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Senior Environment Artist Meggie Rock: "Her Sanctuary. This arena ended up being one of my favorite secret corners of the Crossroads to work on. "He made this place for her." Lighting: Ben McGrath" [source]

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Lo so, siete a bocca aperta. L’opera è di Darian Rodriguez Mederos, classe 1992, artista cubano di cui sentiremo parlare ancora.

via Jacopo Veneziani 

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- Do you really trust this Solas? - Trust is such a strong word, you know?

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is this the court intrigue you missed, Solas?

ERMMM joining arlathan au kinda i think. first i saw it was from @ kissingagrumpygiant so ERM!!! ty for this idea, huge brain fr

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I love adding "Reddit" to the end of all my google searches I will never stop.

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"I'll talk to him guys!!"

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He just loves his other half so much Bonus:

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With that dagger held unsheathed, I felt sick at my contempt. For you were lonely, you were like me. Like some outside force had sent me. If I was easy to kill, you would have done it already.

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That night...In The Crestwood.... Ar lasa mala revas..

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Potential Story Beats

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You should have seen me when I was younger. Hot-blooded and cocky, always ready to fight.

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It speaks volumes when Lavellan calls Solas a "terrible liar" in the Cobbled Swan. Rook is, of course, confused by this. "He's the god of lies," she says. But Lavellan clarifies, because that's not what she means. She means that he can't tell "lies of the heart." That is why he had to turn her away, because he actually could not deceive her.

Varric, very early in the game, also refers to Solas as "sentimental." He says to Rook, "He could burn the world down, and the thing that would make him cry is a single flower with blackened petals."

There's something very interesting about the elven god of lies and deceit, who unwillingly wears his heart on his sleeve, essentially creating a new version of the world in which all sources of raw, magical *emotion* that, according to him, used to imbue it with so much life and beauty have been compartmentalized from the more brutish, harsh aspects of the physical world. Because he, himself, has had to do this very thing to his own heart. He's "split." A very cool archetype. When he tells the Inquisitor to "harden her heart to a cutting edge" in Inquisition, he is projecting. Solas has built a "veil" within himself, to protect his more stern, militaristic identity as The Dread Wolf from the effusive, soft, and intelligent man that is Solas. It's the only way he can get anything done. Perhaps we should more aptly call him the god of stoicism and compartmentalization.

It's also interesting how well characters like Varric seem to know Solas, because it communicates that Solas did open up to the people of the Inquisition, during which time he "played the role" of quiet, unassuming Fade mage. Perhaps this wasn't a role at all, however, and perhaps this is why he is failing so spectacularly now. Who he really is is just this man who fell in love and made friends and found a home within a community where he did not have to cut off his emotions in order to lead. This was the "breach" in his plans, so to speak. It tore his world apart.

The whole story of Veilguard actually starts because Varric knows he can appeal to Solas's emotions and that this has a high chance of working to some degree. It's important to remember that while Varric didn't change Solas's mind at the ritual site, he was able to keep Solas talking long enough for Rook to sabotage his plans. Solas entertains Varric's pleas, because, sort of as Rook guesses with Lavellan at the Cobbled Swan, in some ways, Solas wants to be stopped. He wants someone to pull the reins on him because he is too prideful to stop himself.

Thinking back to Trespasser, I remember we all sort of knew this right away just in reading his body language. I remember someone making a whole post about it, and how he will not allow her to get too close to him. When she approaches, he takes a very measured step back. And later, as he takes the anchor, a task which requires him to take her hand, we see exactly why this is. He breaks down, calls her his "love," and kisses her. He is so stern and so measured and in "control," but then, all it takes is a single touch from the woman to whom he showed a glimpse of his true heart, his true self, to bring him to his knees.

The Veil as a narrative manifestation for how Solas tends to seal his own raw emotions away from others in order to function as the revolutionary general he had to be for centuries is a very beautiful construct to me.

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damn. she really did change everything.

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When I see discussions about Solas’s fear of dying alone, I often see the interpretation that Solas just doesn’t want to be alone in the literal sense. He wants friends, a partner, someone to hold his hand at the end. And while I don’t think those things are untrue… Solas’s fear of dying alone is about being the last of his kind. The last ancient elf. The last spirit who took on a physical form. The last being from a time and world where magic was as natural as a breeze, where everything sang the same. He wants someone, or multiple someones, who can sing back to him.

And he finds that in the Inquisitor, especially if romanced. In Veilguard, Lavellan sings back to him in the cadence of the ancient elves. I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it; she’s become so in sync with him just by loving him. Singing with him has become as natural as a breeze to her.