#please heed my excessive warnings & disclaimers at the top

[ohhicas]

It’s been awhile since I typed too much, saying a lot yet saying Nothing, about a prettyboy anime character but I got bit with the obnoxious urge to do it about Twisted Wonderland’s Rook Hunt  and im gonna make it everyone else’s problem

[spoilers up to the end of book6 below, but I may use both EN and JP/fan translation terms as I play in EN but follow with fantranslations for future stuff]

[ i state it several times in the text, way more than necessary, but this isn’t meant to be ship positive in any way. if anything I may have accidentally argued for an aro!Rook take without meaning to. Which still isn’t what i was going for here, so don’t click hoping to find that, either.]

[seriously this is a lot of words for something that can be summed up pretty quick, i just let myself type to get the feelings out without much direction.]

 I didn’t wanna love this little french bastard yet here we are, doing something this wildin’ before I tried it with Sebek (who I arguably love more, BUT)

fate chose this for me

ANYWAY with the drop of book6′s completion, i need to yell some feelings. So this is less an essay and more a disjointed nightmare I’m typing before I lose the drive to do it (again). "Love” is gonna come up a lot, in fact it’s the majority of the thing, and how I see it in connection with Rook. This obviously means Vil is gonna be brought up directly, but this isn’t a ship-positive rant for them. I’m also not arguing against rook/vil in a “your ship is bad and here’s why” way. I’m just giving my personal feelings here on Rook as a character and, by association, Vil is gonna show up, because of course he is. Please don’t read this expecting either of those things.

--

   So to me, Rook as a character is completely driven by Love. Any kind of love. He tends to lean towards the Aesthetic and Beauty variety, and he finds beauty in everything. The way you can’t keep the hair out of your eyes when it’s windy and your nose gets all scrunchy to blow it away, the way you eat your too-chewy steak, your drive to continue to better yourself. The spirit is beautiful. The only thing he doesn’t find beautiful is when you’re not being yourself, not being truthful to your desires, and are presenting a false version of yourself to the world. [See; him calling Vil his least beautiful self during Vil’s overblot/near poisoning of Neige]. If he says he loves you, finds you beautiful, it’s not like he’s lying. He doesn’t lie. everything he says is his true feelings and he doesn’t even let himself lie to benefit another [again, see; voting for Neige despite voting against his team and Vil, because he knew they weren’t honestly the most beautiful in that moment.]    That’s like, a baseline for him. Those are the bare basics for what rules Rook operates on. He won’t lie to make you feel better. He may withhold some things, and talk around the subject, but he’s not going to lie about it. Which is a curse and a blessing. He’s been called blunt and rude for calling things out and stating his mind, or being too pushy because he’s not lying-- when he threatens Floyd with perfume, he doesn’t try to trick him. He tells Floyd what he wants, and outright says if Floyd continues to refuse, he’ll become a bigger problem than it’s worth and then hoses him.

   With the new information that came out about Rook, we got to see another side of him. He was a Savanaclaw student first. He lived on the Afterglow Savanna growing up. He was raised in a family of famous hunters with villa all over the world with teleporters in them so they can hop around quickly. It was like the stars aligned when I read that, really. “Oh that makes perfect sense, holy shit”. Like before when he was young and he had no understanding on how to express his emotions until he watched the play with Neige in it and it changed his life-- meeting Vil was another of those moments. They were first years (I believe?) and Rook had no sense of pomp and fashion. He let his hair go wild, dry, uncared for. Just tie it back and call it good. No sunscreen or UV protection despite how fair he was so he was constantly covered in freckles and blemishes. Slack, lazy close that were comfortable and easy to move in was the best style because he was a hunter. He was chasing beauty without any care of it for himself. (I desperately want to meet this Rook. Wild, free, holes in his knees and leaf probably stuck in his hair. Someone that nobody would ever connect to the current Rook. In the card where Floyd assaults him with a hairdryer, he comments on how much hair Rook has. Does he flatiron it to hell and back, now to make it appear thin and fine? Did Floyd’s surprised comment about how much hair Rook has point to this? The hairdryer is unlocking Rook’s true form.) And then he met Vil.    I’m assuming he was hunting Leona during his time in Savanaclaw as they shared a dorm and he knew of the man from his previous time on the Afterglow Savanna but Vil was different. Sparkly. They had so much in common (though I can’t remember if it’s clarified what exactly they had in common as I’m typing this, but Rook had an interest in musicals, stage shows, historical documentaries and war stories. He may be a grimy rough and tumble boy but that love of the Aesthetic and Beauty was there-- and Vil was the embodiment of it.) they talked for hours until it night fell and they both caught colds. It’s an adorable meet-cute-- but, this is where i differ from a lot of people.

   I don’t see it as a Romantic Love, for Rook. 

(Again, I’m not going to bash the ship, Vil/Rook was my first interest pairing when I got into the fandom, I just fell out of favor with it the more i learned about Rook the character.)

   The thing I run into is Vil lives for the Aesthetic, and the Aesthetic is what Rook is chasing. Vil’s drive is beautiful, his push to constantly better himself and one day rise above his rival (who Rook is the biggest fan of. This has to be Rook’s favorite dream; the man who showed him how to feel emotions (Neige) and this being of pure beauty who isn’t pushing him away (Vil) like all his other Prey did). Instead of reacting how Leona (probably) did to little wild Savanaclaw Rook, Vil immediately took to him in that “honey, no” way. Beat his face. Vil is why Rook looks and dresses and acts the way he does, now. He taught Rook makeup, haircare, skincare. He dressed him out to meet his favorite actor lmao and Rook fell in “love”. The issue is that type of “Love” that he fell into.     It’s an Aesthetic Love. Its a Friendship, platonic, deep Love. It’s found-family love. It’s not a Romantic love. And he clearly knows the difference; he can’t be a fan of all these deep, passionate, poetic stories and not be able to tell the differences in Love. He seems to push Romantic types of Love on others, assuming as much or at least using “Love” and “Care” as terms, whether he means them Romantic or not (and others taking them to mean something Rook may or may not insinuate, like when he teases Trey about growing strawberries just for Riddle, and he’s shot down. Did he mean it as romantic? or just insinuate that Trey feels a ‘love’ for Riddle in wanting to create something from scratch with care for him, without clarifying? Rook is so hard to understand sometimes.)    And yeah, Rook transfers from Savanaclaw to Pomefiore as soon as he’s able, for Vil’s sake. It seems like it’s over the year break, between year 1 and year 2, as their meeting was in the winter. He wants to be closer to this beautiful thing he’s “in love” with. But as mentioned, Rook is “in love” with so much. Vil even tries to stop him from going through with the transfer, probably sensing what kind of demon he just unleashed on himself. Rook is a force of goddamn nature that cannot be stopped once he has his mind set on something.    (RIP, Floyd’s nostrils)

   It’s also interesting how perfectly he and Epel parallel each other. Epel wants to be in Savanaclaw so bad to escape Vil and all the rules and fluff (at first), and Rook left Savanaclaw as quickly as he could the moment he saw Vil to emerse himself in this new situation, to get closer. Epel is probably going through the same Aesthetic & Rules Bootcamp that Vil put Rook through, which is why Rook is so knowledgeable in the topics and Vil leaves him in charge to make sure Epel follows through with it all. Vil is the head honcho here, Rook is his first project, Epel is his newest. Vil just takes these Savanaclaw-themed babies and beats them into beautiful flowers. [Vil also tries to do this with Leona to zero success, and Floyd to a semi-situational success, and Floyd did say Savanaclaw would be the dorm he’d transfer to in his birthday Q&A. You add “old friends with Jack” into this mess and man, what is with Vil and hoarding/being connected to so many Savanaclaw-esque rough & tumble boys?]    Rook is there to help Epel through his first Unique Magic, even getting down to his shoulder like he’s teaching his ward to shoot prey for the first time and helping to steady his aim. If Vil is the ‘Queen Mom’ of this team, Rook is the big sibling to Epel’s baby. I can’t quite say Rook is the ‘father’, as he’s still being firmly reminded to remain in-line from Vil so often, lmao.

   Like I’m not gonna sit here and say that Rook doesn’t love Vil. He does, he very clearly does. He loves Epel, too. He loves Trey’s dedication to his dorm leader. He loves Deuce’s passion. He loves how untouchable and dangerous Leona is. He loves how mysterious and deadly the Fae are [and he is, routinely, one of the only people to talk to Malleus directly without fear outside of the main Diasomnia boys, too]. He loves all these people and more, but not a single one is a Romantic love from what we’ve seen. He loves the beauty they can show him. He loves the whole world equally, for everything has a beauty to it that he may not have seen before. He strives to see it.    I feel dwindling Rook’s feelings towards Vil to “a romantic, ship-love” is taking something away from his character and their bond. Again, Completely Valid if you don’t read it how I am. I said before I know I’m in the minority here.    Rook dislikes heavy smells. He doesn’t like garlic not only for flavor, but it’s a strong, lingering odor that will disrupt his hunting work because his nose is sharp. There are several comments scattered across various cards and situations where he mentions the smell of heavy makeup is just a burden he has to accept, to be close to Vil. It’s not something he loves and would chose to do daily, freely, if there wasn’t the threat of losing someone he deems beautiful. The perfume, it was a gift from Vil. He uses it as a weapon. He wears it because he has to. He doesn’t like any of this, outside of acknowledging the beauty it brings. Given how he apparently prefers to dress, or preferred to, I wouldn’t be surprised if he dislikes wearing the Pomefiore uniform as much as he seems to dislike everything else-- but it’s a burden he accepts willingly so he can be closer to the ultimate beautiful thing he’s seeking out. It’s not a “hate”. There is beauty in the weave of the fabric and the cut, drape, flow of it. The skill it took for Vil to create that perfume, the skill of the manufacturers to produce the makeup line he uses. There is beauty there; not something to hate. Just a small burden he must accept to follow with his “hunter of beauty" passion.    It’s as much of a ‘burden’ as a hunter having to put on facepaint and scrub himself with mud to keep the prey off their trail. It’s helping him blend in, to be closer. A necessary thing so he can stay by Vil’s side.

I’m getting off that subject, cause I can feel myself circle-talking. So, here’s some cool things I remember Rook can do (said in canon, no headcanons unless specified)

- Animal Linguistics (with a strongest lean in moles, though he’s talking to hedgehogs so maybe all kinds of creatures of that type. He also seems to know what the flamingos want, but that could just be “it’s a flamingo, I’m a hunter, I got this” and less actually listening/talking to them) - His place in the Science Club is for Vil’s sake; it’s commented on that he would have a better position in a literary or poetry club, but he wants to make Vil shine so he withholds his own hobby-interests to follow his hunter/aesthetic beauty dreams - The hunter thing as a whole. Just by watching Jade from afar he can learn his food habits, walking speed, when he chooses to sleep, heart rate, blink rate, etc. These aren’t traits that are useful for most reasons you’d stalk someone; Rook isn’t trying to hurt anyone in the way a mafia or blackmail would. He’s actively hunting people. That’s all things you’d use to track someone down. - Embraces new situations openly. Jade basically poisons him with a numbing mushroom, and Rook takes it in stride, thanking him for the new experience. - Has amazing hearing and eyesight. His hearing scored him the knowledge of Lilia and Malleus’s connection. [afaik, and this is headcanon, this probably means he knows about Silver and Lilia, as well. These are big things that could be used for blackmail but he... doesn’t care. He’s more interested in them as Fae and how they operate than ruining lives or anything. He wants to see the Fae at full strength and hunt them when the ‘game’ would be most interesting.] - HUGE poetry writer. It’s probably his #1 hobby next to hunting. Not only does he write poems on the back of all of Neige’s promotional images and send them to him as gifts, he also comments about wanting to write a poem about several other beautiful situations. This man probably writes a sonnet per person he falls in ‘love’ with. - He’s such a good little cheerleader for you. As long as you’re trying, he’s in your court. Yeah he’s a little weird but he wants the best probably to try to build up new prey to chase down later, lmao - Who gave him permission to keep a full bow and arrow set and use it on campus?? - holy shit that Unique Magic though, good LORD. I want to know if he sees the maps in his head, too, when using it, or if the maps were just for the ‘Player’s sake to understand what was happening. Rook says it’s not a special, beautiful, or useful magic but it’s so good. It suits him perfectly.

   I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting, but. Waves hand.

I have a lot of feelings for Rook that sort of punched me out of nowhere. If that isn’t obvious.    If you feel completely different about this, that’s cool!  If you have differing opinions you can share if you want, just stay civil in it all. I probably won’t respond, but I’ll read it ‘cause I’m an avid tag reader. 

(btw When Vil gives Epel, Yuu, and Rook hugs and kisses in thanks for rescuing him, it was so cute. Pomefiore found-family stay winning.)

#twisted wonderland #lmao sorry i have words and must scream #please heed my excessive warnings & disclaimers at the top #rook hunt