#from an increasingly unhinged felassan

[sunlight-shunlight]

anyway the main interesting thing about the masked empire is that it looks like felassan needed like a special herbs and spices blend to meditate deeply enough to actually contact solas? and even then the impression seemed rather murky and vague (perhaps just bc they hadn't decided what solas' personality was ingame at that time), and solas was pretty detached and still on his "this world is garbage and full of tranquil" mindset prior to dai. i feel like if solas had been regularly able to talk to felassan, he'd 1. be more moved by his argument, 2. be aware that felassan's resolve was waning even before being told, and 3. be less likely to kill him point-blank without even a conversation, since he'd be more confident in his ability to talk him back into loyalty

so i think it makes sense if solas was genuinely Asleep a lot of the time, with some phases of more lucid dreaming where he was able to look at the fade/talk to felassan. so his experience would be vaguely stirring in his uthenera every few centuries, getting a fresh batch of bizarre mortal nightmares, and disconnected updates from felassan that went kind of like this:

"hey boss sooo... we lost all the eluvians and floating cities and stuff, and a lot of people just starved, and the veil is really fucking us. but we're ok! actually some round eared little guys showed up. uhhh actually arlathan's gone now and the population got enslaved by the round eared ones. their mages broke one of the seals on the black city and released a blight. oh the humans got into a new religion :) it's anti-slavery, but it DOES hate spirits. but the people have the dales now! another blight. actually another blight again. ohh the humans really got into their new religion... remember the dales i mentioned? yeah those are gone actually. also the survivors are evanuris loyalists and hate you specifically. two more blights. this last one went by super fast, i barely noticed it! hey actually i trained this mortal girl a bit and she's kind of fun, i think we should rethink the plan, and give her the eluvians and let her cook-"

and presumably solas goes "what the FUCK is felassan talking about. he must be going mad, he could easily foil the whole plan if he's lost it like this. goodbye old friend"