shewassaying

[shewassaying]

[shewassaying]

[shewassaying]

Thinking about a romanced Alistair who did not do the Dark Ritual, and was left behind at the gates while the Warden attempts to fight their way to the top of Ft. Drakon.

Then the moment he realizes that Riordan has fallen, which means the Warden is the only one left who can end this once and for all—

He’s standing there, and it all comes crashing in. The realization of what is going to happen, and the fact he won’t be there to save you.

How does one process the grief produced from something like that? That feeling of helplessness and regret?

[shewassaying]

Slowly playing other visual novels

I managed to Arum the Titan in one day

so here are some scribbles(lol) I made, I don’t know why Oscar looks like that either

[shewassaying]

Late night doodle finally got to draw Aster 🥲

[shewassaying]

Oh hey, look! I was inspired by a handsome character and decided to get back into fanfiction so I wrote a thing!

[shewassaying]

Playing Titan Arum thanks to @prettyboykatsuki and when i changed my name to play a different route...

[shewassaying]

One of my favorite things we did tbh

Um reblogging screenshots of this game in rapid fire BUT----

[shewassaying]

Min and I make a good team 🥰

Hello, I just wanted to say thank you so much for Titan arum and for completely changing my brain forever, heres a million little treats.

🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂

Thank you so much <3

Although I only did the sprite art and designed the boys! It's actually our amazing project lead that made/wrote the boys: https://shewassaying.itch.io/ <3

But it's always such a pleasure to draw these boys, I love them.

[shewassaying]

I CANNOT stop thinking about Merrill as Inquisitor. Solas rocks up like “I’m just an apostate mage!” and Merrill’s insane, insatiable curiosity requires him to start crafting the most INTRICATE lies, while she simultaneously absolutely eviscerates him for condescending to explain stuff she already knows.

Solas: “Oh I walk in the Fade!”

Merrill: “Teach me immediately!”

Solas, who did not expect this: “Oh. Hmm. Actually it’s a highly specialized skill.”

Merrill: “Would blood magic help?”

Solas: ????

***

Iron Bull, asking about the eluvian: “The fuck is that?”

Solas, full professor-mode: “It is an ancient elven artifact, known as-“

Merrill: “Ooooooh I wonder if it connects to the other eluvian!”

Solas, panicked: “What other eluvian?”

Merrill: “The one in my house!”

Solas: ??!!???

***

Solas: “Vallaslin are slave markings, actually.”

Merrill: “Oh that’s sad! But they mean so much more now, my vallaslin is one of my last connections to a culture I am no longer allowed to participate in. They remind me that I am always Dalish, no matter what happens - that’s a part of me!”

Solas: “History doesn’t change just because you want it to!”

Merrill: “Are you not listening to me on purpose?.”

***

Merrill: “So are you dedicated to the Dread Wolf?”

Solas, spitting out his drink: “WHAT?”

Merrill: “We’ll you’re so rude about the Dalish and you don’t have vallaslin! But it wouldn’t be very, you know, sneaky to put “I am dedicated to the Dread Wolf!” on your face.”

Solas, panicking: “Uh, well, actually, um…”

Merrill: “Plus you wear a wolf jaw bone around your neck.”

Solas: !!!!!??!????

Merrill: “Not very subtle, is it?”

[shewassaying]

[shewassaying]

“DAO was so dark. Broodmothers and the city elf origin!”

Begging dragon age fans to recognize that sexual violence isn’t the only or even biggest thing that made DAO dark fantasy.

For me, what makes it dark isn’t the darkspawn and the impending world-ending doom of the Blight (they could have made a more uplifting epic fantasy about fighting an unambiguously bad thing). It’s the never ending series of bullshit you encounter trying to assemble an army to fight it. Gruesome magic and political scheming. Loghain isn’t a one-dimensional power hungry antagonist and you have the option to recruit him because he’s useful.

It’s that you’re faced with a series of moral dilemmas that make you question how far your Grey Warden will go to stop the Blight. In war, victory.

[shewassaying]

Solas repeatedly explains that things are not so black and white and the fandom's response to the nature of his relationships with Mythal and Felassan etc are weirdly reminiscent of what he finds frustrating about modern Thedas.

He explains repeatedly that the distinction between spirit and demon is not that black and white, that there's always an element of choice involved. Likewise, he cannot be so easily defined as wisdom or pride. He is a mix of both and will lean into one or the other depending on how he is perceived. Over and over again he tries to make people see that it's our expectations that create the dynamics of our relationships and therefore how we perceive others. If we respect others in the way they would like to be respected, you can come closer to an authentic and equal partnership.

Likewise, he says that he is not defined by his body, a point Trick said came from their own thoughts around their gender and figuring out that they were nonbinary. Solas chose a male body, seemingly because he had to choose one, not necessarily because he felt like a man. In fact he repeatedly explains that he sees himself as a spirit i.e. genderless

The romance or friendship with the Inquisitor is special because it is the first time that he's branching out of his comfort zone of bonding like a spirit bonds (reflecting) and trying to bond like a person does instead (meeting them on their level, sharing his heart with them and being vulnerable). This is why one of my favourite lines from him is 'You are unique. In all Thedas I never expected to find someone who could draw my attention from the Fade. You have become important to me.' This is the first time he has fallen in love, the first time he has actually relished being a person and not a spirit, because he's able to be with Lavellan this way. He can't fall in love as a spirit as spirits don't bond that way, as is repeatedly stated throughout his story. I personally think the relationships he forged before Inquisition were all done using the attachment style of spirits, which is apparently quite abstract, and not as a man, which is more understandable to mortals and us, the player.

What's especially pertinent about this is that says this line right before he's about to abandon his plan to tear down the Veil by telling the Inquisitor the truth, a plan that symbolises his attachment to his spirit-self and the world he inadvertently destroyed. Once he does that, there's no coming back; likewise, once you take a body, you cannot go back. When you fall in love in a way that makes all the parts of you line up perfectly for the first time, you can't go back.

What is so beautiful to me about Solas's love story with Lavellan is that we witness Solas in a chrysalis state between spirithood and personhood, past and present (and future), on the precipice of metamorphosis. At the very moment he's about to take that final leap like The Fool his romance card is based on, he backs out, because of guilt, trauma, grief, duty and the rest.

Even with a befriended Inquisitor, he bonds with them on their level. He doesn't try to elevate them to his level; he comes to theirs. He is the opposite of Pride in their friendship, which is why he respects them. They allow him to be himself.

It's because of this change in nature that I think Solas and Lavellan's love story is so compelling--Solas's world quite literally changes when he falls in love, as he states multiple times, in various ways. I mean, look at the way he needs time to think about a potential relationship with Lavellan. He probably knows that it's a bad idea, but at this point he has no idea how much of a bad idea it is with respect to his plans because he has no idea that it will make him want to give it up. If he had, he never would've entertained the idea of a relationship. His romance card in Veilguard explains that he didn't know what it would mean to fall in love, because he's never actually been in love. He has loved countless friends and companions, like Mythal and Felassan, but he has not fallen for someone like he falls for a romanced Lavellan; Lavellan, who is deified like he was deified, who sees him for who he is (as much as they can) and doesn't shun him or punish him for not doing as he was told like a good lapdog.

Once again there's more of the irony that pervades Solas's story at every turn. It's in falling for a mortal that Solas becomes a more complete person, more of the man he says he is and not the god others have revered him as. That is the deepest change of all and the one that reflects his earlier statements on the delineation between spirit and demon not being so black and white, and involving a level of choice. Solas chooses to be more of a man in a similar way to how Cole chooses to become more human. He knows deep down that he's already in too deep to stop, and this is why, despite knowing he has a job to do and a duty to fulfil, he leaves clues for the Inquisition to follow him. Because he's already gone too far, and now he can't go back, and deep down he wants to be stopped, like Varric said. Solas, as a former spirit, doesn't simply feel love, he embodies it, and so he is helpless to that emotion. Of course he left clues.

Because that is what falling in love meant for Solas. It meant going into that chrysalis state and emerging as a totally new being with an experience that is quite far removed from his spirit self and all the limitations that come with that. Mythal and Felassan etc predate this experience, they're intrinsically tied to his nature as a spirit and then as a manifested spirit. While he loved them, that love was tangled up with a simpler nature, and the love he shares with Lavellan is coming from a totally new place. For that reason, the two can't really be compared.

[shewassaying]

THIS IS WHAT WE NEEDED

Going absolutely insane over the idea of Elgernan finding out about Lavellan. The Inquisitor. The Herald. The lowly elf creature that STOLE FenHarel's anchor and destroyed his plans without even knowing it.

The slip of a thing that the Dread Wolf calls his heart and paints unending murals of. Can you imagine him and ghilanain going after the Inquisitor??? Can you imagine Elgarnan holding Lavellan's throat in his hand and Solas???? Seeing?????? CAN YOU IMAGINE THE FALLOUT OF SUCH AN ENCOUNTER????

[shewassaying]

Solas: When you grow quiet, it is part of your soul reaching for a feeling and finding emptiness, because I failed.

[shewassaying]

Solas: When you grow quiet, it is part of your soul reaching for a feeling and finding emptiness, because I failed.

[shewassaying]

Just having some fun playing dress up with my favorite Magister (pre-Veilguard)