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egg vol 2024

I'm still not in the mood to buy Dragon Age: Veilguard, but participating in the annual drawing is non-negotiable.

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Senators are going to vote on whether or not we should continue to send aid to Israel on Wednesday, November 13th. Call them, bombard their phone lines with calls. Every fucking day. We have a chance of doing something about this.

While you are at it, please share @zinaanqar ‘s campaign (link here)

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I don't think we talk enough about how part of wisdom is having a good judgement, a sense of boundaries and sensibility, and how this is such a strong thread in the background lore for Solas.

And also:

I have had the lines "Tell our people to treasure those animals. I could not make them now" in my head since I first read them because they're such a dark little story in their own right. The waste of her creative brilliance on something as brutal and blunt as Blight for oppression and torment. I headcanon that she must have been a spirit of Creativity or something close to it and thus been closely attuned to Wisdom; Solas must have been particularly sad about her demise. And he did tell their people to treasure the halla. (I'm not crying you're crying.)

Idk maybe this is because I'm old and tired and dabble in politics IRL but all of this reads like trying to discuss asylum rights or fucking anything with a fascist. You apply TEN BILLION TON of logic and reason and fairness and wisdom to your argument that is inevitably met with "my gut feeling tells me differently." There is just something about the way he keeps trying to reason with them. "You must know..." I imagine him walking around there every day internally shouting JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DO SOMETHING DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD DO IT YOU ABSOLUTE WANKER!!!!!!!1111

Thank you for coming to my super intellectual Ted talk.

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people surprised that mythal might’ve groomed solas as if mythal didn’t attach herself to flemeth, a woman who groomed her daughter into seducing men for power. “it sounds icky” yes it is icky mythal is not supposed to be a character you see as morally righteous. solas says “she was the best of them” HE’S TALKING ABOUT SLAVERS YA’LL THE BAR IS IN HELL??? idk i feel fucking insane rn. the duet is clearly about him and mythal. it doesn’t mean that the duet is inherently romantic, and maybe there is nothing romantic between them, but if there is how is that in any way shape or form ooc for her? the way this fandom has retconned mythal/flemeth into being some girl boss is crazy. this is not an anti solavellan post btw im talking purely about solas and mythal.

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i honestly feel like the mythal-solas-lavellan thing is not even that complex or hard to figure out and yet i'm still seeing so many solasmancers completely misunderstanding it and hating it as a result of misinterpreting it?

like no. lavellan is not mythal 2.0. i do think there are possibly some aspects about lavellan that drew solas to her because they might remind him of the parts of mythal he admired sure. but then there's a very obvious and intentional contrast! where mythal twisted solas and "used his wisdom as a weapon" so much he literally became pride, lavellan asks his advice, respects his opinions and lets him become more like the wisdom he originally was. mythal left him to go become a god with the rest of the evanuris while lavellan rejects the mantle of chosen one.

and it also really puts in to perspective his extreme reactions to the inquisitor drinking from the well and what happens to the wisdom spirit. he's horrified lavellan is bound to mythal. he's outraged at wisdom being corrupted against its will. those are things mythal did to him. that he let her do because he loved her. those are not things lavellan would do and the moment when he truly comes to respect the inquisitor for their wisdom and judgement is if they agree to help the spirit. it's also when he can't hold himself back from wanting to get closer to lavellan anymore. she shows herself to be the opposite of mythal in a way that is so meaningful to him.

i also don't see how solas is "settling" for lavellan in the redemption ending. whatever his feelings were for mythal, they're so twisted up in all the ways she hurt him too. i think it's interesting there are codex entries that call solas "mythal's lapdog" and her second in command. it makes me wonder if there was ever a time when their dynamic was really equal. when she appears before him he immediately bows his head and won't look her in the eye. he becomes disturbingly submissive. i don't see how anyone can look at that body language and see a man wanting to get back with his ex.

he says in his letter what he really wanted was to give up all of his plans and just be with lavellan as solas. but he doesn't let himself have that because of what he feels he still owes to mythal. he regrets what he let mythal turn him into, he regrets not being able to reconcile with her before her death despite that, and he convinces himself that any pain he causes or damage he does in the aftermath is in her honor. giving it all up for lavellan would be betraying not only mythal but literally the entire elvhen empire who suffered when he created the veil as retribution over the evanuris murdering her.

so when mythal finally gives him closure and tells him he doesn't have to carry that burden anymore, that's when he's finally free to choose lavellan, the person he really wants to be with. the person who allows him to return to his true purpose and makes him better. he's not settling he's moving on.

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Reblog to let your followers know that despite your current obsession your previous obsessions still exist and are simply lying dormant until they awaken and strike again

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do you actually want (fetish related thing) or do you just (attempt at psychoanalysis that reveals more about OP than anything else)

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That's not fair.

(If you want to see me vent I'm on tiktok, @cryingbard)

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Transphobia is so antithetical to genuine feminism it blows my mind there's such a wide overlap like you either believe in autonomy and self determination or you don't

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free my girl she did all that shit but the fandom is mischaracterizing her for it

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I don't wanna sit here and act like I'm a professional or anything, because I'm not, but as someone who has had to do a lot of work to overcome trauma and reconfigure my brain more or less from the ground up, there's a lot I have to say about Solas's mental state

We know that Solas was essentially used and abused by Mythal for millennia. Even if he wasn't under a geas, he was twisted from his purpose by being made to fight, and then created the Wolf's Fang which was used to make the Titans tranquil and started the Blights. He made those choices himself, but it's important to understand that no choice is ever made in a vacuum. She took advantage of his vulnerability when he was given a body after however long as a spirit semi-existing peacefully in the Fade, and moulded him into a weapon.

He is broken, because Mythal broke him. I'm not incapable of seeing why she did what she did because like I said, no one makes choices in a vacuum and I could write about her for a long time too (in a similar way to how I have had to do myself in my own life in understanding why others abused me). He was so traumatised by everything that happened and he was trauma bonded to Mythal pretty much from the minute he gained a body. Trauma bonds are not about love. He definitely interpreted it that way, as most people do, but that's the weapon abusers use to keep the victim under their control. Abuse abuse abuse show a scrap of love and then abuse some more. If I just take it, I'll get the love/attention I need. I will earn it, because love is suffering, and I have to suffer to earn getting my basic needs met from my family/friends. Mythal, as his creator, was the one who he would've attached to in a similar way to spirit Cole/human Cole.

Trauma bonds are pathological. Mythal made him believe that if he did as she asked, and kept supporting her, then eventually he would gain her favour and they would be able to free all the elves, and he'd be able to live according to his true nature, which is one where he doesn't have to fight. (Remember his personal quest in DAI? He actually kills the rebel mages for corrupting his friend--another Wisdom spirit--into Pride.) In reality, she was just using him. She always kept the bone just out of reach for her lapdog. The line from Rook where they say (paraphrasing here) 'you know, I was actually excited about getting your approval... That's how you do it, isn't it? Keeping giving little scraps of approval to keep someone loyal, and then you turn around and betray them' is so telling too.

Where--or from whom--do you think he learned to do this?

It literally reeks of a pathological trauma bond and honestly, with how isolated, 'grim and fatalistic' Solas is, it is not a surprise that he's so broken.

Solas, essentially, is little more than a lap-dog to Mythal. He followed her like a lost puppy, because especially in his early days, that's kind of what he was. You have to remember that most of the insight we get about Mythal is from Solas's perspective, and he is not a reliable person when it comes to her after so long being repeatedly terrorised and twisted and manipulated. There are several instances where he describes being betrayed by her, and mentions some of the things she did, but he never quite holds her fully accountable and ends up directing his rage elsewhere. (The parallel between Mythal/Solas and the rebel mages/Wisdom is important here.)

This awesome post by @mythalism only reinforces this. He is so messed up in that scene, he is broken, he is holding the Wolf's Fang up, trying to give it to her because it symbolises the burden he has carried for thousands of years trying to avenge her death. He never wanted the Fang, like he never wanted a body. Mythal just stands over him, fully aware of what she did to him, and only getting him to stop because Rook petitioned her successfully, and the reunion with the more benevolent Mythal within Morrigan tempered her anger. She was a goddess, with the unequal power dynamic, right to the end.

As a side note, on the potential romance element between Mythal and Solas, I read an excellent breakdown of it on Reddit a while ago about how out of character it would've been for Solas to keep something like that from a romanced Lavellan, especially in Trespasser when he comes clean about his plan/past. I can't find it now because it was pre-Veilguard release, but it made a lot of sense to me. Solas and Lavellan never have a love scene in DAI because Solas didn't want to 'lay with them under false pretences'. Lying about who you are when sleeping with someone is nonconsensual. You can't consent to sleeping with someone if you don't know their true identity, and someone who knowingly lies about who they are to get into your pants is a sexual predator. For someone who led a slave rebellion (no doubt many of them being sex slaves), and a former spirit of Wisdom, Solas would've been well aware of this. In the unsent letter from Solas to Lavellan he says he came so close to breaking and desperately wanted to stay with them as Solas, with the implication being that that is where he planned to sleep with them once he'd come clean. But because he stops, because he's still unable to forgive himself or release himself from his trauma bond with Mythal, he breaks away, and they never have sex.

Bottom line: Solas would've been honest about it. Especially that. As the Inquisitor says, he can't lie about his heart.

And it's why the Solas/Lavellan romance is so powerful because quote, 'you change everything'. Solas thought he knew what love was, that love was loyalty, devotion, worship, etc. It's not just his plans or worldview that Lavellan changes. Lavellan sees him for who he is, without the mantle of Dread Wolf, and because of that he's able to express his true nature to her, even if he's not being totally honest in Inquisition. Lavellan got much closer to the real him than most, as he says, and changed his understanding of love completely. Unfortunately, he has unfinished business, an unresolved trauma bond, and his crushing sense of duty to the past is what keeps him from taking that final step towards letting go of it entirely. Trick also says Solas doesn't think he deserves love, which tbh is kind of a hallmark trait of people who have survived abuse.

And honestly? Call me a simp but I think he really was trying to get the Inquisitor to stop him. He saw himself being unable to let go because he was so broken and burdened by his guilt, and knew he couldn't save himself--was too proud to admit that he couldn't, because how pathetic does it make him look? And how could he stop now without rendering all the damage he'd wrought pointless? Yet here was someone who had changed him right down to his core, who understood him in a way few people ever had, whom he trusted, whom he loved in a way he hadn't loved anyone else before. It took him 'centuries' to build up rapport with the members of his rebellion. The man doesn't not know how to form attachments without trauma, and suddenly he forms a strong one with someone who loves him completely and without condition. It's a jarring change.

Lavellan says that maybe they're being prideful themselves, refusing to see their own folly. But I think in admitting that they might be wrong, that it might be wishful thinking borne from misguided love to a truly terrible person, they've rendered the point moot. It shows self-awareness, which isn't folly.

If anyone can make Solas understand true love, it's Lavellan. Lavellan loved him when he was being his true self. Lavellan loved him after his betrayal was revealed. Lavellan loved him when his guilty conscience and terrible actions almost destroyed the world. Lavellan loved him because they knew the real him, and knew that his heart and spirit were broken, and knew that their love would endure, that their love would heal him.

And that's exactly where they end up. Healing the past, soothing the Blight, and loving one another completely.

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You are probably doing so much better than you could ever realize. The progress you've made is admirable. And the reason you don't realize this is because you're holding yourself to impossible standards. You deserve the credit for what you've accomplished.

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Hey, USAmericans? Wanna save your country? Run For Something!

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art from this book that is making me insane