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THATS IT

That’s fucking it

Via @/SebastianPiriz

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unmatched ship dynamic: "i've done terrible things in the past" x "all i care about is who you are in the present"

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this range is crazy

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THE GOOD PLACE | 1.12 // 3.04

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I wish we had more female characters like Eleanor Shellstrop. One of the most unlikable people you've ever met. Read a Buzzfeed article on most rude things you can do on a daily basis and decided to use that as a list of goals. Makes everyone's day worse just by being there. Dropped a margarita mix on the ground and tried to pick it up, only to get hit by a row of shopping carts which pushed her into the road where she was hit by a boner pill delivery truck, killing her instantly. Cannot keep a romantic partner despite being bisexual. Had a terrible childhood but will die before she gets therapy. Best employee at a scam company. Just the worst but also can't help but root for her to improve.

Absolute loser. Girl-failure. Bad at almost everything. Literally perfect female character.

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Speed drawing below for anyone who wants to see my chaotic drawing process 😂 this took me 6 hours. Just another lighting and value study with a little color put over it.

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It actually really frustrates me when Mythal says 'the many wrongs we did, we did together,' because while this is technically true in a silly tautological way, it also feels extremely dishonest and manipulative.

After all, a great many of the wrongs Mythal did had nothing to do with Solas. Keeping slaves. Elevating herself to a god. Supporting Elgar'nan in his crimes. Not to mention all the wrongs she did to Solas himself.

Putting it this way feels like a deliberate choice on her part to create the impression of a moral equivalence between them when in fact no such equivalence exists. Even in this moment she's still manipulating him, and it doesn't feel great that the success of her manipulation is celebrated as a good outcome.

(This is of course also part of Veilguard's general approach to treating all its villains as morally the same, which has the unfortunate effect that they end up taking the position that the person who led the slave rebellion is no better than the slavers)

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I joke about how, despite Solas's regret mural painting it as murder (prideful much?), Flemythal's power donation to Solas had to be willing because there's NO way Chuckles could have killed her solo as he was.

But y'know what would have been pretty fun?

If Flemythal HADN'T been willing to share and Solas would have had to pull a Morrigan and talk the team into helping him take Flemythal down.

Like how does he sell the need to fight her to the crew? Is he honest, or does he spin a story about her being evil or some shit? Does he try to keep her quiet about his identity somehow (like a silence spell or something) or does he not bother, knowing it won't matter once they've won?

How does he handle the aftermath? Does he pretend to be unchanged, still the hobo apostate, or does he use his newfound power to super fade step away as fast as possible?

I just think it would be a fun superboss quest.

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nice pair of characters who trust each other more than anyone else in the whole entire world it would sure be a shame if one of them betrayed that trust for the sake of trying to keep the other alive. it would sure be a shame to love someone so much you destroy them

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Remember kids: the best way to stop a spellcaster is to make out with him sloppy style.

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quick solas doodle from the latest sketchbook spread - available to tiers $5+

[Patreon | Substar]

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fragile and composed: chapter 13

He was not wrong, he reflects, when he used to think that romantic intrigues stole people's senses away from them. He simply finds that he does not care any more. He ought to care, he is perfectly well aware that the fate of the world literally hangs in the balance, but unfortunately none of that seems particularly compelling when weighed against the prospect of taking her to bed.

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An Inquisition-era AU Solavellan story in which Elgar'nan escapes during the explosion at the Conclave. Solas is forced to do a lot more plotting and scheming; secrets are revealed earlier than in canon; there are some hijinks in ancient Arlathan; plus an excursion to the Black City.

read from the beginning

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DONE

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affirmations for your daily climb

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Trespasser Dream Slides - Fade Dreaming and Continued Connection

The Trespasser dream slides for a romanced Lavellan mark a subtle but interesting divergence in the story of Lavellan and Solas, in that not every player who romanced these two gets these slides - depending on choices.

If Lavellan ends their relationship with anger or finality, vowing to stop Solas no matter the cost, even if it means killing him - the dreams never appear. And I think that detail is brilliant. The story is using the absence of dreams as a narrative device, one that, to me, actually reflects how the Fade responds to emotions. So when Lavellan emotionally disconnects from Solas, when she severs the bond and chooses to carry nothing of him forward, the Fade has nothing to echo and Solas never appears, honouring her choice. The absence of these dreams in this path becomes the story’s way of saying this connection no longer exists.

But for the Lavellan who holds hope, who vows to save him from himself and his own destruction, who has expressed her love clearly to Solas - the dreams do come. This narrative path reflects the choices of a player who's decided that their bond endures.

And through these dreams, the game shows how these two people continue to affect each other, be drawn to each other even across distance and years.

The Dreams 

What keeps drawing my attention to these slides is they never confirm whose dreams they are.

“Lavellan sometimes came awake from dreams in which her lover watched her sadly from across an endless distance”

It doesn’t say her dreams, or that she dreamed of Solas, nor does it deny they may be his. And I appreciate how that ambiguity again mirrors the nature of the Fade, leaving open the possibility that these dreams belong to either of them, or to both.

The dreams could originate with Lavellan, stirred by hope and belief, with Solas drawn into them by her emotional presence in the Fade. They could originate with Solas subconsciously being pulled into her dreams, revealing his own hidden ache for her. Or it could be a mutual convergence - neither initiating, but both arriving, called into the same dreamscape by the strength of their bond. These slides allow for all of these possibilities in it's refusal to define the source.

What's important though is that Solas is always withdrawing from them. Every time Lavellan reaches for him, he doesn’t speak, doesn’t approach - he vanishes. It suggests that he’s not drawn to her dreams to control or watch her possessively, but allows himself to be near her only briefly, pulling back before any contact is made.

Remember, Solas himself confessed to Lavellan she draws him away from the Fade. It's logical to assume then that she draws him in the Fade as well. Because Inquisitor Lavellan is still Fade Walking.

Lavellan - Fade Walker

What we know for certain is that the Inquisitor has demonstrated the ability to find Solas in the Fade before. In the Haven dream sequence, the Inquisitor locates him while sleeping. After they wake, Solas expresses surprise that they managed to find him, and that he changed the setting to Haven once they did. At the time, it’s assumed that the Anchor is what allows the Inquisitor to remain conscious and lucid within the Fade. But that may not be entirely true, the Trespasser dream slides complicate that assumption because at that point in the story, the Anchor is gone and yet:

“Still she searched, and dreamed, and waited, for a way to change the Dread Wolf’s heart.”

The way “dreamed” is used here - alongside verbs like searched and waited - positions it as an act in itself. It implies that Lavellan isn't just sleeping, but actively entering the Fade to dream and seek. Here, dreamed carries intention, movement and purpose.

Whether she communes with spirits, follows the traces he’s left behind, or navigates the remnants of memories, we aren’t told. But the phrasing highly suggests that Lavellan is looking for answers, information, ways to change the Dread Wolf's heart while in the Fade. (Which continues to support my theory that the Inquisitor has been forever altered by the Anchor.)

Do the Dreams Continue?

We’re never told that the dreams end - and the use of the plural dreams reinforces the sense that the tension between Lavellan and Solas remains unresolved. It suggests an ongoing, quiet pull that continues to draw them to one another. Perhaps unconsciously, they return to that shared space again and again, a connection that spills forward into Veilguard.

Maybe that ongoing pull is why Lavellan receives the wolf statuette, why she can tell Rook she still loves Solas, and why Solas, close to his goal of reshaping the world, stops to write her a letter. It even colours the way he speaks of her to Rook - “She is a good woman.” Not was, not someone I once knew: she exists for him in the present because their dreams keep finding their way to each other.

For the story, eight years separate Trespasser and Veilguard. For us as players, that’s a long time - but for them, if their dreams still connect them, still reach across the Fade? That distance may not be felt at all. Time moves differently in memory, and even more so in the Fade. Their last shared dream with each other could have come the night before the ritual, close enough to stir old feelings and sharpen Solas’ need to send those final words to his vhenan.

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Solvellan also fell victim to my Chibi needs this week 👀💚✨

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Wicked hearts and wicked eyes