#spiritsong

thank you, Cleric, I'm very touched you got interested!!

Tbh Viago saying that "Rook would make a damn fine crow" lives in my mind rent-free. Can't believe I haven't seen much discussion of the non-crow Rook & Viago dynamic before. Like you can have all the Viago weirdness without the subordination angle! Isn't that interesting! But I digress.

The way I see their "partnership" start is when Ghilasara survives an attempt on her life the first time after she breaks up with Lucanis. Realising that just because they aren't together anymore doesn't mean she won't be a target. And this is her life now! One does not leave the crows, and maybe she isn't one, but she accidentally got too damn close!!

So after a short session of screaming and crying about the absolute state of things, she'd realise she has to talk to someone about this, and Viago is the only non-Treviso crow she knows personally. They aren't close, but there's no one else to turn to. Cue a trip to Salle and them forming a mutually beneficial relationship where she reports any assassination attempts to him, he helps her make sense of them (which house sent the assassins and what specifically are they trying to achieve at this particular time) and then uses the information for whatever personal benefits he can extract (I 💙 scheming) without alerting Lucanis and/or Teia while also trying to uphold stability inside the crows. Also, a part of the bargain is Bellara offering her services to Viago in helping mask poisons in food, as per one of Lucanis's Logbooks (she volunteered. I personally find that headcanon funny, Bellara's morals are weirdly loose enough she'd be into masterminding ways to help poison people).

Andrea DOES know Teia! There's a 12 year age difference between Viago and Andrea (no do not ask me for timelines. Just nod and agree with the timeline of vibes, just like the canon authors do) and Teia has been circling the edge of Andrea's life for a while because of it.

Andrea looks up to Teia a lot. She's a woman and an elf in a position of power and prominence among the Crows. Although elves as Talons aren't uncommon (Zevran says in Origins that elves are often recruited for their ~ exotic beauty ~ and I believe House Arainai is made up primarily of elves), she's also the youngest named Talon and a powerhouse in her own right.

Andrea looks up to her a lot for how she carries herself, interacts with others, and handles politics. I've said before and I'll say again that Teia Cantori is outplaying everyone else on the damn board. Very few people seem to have a real grudge against her (hell, Emil Kortez was going to kill the woman last), and she has favor from the First Talon herself. I've said before... were Teia not an elf... I could see her in the running to be Caterina's heir. She's fucking good at handling people.

Also, notably, Teia is the one with similar sympathies to Lucanis. She's the one who views the Crows as the real heart of Antivan rebellion forces that we see in Veilguard; other Houses aren't run like House Cantori. The fledglings are free to roam, feel comfortable grouping and gossiping, and widely there is a sense of "normalcy" among her House.

I would be lying if I said that there was not a long period of Andrea's life where they wished that they had been recruited into House Cantori instead. Not enough for them to willingly defect, but... the desire was definitely there at times growing up and still might show up from time to time.

Whispers of the Soul: Unveiling Wisdom with the Love

Intuition ✦ Wisdom ✦ Silence

✧ An invitation to reconnect with inner wisdom, embracing a profound trust in the quiet guidance that arises from within ✧

[Ask meme] 4. What's your least favorite part of the body to draw, if any?

Oghhhh definitely biceps / the upper arm. I think being framed by two more complex areas (the armpit/shoulder and the elbow/upper forearm) doesn't help, because sometimes it can feel like a stretch of nothing. I've been doing some studies in the background to better understand what's going on there, especially the back of the arm, but it remains a Not Fun area for me.

5. What piece of art are you still proud of to this day? (Show or describe)

I'm still quite happy with this two-headed lamb from an unfinished painting I started back in 2022 - I feel like I really captured the soft, gauzy oil-painted quality I was going for, and the one on the right's nose/mouth looks so good to me. I do want to return to this painting some time and properly finish it, but I remain happy with this lil guy in the interim.

The first card of the week is the death card, an easy choice for me as it’s one of the most misinterpreted cards of the deck. Most people associate the word death with the loss, turmoil and upheaval it brings to our lives. However, often when this card comes up in a reading, it's much more hopeful and positive than these initial perceptions. And no, it does not mean you or someone you know is about to die (most of the time…!).

Imagine the death card as a heads up from the universe - not that things are about to get very awful - but that the things you are going through right now are necessary and will result in change. When it appears you can be sure that you’re on the right track and that a much needed renewal and rebirth is around the corner.