Duna Nichs

So, back in october I was at a monthly trans meetup just chatting with the other women there. We were talking about how all the best games are made by transfems, and I made the joke that someone from team cherry needs to transition. One of the other women cackled at my joke. At the time I didn't think anything of it.

Fast forward one month. The person who cackled at my joke brought a friend with her this time. I was chatting with this new girl for a while, getting to know her, as you do.

After like an hour of chatting, the conversation turns to silksong and team cherry. I casually say "My impression of team cherry is that they're all really chill dudes," and I swear to fucking god the girl next to me says, "Yeah, we are."

Cue me being absolutely dumbfounded. I actually couldn't believe that my offhand joke from a month ago was real.

before the main team even meets dall, she's not explicitly shown but is well known outside of kalan as the figurehead of the revolution constantly blazing in its walls. everyone recognizes her as soon as she shows up, she's the rebel riot priest! her sticky on the board explains that jen used to think she was a defector of the church, judging by the getup, but she finds out that dall stole the armor, and appropriately considers this metal as hell.

once they actually start working together, dall serves as a contrast to the rest of the team because her entire life has been so different to the rest of the team. she knows basically nothing about craft, teaches the team about the reality of the rebellion's war with the church, and gets her entire philosophy twisted by a necromancer. despite these three clowns walking into her war effort, she presses on, like the endless furnace she is.

later, dall and banks have some banter and a joke about the church using imperial measurement while the rest of the world uses metric. it's a pretty funny gag and an interesting tidbit of lore, honestly. dall's naivety (and the rebellion's indifference) towards the main crew's actual goal then leads to them hiring literally the exact team they're there to stop, which is actually a pretty sweet outcome because then we get to hang out with rion.

a little while ahead, dall is discussing plans with the crew, and moss, in medil, and her teleporting power is suggested as a solution to their issue. moss says that dall will have to teleport at least 200 meters, and she asks: "Is that less than 100 feet?" on my first playthrough, i thought that was a pretty funny gag. i did as well on my second and third. on my fourth playthrough, this hit me really hard. anyone in real life would easily know it's not. dall's not joking. she has never seen how long a meter is. i mean, it makes sense, right? kalan is completely sanctioned from the rest of the world, and it uses imperial. dall would have no reason to ever measure with meters, i doubt she even really knows what metric is besides its existence. evidently, banks understands this, because she immediately tells her that it's vastly more, without (most) of her usual snark.

back to chronological order, a short while into act 4 dall's anxiety dream takes place shortly after leaving kalan with the team, and her dream version is just an incredible piece of writing. the way each character's anxiety dream (and banks's dive in Super Hell) has a different dream (or two-years in the past) version of the character is really interesting and lets the game provide different insight and characterization for each party member. honestly i should make a post just about those nobody steal that im gonna do that next

in the dream, dall's dream counterpart is her ideal self, rather than zan's prick within or jen's therapist roleplay or rion's, well, whatever that guy has going on. dall is a train that never stops, a tire that never goes flat, a workhorse that never stops pulling the cart. and her dream self is someone who learned to just take a break. rather than the critique and insult of the other anxiety dreams, dream dall is, with no ulterior, just trying to get dall to stop for once. she's going too hard. she's the brightest bulb. and it's finally about time she just calmed down. dream dall dons dall's ascended armor, the kit she always dreamt of but never built, because she couldn't rationalize taking time away to make it. but now, she's finally out of kalan. she's on break, from her lifelong conflict, to pick up an even bigger fight. even for her that's genuinely absurd.

the final hallway discussion with dream dall is my favorite and it tells us the most about her. her unlock story is extremely telling and instantly contextualizes her entire demeanor and motivation, but the talk before it is also very telling. dream dall is honestly almost identical to real dall, she just gets to tell it to someone else. dream dall is the only one who can look at the real dall and tell her what she needs to hear. only she knows what she's been through but she's also the only one who can't say the words she has to. banks's necromedical powers are absolutely foreign and shoot a hole straight through her beliefs. how can you undo death if death is joining the pantheon? it's something she can't internalize in the dream, even with all the introspection. it's just a lot, really.

but her unlock. Wow. the follow-up to both jida's death at the hands of a priest and the source of her loadout, all strung together with how she got her craft. it's just incredible. and powerful emotion, too, unbelievably powerful emotion for a text conversation in a hallway. the hallway's not even real! she's dreaming of standing in a hallway talking to herself and describing something from two years ago. and it's powerful.

No.

You don't get to have that power. That safety.

You don't need it. I do.

Did more Tactical Breach Wizards and reached this bit.

He's allergic to chocolate (as a dog and as a human)

Contrary to that he's only color blind as a dog (bc I think it fits to make it so he can literally only see red when he's human (((and I like to think it's possible that the first time he ever saw the color red it was from his owners blood))))

His music taste is all girl pop like Chappell Roan and shit (this is also most of Jens music taste and she's BAFFLED when she finds this out)

He unlocked probably like 10ish years before the game takes place, most of that time he was working pretty closely with the druid mafia

Post cannon he actually keeps kind of in touch with banks but absolutely ghosts everyone else

He's gay and aromantic (but I don't think he knows what aromantic means or really gives a shit he thinks thats how everyone is)

He's had that collar since before he unlocked and by this point it would def be a vessel, but also he wouldn't ever give it to someone else so it's just kinda useless (also considering his craft is just to turn into a human, I have no idea what his vessel would do if he ever did give it away)

All of his outfits except for the default one and the wiztac one simply Are Not Cannon. He would NOT fucking wear that.

He knows how to do a bunch of ritual magic (like glyphs and shit) that he learned from the druids (and I think that the druids use a ton of weird magic shit and looking back it makes a lot of sense that they would be the ones working hardest to militarize mana because that's absolutely their vibe)

This isnt about rion but overall I think there's kind of a lot of magic that can be done in that world that isn't necessarily done through craft/unlocking, but the vast majority of it is done through complicated rituals and/or take really specific materials (like jens scrying spell in act 1). This is where a lot of the in-game abilities that aren't directly related to craft (like most of Zan and Rions abilities) come from, but they're really complicated to figure out, especially without the right resources and knowledge and it takes a lot of skill and practice, which is why stuff like mana is the more common option even though it's way fucking dumber

Anyway back to Rion

I think he's deeply bad at reading people regardless of what form he's in and when he's a dog, that leads to him being way too trusting but when he's human he just overcorrects into not trusting anyone because he still doesn't have a radar for who's gonna fuck him over

He and Jirin Wexler fucked

He regrets telling banks about how he unlocked but only because she stops giving him cigarettes as a dog after that :(

He's deeply deeply touch starved and when he's human he just gets over it but when he's a dog and around people he's comfortable with, he gets really clingy (which is super weird for people who don't know that he's literally just a dog)

This isn't a head cannons bc you can tell just by looking at him but hes constantly trying so hard to look cool and he fails pretty miserably a lot of the time

This is also literally cannon but I have to highlight the fact that he dyes his hair (and more importantly his fucking EYEBROWS) to match the way he looks as a dog, I think it's crazy that he puts in THAT much effort for something so stupid <3