spite is all that childish. He’s been put into a situation he’s never experienced before, in a place where reality doesn’t work like it should, and been put through torture that he feels doubly through Lucanis on top of it all. Any person would through a “tantrum” under these circumstances. Spite’s behavior is reasonable.

He never tries to hurt Lucanis’s companions, not once. He only ever tries to leave, as Lucanis promised him he would be able to. Even Lucanis, he only hurts once outside of the Ossuary, when he must have felt unbelievably confused. Calivan is dead and Lucanis has gone home, has allies, and yet to Spite, he simply refuses to leave the Ossuary. And still, he asks. He could wrestle control from Lucanis, but instead he asks (or demands) to talk to Rook. And all he wants to say is that he wants to be free.

All and all, Lucanis does not reach out to anyone to ask for help with his depression or PSTD. Spite is his problem, he says, and says often. His burden. He never intended to let anyone in, even though he admits that he doesn’t know how to start healing. He asks for Rook’s help against Zara, against Illario, but no one is privy to his mental and emotional struggles.

Spite, on the other hand, asks immediately. Or he wants to ask. And finally, when Lucanis is in the middle of a spiral, it's Spite that says "Help us." Not demanding, just asking. Pleading. And still only to Rook. While I think at first, Spite wants Rook specifically because he knows Lucanis will listen, I think that has grown into something more by the time Inner Demons comes around.

"Help us," he says. Not just 'make him listen' or 'help Lucanis'. Us.

This is all to say I think that while Spite may not understand or feel romance (yet) he most certainly feels love. He loves Lucanis, whose image he takes ("They wouldn't dare, Lucanis is mine.") and he loves Rook ("Rook is my favorite." "Smells like...Rook." "Help us." The WINGS.) And that's all trust is, isn't it? A kind of love? Showing vulnerability to someone close to you?

When Spite is finally allowed to communicate, he shows plenty of maturity. He gives Lucanis space, he asks Emmrich to teach him fire, he's willing to try new things, and he loves.

Determination is a kind of love too, when you think about it.

[ninawolv3rina]

Anyways, I'll stop cathedralposting now

[antivancathedral]

My big secret is that I thought that your lover would be the one Solas tricks you into thinking is dead after Ghilan'nain is killed and when I found out it's Lucanis no matter what, that Rook screams and runs to Lucanis no matter what, I lost my damn mind and I've been riding that high ever since.

Let me be clear in that I think Rook loves all their companions deeply. Let me also be clear in that I am very biased. But there's something so raw in that moment, after Rook shouted for Neve/Bellara before Elgar'nan stole them away, after Rook shouted for Harding/Davrin after Ghilan'nain kills them.

Rook has lost two companions already, snatched from him in a blink and irretrievable. No bodies to bury or burn. They are completely lost. And there is something so raw and aching in the fact that it's Lucanis that Rook can run to. Lucanis's body they can touch, whose coldness they can feel, whose stillness.

I imagine that is when it all really felt terribly real, that Rook had lost people and wasn't getting them back. This is the moment where the price of victory sinks in as deep as a blade. It's Lucanis whose "death" drives that point home, Lucanis who briefly shifts into Varric to remind Rook about the loss that started it all.

Since I romanced Lucanis first, I assumed that the game would replace him with whoever you'd committed to. But to see that it's him no matter what, that the final resounding crash and culmination of all Rook's losses thus far ends with Lucanis?

Solas says "Did you think you'd win the day without some painful sacrifice?" while Rook gazes down at Lucanis. My god, there is so much love in that. I can't talk about the tender look on Lucanis's face when he ran to Rook when Ghilan'nain dropped them or I'll start biting my computer but my fucking god, there is so much love between them.

[antivancathedral]

I can't stop thinking about when you find the Echo's well in the crossroads after you seal it in the Wetlands, and Spite remarks that it smells like Rook.

I'm haunted by the implications of this. This is an intelligent Despair demon that ruined an entire family by offering them hope and safety from the Blight and then snatching it away. It offered them salvation. For it to offer Rook to Spite, for Rook to be the best or even the only out that Spite can see...

Regardless of whether you romance Lucanis, and regardless of whether you believe Spite is or isn't a part of their relationship, this to me is yet more proof that Spite and Lucanis both love Rook very much. I haven't played a Minrathous route, so I can't speak on that much, but if you save Treviso it just seems so clear that Lucanis and Spite both come to depend heavily on Rook. For Rook to be the embodiment of hope for Spite and safety/comfort for Lucanis...

Idk. This is the stuff ships are made of or whatever the hell. I'm going crazy thinking about this tiny little interaction that's so easy to miss.

EDIT: GOD. "You opens doors, you don't close them" YEAH. OKAY.

[antivancathedral]

Y'all ever think about how much more clearly Spite speaks when in Lucanis's mindscape in comparison to having to take Lucanis over to speak. Short, punctuated words with little emotional inflection aside from anger and demands with Lucanis's voice vs. Full or nearly full sentences with sarcasm, dry impatience, calm description of emotion within the mindscape.

And only with Rook. When he faces the guards, the disjointedness returns, slowly but surely. Worse the further into Lucanis's mind you travel, worse when he faces Lucanis. A spirit learning to speak in our world is difficult, we know that...but less so when he's talking to Rook, which is what he's asked for since the beginning. It's so subtle but so important.

I imagine it feels similar to learning a second language, where you have a perfect imagining of what you WANT to say but can't articulate it in a way the person you're speaking to understands. And I think the fact that he speaks most clearly to Rook, who is one of the few people who seems to want to understand him, even above Lucanis for a certain length of time....

I could write a thesis.

[antivancathedral]

Crazy about the idea that Rook can tell who's touching them. Lucanis with his lithe and dexterous hands, fingers caught up in the curves and contours of Rook's body, worshipful and reverent, and Spite with his rough and clumsy grabbing, the greedy indentions of his jealous grip, like a starving dog who fears his food stolen.

[antivancathedral]

Surprise t'was I that asked the question! Major spoilers below.

I've been thinking on it again since I got the scene again for my second go around. It's kind of funny thinking about the near kiss from Spite's point of view. Thinking Lucanis would be pleased at having hurt or disappointed Rook is silly to a human person, sure, but for a demon who has spent the majority of his time on the mortal plane wanting revenge against his torturers?

I wish badly we could've seen the aftermath of that scene. This I think would've been Spite's first real clear indication of the categories Lucanis puts people into (that is, "family, enemies, or contracts"). Did Lucanis have to explain to him exactly which people fit into the first category? How did he frame it? Would he have had to say that the Venatori wouldn't want him to have anyone else at his side for Spite to get it? Or did he say that having Rook would make him happy, and that something he couldn't explain was denying him what he wanted?

I don't personally subscribe to the idea that the wings in the final romance scene was all Lucanis when he's denied having control of it before. I want to know how the progression from Spite's confusion at turning away from a kiss turned to shielding Rook's body after the Fade entrapment. I want to know about the progression from Spite's confusion to the explicit trust he showed Rook by pulling them into Lucanis's mind, to Rook being Spite's favorite.

What about just after Solas seals Rook away? Did Spite feel like something he considered his, the way Lucanis is his, got taken away from him? His favorite? When Lucanis calls for Rook as the gang pulls them out of the fade, is the lurch of his heart only his own?

I wish so much we could've seen more emotional displays from all the companions but especially something from Spite. I've said so before but I don't think Spirits can't feel things outside of their scope of emotion because it's just impossible for different kinds of emotions to not overlap and intersect, and I would've given anything to see Spite actually learn to recognize what Lucanis felt for Rook, and maybe even come to understand or even empathize with it.

[antivancathedral]

ohhh I'm going to throw up y'all ever think about how Rook found Spite at the very outter rooms of Lucanis's mental Ossuary and how Spite complained "I can't get him out" and more importantly "I can't get through!"

Does that mean that in his eyes he got all the way to the edge of his prison and turned around to find Lucanis halfway cut off from him for the first time? He can hear Lucanis's voice, talk to him, but he can't get to him. For Lucanis that is a mental sensation but for Spite, his physical location and mental state are one and the same.

It's no wonder Spite threw such a tantrum. He must've felt so abandoned, not just because Lucanis didn't keep their deal but because he literally couldn't reach him.

[antivancathedral]

My Lucanis romancer, Adrian "Rook" Mercar

[antivancathedral]

Ohh Rook I am obsessed with you....this scene really hits different when you're romancing Lucanis

[antivancathedral]

Height difference <3

[antivancathedral]

I really appreciate the attention on my ideas! But it's a little discouraging as a fellow writer to see people go "thanks for the fic idea" in the tags in my posts when these are ideas I also plan on writing. Yes, I don't own these concepts, but I'd appreciate just a little politeness and asking if you can write it ^^

[antivancathedral]

(continues to be insane) I can’t get over the fact that Spite asks for help.

Spite is often treated childishly by several characters—Taash, for example, and even Lucanis depending on your dialogue choices—but I actually…don’t think Spite is all that childish. He’s been put into a situation he’s never experienced before, in a place where reality doesn’t work like it should, and been put through torture that he feels doubly through Lucanis on top of it all. Any person would through a “tantrum” under these circumstances. Spite’s behavior is reasonable.

He never tries to hurt Lucanis’s companions, not once. He only ever tries to leave, as Lucanis promised him he would be able to. Even Lucanis, he only hurts once outside of the Ossuary, when he must have felt unbelievably confused. Calivan is dead and Lucanis has gone home, has allies, and yet to Spite, he simply refuses to leave the Ossuary. And still, he asks. He could wrestle control from Lucanis, but instead he asks (or demands) to talk to Rook. And all he wants to say is that he wants to be free.

All and all, Lucanis does not reach out to anyone to ask for help with his depression or PSTD. Spite is his problem, he says, and says often. His burden. He never intended to let anyone in, even though he admits that he doesn’t know how to start healing. He asks for Rook’s help against Zara, against Illario, but no one is privy to his mental and emotional struggles.

Spite, on the other hand, asks immediately. Or he wants to ask. And finally, when Lucanis is in the middle of a spiral, it's Spite that says "Help us." Not demanding, just asking. Pleading. And still only to Rook. While I think at first, Spite wants Rook specifically because he knows Lucanis will listen, I think that has grown into something more by the time Inner Demons comes around.

"Help us," he says. Not just 'make him listen' or 'help Lucanis'. Us.

This is all to say I think that while Spite may not understand or feel romance (yet) he most certainly feels love. He loves Lucanis, whose image he takes ("They wouldn't dare, Lucanis is mine.") and he loves Rook ("Rook is my favorite." "Smells like...Rook." "Help us." The WINGS.) And that's all trust is, isn't it? A kind of love? Showing vulnerability to someone close to you?

When Spite is finally allowed to communicate, he shows plenty of maturity. He gives Lucanis space, he asks Emmrich to teach him fire, he's willing to try new things, and he loves.

Determination is a kind of love too, when you think about it.

[earthfire-75]

I think about this a lot, actually

Y'all ever think about how much more clearly Spite speaks when in Lucanis's mindscape in comparison to having to take Lucanis over to speak. Short, punctuated words with little emotional inflection aside from anger and demands with Lucanis's vs. Full or nearly full sentences with sarcasm, dry impatience, calm description of emotion within the mindscape.

And only with Rook. When he faces the guards, the disjointedness returns, slowly but surely. Worse the further into Lucanis's mind you travel, worse when he faces Lucanis. A spirit learning to speak in our world is difficult, we know that...but less so when he's talking to Rook, which is what he's asked for since the beginning. It's so subtle but so important.

I imagine it feels similar to learning a second language, where you have a perfect imagining of what you WANT to say but can't articulate it in a way the person you're speaking to understands. And I think the fact that he speaks most clearly to Rook, who is one of the few people who seems to want to understand him, even above Lucanis for a certain length of time....

I could write a thesis.

[antivancathedral]

Oh a Spite centric exploration of Treviso would've been so wonderful, absolutely. I know the main reason choice based games don't do true polyamory (like BG3 for example) because that is a logistical nightmare, but this seemed like the perfect opportunity, what with Spite and Lucanis being trapped in the same body. A two-for-one seems very possible to write compared to trying to write involved relationships between potentially the entire cast. Much simpler, much more doable.

Every time someone from Rivain refers to Spite as Determination my heart breaks. Despite everything it's still you etc etc etc...

Surprise t'was I that asked the question! Major spoilers below.

I've been thinking on it again since I got the scene again for my second go around. It's kind of funny thinking about the near kiss from Spite's point of view. Thinking Lucanis would be pleased at having hurt or disappointed Rook is silly to a human person, sure, but for a demon who has spent the majority of his time on the mortal plane wanting revenge against his torturers?

I wish badly we could've seen the aftermath of that scene. This I think would've been Spite's first real clear indication of the categories Lucanis puts people into (that is, "family, enemies, or contracts"). Did Lucanis have to explain to him exactly which people fit into the first category? How did he frame it? Would he have had to say that the Venatori wouldn't want him to have anyone else at his side for Spite to get it? Or did he say that having Rook would make him happy, and that something he couldn't explain was denying him what he wanted?

I don't personally subscribe to the idea that the wings in the final romance scene was all Lucanis when he's denied having control of it before. I want to know how the progression from Spite's confusion at turning away from a kiss turned to shielding Rook's body after the Fade entrapment. I want to know about the progression from Spite's confusion to the explicit trust he showed Rook by pulling them into Lucanis's mind, to Rook being Spite's favorite.

What about just after Solas seals Rook away? Did Spite feel like something he considered his, the way Lucanis is his, got taken away from him? His favorite? When Lucanis calls for Rook as the gang pulls them out of the fade, is the lurch of his heart only his own?

I wish so much we could've seen more emotional displays from all the companions but especially something from Spite. I've said so before but I don't think Spirits can't feel things outside of their scope of emotion because it's just impossible for different kinds of emotions to not overlap and intersect, and I would've given anything to see Spite actually learn to recognize what Lucanis felt for Rook, and maybe even come to understand or even empathize with it.