#charitably

[batteredshoes]

Somewhere between the "Sell By" and "Use By" dates.

[borealiszero]

People should make more doomed by narratives siblings relationship.

Like with lovers you can just sever it and not have it related to you ever again but with siblings how could you?

You grow up with them you raise them or they raised you you both know how unforgiving the world is to both of you? You would die for them but will hate them for doing the same and yet none of you would regret it and both of you know it. They could be the person you loath the most and miss the most cause you still remember how they sneaked a candy into your hands. You can sever the tie but you can never look away at what you've lost, at whom you've lost because fate doesn't allow you to be together, eating dinners in quiet peace, if only there's another life, another time, where i can make you another plate of pancakes i would im sorry im sorry im sorry —

[tungledotedu]

uh why the fuck would you say this

this post has 3000 notes and they get worse.

el-shab-hussein has already explained why he no longer shares how he vets individual fundraisers. scammers will use the information to be less obvious, making it more difficult to spot them.

and senatortedcruz's post has no actual proof of a widespread scam. that is a serious accusation to make, yet people are reblogging it and accepting it as true with no evidence. i won't deny that there are individual grifters on tumblr, but there are accounts like @/neechees, kyra45 and anonthescambuster that will help you avoid them. hussein even has a #scam alert tag for this purpose.

it's racist to spread misinformation about a supposed large-scale deception posing as fundraisers, not to mention dangerous because this makes it less likely for gazans to get what they need to survive and escape relentless airstrikes. we've already seen the consequences of this bias. some of these people are all too happy to be cops and harass or report gazans thinking they're bots or 'spamming' inboxes.

almost nobody on that post is encouraging others to donate to organisations or other vetted lists like those by operation olive branch, which has a faq sheet that explains how they verify fundraisers. i suspect this is an attempt to discourage people from helping palestinians altogether.

gazans are making fundraisers because they have no other choice. many of them cannot work and earn money as their workplaces have been destroyed. some have been disabled by injuries thanks to the iof's targeting of civilians. the fault is on israel for besieging them and on the egyptian government for exploiting their need to evacuate.

they're doing this for the same reason they have been posting photographs and videos of genocide so that people will pay attention to their suffering, so the world will not forget. is it such a leap in logic to understand they will also use social media to start fundraisers? do you just expect them to sit there and die in silence? so you can ignore them and your countries can keep arming israel as it commits atrocities?

[aestum]

(by Kevin Charit)

[the-evil-clergyman]

The Three Graces by Jean-Baptiste Regnault (Late 18th - Early 19th Century)

[thebibliosphere]

Nothing more disappointing than people recc’ing a book to you because it has “disability rep” and you get hopeful because the author also has the same disability as you and it just ends up tipping over into inspiration porn.

[fluentisonus]

I've said this before but valjean's view of the bishop throughout the book gets me so bad because like. he knew him for what, a day maybe? and it absolutely had a vast & profound & positive impact on him. but then he goes on to spend the whole book comparing himself to his idealized vision of the bishop & finding himself wanting & feeling guilty and miserable about every petty or selfish thought that crosses his mind. but it's so fucked up because like we as the readers know the bishop better! we've read the whole first book and we know he came from a privileged & wealthy background, that he was a rake when he was young, it wasn't til he was in his 40s or 50s to have some sort of change of heart & become a priest (a similar age to valjean when he met him!), that he has moments that seriously shake him, that he has some dubious politics left over, that he still has moments of pettiness he has to work through on the page (his initial approach to the member of the convention, e.g.). and also he's just kind of a weird old guy (affectionate). and like this is not to criticize the bishop, I think he's a genuinely really good guy, just that while the bishop has a realistic view of himself & his past ("he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner,"), valjean is not getting any of this except maybe like. what would be mentioned in the newspaper when the bishop died. so his whole view of him is of this one shining moment where he changed his life and he feels he doesn't live up to that. which is sad! because the bishop understood him more than he realized & wouldn't have wanted him to feel that way

[moutainrusing]

James: Ma, do you think I should donate my hair to charity?

Euphemia, looking at her son:

Euphemia, looking at her son’s hair:

Euphemia, looking at her son:

Euphemia, looking at her son’s hair:

Euphemia, looking at her son:

Euphemia: Well… have you checked that the charities want your hair first?

[nateconnolly]

This is oversimplifying but I really do feel like if you look at all the most famous European post-Enlightenment atheist philosophers... Sartre and Beauvoir were like "If there's no God, then we get to make our own meaning of life" and that goes hard. Camus was like "If there's no God, then there is no meaning of life, but I'm going to be kind anyway" and that goes hard. Then Nietzsche was like "Don't masturbate! You have to keep the semen inside your body so that your blood can absorb it!"

[for-lovely-things]

well... may I say I was pretty shocked by the main twist so much that I decided to put my feelings into a giant comic

[fluffyslug]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[textsfromthetva]

[ryssabrin]

i feel like people who don’t like solas or solavellan have such a warped perspective of what the romance is and how fans of it actually engage in it. like i’ve seen a lot of (most likely het dudes lol) on reddit say they tried it to see what the fuss was but felt it was “demeaning” and i’ve seen it described as literally a horror story where solas is manipulating and using and lying to a young impressionable lavellan who gives up her entire identity for him and becomes a complete doormat to all the awful shit he does. that’s never been my experience and i kinda just want to ramble about how i see it and what i find romantic about it?

so full disclosure, if veilguard had come out a few years ago with how they portrayed lavellan and solavellan i might have been pretty disappointed. i think there is a subset of the solavellan fanbase that likes the wolf/halla or student/professor thing and they play their lavellan younger and agreeing almost without question to everything solas says. i see the appeal but i never played my lavellan that way and i really like the dynamic of it when lavellan actually goes against his advice at times. solas is a character that needs to have his preconceived biases questioned. especially in inquisition when he’s still coming to terms with the fact that the modern people of thedas are in fact people lol. so i was concerned at the prospect of my lavellan being taken out of my hands and having to listen to her make excuses for him and submit to everything he says. (which tbf i don’t think is how she actually comes across in dav, but that was a worry.)

however when i replayed my canon dai run this year, i realized i was closer to the age i always saw my lavellan as (early 30s), and as my lavellan is probably the bioware pc i’ve always played closest to my own personality, i took the opportunity to tweak her a bit and make some different choices. i’ve (hopefully lol) matured and grown a lot since i was 24 and so rather than going for the snarky sarcastic cool girl vibes i opted to play her with more diplomatic and caring choices. it made me see the solas romance in a completely new light. rather than some sort of student/professor dynamic or a pride and prejudice-esque rivals-to-lovers vibe where lavellan is fighting for his respect the whole time, what stuck out to me was how much their connection builds simply because lavellan is kind to solas. she hears him out when he wants to give his opinions and advice, she respects his expertise on the fade and spirits, and she offers him comfort and friendship when she sees he needs it. she impresses him because he finds himself wanting to indulge in her closeness. he finds a connection to someone he never expected to and it makes him rethink everything about the broken state he put the world in.

it’s worth noting that lavellan is always making the first move. she kisses him first, she pursues him. he tries to brush off the kiss as a spontaneous lapse in judgement and she doesn't let him. he only ever gives in to her advances, he doesn't make them himself. he calls their relationship "selfish" on his end. he knows he shouldn't be encouraging her but he can't help but long for her companionship. that being said though if lavellan shuts it down he respects it. he probably feels a little relief because the temptation is now out of his hands lol.

i feel like there’s also this perception that he’s constantly shitting on the dalish while lavellan just has to put up with it and that alone is reason enough to find the relationship demeaning. he mentions the dalish in one optional conversation chain where you ask him for his opinion on the state of the elves and then in the balcony scene where he realizes he’s misjudged the inquisitor after his personal quest. in both instances, lavellan can stick up for the dalish. in the optional conversation, lavellan can say that if solas had a bad experience with a clan once (which we know from dav is exactly what happened lol), that she’d like to correct that misunderstanding about her people.

it's worth noting as well that lavellan doesn't know solas is the dread wolf when he's criticizing the dalish. from her perspective, he's essentially a city-born elf who had some dalish look down their nose at him for not being a "true elf" like they are, something that not only happens in canon throughout the games and lavellan would be aware of, but literally happens to solas specifically, right in front of you. he doesn't say a single word to mihris and she doesn't know a thing about him other than his face is bare and thus feels comfortable referring to him with what is essentially a slur. but rather than confront her directly about it he just passive aggressively speaks to her in elven almost exclusively for the rest of the quest lol.

far from the dynamic being that lavellan is just putting up with someone talking down to her about her culture, i think it's reasonable to see her view is more that they're both members of the same marginalized group, but from different cultures. his position in criticizing the dalish is not punching down it's lateral. she loves her culture, but is able to recognize it has flaws and not every member in it treats other cultures well, particularly even when they're from the same marginalized group. (and it's also just really meaningful that the first "flirt" option you get in the solas romance is lavellan recognizing that solas has put himself in a very vulnerable position as an elven apostate joining the chantry-led inquisition and with whatever power she has she will make sure that it's not held against him.)

i do think the writing conveys that he does have his mind changed about the dalish at least a little bit, but one of his pet peeves is when people are ignorant and refuse any information that challenges their worldview. as a manifested wisdom spirit, it is a particular sticking point to him to not be listened to when he is providing knowledge. i think criticism of how he is towards the dalish is lacking without taking into account his nature as a spirit. obvs we didn’t know that in dai but we do now. when wisdom isn't listened to it turns to pride. "i told you so," "i'll prove i'm right," "you should have listened to me," etc. etc. he got his feelings hurt when the dalish didn't believe him (and according to dav, literally tried to kill him) and his ego's held a grudge ever since.

when it comes to the vallaslin, to me it’s less about solas wanting to dismantle part of dalish culture (he offers no actual opinion on the dalish during that scene) and more that it clearly bothers him a lot that he fought so hard to free the elves from slavery and the one community of elves that’s closest to the descendants of the people he wanted to free still wears tattoos honoring the very tyrants he wanted to free them from. if lavellan says she wants to keep them and that the dalish reclaimed them and they mean something else to her, he doesn’t argue. i actually don’t like that solas’s post breakup banter with cole implies that lavellan thinks he might have broken up with her over the vallaslin. it’s putting thoughts in the head of my character that i personally don’t see her having. the way the breakup plays out, there’s not a single indication that it has anything to do with the vallaslin. i like to pick the “i believe in us” option because it shows lavellan having some idea that there’s something solas isn’t telling her and that’s the main reason he’s walking away. and the irony of course is that we learn in dav that that was the moment he came the closest to just giving up everything to just be with her.

so when i played through dav with my solasmance lavellan and she talks about what drew her to him it all just felt so right. he was kind and wise and sad but he made her feel like she was the only thing that mattered to him. (and that was very almost true!) there was a passion and intensity to their relationship that made her think he was the person she wanted to be with forever. when she says "i thought i would have followed anywhere he asked me to" you could read it as her saying she would have joined him in tearing down the veil if he asked and depending on your lavellan that might be true (though in the next bit she talks about how she would have been trying to change his mind anyways). but you could also read it as what her mindset was while she was with him during dai. before joining the inquisition, she knew him to be someone that traveled the world looking for lost secrets and history. why would she not have wanted to join him in that? is that not something you do when you're in love with someone?

something else that i find really compelling about solavellan is how solas relates to the inquisitor (not just lavellan) as a figurehead stripped of their personal identity. he knows from personal experience exactly what that's like. in the romances (not just solas's), the inquisitor is able to find someone that knows and cares for them for who they are, not what they represent. this aspect of the inquisitor's arc is honestly why i like keeping the vallaslin. my lavellan wants people to be able to look at her as the inquisitor and see a dalish elf. it's one small act of defiance and in reclaiming her own narrative. so thinking about what she might want to do after her responsibilities to the inquisition are over, it's reasonable to think she might want to just go wherever solas goes? because she loves him and feels like herself around him. even her asking him to let her come with him in trespasser feels more motivated by the fact that lavellan sees solas isolating himself and closing himself off and she's sad about it because she cares about him. that was why she wanted to grow close to him in the first place.

and i genuinely don't think it's all that wild that lavellan still holds a torch for solas 10 years later. i personally was friends with this guy in high school i always had a crush on, and towards the end of senior year it looked like it could actually end up turning into something. but then he immediately left for a summer abroad after graduation and eventually moved out of the country full time for school. we kept in touch off and on and caught up when he was in town, but nothing romantic ever happened. for years after i would catch myself thinking every so often what could have been and what he was up to. for solavellan, they were actually together. they had mutually expressed feelings and though their time together was maybe a few months at most, it was intense and passionate. they split up not because anyone's feelings changed, but because of solas's baggage. it's really not unrealistic for lavellan to continue wondering to herself what would have happened if he had been honest with her sooner. if she could have convinced him to change course. and it's not like she has the luxury of retiring and just not thinking about him anymore. that's not a conscious manipulation on solas's part to string her along, that's just the reality of their situation.

and even with all that in mind, in dav lavellan is still able to have the self-awareness to understand that the good in him that she believes exists and all that they had together and what she meant to him could all just be wishful thinking on her part. that she's giving him the benefit of the doubt "imagining his broken heart" when he doesn't deserve it because it makes her feel less foolish. she's not blindly faithful to him. i just loved everything about that scene and every word out of my lavellan's mouth felt spot on and perfect for how i saw their relationship. i could not have been more relieved lol.

as for the ending, i really really dislike the bad faith read that the only thing that matters is mythal and that he somehow loves mythal more and if that weren't true then lavellan alone would be able to convince him to stop. varric says about solas that he wants to be a hero, but it's easier for him to play the villain because it means he didn't fail, everything bad he's done is a choice. once you've done one bad thing, betrayed one friend, manipulated and sacrificed some pawns, committed one lil genocide, etc. lmao, it becomes easier to do it again. you've already crossed your moral event horizon and now you just have to find an end that justifies the means of all your misdeeds. what i've said about solas before is that what's frustrating is that he does genuinely feel remorse about the shit he does, but he needs to believe it's necessary and he will keep doing it. he needs to believe it will all be worth it in the end. it's not that he thinks feeling sorry makes up for it necessarily, but that he had to do it. he had to be the one taking on all of the bad things to hopefully one day do a good thing and it will all work out.

(as a side note when solas says "i would not have you see what i become" in trespasser i always thought that meant he was going to resort to some awful corruptive magic or something but it turns out what he actually meant was "i'm about to be a real asshole and do some incredibly awful things and i don't want you to see that side of me" which is much sadder.)

so when rook says "you don't have to do this" solas counters with "i've betrayed and fucked over and killed so many people who trusted me and if i stop i will have done that for nothing." so then the inquisitor jumps in with "as one of those people, i'm telling you that you can stop." but then we get to the heart of it. he thinks he failed mythal when she died the first time and was unwilling to listen to her as flemeth. he needs to make that mean something. he needs to justify to himself what mythal made him into. so he needs to hear from his mythal, not morrigan's mythal who has the benefit of the wisdom and hindsight centuries of living among mortals gave her, but his mythal, the one closest to who she was when she died that what he is is broken. that she's the one that broke him and he alone doesn't have to bear the weight of everything he did because of her. it's not about loving her, it's about the specific relationship he had with her. with that baggage unpacked, he's not only able to let go of his prideful need to prove himself right by tearing down the veil, he's also free to choose what he always really wanted: lavellan.

and still! yet again! he does not ask or assume anything on her part. she offers! of her own free will. something that really rustles my jimmies about a lot of solavellan criticism is that people act like lavellan has no agency. that she couldn't possibly make the choices she does of her own accord and it has to be solas manipulating her. that has never rang true to me at all. she always made the first move. i think this more uncharitable read might unfortunately be encouraged by how many actual solavellan shippers play into the wolf/halla thing but i personally don't think that's the dynamic that weekes actually wrote. it is lavellan that pursues solas, not the other way around. and weekes was honestly so careful in how they wrote the romance so that when solas's identity and plans are revealed, it doesn't feel like he intentionally tricked you or took advantage. i actually really like the ambiguity of whether or not they slept together because to me it does feel like that's a line solas wouldn't cross, but i get why that doesn't matter as much to other solasmancers.

i also think there's this perception that solavellan is a ship with an unhealthy power dynamic that needs to be "fixed" in some way or at the very least apologized for before you're allowed to like it. for me it's honestly kind of the appeal? not that there's some goofy dom/sub thing going on lol but that in spite of how "superior" solas may or may not feel to lavellan and the modern elves, he still falls hook line and fucking sinker for her. lavellan has so much more power in the relationship than she realizes. she changes his entire perspective on modern elves and his ultimate goals so bad he had a complete crisis of faith and had to run as far away from her as he could. how could he have broken the world so badly he needs to catastrophically break it again to fix it if it could create someone like her? someone he wants and cares for so desperately? it's the push and pull of him trying to stay away but selfishly indulging as long as he can that's so juicy to me! it's so good and i just wish other people could see that, even if they don't care for the character.

anyways. i don't have a conclusion. i don't want anyone to think i'm vaguing about them. this is honestly the result of some thoughts that have been brewing for a while and a lot of common criticisms i've seen over the years. i didn't want to respond directly to anyone in particular bc i learned my lesson about not doing that waaay back in the shenko fandom iykyk lol. i just really like the ship! i think it's tragic and romantic and lovely and poetic and mythological and all that good stuff. it humanizes solas as a character and makes me think about empathy and compassion and how much faith you can have in someone if you love them. or how it might feel to sacrifice love for something you think you need to do, only to ultimately realize you never did and find that love patiently waiting for you to get your shit together. or to love someone and know they love you back and that they love you so much they had to leave or they would have given up everything they thought they needed for you and then to be able to actually get through to them and get them back. "she could save him if he'd only just let her"! it's a very niche wish fulfillment fantasy and it's me! i'm the fan being serviced!

[sysig]

Something old and borrowed (Patreon)

[sarafangirlart]

Hephaestus and Aglaia’s daughters 🥰

They literally have one single source mentioning their existence but I love them.