#see viago?

[grapecaseschoices]

the way MOST of the team disapproves when you talk down the first warden.

dang you bloodthirsty jerks. valentine is a smooth talker~

[sotc]

as fun as it is to talk about the sillay crow family dynamics, i'm soo interested in what this means for the crow familia going forward in a darker lens.

im mostly speaking from the perspective of a rook de riva who romanced lucanis btw <3

illario brought the axe down on his own head after failing to take first talon. he's imprisoned except to play house whenever caterina wants to see him around for family dinners before tensions inevitably shove him back into the cage he's been left to like some house pet lmfao. it's actually kinda fucked up and as a certified sicko i love it. especially considering the casualness in which lucanis describes all of this. crows gotta be a little unhinged<3

But!!! while lucanis was right that illario's reputation is ruined forever as a traitor crow beaten to his knees before every house that doesn't exactly free house dellamorte either. Talon houses will want their pound of flesh of illario for nearly trying to put antiva under venatori control. and yet lucanis refused. house dellamorte showed mercy. they are breaking the rules, making exceptions. this is not how the crows operate and there should--WILL be retaliations for it. illario left this house bleeding in his attempt to claim first talon and their blood is in the water now with house dellamorte having a sole heir who blatantly exposed a weakness and seemingly has no lineage to take after him.

and nevermind that we know murmurs amongst the crows will linger about a first talon being an abomination. i know lucanis kind of handwaves it off as at the coffee date like 'there could be worst first talons' but baby boy, you have avoidance and denial issues this WILL become worse of a problem the longer it goes on. <3

more under the cut bc i didn't realize this was getting so long lol

but in comes fifth talon viago de riva. a bastard to the king of antiva who wants to strengthen the crown. a man who has been ruthlessly exacting and meticulous to get where he is now. and the scariest part is that he has ambition, always has, and knows he has more power than the king himself to make plays if he needs to. this makes for a dangerous (and sexy) combination. in comes his protege rook. casting silly family dynamics aside, viago knows this union between house dellamorte and de riva is extremely beneficial for both houses but also very dangerous. even he knows his ties to teia show a weakness in him that other crows may seek to exploit. and while i do think he may be sincere about wanting rook to find their happiness with lucanis as he has with teia - i truly think he will not shy from showing the importance of a 'political alliance/union' especially with first talon house dellamorte struggling from the blow after all is said and done.

and of course, by extension to de riva, house cantori and the beautiful lovely miss teia, will be extending her support to strengthen their houses but also herself from any opposition. as much as i love that she's kind of the heart that brings this fucked up lil familia together, i know she is just as cunning and clever to recognize what this alliance does for her too.

and caterina.. well, without going into a whole thought piece on her, she has built her (and her grandson's reputation) entirely to instill fear in others, even command enough respect to know she's the one running things while lucanis is just a stand-in as first talon. but what happens when caterina is gone? another dellamorte dead just like all the others. all lucanis has left is himself and his traitor brother. how does he handle illario? how does he fair being a leader to the crows when he didn't want any of this in the first place and no longer has caterina to guide him? how does he wish to pursue carrying the dellamorte legacy (if at all)? does he seek a protege of his own to take on after him? i can't remember who says it (viago or lucanis) but there's a line about how saving thedas will make their houses immortal (hot and very sexy) but also how far can that reputation protect house dellamorte, really?

i don't really have a point to all of this, this is all just stuff im simply chewing on and letting out into the ether because the ripple effect of repercussions with what illario did and what lucanis now has to deal with fascinates me SO MUCH.

[mohntilyet]

did not play a rook de riva but the image of viago trying to be a bit cute just before the battle of their lives and going “you like my furrow :) called it the thinking man’s dimple ☺️❤️🙂‍↕️😁” before teia is like “…not in public i don’t” and then, looking 0.5 cm over his beautiful gf’s shoulder. to his horror. his protege slash sibling slash subordinate has just walked up to them and definitely overheard that

[vaguely-concerned]

the things it adds to both of the characters involved that lucanis used to have a thing for viago could not have been more tailor made to be for me. literally the ideal thing to come out of this game for me personally and specifically and spiritually. I mean I'm teia x viago trash until the day I die and nothing will ever change this (and with the best will in the world and even the power of lucanis' big beautiful soulful eyes, that would never have worked out even if viago DID somehow understand he was being propositioned. which I'm not convinced he did. the mutual 'so. snakes are pretty cool huh. and. knives. also' awkward energy without someone of teia's charisma and people skills involved to mitigate it... it would have been dire), but on so many levels I find it so incredibly charming for what it says about them both that the (one-sided) attraction was there once.

what's more, it means the man about whom this legendary paragraph was written:

Viago was not a typical Antivan. He liked facts—checklists, numbers, precise measurements. Heart palpitations, clammy hands, tight pants—Viago did not like these things. In fact, he would go so far as to say he hated them. Mild curiosity was his favorite mood.

has got some of the hottest coolest deadliest people in thedas down so catastrophically bad it's got them acting unwise. teia had to wait a UST-drenched decade for him to be ready to take his fucking gloves off for her. and she did!! the tetchiest most neurotic least approachable little vetinari knockoff of a man you ever saw has game for days and days and lives rent free in heads for years. in eight little talons viago consistently feels so inadequate up against dante and it's like. man I'm shaking you by the lapels you have what he'll never have. the ability to bewitch body and soul with your terrible personality and long thin legs. do not waste the gift you've been given go get her she's waiting!!!

(lucanis is really good at reading people, so I wonder if maybe he saw through all of that to some of the steadiness and incredible capacity for warmth and tenderness in specific interpersonal relationships you see viago have with teia when he finally opens up enough, and maybe that was part of it. either way it's so perfect that both he and teia have regarded viago with this affectionate intrigued amusement. lucanis still seems pretty fond of him in a 'viago continues to be exactly himself no matter what else happens or goes wrong. comforting universal constant' sort of way, he brings him up quite a lot in party banter.)

you've seen lucanis' game in this day and age, arguably or at least hopefully older and wiser -- can you imagine how catastrophically bad it must have been back when he presumably handed viago, most paranoid man in thedas all years running, a knife like this expressed everything it needed to. people give him so much shit for the cake moment being his big romantic lock-in, but considering where we started that is GROWTH and I for one am so proud of him fhsdkjaf.

also I wonder at what point vis-a-vis that whole Situation teia and viago met for the first time, leading us to ask... just how much was it a matter of lucanis simply being ignored out of a lack of interest on viago's part (tbf, not entirely unlikely). how much was it lucanis truly not managing to make himself understood. (all but certainly. literally how would one understand that. I think it says some sweet things about rook and lucanis' dynamic that they -- somehow -- DO pick up what he's putting down in a similar scenario presumably b/c they know him pretty well by then haha.) how much was it viago interpreting the romantic move as a death threat from one of the most dangerous people alive and freaking out. (1000% and indubitably.) and how much was it andarateia steal-your-girl cantori turning up and thus setting off whatever spectacular, volatile, awesome-in-the-original-sense chemical reaction between the substances of her and viago's souls that goes on to this day and makes everything else kind of a side note at best. a gentle mix of several of these things, perhaps. ...god I love all these characters so much

[galavantinggiant]

Rook: Oh, hey, Boss. Did you get my report on the dread wolf murder?

Viago de Riva: Yeah, I looked it over. Nice work.

Rook: Good. Thanks, dad... Why is everyone staring at me?

Andarateia Cantori: You just called Vi "dad." You said, "thanks, dad."

Rook: What? No, I didn't. I said, "thanks, man."

Viago de Riva: Do you see me as a father figure, Rook?

Rook: No. If anything, I see you as a "bother" figure, 'cause you're always bothering me.

Lucanis: Hey, show your father some respect!

[soupandsorcery]

Emmrich: I hope you were able to get some sleep last night, Lucanis.

Lucanis: A little. Spite finally tired himself out.

Emmrich: I promise you, I will do everything I can to figure out a way to reach Rook. It just might take some time...

Lucanis: We might not have much time left.

Emmrich: I know things are dire with Elgar'nan taking over Minrathous, but I don't think we are in immediate danger as long as we remain here.

Lucanis: I'm not talking about Elgar'nan.

Emmrich: Then who...

Lucanis: I have to go tell Viago that we lost his brother.

Emmrich: Ah.

[cybershock24601]

My Mourn Watch Rook is romancing Lucanis and I’m planning to have my Antivan Crow Rook romance Emmrich and the best part of that is either way Viago is going to be dealing with an unhinged necromancer.

Rook Ingellvar is going to be hanging around and likely literally on the First Talon all the time being Rook’s normal weird self but then is going to say the most out of pocket shit out of nowhere about corpses and spirits. Possibly even raise a number of skeletal guard for the Dellamorte estate and wouldn’t that be a statement for the First Talon’s home to be guarded by the bodies of his marks. A creepy statement, Viago doesn’t know what Lucanis is thinking considering Rook’s everything and that’s before you throw in the necromancy but at least Rook is kind to the crows (the bird). When asked about it Rook says they have tons of them at the Necropolis and that they like her best because sometimes she’ll let them peck at the bodies before she brings in the beetles to pick the bones clean :). Viago and everyone in earshot wishes he’d never asked.

As for Rook de Riva, Viago is going to have the biggest headache in the world when Rook brings home her gentleman necromancer and his pet skeleton. And really, Rook? Going for the guy twice her age, Viago should have expected Rook to pull something like that. It does not help that Rook keeps dragging in bodies like a cat to present to her new beau for him to do… whatever it is the mortalitasi do with corpses. At the very least Viago gets a chance to see Vorgoth’s wonderful art collection so it could be worse and Emmrich makes for a decent conversationalist when he isn’t talking about necromancy. Though not by much. Viago still isn’t sure what he thinks about Rook’s “skeleton son” but at least Manfred’s keeping Rook busy enough that she’s not causing mischief.

[wardenantoine]

being a crow must suck. there's the whole recruiting children by buying them thing of course but the hours suck too. the higher ups tried to have a meeting once and four of them ended up dead. and on top of that your boss gets mad at you for failing to kill an elven god

[wanderingibon]

the viago-crow rook dynamic makes me crazy i fear!!! the found family!!!! the layers!!! the care of it all!!!! the 'i am afraid of losing my protégé who I've come to regard as family but I don't exactly know how to convey that so I have to be stern toward them, remind them not to abandon their contract, so they aren't eaten up by the antivan crows like I know the organization can do and has done time and time again' i am literally rambling rn but i could write a whole essay i fear

[deputyrook]

If you think about it, it’s kind of crazy that Lucanis is the character hosting Spite instead of Viago. Like, Viago is made of spite. When his father gives him the option to either leave the country or become an assassin, Viago is his sole bastard child to choose to join the Crows. He withstands the torture/training, is so paranoid that he drinks poison to build his own immunity, and works up the ranks until he’s more powerful than the King. He might even make a play for the throne? That’s being fuelled by spite.

Like I love Lucanis, but you can’t tell me Viago hosting Spite wouldn’t be super interesting for both of their characters.

[archiv30fmy0wn]

i am sincerely begging the community for more rook x viago content

[covertleathers]

Lucanis gifting Viago a dagger as flirting. He thought he found someone who matched his freak but got rejected. :(

[sotc]

Andarateia Cantori & Viago De Riva appearance in Veilguard 💜 from Easy Allies' Hands-On Preview

[anotherramblingfangirl]

I don’t have Blue Sky to join in with the Q&A there myself, so I just have to live in the desperate hope that somebody who does asks Mary Kirby there how Viago and Teia reacted to hearing that Rook de Riva is missing and trapped in the fade.

[vaguely-concerned]

I'm fairly sure I'm less than half way through act 1, and already so much of my mental health hinges on getting to have lucanis' soft weirdly low-key voice in my ears saying absolutely insane shit and delightedly whispering 'buddy baby what'

(he genuinely does see deicide as just another part of his 9 to 5 and while not humourless in general does not understand why anyone might find this idea odd or humorous, is the best way I think I can describe his vibe. have you ever seen a man so beautiful and so autistic and also he murders people mostly politely and then goes back home and makes everyone a nutritious family dinner afterwards. add in some acute sleep deprivation and that's it that's the whole guy)

[proffbon]

Every time Rook fucks up, Viago makes them pet sit Emil.