#Hand Me Down Muse

[lucabyte]

even dogs pass the mirror test

[vaguely-concerned]

My two cents on how much of Mind!Varric is Rook’s mind trying to fill the blank space and how much is Solas actively talking through a convenient blood magic paper doll of the mind: I think it's a mix of both, a truly collaborative psychosocial horrorshow if you would, but waaaay more towards the second. It feels too directed and tactical at times to be anything else. Rook's mind is willing to go along with the denial phase as far as it can fucking carry them to not have to face the grief and regret and does its part in papering over details that don’t make any sense, the way brains will strive to create coherent meaning even out of deeply confusing input, but to my understanding it's a collaborateur in how that plays out, not the instigator or control center. Solas is using it as a path to agency and to gather insight into Rook as a person unguarded as he can't count on in his own guise. (That stoic option that leads to him being like 'oh I see you're cautiously denying me access to your inner life. well. at least you still have Varric to talk to. y'know as an outlet :)'. You absolute BITCH Solas! That alone convinced me that he HAS to have an active hand in it on some level.)

My guess is that it takes considerable effort on Solas’ part to make Mind!Varric do anything more involved or complicated than seeming to sit up in bed and give casual commentary, and that’s why he keeps having eerie five minute shallow pep talks with you before he announces he conveniently needs a nap aaanyway good luck kid you got this haha. When he’s just spouting NPC lines from his bedrest, I’m ready to believe that could be Rook’s mind being allowed to improv lines for him more freely because it’s less about Solas trying to get something out of them or working an angle and more ‘Still here! Still totally alive and fine and the mentor figure you know and love and trust :) don’t even worry about it! Thankfully there is no war in Ba Sing Sei, as we all know’ upkeep work lol. Rook’s mind is allowed to set the tone of Varric, the outlines, but not always the content. 

AND, on a (beautifully fucked up) character psychology level, I feel like Solas is indulging in actually getting to be the good supportive mentor figure to Rook with one hand to assuage the guilt he feels about what he's done -- and what he's going to do -- to them with the other. Same internal logic as he uses in Trespasser about the Qun. ‘Almost everyone is going to die from the course of action I’m doggedly pursuing eventually. But at least I can make their last years happier and freer and kinder than they would have been otherwise. and that kind of makes up for it right. a little bit. doesn't it. doesn't that make it better at least. I need that to make it better)'. Did I really take your beloved mentor and friend from you if you don’t know yet that I did? Some philosophers would argue not really! So it’s probably almost ok actually. Isn’t it even a little noble that I’m taking all this grief and guilt on myself and shielding you for now. With undertones that I’m not sure he would realize himself (and might be mortified by if he did) that he is so incredibly lonely, and even a dishonest and indirect emotional connection is more than nothing when you’re that desperate. In this setup he gets idk. Both the control he craves so incredibly badly in relationships and over himself, and the scraps, the fading afterimages, of intimacy and warmth and companionship, even second hand. The one thing Solas and Rook agree on deep deep down is that they really wish Varric weren't gone. They're handshake memeing this in the saddest and most creepy way possible.

I think an important element too is that Solas needs Rook and their team to *succeed* —  up to a certain point. He needs someone to hold the two other elven mean girls off until he can get out of here. Ideally, in a perfect world, even do all the hard work of killing them so he can swoop in at the end and do his thing when both sides are exhausted and out of resources to stop him, and then Bob’s your uncle! Same logic as he was using with Corypheus, and after that worked out so well, too! King of choosing to never learn from a single solitary mistake he’s ever made even though i fully believe he could have the capacity to Fen’Harel <3 The underlying idea isn’t flawed, you see, it was just unforeseen circumstances getting in the way. This time for sure it’ll all work out the way I cleverly imagined it in my head beforehand. Cue By Talos this can’t be happening etc. in the form of a statue almost crushing him like a bug. 

So he's providing guidance and forging Rook into a leader from two angles: one Rook might not trust, and one they probably will. Shaping them into what he needs slowly and carefully. He’s helping you hone your team into their most effective state, as he might have done with his own agents back in the day, setting up his chess pieces even if he has to squint through two glimpsed realities to do it haha. Pincer maneuver of an insidious stealth mentor you never asked for. Also… at one point mind Varric gives you a whole little monologue about how Solas' problem is that he’s always seen his interpersonal connections as flaws and see where it’s landed him, all alone and the worst part? it hasn’t even worked. it’s all been for nothing he’s back where he began with nothing to show for it but his mistakes. Like...that has such strong 'uh okay happy to play your therapist from two rooms away here what the fuck kind of traumadump is this' energy to me, I’m not sure Rook like. Thinks that much about Solas as a private person. So much of Solas' self-loathing and futile insights into his own flaws seem to shine through in Mind!Varric's dialogue all the time — I just can't believe that there's no guiding hand behind it as it were. 

Most of all. I feel like people underestimate the degree to which Solas is incredibly funny. As in, he has a very consistent and recognizable sense of humour. It’s one of my very favourite things about him. We must remember — it is crucial that we always keep in mind — Orlesian accent and wig Solas from May The Dread Wolf Take You (my beloved, the explanation for why I love this dude even with the. All of the everything else. No one does it quite like him). He is not at all above doing things or adding little flourishes for his own obscure amusement, in fact that seems to me to be one of his most consistent traits. The Randy Dowager Quarterly comment Varric has? The ‘Maybe this is the Dread Wolf’s revenge. Forcing us to house sit for him’ thing? To Me this is 100% Solas amusing himself in his boring Fade jail surrounded by the screaming hellscape of all his regrets. Source: it came to me as divine revelation through pure vibes trust me bro 

If nothing else I find it much more narratively interesting personally if the connection between Rook and Solas really is that defenselessly intimate and entwined (and so unbalanced!), and the sense of violation and invasion and betrayal afterwards consequently all the more nauseatingly intense. Even if you kept him at arm’s length in the open, he’s been under your skin the whole time, looking around, gathering what he needs to destroy you, wearing the face of a friend. Regretfully, probably, but choosing to do it every step of the way anyway. (Sound familiar, Inquisitor? Solas doesn’t have that many tricks when you actually look at it, he keeps returning to old tried and true ones like a dog with a bone haha.) Maybe he even genuinely meant some of it as mercy, which only makes it so much worse. It makes his sin against his own core principles of autonomy and the freedom of all beings in mind, spirit and body so much more juicily grave if it’s something he pursues actively and consistently, rather than it half-falling into his lap as a happy accident mainly orchestrated by Rook’s own subconscious. Solas, too, is at his very lowest point, the closest to giving in and becoming his own antithesis fully that he’s ever been, and it makes the choice of whether you still reach out your hand to him one last time or not all the more impactful and difficult.

[cipherwifer]

NOW THAT IT’S JUST US PALS I’LL FESS UP, I MADE UP A NEW RULE EVERY OTHER TIME I PLAYED INTERDIMENSIONAL CHESS WITH A PAWN AND KEPT TRACK OF HOW LONG IT TOOK EACH OF THEM TO QUESTION IT. HERE ARE SOME NOTABLE STATS:

SEVVY - 157 GAMES NOTICED, 157 GAMES QUESTIONED (UNSWERVING IS RIGHT, YEESH)

DOC - 112 GAMES NOTICED, 106 GAMES QUESTIONED (PRETTY GOOD CONSIDERING REGULAR CHESS HADN’T BEEN INVENTED ON EARTH YET)

X’Y - 67 GAMES NOTICED, 125 GAMES QUESTIONED. I THINK HE JUST NATURALLY ASSUMED EVERY GAME OF CHESS HAD A SECRET RULE HE DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT.

MARY (B) - 12 GAMES NOTICED, 10 GAMES QUESTIONED. NOT THAT I CARE IF SHE NOTICED.

MARY (D-T) - N/A (WE NEVER PLAYED CHESS, BUT SHE DID KICK MY ASS AT BEER PONG)

SIXER - 92 GAMES NOTICED, NO GAMES QUESTIONED! THE GUY WENT ALONG WITH IT EVERY SINGLE TIME!

[bismuthburnsblue]

please excuse the as-ever shitty lighting but!!!!! i made it to the 3/4 mark on binding the tabs edge of the stays!!!!!

its not completely perfect in places, and my stitches are definitely visible, but i kinda love the look. either way, nobody is going to see it on the costume, but it feels like a little signal- hey, i was here, i made this. i left a mark :'''')

heres a closer look!!

and one of the reverse side, because i think that looks neat too :)

(its another example of learning on the job bc my corners definitely get neater as i go along)

ah, im just, so happy with how theyre coming out!!!! im hoping ill be able to do one side of the top binding on the machine as its a lot less curvy, but ill see when i get there (soon! soon!!!!!!)

[stage-set]

[gu6chan]

i open up my twitter just so i can stare all day at his beautiful face

[orangetintedglasses]

When'd I become my own enemy? I don't understand what you see in me 'Cause I'm just another story (that's not worth a reading) Now you've got me pinned up against the wall Why aren't you afraid that I'll take a fall? There's more that came before me (am I worth believing?) I'm not so sure

[shcrbcrtxlcmon]

ron weasley tag drop

—・✦・— || ron weasley || red hair and hand me down clothes || visage

[captainsantiagos]

Just because something doesn’t end up being romantic love, does NOT mean it isn’t still love. Love exists in many forms.

[aparticularbandit]

meanwhile sonic x shadow generations will probably be my birthday present to myself.

specifically i plan to preorder this because what do you mean i can get gerald robotnik's notebook on creating shadow and the ark

[vessuna]

[rcdiostcrs]

i know i just added four characters, but the wolf pack cast is so pretty i wanna add them.

[quillheel]

I'll designate you __ to lovers ━ allies.

what starts off as a partnership by obligation turns into one by choice. maybe you don't think of them that way at first, but after you realize that you two work incredibly well together, the feelings just... fall into place. of course it's only natural that they should remain by your side. of course you would take risks to keep them safe, and they would do the same for you. you can't imagine facing something without them now. it's like they were always there. what's more, the bond you've forged over the years is doubly strong for having made the sharing of mental and emotional states necessary. you've stuck with each other through the stress, the breakdowns, but also the victories, the laughs, the brief moments of frivolity. now those things come naturally. you know nobody more intimately. you are able to take care of each other. you can probably make it through anything. you have so far, at least, even if there were some losses along the way.

[spkyscry-aa]

I need to be more active here...

[gu6chan]

currently obsessed with platonic caionard intimacy...... leonard feeling particularly emotionally sensitive and sentimental after a battle to where he somehow gets it in his head to just help wash caim off who's too exhausted to do it himself..... somewhere down the line caim deciding with no PERSONAL feelings it was only polite to "thank" him by returning the favour and help wash the blood off a poor blind man who's FAR more conscious of whether it stays on him than Caim.... just things you do with your brother in war......

[disdaidal]

The way I'm still not finished with writing the first two ideas I had in mind for this ship, I'm suddenly getting two more. 🙈🙊 Could somebody please arrange it so that I'd have all the time in the world to write it all? Because 24hrs a day is simply not enough.