Just a place to post shots of my Rook and Lucanis! I'm also a huge Cullavellan and Alt Cunningham expert! I do love Cyberpunk 2077 and have since it launched. https://bsky.app/profile/lizzysizzy.bsky.social
It was a part of courtly etiquette - a respectful kiss on a lady's hand. But the moment his lips touched her skin, all the noise of the ballroom faded for them, leaving only the loud beating of their hearts.
If you think River Ward's storyline is copaganda, then I'm sorry but you have no fucking idea what copaganda is. You're just saying words without understanding what they mean.
Copaganda is a form of propaganda that attempts to influence public opinion about police and counter criticism of police and anti-police sentiments. Probably the most famous examples of this in media is when police bust a place without a warrant or probable cause, but it is portrayed as being okay because they're "catching the bad guys" and ultimately the ends justify the means.
This is obviously wrong because that's not how it goes down at all in real life. And even those suspected of terrible, heinous crimes have legal rights that shouldn't just be tossed away. Criminals, suspected criminals, are human too.
One could argue that River hiring a merc to break into Red Queen's Race without a warrant is supposed to make us okay with police bending the rules, but this goes south pretty quickly, as getting the truth doesn't even matter when the truth was buried by the NCPD to begin with.
River Ward's investigation into the mayor's death reveals how corrupt the NCPD is. He tries to take it to internal affairs, gets suspended right after. This is to show that you might want to change the system from the inside out, but it's not that simple. Ultimately, as a police officer, you have to decide if you want to be a part of the problem, or separate yourself from it. And that's what River does. He doesn't go back to the NCPD. He becomes a private investigator and specializes in missing persons -- something that the NCPD and most police departments in real life can't be bothered to give a shit about.
His story is about police corruption. It is literally about how fucking bad the police are.
So if you still think River is irredeemable because he WAS a cop, WAS a detective afflicted with the NCPD, then I don't know what to tell you. Just keep your surface level takes far away from me.
Here he isāthe Commander of the Inquisitionās forces whoās been through Hell and back, intelligent and capable, and a ten on the looks scaleāand he stumbles all over himself and apologizes for kissing the woman whoās been hitting on him for months and went out of her way to get him alone to talk about what was going on between them.
I'm realizing that I think my biggest pet peeve about people's interactions with asexual characters anywhere on the spectrum is when they use the word "finally."
With datv, I see people say their Rook is finally having sex with Lucanis in the late-game romance scene, and it bothers me. The phrasing just makes it sound like Lucanis' feelings don't matter, and that his comfort in his own relationship after a year of torture is less important than their Rook doing what they want.
As an ace guy, if someone phrased it like that about me, I'd dump them immediately, no warning, no take-backs, we're done. There would be no way I'd ever enter a relationship without discussing that first, and if they know my feelings and still wanna act like I'm somehow holding them back? Then okay, go find someone else. I'm not playing that game and I'm definitely not gonna be guilted into doing something I'm not interested in (or in Lucanis' case, not yet interested in.) Don't ignore my feelings about our mutual relationship.
And none of this is to say that people should feel bad for having more needs than their partner, but acting like that's their fault? Like they're being unfair for not giving up sooner? Like they owe you sex? Like somehow, a year of torture, a demon in his head, his entire life being turned upside down, him facing the whiplash of losing his Grandmother and getting her back and then losing his cousin/brother to an unbelievable betrayal isn't enough of a reason for him to not be in the mood, beyond just the fact that he shouldn't need a laundry list of excuses? In general, it just makes me think about how people seem to think consent after coercion is still consent. Like, if you're guilting someone into saying yes, it isn't a yes.
And with Lucanis, the thing that bothers me is that he'd probably feel like it's on him that his partner feels that way. He basically says that he feels insecure about not being the romantic that Illario is, and in the dessert scene he implies that he feels like he's "not enough" (with Rook immediately saying he is, so even their Rooks know better, even if they don't,) and then people are talking about him in a way that would a thousand percent confirm those feelings for him.
I know he's just pixels, it doesn't actually matter, but it's just wild to see people say they love him and then ignore a fundamental part of his character because the nonexistent relationship isn't moving fast enough. And frankly, if a Rook is one that wouldn't be able to handle waiting for Lucanis to be comfortable without guilting him about how long it took, I can't really see how that relationship would work long-term in general, sex or not. So much of Lucanis' romance is about him needing time, space, and support to adjust to things; Spite, being out of the Ossuary, Illario's betrayal, his new role as First Talon. That's the whole thing about the Mind Ossuary, is that it's Rook being able to delve through all of the shit his mind has come up with about him and say, "You're worth it" even though it takes work and time to help him be comfortable enough to make the deal with Spite. A Rook who can't be patient with him just doesn't seem compatible in the first place.
And I'm definitely getting into dangerous territory but I think this is especially true when we take into consideration a Lucanis who winds up hardened because Treviso gets Blighted. That's an example of Rook not showing up for him when he needs them the most, and he shuts down their romance immediately because of it. To me personally, from an aspec perspective, I can't imagine him not being hurt enough to close off a romance by a "finally, give me your body already" vibe.
This all sounds like me being sensitive, and it kind of is, but I'm just so tired of people acting like aspec/arospec characters are somehow wrong or unfair for not being willing to do everything exactly like their allo partners want them to. They don't owe their partners sex, period. I don't think people say it maliciously (at least most of the time, some of the "fixing Lucanis' writing because it's trash and he's too hot to be wasted like that" takes aside,) but it comes across that way to me because it's the exact sort of thing I hear about myself and other aspec people in real life, and it hurts to know that we can't even escape that in fiction with the very few characters we can honestly genuinely see ourselves in like this.
So.. Who else completed Veilguard for the first time just recently? Actually, I completed it for the second time, but right after the first one. Guess why? In the first playthrough I choose Minrathous.
Love him whithout line too!
I don't know who owns this screenshot, if you know please let me know!
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