#and SOLAS ugh!

[densewentz]

mmm not to be a solasmancer on main but im thinking about those few days after the Cole debacle if a solavellan Inquisitor encourages him to remain a spirit. just. Solas, watching her fret so much in the aftermath, terrified that she may have taken someone's choice away, worried that she influenced what Cole wanted somehow, watching her sheer relief and unbridled joy after Cole's, free and light and brimming with happy incredulity, "but you didn’t change, didn’t make me change. Thank you". He watches her, and thinks of Mythal. Thinks of devotion, and abuse. Regret. Thinks of Cole, and spirits and Wisdom and Pride- Thinks, wistfully, achingly, "in her hands, I might have been safe".

[totentnz]

thinking about shibari again 😔 specifically kerry

[apostatefeverdream]

hello gay people dot com is anyone else going gently insane about the whole "We have retaken Skyhold from the demons that infested it, and there we've brought refugees from this onslaught. How fitting that the fortress that housed my people when we waged war against Corypheus should serve to once again protect the innocent from would-be gods." thing????

idk there's something about the image of the inquisitor back in skyhold after ten years. back in their chambers, the war room, the herald's rest. a decade on and somehow the odds feel even more impossible this time around and maybe that's ever so slightly because skyhold, once busy and bustling, simmering with zeal and pride, is now sitting dark and empty and sad. the skeleton crew that keep it do their best, dust and crumbling mortar are easily fixed, but nothing can dull the slow, steady ache of time and memory.

then skyhold once again floods with people - the noble, the common, warriors and mages and all other manner of folk - and this time, rather than spoiling for a fight, these people are terrified. most are injured, some are dying, all have lost everything. the grounds and great hall are once again fit to bursting, but skyhold remains so desperately, achingly sad. the rotunda is conspicuously empty. as is the library, the rookery, josephine's office, the training grounds, the undercroft. there are new advisors, of course, and the return of a few old friends, but they don't play wicked grace, don't eat together, don't sit and tell long stories into the small hours. the hearth in the inquisitor's room is never as warm as it used to be, the gardens are never as green.

everything is a pale imitation of what was, and the inquisitor, who once was the beating heart of it all, realises that skyhold can never be their home again.

something like that.

[comfortyart]

Fen and his boyfriends 🐺🐍✨️

[cheriboms]

everybody was very nice on my last post(s) so !!! more cole and manfred be upon you :D

[thevulturesquadron]

Thank you for speaking up.

Fans have absolutely no idea of the struggle that goes into working on a project you love in the video game industry. How much heart, effort and mental health goes into developing a game. There is no excuse under the sun for this behaviour, I just wish there was a way to hold these people accountable.

[misspr0npieartz]

A Quiet Life

[simpforsolas]

i wrote up this whole rant yesterday about how I didn't find the Solas arc satisfying in this game, and seeing the ama and interviews today, I think I understand why that is lol.

yes, Solas carried this game. Yes i loved every time he was on the screen. yes his arc made me cry. NO it was not satisfying. and i'm just gonna go ahead and copy paste my rant explaining my feelings the best i can.

(i wrote this yesterday before all the revelations)

Solas's writing wasn't successful to me not because I think he was written out of character, necessarily. I think that every individual instance of his character being written on-screen was fine, but to me, his character was missing the wider context that put the isolated actions we saw of him in the game into perspective

The entire point is that the Dread Wolf/Fen'Harel persona that we see is a mask he wears. And that's fine, I like it! But what makes a mask interesting is to see what it's masking, and Rook doesn't really get to see that unless you choose the reedem ending. I guess what I'm getting at is that I craved to see more Inquisition-style Solas, in particular Trespasser Solas who was so remorseful but stuck in his ways, who stuck to his path but said stuff like "I would treasure the chance to be wrong once again, my friend." All these different sides are real sides of Solas, but because the game didn't really show us all these sides then we're left with a lopsided picture and now I have to deal with all these fools misinterpreting him all over the internet

I can still interpret it my way well enough, but the thing is that's my interpretation and it's a valid interpretation of the source material itself, but other people's interpretations are also valid because the game didn't really get more into his motivations other than "it's all mythal." But if you go back to inquisition, you can see how passionate Solas is about his ideals! His banter with other party members and his approval and dialogue you get with him really suggests that he actually CARES about his goal at an idealistic level, it's not just about regret. I like the regret! I like the history with Mythal!! I just wish it was more of something in his backstory that shaped him to who he is today and is something he needed to work through in order to finally see things clearly, instead of being the one magical thing that had to happen for him to get his "redemption"

I'm also rather frustrated that the right answer was just going straight back to the status quo, when we KNOW the veil is falling apart and shattered and an unnatural wound inflicted on the world that turns spirits into demons, prevents the world from achieving the magical/technological wonders it once had, keeps elves from immortality, and creates this fear and class difference between mages/non-mages and people who understand the fade and those who don't. Like when I replayed Origins i was struck by how many plot points are basically "the veil is weak here which means that there are demons here and they killed hundreds of people!!!!!!" Things like that are still going to be a problem hello why was none of this addressed 😭😭😭 I wish we could've validated the problems Solas's plan resolved to fix instead of saying "you just need to move on man this is just you taking your issues out on the world" because it WASN'T THAT

'm also really frustrated that we don't see a SINGLE big plan of Solas's go right because I know my man, I BELIEVE in my man, I know that he was smart and clever and had wins!!! I don't mind him fucking up but when all we ever see of him are major fuck ups it annoys me because COME ON. He's the DREAD WOLF. He knows how to make plans and carry them out. He saved thousands of slaves during his time, he fought and won countless battles, he locked away the Evanuris! Sure things fell apart in the actual veil part but he was able to trick all of them and did succeed in locking them away. The only thing we actually see him accomplish in this game is escaping regret prison, which is instantly seen as less cool because Rook gets out after like five minutes, and taking down the archdemon which was pretty hot but that wasn't about trickery, that was him engaging in straight up physical fighting in his wolf form. Anyway it frustrates me because now people in the fandom can rightly laugh about him being stupid and having bad plans. Yet I can't help but go back to inquisition and listen to his advice, dialogue, etc, and he's always so thoughtful and wise! So i just find it hard to believe that this man is incapable of taking a win. even if he kept all the Ls in this game but they had included a few more wins i wouldn't even be mad but it was literally just a collection of Solas's Ls and it frustrates me because I think he's better than that

i'm just worked up about this because i've been seeing takes about solas from people who used to like him but this game made them hate him, and the fact that the source material from datv as an isolated game actually supports their perspective is driving me insane. cuz if you ask me a lot of solas's character and motivations between dai and datv are actually at odds with each other. even if the surface characterization is absolutely on point, there was just so much context and scope that we're missing in this game. i can't handle it

[chromunist]

Fen'Harel ma ghilana

[s0lavellan]

“why didn’t we have a regret mural for how Solas treated Lavellan” because it’s right here in Tevinter Nights if some of you bothered to engage with other Dragon Age materials besides the games 🤦‍♀️

Sutherland literally channels Solas’ inner monologue.

[an-established-butt-dent]

One of my many Solavellan head cannons.

They traveled together for months, years even. Don't tell me these lovesick fools didn't regularly disappear into the woods together, to have a quiet romantic moment away from the prying eyes of the other companions.

Mixed media on paper.

[wormelf]

maybe it’s just me but I’m kinda not a fan of veilguard canonically making solas responsible for the blight.

like i kind of enjoyed the mysticism of the blight, about how utterly unexplained and singular in its madness it was. it was very much the titans causing the blight, but as to the why? idk, I think it would have been awesome if it went the route of dark souls or something and had just not been explained. or if it were something that went wrong so very long ago, and only the dwarves of old knew why, but it’s been lost to time.

it’s also the fact that he is very open in trespasser about what he did to the elves and the world in bringing down the veil, but he doesn’t at all mention being responsible for the blight. which is second to him, the most dangerous thing in Thedas, and is an active constant threat. he is very insistent on atoning for things he’s done, but he doesn’t mention doing that, which I think he would have since he was putting everything out in the open to the inquisitor.

I don’t know. I suck at words. Does anyone else kind of feel this?

[vir-bellanaris]

Solas is so soft for Lavellan and it actually is killing me.

His broken "my love" before he kisses her stop it right now.

[jochiemgrace]

I JUST NOTICED THE TRINITY THING (allegory?) WITH SOLAS:

God: Fen’Harel

Man: Solas

Spirit: Wisdom

[maabelasdaruth]

So I've been thinking about how Lavellan is constantly choosing a man who fails to choose her over the world, and the happy redemption ending for them is her giving up the world for him. It just strikes me how the best case scenario for a relationship where you constantly compromise your life and values for a man is being locked in a prison with him and the consequences of his actions in LITTERAL blighted tortured nightmares. Where he is going is terrible but it won't be terrible if you're there. YOU CAN SAVE HIM FROM HIMSELF, it just costs you your life to do it. Giving up your world just to once again save your man from the consequences of his actions? Really? Cause you love him? Cause you choose him? Like, I guess it's going to be a lot harder for this man to run away from you when you're locked up together but also, you HARDLY KNOW HIM.

[evanhereonearth]

They have both known the terror of disappearing in plain sight.

With every eye on them, with upturned faces watching them in hope, pleading with them for deliverance. With the ferocity of enemies turned upon them, with everyone certain they know exactly who stands at the forefront of the revolution, the movement, the breaking wave of history—they have both been caught by the riptide and dragged under where there souls can no longer breathe.

“You came here to help, Solas. I won’t let them use that against you.”

“And how would you stop them?”

“However I had to.”

The simple first moments of seeing and being seen. A spirit long since wrenched from the Fade and given physical form he didn’t seek, waking in a world where no one sees him as a person. A prisoner turned religious icon looks him in the eye and says she agrees that spirits are people. And he recognises the spirit in her for as rare and marvellous as any he’s seen.

Quiet curiosity. Trust. Patience. Love.

The brutality of trauma. The bonds of desperation. The self-rejection of long-festering shame. Sowing seeds in the hopes that they will not die, that something of the truest self will remain no matter the tales the world tells of either of them. Murderer. Traitor. Heretic. Hero. Harellan.

This is the journey. The paths had to diverge, had to give time to those seeds to sprout and bear fruit.

But love. Oh, love, building back self under the weight of the world. Stretching out roots that allow a spirit to grow.

Acceptance. Grace.

He is still Wisdom. He knows the burden of a wound that turns septic; he remembers the regret of his own naïveté and will not take advantage of hers no matter how healing her heartbeat against his.

And she learns.

She learns as he walks away twice. As she feels him in the Fade, returning, always returning. To her. To her heart, where he hides his truest self.

“Tell me you don’t love me!”

“I cannot do that, vhenan.”

She learns the weight of his regrets and the wisdom of his reasons. She seeks out the din’an shiral not to blindly follow but to walk beside; she gives him the space he needs.

She knows the paths cannot help but converge.

She finds those seeds sprouting in her heart, the truest knowledge of seeing and being seen—that he trusted her with himself because he knew the world would wound him from Wisdom into Pride anew, and he needed the shelter of her heart of Grace. So someone would remember Solas instead of Fen’Harel.

When she finds her understanding, she tends to the vines that grow between their hearts. She does not sever them. She has planted seeds of her own in his; her faithfulness and her compassion, her ferocity in believing he is worthy of being saved.

She knows his deepest fear, and she watches him face it on that fateful day when their paths converge once more, watches him walk towards an endless future of being alone until his death. The finality of forever.

Her power, her Wisdom, her strength to take up her path by his side.

“I will go to seek atonement.”

“But you do not have to go alone.”

So much love in simple words. So much truth beneath their surface.

You are worthy of healing, she says.

You are worthy of forgiveness, she says.

You are worthy of grace, she says.

And we have waited long enough.