#rt.log

i mean. he kisses the rt first. admittedly it's in the heat of the moment and he bites their lip hard enough to draw blood but it IS a kiss. and then he has time to reflect while he waits for the rt to wake up and he's embarrassed about it - an act that could potentially be construed as romantic during their first feast? eugh. how un-drukhari of him. he even gets out of bed, making a point of putting some distance between him and the rt, "casually" leaning against the wall next to their bed w his arms crossed while he watches them sleep. but then the rt wakes up and implies that they don't remember much of the night before, and he feels relieved - and if the rt tries to kiss him, he can push them away and call it a "mon-keigh absurdity" without looking like a hypocrite

i think context is important too - like i said, that first kiss was in the heat of the moment, about to fuck nastystyle while covered in blood and surrounded by corpses. the rt has the option to try to kiss him the morning after, when they're telling him that they want to continue the relationship, which is a much softer moment

the final romance scene let's u bully him into kissing the rt, threatening to break up w him if he doesn't play along. even if he's the sub i can imagine that pushing his boundaries - he finally allows himself to be (somewhat) vulnerable and (kind of) admit his feelings out loud, which is clearly difficult for him, only for the rt to turn those feelings against him. obviously he's not going into the kiss enthusiastically in this scenario - but he does melt into it, which i think is worth mentioning. i've only picked this option once on a sub!mara playthru and like. no matter how cruel they are its just not smth my rt would do. it takes so long for him to open up and he gets so scared and upset and angry when the rt tells him that they're done w him it kinda broke my heart a little lmao. but that's just me being a big sap, and there are other ways of interpreting this scene

vesper is a biomancer and unfortunately biomancy is pretty limited in-game :-/ when i did some research and found out that biomancers can control blood and drain life and "force choke" (for lack of a better term) i was so upset.....but in my head vesper can do all of that bc i think its cool ^_^

in-game their skillset is geared towards buffing strength+speed+agility, debuffing enemies, and POISON!! biophysical distortion goes so hard w the bladedancer + executioner archetypes. my precious dual swords + DOTs ❤️

while vesper CAN heal, mainly bc its a skill they were forced to learn, they never heal themself bc of their love of pain + the belief that they fight better while theyre suffering (how i interpret the bladedancers 'hurt urself for new abilities' mechanic in vespers case). also they get a little grumpy when one of their allies expects healing from them bc they would much rather spend their time stabbing and maiming and killing and dismembering than playing healer. "just rub some dirt on it" -vesper, probably

advanced knowledge of anatomy comes with the territory and makes even more sense when taking their archetypes into account (plus its sexy. who said that). their flavor of biomancy plays into my beloved 'unhinged doctor who uses their medical knowledge for evil' trope a lot lol

as for how they feel abt their powers - when they were young they viewed them as a curse For Sure. their powers manifested at a young age when they got in such a heated arguement w their parents that they accidentally killed both of them. then they were thrown on a black ship, ripped away from their home and subjected to torture. and then that was followed up by being delivered to terra and subjected to even MORE torture for years upon years, which ended up messing them up so bad that by the time they were sanctioned and shipped off to serve in the astra militarum they did a 180 and started viewing their powers as something that makes them inherently superior and believing that the suffering they endured was necessary for honing their skills + maintaining control of them. they also developed severe masochism to go along w their sadism (once again tying back into their refusal to heal + bladedancer abilities). yippee for Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms™️

im reasonably certain that their teachers would have deemed them too dangerous to live due to their lack of dogmatism and lust for power and - as the prologue of the game proved - willingness to make deals w chaos entities (even if vesper didnt hold up their end of the bargain and tossed the blade shards) BUT. lets just assume that they somehow managed to do a good enough job pretending to be an obedient, brainwashed, chaos-hating, emperor-loving citizen of the imperium that they slipped thru the cracks. maybe their teachers were stupid idk