#oc: enda de riva

[zieroses]

“You might wanna try…enasalin.”

[zieroses]

For fellow lovers of Emmrook and fellow purveyors of angst, allow me to submit:

A world in which Rook would never deny Emmrich his lifelong dream of lichdom, but also secretly knows it spells the end of them. Because things are going to be different no matter the reassurances; because Rook knows that they’ll never truly feel Emmrich’s skin again; because Emmrich said that flowers may lose their bloom for him, and what if all the ephemeral things of mortality lose their bloom for an undead lord? And Emmrich says he wants to be of service, wants to protect, but Rook has a sick feeling in their stomach that this is more about his fear of dying, and isn’t it so much worse to watch the ones you love die rather than dying yourself? And isn’t it so much worse even than that, to watch the ones you love become something unfamiliar, something you can no longer touch?

A world where Rook says, I can’t help you with this, I can’t make this choice for you - but whatever you choose, I’m here. Even if not in the same way as before. Even if it can never be the same as before, and it kills them. They’ll be there on the other side, brokenhearted and alone.

[zieroses]

Emmrich has the patience of a saint.

[zieroses]

Emmrich has the patience of a saint, part two.

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva

replay // sea of blood

thoughts and notes -

- I love being a crow and having a brief snark exchange with Viago. “Hello, Viago. And it’s complicated.” And Teia’s remark that Viago is happy were home, and complains more when we’re not there. The Rook/Viago dynamic is so good

- “You play the alluring hero” is this you flirting with me Illario because you’re at a severe disadvantage compared to lucanis, Viago and teia

- “how do we get in?” “You’ll see” except we really don’t see lol why even include that clip

- I like this mission overall though i do feel like by the end of his questline we still don’t really know what Zara was doing, how, or why (in terms of the demon possessions, not working with Illario). I’m sort of guessing from her appearance in the Wigmaker short story that this is just her weird passion and she just so happens to be doing it in service to the Venatori, but I don’t think it’s ever explained how, considering the how is questioned (aren’t abominations mages, etc?)

- Timed conversation afterward- “Did Viago ever consult you before sending you on a contract?” “Viago would barely tell me what the job was beforehand.” Every mention of the semi-affectionate semi-contentious relationship between Rook and Viago brings me joy. You just know Rook was an exceptional talent who also gave Viago capital-P Problems at every turn

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva

replay // house of the dead

thoughts and notes -

skipped ahead a few quests in my backlog of screenshots because I love this quest so much. favorite things:

1) Rook and Emmrich literally just standing together (i love them your honor)

2) every instance in the game of a companion throwing their arm out to protect Rook - they all love Rook, Rook is their home, they want to protect Rook as much as he protects them, just saying

3) ms Johanna Hezenkoss i love you and your mean attitude and your salute, and your horrible half undead eyes

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva // prison of regret

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva // the eve before we face a god p.1

[zieroses]

“…okay :c”

[zieroses]

some random venatori having a parasocial crush on the guy killing and stopping venatori operations left and right is literally the funniest thing that could happen

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva // the siege of weisshaupt

[zieroses]

So BioWare decided to seed Elgar’nan’s ability to do this behind a specific bit of banter you may not even see. Kinda crazy BioWare, because when he did this in my first playthrough it really seemed like it came out of nowhere. Like, um, he can just do that??

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva

replay // into the crossroads

- Bellara fixing the Vi’Revas is such a cute scene. Everyone exchanging glances, especially neve and Rook looking nervous/concerned. Bellara’s pride when she figures it out.

the labs below (no screenshots)

- Memory of the rebels infiltration into ghil’s blight lab

- I like this look at what ghil used to look like

- It’s interesting that the party’s take on this is not that Solas couldn’t save his agent, but that he wouldn’t; that her “reward” is to die in service to him when she didn’t have to. I think it would have had more depth or unnerving-ness if they’d acknowledged not only that solas seemed rattled but that the blight seemed beyond his power, rather than assumed it was a failure on his part

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva

replay // shadows of arlathan + in entropy’s grasp

thoughts and notes -

shadows of arlathan

- “Solas can speak with people in their dreams, even kill them” he what? Since when can he kill them? What lore did i miss?

- They were evil gods who enslaved their people - how does Harding know these things? Lol is this stuff hidden in codex entries i didn’t read closely enough? Stuff Harding and Varric learned over the last 9 years? If so, how/why were they learning these things in their search for Solas when, in theory, the Evanuris being a danger was not on their radar?

in entropy’s grasp

- Upon re reading tevinter nights, strife is a completely different character. He was supposed to be chatty, smiley, and sarcastic, and notably did NOT have facial tattoos/vallaslin. Very strange, I wonder if this version of strife was not written by Patrick weekes. He’s also very monotone - no shade to the VA, but it was alarming to see the first less-expressive cutscene also paired with an inexpressive character. Gave me the worry that quality was going to go downhill fast after the introductory sequence to the game, but luckily that wasn’t the case.

- (Re: cutscenes - bioware games in general have 3 levels of cutscene from my observation. The capital-C Cutscene, the lowercase-c cutscene, and then the convo-cutscene, the first being the most detailed and cinematic and the last being the least. Speaking with Strife and Irelin felt like the first example of the convo-cutscene where characters just stand across from each other and chat back and forth. Which is fine but again, it’s that lack of expression paired with strife’s more monotone voice and bearing that really worried me for a hot second.)

- I do love Irelin’s design. i actually like strife’s a lot too; I just think he should be bare-faced like in the novel.

- bellara’s intro is also so strange. She barely acknowledges the gods thing. They tried a little too hard to make her quirky here. She grows on me, a LOT, over the game - they just frontloaded way too much of the super cute and absentminded thing here. I think that should’ve come to light after her introduction had a weightier heft to it. Someone also mentioned it makes no sense that she, without any questions, gives some randoms (incl. Neve if you brought her, who is Tevene) essentially a tour of what is theoretically some very powerful secrets. It would’ve been worth a brief scuffle with her, I think, and then a few lines of not just explanation, but hastily attempting to convince her you aren’t here to poach elven secrets or magic. Even a code word provided by Strife and Irelin would’ve sufficed to put to rest any concerns that never even reached the light of day.

- Ogre - i quite like the darkspawn designs, even if they’re slightly cartoonier than before. I do think it has to do with the fact that the designs themselves, with this art style, are more readable in general; i can pick out details on the types of darkspawn that I couldn’t before because of the more muted color schemes of the prior games. (I loved those, to be perfectly clear; i just like how clearly and sharply i can see what’s going on here. But i do think there’s something to be said about the cartoonish quality; there’s probably something that could’ve been done to make them slightly less so. I think they managed it with the blighted dragons.)

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva

replay // the end of the beginning - ritual site + the fade prison

thoughts and notes -

- I wish we got to see more bloody Rook in the game—he gets wounded a few times but never so visibly / bloodily again. I want all the trauma and whump all the time.

- Solas: firstly, i abhor the use of blood magic — nuh uh, no you don’t. He defended it as any other use of magic before. It would’ve been more interesting if he was like “yeah i did use blood magic, you trapped me in here and this is the only connection i have to you, and i don’t care what you think”

- honestly love the attitude between these two - there’s a lot of character chemistry when the snark is let loose. It’s nice to be able to snap at Solas and call him out. Bitch 4 bitch communication

- “Varric is—“ not just hurt, dead “quite practiced at shading the truth himself” you dick - this is the moment solas realizes he can use this against rook - i really think the writing here is sharp. The whole time i thought something was off about varric but honestly thought it was just strange writing choices, but i appreciate it a lot more knowing the twists

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva

replay // enemy of my enemy

thoughts and notes -

- this is so silly but i wish we had some struggle trying to reach solas, or some explanation for so easily meditating, lol (i can’t meditate) - it just seems somehow that it should not be quite so easy to reach him. At the least a little sequence of searching the prison for him or something- with the opportunity there to learn more about him scattered throughout…

- “Then you know that if someone has to make a call, I’ll do it” (said by Rook but now idk why he said it, i didn’t write it down lol - probably said to Varric)

- Varric on Rook’s run in with the Antaam - “they outnumbered you twenty to one”

- “Your old friend is kind of an asshole, Varric.”

- re: Crow Rook seeking to recruit Lucanis. “A specialist. Between the two of us we may be able to find a godly weakness.”

- Crow Rook on The Talons: “They’re going to give me an earful. …I’ll set up a meeting.” I know we collectively have some issues with how the Crows as an organization are presented but I’m obsessed with the dynamic a Crow Rook has with them, and Viago in particular.