As a fellow spiteful gamer, I am here to give you a way of blocking the background romance. I didn’t finish the game yet so I can’t be 100% sure about this, but I read that to block the background romance from happening you should just never put those companions together in the party when you go exploring and it will never progress.
Can confirm not bringing them out together doesn’t prevent it from happening ):
I’m not even romancing either of them, I just really don’t like their (lack of) chemistry and don’t enjoy them together so this playthrough (saved Dock Town/hardened Lucanis) purposely have not had them out with Rook together AT ALL in order to try and prevent it. They have NEVER left the Lighthouse together.
But alas Lucanis has been waiting in the kitchen to talk to Rook about making gooseberry pie for Neve for the last like four hours of gameplay (and I know it’s that scene because I made a save before I went to talk to him in case it was so I could reload)
Someone on Reddit made a post detailing how to activate (and avoid activating) each of the side romances, and hooo boy. To avoid Neve and Lucanis getting together you have to metagame to the extreme. Absolutely insane. You have to stop talking to Lucanis and avoid taking him out with anyone or the banter will still kick in. His most important personality traits are apparently just drinking coffee and talking about Neve.
I legitimately, capital-h HATE, despise, loathe, etc., this decision. It’s the only question I want answered during their Reddit AMA; who was THAT big of a fan of Neve/Lucanis that they ended up getting more attention than Lucanis/Rook?
Do you have a link to this reddit post? I would love to see it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/s/iqW442TyCW
There you go :D
