#i need people who understand illario more than i do to start doing something with that

[cybershock24601]

What do you guys think Illario's relationship with Spite would be like post canon? because Spite isn't going anywhere anytime soon and considering how Illario's dramatic ass crossed out Lucanis' name and wrote in DEMON, I feel like Illario would have a lot of Feelings about Spite.

For one Illario was the one to get Lucanis captured and turned into an abomination so there's probably some guilt there and then you know, Spite did try to straight up murder Illario that one time too so probably a lot of apprehension too.

I'm working on a vague outline for a post canon rookanis fic and there's this scene I can't let go of with Illario deciding he is going to talk to Lucanis and going to Lucanis office or whatever when he's supposed to be doing First Talon stuff and instead walking in on Rook and the fucking demon possessing his cousin playing Wicked Grace. Rook who isn't a fan of Illario but willing to make an effort because Lucanis still cares about him is like, "hey Lucanis is taking a nap right now so I'm teaching Spite how to play wicked grace. want me to deal you in?"

And, like, how are you supposed to respond to a situation like that? The demon that tried to kill you is puppeting your cousin's unconscious body around and his significant other is teaching it to play card games. I feel like most people would just turn right around and walk out of the room because what the fuck this situation is insane and I'm not dealing with it right now but this is Illario we're talking so he's going to make his opinion known even if he isn't entirely sure what that is right now.

As soon as Illario starts raising his voice though he's getting shushed by Rook and the demon because Lucanis is sleeping and Illairo better not wake him up while he's getting some well needed rest. At some point in the exchange Illario does in fact get roped into playing cards with a demon and has to sit through a whole bunch of Spite's needling because Spite is spiteful and also probably accidentally dropping some deep Lucanis lore that Illario had no idea he felt bc Spite isn't great about boundaries yet. Illario also gets to experience Spite's mini tantrums when he loses because I don't think Spite's got a particularly good poker face and is probably prone to grinning or gleefully cackling whenever he gets a good hand so Rook's been cleaning house at least until Illario starts cheating because he so seems like the sort of guy to cheat at low stakes card games because he can't stand to lose.

[alpaca-clouds]

I hate the fact that my brain put out a plot idea for a Veilguard longfic. (Obviously centering around Lucanis and Spite.)

Ironically it is based on the kinda conflict within the fandom/meta that results from how "clean" and "heroic" the Crows come across in comparison to past depictions of them. I mean, I said it myself: In Veilguard they feel a lot like Assassin's Creed. Like: "Sure, we are assassins and we kill for a living, but we only kill the really bad people! Pinky swear!" While in older material they were definitely also killing good people and also very much participating in human trafficking (especially of kids that would then get trained to be assassins).

I mean, heck, from Lucanis' stuff in The Wigmaker Job (the short story) we also know that he and Illario were abused by Caterina. He very much rationalized it as "But she only did it so we could survive", but it was still abuse.

However, something we definitely know also from that same short story about Lucanis is, that indeed, he does have somewhat higher moral standards than your average assassin. And we know that he specialized on killing mages.

Now, from what I now understand about the worldbuilding is the following: In most of the cultures outside of Tevinter, mages are not only very much controlled, but also met with a lot of distrust. Making it quite likely that a lot of mages who have a lot of political influence are Tevinter mages, which will probably also mean that most mages he ever got hired to kill were from Tevinter, and he killed probably a percentually higher amount of Venatori than the average Crow. (Correct me, if I am wrong in this regard, DA-nerds. This is how I am starting to understand the world.)

However, if you consider the end of his companion quest... (more under break, because spoilers.)

He becomes First Talon, which means that he will have to deal a lot more with Crow politics and what kind of contracts the Crows at large will take.

Here is the thing: Everyone is the hero of their own story. And given all we know, I have a good feeling of the general narratives that Lucanis lives by. He is the good guy, because he mainly kills the really bad mages, because he protects Treviso, and really, those that end up dead had it coming.

But again, in past stuff we absolutely know that the Crows took down good people, before they were paid for it.

My first reaction to the end of the game was: "Oh, I can make them worse, hehehe."

And I mainly just would like to explore with Lucanis having to deal with the... uhm... business model of a professional groups of assassins being pretty much: "We gonna kill anyone we get paid to kill."

And I generally like the idea of a character having to adjust their personal narratives bit by bit, because it is one of the hardest things for humans to do.

But also... I have a long list of longfics I wanna write - and I would need to do so much research.