#she keeps her vallaslin now :)

[hollytree33]

THE HIGH PRIESTESS

Annnnd her third card, hope y’all like her!!!

1. Hanged Man 2. The Chariot

Next

[thedragonagelesbian]

For the Rook questionnaire: 5 for Raas and 24 for Theneneria?

Ooh yay!!! I'm soso excited to explore them more once I'm finished with Cyrus' playthrough (although I can't for the life of me pick which one to focus on.......)

Rook Questionnaire

5: What emotion did they usually pick?

Purple/humorous. They're here to be charming & funny, a smooth-talking responsibility-ducking flatterer, so people will like them and not dispose of/hurt them.

And they're still that with the Crows, but it's. Different, with them too. More cautious in their humor, more deferential in their attitude, especially with Viago as their talon. As a Qunari mage, their position within the Crows has always been even more precarious than it is for most anyone else, and they've passed between a bunch of the houses surviving only on their ability to make their talon happy.

(I think this adds an interesting nuance to Viago's "begrudgingly and deeply caring of Rook" dynamic, which I haven't seen in action yet, but I can absolutely see Raas either missing the caring part and taking the grouchiness at face value, because of their experience with prior talons, or not trusting the caring, believing it to be another facet of some 5D manipulative chess game. Neither of those responses are about Viago per se, it's just his utter inability to express his feelings straightforwardly don't mix well with Raas' whole 'constantly trying to assess hidden motives to ensure they're still on the good side of power' deal.)

((I think this makes it all the more interesting that they have no qualms about antagonizing Solas, Ghilan'nain, or Elgar'nan. I think the kinds of power that scare them are not cosmic and godly, but small. Interpersonal. Systemically authoritative.))

24: Does your character believe in the afterlife?

Yes! Theneneria ascribes to the Dalish that departed souls travel into the Beyond/the Fade, and I think she spends more time than she should wondering if that's true of darkspawn souls too, if they even have souls. When she can, she likes to give funerary rites for whatever is left after the blight is burned away, and she's even planted a few trees across northern Thedas as part of the Dalish funerary tradition and to strengthen local ecosystems against the blight's corruption.

[postcardsfromheapside]

This game has been out since Halloween.

In that time, there have been numerous Veilguard positive posts in which patient, loving, wonderful, insightful and intelligent individuals attempt to impart lore onto a fanbase which doesn't deserve their time and attention.

I can't believe I'm running across posts made within the past five days which express disgust and frustration towards the devs over things which have been explained in great detail multiple times on this site, BUT IN THE DAMN GAME.

AND Y'ALL KEEP COMPLAINING THE GAME TELLS BUT DOESN'T SHOW. AND YOU DON'T EVEN LISTEN OR WATCH.

"the crows are presented as wholesome" - they are not. this site has a crow fanbase which has run off and lionized Viago as Daddy, conveniently ignored all the in-game details which either hint or baldly state things Definitely Aren't Cool, and generally fetishized what it means to be a Crow because of Zevran and Lucanis. Then the same people, or others who weren't paying proper attention, whined when the headcanon crowded out the actual in-game material, and they said "Antiva is whitewashed." There have been multiple posts about this.

"slaves are meant to be everywhere in Tevinter and we don't see that" - we aren't everywhere, we're specifically in Docktown which is poor and people generally can't afford slaves there, but we do see evidence of slavery, and we run around with abolitionists and help save people from fascist slavers and free people who will either be slaves or victims of blood magic so IDK what to tell you, there have been multiple posts explaining this too, maybe leave your slave or savior fetish somewhere else.

"Racism is supposed to be rampant" - fuck off. I actually will not be explaining this because for once it was nice not to be called a slur. If you need this to feel "immersed" or to feel there are actual problems, I need you to check yourself fucking hard. If you want to masquerade what it feels like to experience bigotry, go play one of the prior games. This has also been discussed in multiple posts.

"Handling pure lyrium is fine now" no handling the dagger is fine Solas cleansed it, the dagger woke something up in Harding specifically she talks about how some dwarves are connected to the stone, she previously had not been one of them and maybe the dagger woke something up in her, or did you need a pop up explaining this? Were you paying attention during cut scenes and dialogue?

"Adult Dalish without vallaslin" - in the 10 years since Inquisition/Trespasser, doubtless some dalish have come to adulthood and found out what assholes their gods were and made the decision not to go through that specific cultural rites. Or maybe city elves joined the Dalish. Who knows who made up the elf population at that ritual site. Elves are not a monolith. We've made multiple, multiple posts about elves not being monoliths.

"Solas' opinion on blood magic went from neutral to negative" SOLAS FUCKING LIES. We've made multiple posts about Solas lying, if you need this explained further I suggest you play the game all over again, he lies to you throughout the entire game.

"Re-write of the after credits scene in Inquisition to recontextualise the Flemeth and Solas interaction" it's recontextualized because now we know who and what they were to each other. Learning new information does that. This is literally what happens all the time in science and history. You recontextualize what you thought you knew with new information. You're supposed to change your position, not whine about how the new information makes everything different.

These are just some of the things I pulled from a list on a post in which someone was really just upset about everything. Everything. Varric, Morrigan, Solas, everything. But I can't take their criticisms seriously, because they're upset that "too much was told" and "not enough shown" and yet didn't even pay attention to DA lore or in-game dialogue or context clues around the world of Northern Thedas to answer their own questions.

Everything in this game makes complete sense if you use lore from prior games and a single iota of imagination to see how it fits. We've had many delightful posts discussing this, seeing how things could be explained, when approaching the game from a place of curiosity rather than being upset because personal headcanons weren't satisfied or long-held expectations weren't met.

[baphometsss]

On Solas' Mythal regret

Alright so this is just one thing I wanted to get out there. I'm not gonna do one big meta post bc I wanna break down specific things more easily. I hope it's not too jumbled

Spoilers

The Solas / Mythal regret takes place in the Fade.

“What if you left the Evanuris, and remained with me? Surely you must want freedom from this struggle?”

Solas says it not just for Mythal’s sake but for his own; he is essentially begging for her to return to the Fade with him so they can be as spirits again... He doesn’t want to be a person, he never did, and now he can’t return to that life. He was happy in the Fade until she drew him out. Mythal says ‘love’ because she knows that he doesn’t want to be there and she needs to keep him loyal in order to keep the Evanuris at bay. We know that Mythal is manipulative af and this is just more evidence of that.

It’s a regret not just because he couldn’t get Mythal to leave the Evanuris but because it’s the moment he gave up on himself. He knew he couldn’t leave Mythal to do it alone, because he did care for her, but also he was likely bound to her after she pulled him from the Fade. We know that pulling spirits from the Fade makes them lose a part of themselves; in this case, Mythal did this to him deliberately so he would fight in the war.

It was a trauma bond, similar to the bond between Cole, the spirit of compassion, and the real Cole who starved to death in a prison cell. Solas needed to provide Wisdom to prove his purpose, and Mythal kept calling on that. In Veilguard, it’s explicitly stated that as a former spirit, he cannot resist appeals to his true nature. With trauma bonds, you do lose your agency. It’s what they hinge on. The two things combined make for a toxic dynamic.

(I don’t particularly like this personally, but it's what seems to be the intent, but I digress.)

The hidden codex in the Lighthouse’s music room—memories of a duet—is significant in understanding their relationship. To me this is very revealing of their dynamic; Mythal took advantage of Solas when he wasn’t used to having a body and moulded him to be a weapon. She moulded him into the image she wanted him to take, and strung him along the entire time. There’s a big parallel between Divine Justinia/Leliana and Mythal/Solas. Leliana’s personal quest in DAI is about her loyalty to Divine Justinia, whom she sees as a mother and great friend. You can ask her if they were romantically involved, and she says that they were many things to each other, but not that. She too carries a huge amount of guilt for her death, to the point that it can break her if you don’t soften her early on in the game, and she becomes utterly ruthless. The end scene with Mythal releasing Solas from her service has many similarities to Justinia releasing Leliana from hers. Leliana and Justinia were united in part because of their shared spirituality and hopes for the Chantry, and Solas and Mythal were united by the connection they forged as spirits. ‘Being wholly seen…’ Leliana felt the same way about Justinia.

Solas also wore Mythal’s vallaslin, and burned it off his face when he rebelled against the Evanuris. As we know, those are slave markings. He was made to become her servant, and rebelled against her too when he started the rebellion against the Evanuris. (As a side note, and especially if you’ve played BG3, you’ll know how the loss of agency can stick around even after the connection to the abuser has been severed. Astarion’s ‘you made me see that I never stopped thinking of myself as his slave’ really springs to mind here, albeit in a different context.)

This is a big part of why I don’t think he was romantically involved with Mythal. I believe his main role to Mythal in the initial war was as a kind of spymaster, similar to how Leliana is the spymaster for Divine Justinia. Mythal taught Solas to behave in exactly the way she wanted him to.

In fact, in the Inquisitor’s customisation screen when you pick your romance, Solas’s explicitly says that even he didn’t foresee what it would mean to fall in love. So… he canonically hasn’t been in love before. He was not in love with Mythal.

I wanna be clear here; I don’t hate Mythal as such. I mean, I do, because she’s pretty fucked up, but you have to consider her nature. She was a spirit of benevolence. She wanted to take a form because she was afraid of what Elgar’nan would do to the world if she didn’t stop him. Even after taking a body, she can’t change her nature. It became twisted into retribution when she couldn’t stop them from harming the elves or trying to leash the blight. Honestly I could write a whole essay about Mythal too, but I won’t because I still have a ton to write about Solas and Lavellan, but we’ll see.

Anyway I’m gonna leave this one here but I’ll be back with more meta. I have a lot of get through

[blightbright]

Solas' story has always been about resenting authoritarian slavers but I don't think he himself was ever enslaved? like I don't see how his relationship with Mythal is really like Fenris and Denarius sorry

I'm curious if you played DA:I, Trespasser, and Veilguard all the way through, did you recruit Cole and bring him along regularly in main game and DLC, and did you do the Redeem ending in Veilguard?

Isn't it so silly that I have to ask all these highly specific things? This is what I mean about the Veilguard writing tbh, I don't think they landed the plane so to speak in terms of really letting players understand Solas' arc. or maybe they intentionally left it open because they didn't want to make people who hated Solas feel bad??? Or wanted a secret for a future game that will now never happen??? idek

Basically I can completely see why you feel this way, because it's some Deep Lore shit that doesn't really get laid out plainly. I think that's unfortunate in terms of the writing. Solas was absolutely enslaved by Mythal. He had her vallaslin (which he calls slave markings in DA:I) and burned them off leaving a scar, was a spirit bound to/by her will (which he calls slavery and abuse in DA:I), and had to be magically freed by Morrigan channeling Mythal's fragment in one of the Veilguard endings, after which he immediately stops doing terrible things. Check out what Solas says when he freaks out about an Inquisitor drinking from Mythal's Well, too, or what Morrigan says if she drinks: they're talking about slavery. His enslaved Wisdom friend in his personal quest is a direct parallel to his own experience. He led a slave rebellion because he himself was (IMO, is, until the optional last ~10 mins of Veilguard) a slave. Solas regularly tells people he wants to stop XYZ but cannot, which is a very specific word choice.

There's more that I don't have the chance to write an essay about right now (tbh my current WIP fanfiction is partially an essay about it in story form lmao) but yeah. Legit that you feel this way, though, given Veilguard kinda dropped the ball on fully revealing this, and then Trick Weekes' somewhat tricksy, ambiguous wording (I would bet money they were instructed to keep things vague and open-ended) about regret requiring choices, when responding to a fan on social media, IMO muddied the waters even more about Solas' literal slavery.

[brekkie-e]

Something I think about a lot when it comes to the Vallaslin debacle- whether they should be maintained as a tradition in the future and what they meant in the past- is Felassan's place in the rebellion.

Felassan and Vallaslin theory under the cut.

We see some of Solas's agent's in Trespasser, Tevinter Night's, and other media. And it's a bit of a toss up whether an ancient elf who serves Solas has Vallaslin or not. Based off the info we have about the rebellion and what the Vallaslin were, one would assume anyone who makes it to Solas's side wants theirs off. Isn't that notion backed up by the murals we see in Inquisition? Solas taking off Vallaslin by the dozens?

Which brings us back to the agents who still wear them. The first thought that jumps into my head is, "Oh, these must be spies then. People who opted to keep them as a way of offering a specific service to The Cause™️."

And…. That brings me back to Felassan. He's not a spy. He's a general. One might argue he could have fulfilled the role of a spy at some point or another. But in TME- he's not working overly hard to fit in. The guy is unapologetically behaving as himself. He doesn't care if he actually believably passes as a Dalish guy. Sure, he brings up old tales, but the whole time he's practically begging Briala to ask him if he's really Dalish.

In the memories we see of him and Solas, he's a second in command. He's leading people on battlefields. There's literally nothing he does in the name of subtlety. I don’t really see him as a character who has “cut out for spy work” in their resume.

So why does he still have Vallaslin? If any free elf of Solas's time wanted them gone, if they served no deeper cultural purpose than to mark someone as property, Felassan's decision to keep them is called in to question. His role in the rebellion that we get to witness would make sending him to spy a moot point. He's a known entity. He's the Wolf's right hand. So why does the Wolf's right hand wear the very thing that Solas hates on his face with no shame? The codexes he wrote in Veilgaurd don’t scream to me that he carried any significant devotion to Mythal, let alone in a capacity that rivaled Solas’. In TME, he tosses out “Mythal’s tit’s” or “Mythal’s bosom” whenever he finds the chance. So why would Felassan keep a mark of fealty to her when Solas, in contrast, does not.

My point being is, I stand by the idea that even before the Dalish- the Vallaslin meant something to the Elvhen people beyond slavery. To maintain such specific designs through the ages after Elvhenan fell- they had to have maintained the tradition from day one. Fought tooth and nail to keep it from dying out during the Empire's reign. When an Inquisitor tells Solas they want to keep them, he honestly reacts like it’s not the first time he’s heard that response before. Which makes sense when you think of his closeness to Felassan. I wonder if she reminded him of his friend in that moment.

Whether the writer's want us to think they were maintained with full understanding of what they were from the jump, I don't know. But it's the only conclusion I have ever been able to come to that makes any sense to me. It has never been a possibility to me that they only began the tradition of wearing them again once they made home in the Dales.

This is full fanon territory now, but here are some of my thoughts on what they might have began as. With the revelation of the Elvhen connection to spirits, perhaps it was a way to signify which variety of spirit you originated from. I know Felassan gives off the impression that he’s younger than Solas, but I still think he was a spirit that made a body. “He sat crossed-legged, calmed his breathing until he found his true self inside the shell of his flesh, and sprinkled the herbs over the fire.” This is a line in the last few pages of TME, and I don’t know about you but that sounds like someone who feels they’re a spirit inside a meat suit to me. Now, we all saw how much Solas looked like Mythal’s Vallaslin as a spirit. Part of my theory here is that her Vallaslin wasn’t a direct copy of him, but an homage to the archetype of spirit they were. If I had to make an educated guess, I would say Felassan was a wisdom spirit. His dynamic with Briala is based on guiding her to conclusions and helping her figure things out on her own. Not unlike Solas and the Inquisitor. Except Felassan looked at the young woman thousands of years his junior and developed a paternal bond with her instead of a romantic one because he’s a king with standards. Point being, if the original wisdom spirits gravitated to looking like Solas- then Felassan might have looked like that as well at one point.

I don’t think I’m the first person to wonder if the Vallaslin were all based off the Evanuris’ spirit forms, but I keep getting caught up in how that began. There’s something interesting to me about wondering if they had a hard time adjusting to their new bodies and way they experienced emotions similarly to how Cole did. Solas talks at some point about how feelings worked differently in the Fade. I can’t help but wonder if the very first Vallaslin were an attempt to identify themselves. Put their true nature on their face since it was now hidden behind a flesh mask. If it helped old friends recognize one another despite new forms.

I also like this because of how it would mean that the Dalish wouldn’t necessarily have the core concept behind the Vallaslin wrong. They have placed a misguided religious notion on it, but in the end the decision of which god they honor with their Vallaslin is also a declaration of which spirit they identify with most. It declares something about their nature that others can discern just by seeing the marks on their face. The real reason behind the practice may have been lost but in some round about way the purpose was not.

Now, I should note that there are a few holes in my theory. I don’t know that I think they entirely sink it because so much of the lore has layers, but they’re there. The first is the fact Dirth’amen and Falon’din seem to be one spirit split in two. Whether that happened before they took a body or not, I’m unsure. If the split happened before- I don’t think that detracts from my musings because it means they could have developed further into fully realized separate spirits. But if it happened after it does beg the question why people would give them seperate Vallaslin outside of slave marking purposes. The other, and most damning, point is Cole’s line about Solas burning Mythal’s mark off his face. If the mark was to represent his spirit nature then why would it be referred to as her mark as opposed to his? Unless the line between Vallaslin for self expression and slave brands was blurred very early on. Though, it’s still not out of the realm of possibility that it began as one thing and by the time he got rid of his marks it meant another.

Anyways, regardless of the origins and my theories- we have atleast one significant Ancient Elvhen character who had every reason to remove his Vallaslin but didn’t. So when asking questions about the future of the Dalish and this custom- I’m always going to keep Felassan in the back of my mind. If someone who lived the worst of their cultural meaning, and was incredibly close to Solas still opted to keep his then the modern Dalish have every right to as well.

The irony of using Felassan, the certified Dalish Hater, to advocate for Dalish cultural value is not lost on me. I don’t apologize.

[scripts4dreamers]

Letters from the sky

AN: So, Dragon Age is eating my brain and I can't stop thinking about what the tell Solas and Lavellan have been doing for the last decade. So, in my personal canon, they've been drunk dialling each other magic style every few years.

Part Two

When the letter appeared, Solas couldn’t help but jump. He wasn’t frightened, per say. The region of the Fade he had been occupying was not particularly dangerous, and there was very little out there that could hope to match the Dread Wolf in terms of cunning, but still…it was unexpected. Those who needed to contact him knew how to do it, and how to signal to him that he had to exit his sanctuary and come to meet them. It had been years since he had received a completely unsolicited communication and longer still since he had been the target of something so whimsical. He watched it for a moment without moving from his seat, a slight smile threatening to tug at the corner of his mouth. A thick cream paper envelope folded into a crude triangle, so that it might glide through the air, made its way towards him in lazy, unfocussed loops. It dipped, as though falling to the ground, then soared like an eagle. It twisted and turned, kept up by magic and sustained by the chaos of the fade. It was childlike and free, the product of the kind of flair that spoke to a deep love of the craft. This message was a production, created for an audience of one. The caster would not even get to see the product of their labor. He stood and reached out, gently lifting the letter from the air and feeling the weight of the paper in his hands.

“Bravo,” He said, to no one, “I commend your creator.”

The letter, of course, said nothing in return. Solas could almost taste the magic that had kept it aloft as he turned the envelope over in his hands, sweet and cool, like a breeze on a hot summer’s day. It made him hesitate. There was a familiarity to that taste, one that made his stomach tighten and his chest ache with the memory of kinder days. He should throw it away, he reasoned to himself as he continued to run his fingers over the paper. It couldn’t be from her and, if it was, the kindest thing for both of them would be to simply pretend it had never arrived. He had almost convinced himself to toss the letter away when he finally flipped the envelope over and saw the familiar looping cursive of her handwriting.

His heart thumped hard and Solas instinctively grabbed the back of the chair he had been sitting on, steadying himself as a rush of emotions tore through him like a sandstorm.

For a moment he is in the Wyvern’s den, kissing her lips and swearing to himself that this time he will tell her, this time he will force the words from his lips. Then her hands, slamming into his chest as he chickens out again.

“Tell me you never cared about me,” she demands, her face clear of Vallaslin and her eyes burning with rage, “tell me I was some casual dalliance so I can call you a cold-hearted son of a bitch and move on.”

He’s watching her fight Corypheus now, clutching his staff so hard that his knuckles are bloodless and pale. He should be helping, he needs to keep her safe…but he needs to orb more. He made his choice and now he must face the consequences.

Solas took a deep breath, blinking past the surprising wetness in his eyes as he tried to force himself back into the present. It did not work.

He’s standing in the Crossroads again, fighting to keep from falling to his knees before her as she looks up at him with something deeper than betrayal, deeper than hurt, deeper even than love.

“What would you have had me say?” he asks, angry despite his complete lack of standing to be. He wants her to lash out and hurt him. He needs to feel that fire of hers one more time. He wants the pain to be a memory he can cling to. He hopes it scars, “That I was the great adversary in your people’s mythology?”

“I would have had you trust me!” she shouts back. Her voice cracks halfway through, tears that she has been desperately fighting slip down her face - her beautiful face - and something inside Solas just crumbles under the weight of the choices he’s made.

In the present, Solas sucked in a breath and brushed the tears from his eyes. Even now, four and a half years after that last fight with Corypheus, his feelings were shocking in their intensity. There was regret, of course, and anger, some fear and, despite his best attempts at quashing it, an unhealthy amount of longing as well. The time he had spent by her side had been undoing in a way he had never expected. But that knife always cut both ways and losing her, as he had always known he would, had also been worse than he had ever imagined. Not since he had created the veil and been faced with the terrible price the world had paid for it had Solas wept like he did in those first weeks after walking away. He had wept until his body ached with exhaustion, until there were physically no tears left in his body to shed, and even then, the urge to curl up and fossilise had been overwhelming.

The only solace he had now was his plan, his mission. The one thing that could make everything worth it would be to finally undo his mistake and see the world remade, as it always should have been had he not been blinded by his love for Mythal, by his rage and hatred in the wake of her death. His heart had led him to destroy the world, it seemed only fair that he would have to break it again to fix that.

And yet…the letter. He traced the dark lines of her writing with his finger, wondering at his Inquisitor’s intentions. Why now? It had been eighteen months, three days and four hours since last they’d spoken. Eighteen months, three days and four hours of complete silence and then this. Was she hurt? Had something gone wrong? Why had his spies not informed him of this during their last meeting about the Inquisition’s progress? Surely, something major had happened for the Inquisitor to go to the effort to reach out to him out of the blue like this. If he tossed the letter aside now, it would be akin to leaving her to die, wouldn’t it?

Satisfied that the laws of morality dictated that he must read the letter, Solas reached for the knife he kept on his writing desk and settled back into his chair. The knife was simple and old, but well worn. It was one she had discarded a few months into their adventure and Solas had pocketed. In case she changed her mind, he had justified to himself at the time, but even then he had known that it was to be a keepsake in the inevitable After. He slid the blade under the thick wax seal, taking a moment to admire the inquisition crest and ensure he did not break it as he pried the letter open.

The first thing he noticed was that the letter was long, longer than it would likely be if it was a cry for help. The second thing he noticed were a few faint spots of deep purple on the pages. A simple smell told him it was wine, and the knot in his chest loosened ever so slightly. The inquisitor was probably safe. Of course, with the danger removed, a little voice in his head whispered, there was no longer any reason for him to keep reading, but he had already come this far and, if he was honest, his blood was thrumming with anticipation. He had been alone for so long, slipping into her dreams when the pain got too much, but never staying, never hearing her voice or feeling her touch. He longed to connect again, just for a moment, so he unfolded the pages and began reading.

Dear Solas,

Should I still call you that? I can almost hear you admonishing me as I write this, “Amala, you know the truth of me now. Do not insist on hiding behind old masks, they will not change anything.” You really can be a grumpy bastard, you know that? Anyway, all that to say, I have not forgotten. I considered addressing this to Fen’Harel, supplicating myself before the god of betrayal like a good Dalish elf would, but then I think about how well I know the shape of your lips and I can’t bring myself to do it. It is improper, I think, to know so much about a god’s mouth, but I can’t be sure. Perhaps you can tell me.

In truth, I could have addressed this letter to anyone and it would not have mattered, all my drunken thoughts and prayers are dedicated to you.

It took me a long time to find someone who could help me train my new magical abilities as well as you did. Oh! I suppose I should start there; when you took my arm, it seems it did not take all of the magic with it, so I am a mage now. Kind of, just a little bit. My teacher thinks I will likely never have the power of a full mage, but I have skill enough for this. Dorian taught me the spell, after months of begging and pleading, cajoling and threatening, though I sense he still does not approve of me writing to you like this. He’s here with me now (well, not right now obviously or he would have snatched the quill from my hands and pulled me into another insane Tevinter dance. Right now he’s playing Wicked Grace and I’ve snuck into a separate room, but he’s at Skyhold). Bull decided to visit, so Dorian ‘just happened to stop by’ at the same time and picked up Sera and Varric on the way. I’ve written to Blackwall and he’ll be by in a few days. Viv and Cassandra are busy, of course, and I don’t know where Cole might be, but still, it’s almost like old times. Skyhold hasn’t felt this alive in a long while now, you would like it.

Or would you? I still can’t quite decide what was real and what was part of the lie, not that the truly fantastic amount of wine I have consumed tonight is helping. There were so many nights…so many good nights. Did you enjoy any of them, or were they all just part of the performance, lines you had to memorize for a role you never wanted to play? I can’t stand to think of you sitting amongst us, forcing laughter to hide your misery, alone even when you were surrounded by people that would have died for you. We all feel your absence, though no one seems willing to mention it. I suspect that they don’t want to upset me, that they’re just glad to see me acting like myself again. I love them for that, but it’s still as clear as the sky on a summer’s day. Bull orders one too many drinks. Varric leaves a seat to my right for you to fill. Sera talks about ‘you elfy elves’. Only Dorian seems immune to those little slip ups, and that stubborn refusal belies his intention just the same. It hurts. It hurts me to see the spaces you left behind, the craters in all of our lives that I cannot seem to patch. When someone slips and mentions you (which, so far, has happened twice), everyone clammers to remind me how much better off I am now, how by walking away you are the one who has lost. It’s infuriating.

I know they mean well, but it grates on me. I feel raw, like a nerve exposed to the open air, and each cheery assertion that I could have any man I wanted is just a reminder that I cannot. The only helpful one so far has been Sera. Last night we all got slightly drunk and she blurted out ‘at least getting dumped by a god is less embarrassing than getting dumped by a bald hermit’, which she is entirely right about.

But, Creators preserve me, I miss you, dearest. I can say that here, safe in the knowledge that I am a coward, and I will almost certainly crumple this up and burn it, like I’ve done with the hundred other letters I’ve written over the years. I would give anything to have you here with us, suffer any humiliation, any heartache for one more good night. I suppose that makes me weak and pathetic, but you already knew I was those things. Ugh, this letter is a fucking mess. I said none of the things I wanted and a great many things I did not. Whatever, I’m drunk. Forgive me.

I hope you are safe. I hope there is someone to sit at your side and keep you warm.

Yours, Amala Lavellan

He got past ‘Dear Solas,’ before needing a drink. The wine was dry and tart, some Tevinter make that tasted foul but did the job of softening the edges of his nerves better than anything else he had tried. As he read, he drank, frequently stopping to pace around the small study and collect his thoughts before continuing. On several occasions he swore he was done, that he was going to toss the letter out of the window, but it was an empty threat. Instead, he poured over his inquisitor’s words like they were oxygen. It was so painfully her. Every word choice, every strange bit of punctuation. Even if all identifying information was removed, there was only one woman in all of creation who could have penned this letter and it filled him with a feeling that he couldn’t - or wouldn’t - identify.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to imagine the scene. Dorian would have dragged everyone out of the tavern and into the rotunda, arms full of bottles of wine and mead, babbling on about some book he simply had to show everyone. Sera would be lounging on an armchair in some strange, uncomfortable looking way, miming shooting arrows at Leliana’s ravens. Bull and Varric would be bantering about something meaningless, dealing cards out on a ramshackle table. By now someone would have dragged Cullen into the mess. He would be flushing, trying to not be conspicuous as he shot glances at the inquisitor, still as smitten as he had always been. And Amala. She would be everywhere, flitting between her friends, ruffling Sera’s hair, refilling Bull and Varric’s cups, engaging in fond bickering with Dorian and constantly remembering to pull Cullen into conversation when he got shy. She had always been free with affection around her friends. Solas could picture it all so clearly that, for a moment, he felt that opening his eyes would transport him there. The last four years would turn out to be some terrible dream and his friends would cheer, opening up space in their ranks, like nothing had ever happened. Like he wasn’t a wolf in their midst.

The wine had done its devious work. Solas continued drinking and reading, reading and drinking. Drinking and reading and remembering. Soon, he had his inquisitor’s words memorized. He turned them over in his mind, tasting each one and wondering how long this one letter would be able to sustain him before he was thrust again into loneliness. He tried to think clearly, to reason with himself and remember all the very good reasons why he had forced himself to stay away from Amala, why he had contented himself with reports from his agents and spying on her for so long, but they rang hollow. In his drunken state, Solas had no desire to be selfless and reasonable. He wanted her.

Resigned to his foolishness, Solas sat at his desk and began to write a reply. He did not give himself time to reconsider, whispering the spell to infuse his letter with energy and send it back to you before he could change his mind. Almost as soon as the letter slipped through the veil, Solas stumbled his way to his sparse room, collapsing onto his bed with the precious words of his love still clutched in his hand.

Vhenan,

My dearest heart,

I hope you are not angry that I have responded to your letter. Try as I might, I could not let your words go unanswered. It has long been a weakness of mine that I long to hear you speak, to trade thoughts with you no matter how trite or convoluted they may be. Maybe? May be (I apologize, I too have consumed an ungodly amount of wine in preparation for penning this response).

I was surprised to hear from you after so many months of silence. So much has happened since last we spoke, but I had never imagined that the time apart would have made you so cruel. You must have known what it would do to me to learn that there are other letters, more of your precious words meant for my eyes and fed to the flames, where no magic can hope to divine them. Surely you foresaw the madness this knowledge would cause. What did these letters contain? What thoughts were there? Were they declarations of love? Did you curse my name and pray our paths had never crossed? I am tormented by these unknowns.

I read your words over and over again and wonder what you meant by them. You speak of the shape of my lips, the spaces I have left in the world. You are right, there is something improper about such intimacy between gods and mortals. However, that is the problem, isn’t it? With you, I have never been anything but a man. A foolish man. The broken shell of a man who may once have deserved you, but knows that now he does not. Call me Fen’Harel if you must, it is a name I have worn and in a way it is who I am, but know that it was Solas who loved you first. Solas who sat by your bedside. Solas who traveled the length and breadth of Ferelden and Orlais with you, who shared your days and nights and fought off your enemies. Forgive my sentimentality, the wine has loosened my tongue far more than I ought to have let it.

I supposed I deserve to be tormented by you. No, that’s not true. I know I deserve it. I relish the opportunity to be tormented by you. I am glad to hear you did not lose all your power when I stripped the anchor from you. I am glad to hear you have a teacher. I am glad to hear Dorian disapproves of you writing to me. It is a terrible idea.

I hope you will write again.

Solas.

[mumms-the-word]

So I’ve been thinking about Fem!Lavellan’s tarot card today. You know, this one:

And how post-Veilguard it looks to me like she’s cradling a spirit in her hand.

I know it could be that she’s just holding a kind of plant similar to the ones in the background. I’m not sure when the art department got around to imagining spirits as these branching nervous-system-looking beings, after all. But now I can’t unsee “spirit”

Because when Solas is a spirit he looks like this

(Forgive the quality these are all very quick thoughts I’m throwing together)

And there are plenty of thoughts to be had about how Mythal’s vallaslin design seems to be a callback to this form. It’s a little unclear if this is just uniquely Solas’s form, or if all spirits looked this way once upon a time (give or take a few pairs of eyes). But still—spirit form!

fem!Lavellan is cradling what looks like a spirit in her hand!

Now before someone tries to be like “solavellan canon supremacy” I think it’s more that fem!Lavellan’s card is meant to show a mage. masc!Lavellan doesn’t have a spirit form hanging around, but masc!Lavellan is depicted as an archer.

We see a staff in fem!Lavellan’s hand so I imagine the spirit hovering over her palm is meant to show her (or show a Dalish mage’s) relationship with magic and spirits as one that is a bit more gentle and friendly than the Spirit-Hating Chantry. More in tune with the Fade and the world of spirits, so to speak.

Also, since Dalish mages in the game are always written as Firsts, aka the next in line to be the Keeper, I also see this as depicting her in a shepherd/Keeper/guardian role—if elves were once spirits, her carefully holding the spirit in her hand could be like her carefully holding The People in her hand, keeping up with their history, lore, etc while also caring for them.

I don’t know! I just think it’s neat!

But also, yeah, as a treat, Solavellans can go wild with this one. Lavellan lovingly cradling a spirit that looks like spirit!Solas in her hand? be feral, my friends

[grimrevolution]

Words: 1,108 Characters: Davrin x Rook - Radhika (pre-relationship) Rating: Gen Summary: In the midst of chaos, everyone needs a break every now and then.

Deep in the depths of Arlathan Forest, Davrin could smell the sea. The creak of the people frozen by magic sounded like the ropes of a ship, lake water lapped at the shore of a beach, and salt sat on the tip of his tongue. Sunlight filtered, dappled, through the tree tops, spreading out a pattern of seashells across hunting trails long trampled flat by halla hooves.

He had been dreaming about the ocean lately. The spray of the water, the sight of waves rising and cresting, the sound of it brushing against boat hulls and beaches and naked feet racing across the sand. Brushstrokes painted the sky in aquamarine with swirls of cerulean.

On the lucky nights, he dreamed of long, black hair veiling the sunlight. Of fruit-stained lips pressed against his own. Of palms braced against his chest.

Davrin breathed in. The salt became dirt and decaying plant life, the call of gulls turned into the sharp singing of woodland birds. Squawking and chuckling tugged him from his thoughts. The peace not broken so much as changed.

He turned.

Rook—‘you can call me Radhika, if you’d like,’ she had told him quietly during their first walk through the woods, digging for truffles—was holding a length of twine away from a bouncing, chirping griffon. Freshly caught fish hung from it, rainbow scales catching the sun. Trousers were rolled up to her bruised knees, sleeves to her scarred elbows, and neither had helped keep her clothing dry.

Out here, in the golden light of Arlathan, Radhika looked like something enduring. There was no slim plate armor hiding her slant of her shoulders, no shield weighing down her arm, no everite sword in her hand. Just the twisting, ritualistic scarring up her left forearm, geometric lines tattooed across her face, and sweat-smeared kohl that hid the bags beneath her eyes.

She was smiling. A worn thing that reminded Davrin more of the brand-new post-joining Warden recruits than the boisterous Lords of Fortune. Assan bounded at her dirt speckled, bare heels, chirping, warbling, and crooning. The fur and feathers along his belly and legs were dripping with the river.

Davrin stepped a bit further into the trees, letting the shadows of the boughs and leaves hide him from view. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Radhika smile. Or perhaps he never had, and they were all stolen away by the attacks on Treviso and Minrathous.

“No, Assan,” she said, sternly but fondly. Her grip was gentle as she grabbed the griffon cub’s beak before it could catch one of the fish. “These are for supper. Besides, let me gut and debone them before you stuff your face.”

Ears and wings dropped. Baby-blue eagle eyes widened. If he was an elven babe, the damn beast would be pouting.

Good thing he was born with a beak and claws. Davrin hated to think what he would get up to if he had thumbs.

Radhika merely laughed. It was a tender, quiet sound, all lotus blossoms and mud-stirred water. “That won’t work on me as much as it does on Neve,” she told Assan, brushing her fingers gently across the speckled silver feathers on his forehead.

He warbled at her and nudged his head into her touch, giving up on the fish. For now. There was something divine in the way the sunlight fell across her hair that not even the so-called gods could touch. Up in the ruins, the shadow of Ghilan’nain’s likeness glared at him for his so-called blasphemy.

Mother of the halla. Mother of monsters. Davrin hadn’t given her much thought after taking his vallaslin. Not until recently when her hand dealt the death blow of a thousand wardens.

“Davrin?”

Turning away from the shadow of the tyrant, he glanced towards Radhika.

Her shoulder length black hair was pulled up into a messy bun. A white and blue lily stuck out of the tie holding it together; a gift from one of the younger veil jumpers they had rescued mere days ago. It looked like a guiding star.

It softened her. Not with the plushness of rabbit fur, but like how dusk lessened the heat of the day. Twilight wiping away blood and dirt and the horrors the light revealed to firesides, drinks, and steadfast company.

She had tilted her head to the side and was watching him, checking in that way she always did for injuries, then for anything else.

“I’m alright,” Davrin said stepping out of the trees. “Got caught up in my own thoughts.”

Assan bounded past to go wiggle underneath the tarps that had been set up. The camping idea had been shamelessly stolen from Harding. Or, rather, Davrin had mentioned his plan to Harding only to get it whole-heartedly approved.

They were still waiting on news from the Crows, information from the Shadow Dragons, as well as whatever Antoine and Evka could scrape together. They had a small bit of time. Not a lot, but enough to go camping out in the wilderness.

Take some semblance of a break.

“If you need to head back—”

“I don’t,” Davrin told her, firmly. He carefully took the twine and the fish. “You said gutting and deboning?”

Radhika watched him. Her eyes were not blue despite the fact that she smelled of the sea. Even out here in the dirt, even at Weisshaupt when they were surrounded by blight and blood and death. It followed her, a phantom dogging at her heels.

There were some who believed that humans had come from across the sea. Perhaps had even come from it. All dirt and bones and light. A heaving, churning reminder that everyone was filled with a deep, restless soul. Elvens born from spirits made flesh. Humans born from water made to walk.

Whatever Radhika was looking for made her expression soften. “Yes,” she admitted. “Preferably before Assan decides to try and steal one.”

Davrin glanced down and—sure enough. “You heard the boss,” he said to the griffon that was trying to slink through the trees, eyes on the fish. “Nothing until supper.”

Assan warbled and flopped down on the dirt with a huff.

“You—” Davrin almost started before shaking his head. They could deal with the filth later. Probably back in the river. He spared a second to glance back at Radhika.

She was no monster to track through the wilderness nor a halla that needed patient herding. Something old lurked beneath the surface and he was no fisherman but he could learn. He could try.

“Shall we?” Davrin motioned with the fish.

Radhika smiled at him. “We shall.”

[nadas-dirthalen]

I know it’s stated that Emmrich was the one who created the false dagger and found you in the Fade but I am absolutely enamored with the idea that a romanced Bellara (if she is not kidnapped) absolutely was the one who suggested the idea and was helping Emmrich craft it.

There are several instances in the game where it’s noted that Bellara has some alarming ideas about the Lighthouse and other artifacts. In Vengeance and Vows it’s show that she’s willing to play fast and loose with elvhen artifacts and it’s implied in a conversation between her and Hezenkoss (stuck in the skull) that there are certain topics Emmrich does not allow Bellara to talk about with his former friend.

In short: Bellara is one bad day from being a mad scientist. I kinda saw a parallel between her and Ghila’nain - the latter is fascinated with pulling things apart and putting them back together (there’s an artifact in the Veil Jumper vault attributed to her that does exactly that) which is something Bellara also likes to do. Surprised the game didn’t do anything with it.

You know who I see Bellara paralleling?

Dirthamen.

There's the fact that she loves toads/frogs so much that her gift is one, and that Veilguard makes a POINT of telling you how much Dirthamen likes frogs/toads.

There's the fact that she talks about how, if she could make a gigantic skeleton of her own like Hezenkoss, she would give it wings, maybe some extra arms—when in Dalish myth, it is Dirthamen's "secrets" (which I think are spirits forced into the bodies of Dirthamen's test subjects) that allowed them to do things like shout them, when before they had no ability to use language.

Her vallaslin are also confirmed to be Dirthamen's, said Epler (her writer!) in an interview by Ghil-Dirthalen.

And who, in Dalish myth (and the Evanuris' reality, in a roundabout way) was split from his brother? Dirthamen. We know now that Falon'Din was sundered from Dirthamen (and that Dirthamen, I believe, is the younger of the "twins"), but... look at Bellara's and Cyrian's vallaslin.

Cyrian's is the missing piece to Bellara's. Only the end points have triangles on them, where hers only feature the middle.

All that to say?

100%, I believe that Bellara would come up with the idea to trick Solas with the dagger... because Dirthamen was Keeper of Secrets, and that is a superb secret to keep from the Dread Wolf. :)

[stitchzin]

Viago and Rook De Riva

It's in my head how much Astraea Rook De Riva was sad and defeated to leave home.

Viago saw that wild dalish tiny thing, with a very recent Vallaslin, still hurting and reddish, with some parts bleeding. Astraea as a good eye on the street. She would collect intel for his jobs, watch his exits until Viago finally could bring her in the house because she was wild and untamed.

Viago knows he never tamed her, she just trusted and liked him enough to addapt to him. In the game, Rook's idiot act is always brought up, but it's loyalty is never a question.

Regardless, she choose Viago, and later Viago had to choose to send her away. She might be out for nearly a year.

In her absence he starts to wonder how does a recent full grown dalish ends up in treviso streets. He investigates but the best he get are her friends in town who are a street artist, a botanist and a dressmaker. They say the same, she came out of nowhere.

Is only after Ghil'lanin fight that Lucanis tell him, that she was avoiding Treviso now because her former clan was in the area and they were helping those injuried. Viago goes to check on them, and give some supplies.

The Keeper tells Viago, Teia and Lucanis, who was already charmed by her, that she was banished at the age of 13, because she was in the woods collecting mushrooms and humans spotted her, she run to the camp and the humans came after the dalish making them run for their lives loosing people on the attack. She was considered a danger to the clan and casted a side, she had a Vallaslin, she was considered an adult thus, punished as one.

She was a prodigy, the youngest in their history to get a Vallaslin, a mythal vallaslin, modest on the face. And had other much more complex Vallaslin on her hands. Not a single tear, not a single cry on the hours that took to complete the hand and face process.

But a mistake was enough to erase that. There was no guilty, they still think it was the best choice.

They didn't saw what Viago had saw, a child. Not an adult. A kid.

Viago has realised he did the same. After years of perfect score, one mistake exiled her, but he was trying to keep her safe. He was. He is.

But now he wonders if she sees like that.

Lucanis goes back to the lighthouse to see Rook, he had in hand good chocolate, Halla milk, her favorite cookies, plus some clothes. He said Viago send it. Plus a good pair of boots, those came from Teia.

She gives a huge smile, with some tears.

He tells Viago.

On the next day she shares the sweet with Lucanis, and only Lucanis. Nothing ever tasted so sweet to him.

[liaragaming]

Has anyone stopped to think about how, like, Lavellan wouldn't be able to forget about Solas even if she wanted to?

"It's been 8 years since Trespasser. She should have moved on by now." Like, how? If she didn't disband the Inquisition and still leads it, then trying to stop Solas is literally her everyday life.

And maybe she left and rejoined her clan. Can you imagine every day looking at faces with vallaslin and remembering how Solas said the evanuris weren't who the Dalish thought they were? Or performing Dalish customs and wondering if any of it actually connects to Ancient Arlathan? And that, god dammit, Solas would know the answer - and she probably wouldn't like it? How about any exclamations of "By the Dread Wolf!"?"

God forbid your Lavellan travels after the events of DAI because we know those Dread Wolf statues are everywhere. (And that they sit outside Dalish clans).

And maybe, like my Lavellan, she decides not to go home. But she still want to research and learn all she can about the past. Everything she could possibly uncover could link back to him. Certainly anything elven. But even Dwarven ruins aren't safe because we know the elves missed with stuff there. Ancient history isn't safe. Even studying modern cultures - like the Avvar who are so friendly with spirits and thinking about how much Solas would fucking love it!

If Lavellan's a mage and has any discussions on spirits or the Fade - of course she's going to be thinking about what Solas knew.

Maybe she joins the Red Jenny's and tries to heal things one person at a time. How can she not think about how much Solas only ever wanted to help people? But that he's also going to tear down the Veil and kill everyone? Is anything she's doing right now even going to matter in a few years? If only she could show him small incremental change that he could be doing right now instead of total destruction.

How can she not think about him all the fucking time? How does this girl keep from going insane?

Remember, there's a scar in the sky from where they closed the breach. She's going to see that every damn day.

Also her arm is gone from when he took it right before disappearing again, so that's also a constant reminder.

Nowhere is safe for this woman.

She should just escape reality and drift off into Fad-

[edda-grenade]

felassan in da:i, aka a menace

can't stop won't stop, part 1 is here (also the post that inspired it by @mumms-the-word) but currently they're just floating scenes so

–––––

“Out of curiosity,” Felassan says one evening by the fire in the Exalted Plains, “what Dalish legends do you know? Other than the ones I've shared, I mean.”

Saar makes a thoughtful noise, head tilting. On the other side of the fire, Solas goes stiff as a board. Felassan smiles pleasantly at him.

“Well, the big one,” Saar starts counting on her fingers, “the great betrayal, how all the gods got locked up. Then some about Ghilan'nain, about the monsters she made—although I'm not sure if Iolain was just messing with me on that, I mean, tree-tall spiders?—and how she killed them all, to become a god.” There is a bitterness swimming in the undercurrent of her voice that surprises Felassan.

“You wouldn't have done the same, to gain that power?” he asks.

“Sacrifice what's basically my children to, what, gain the power to make different children? She could already do that.”

“Godhood, whatever it may have meant in those days, would certainly have given her opportunities that were inconceivable before,” Solas cuts in. He's watching Saar now, intent. Felassan’s smile sharpens.

“There's always more than one way,” Saar says flippantly and flicks a bit of kindling at the fire. “Not that I wanted to, but when I was a kid I wondered how it would've been if I'd been born Dalish, or a human Marcher, or in the Qun, and the vallaslin I'd get would have been hers.” She shrugs. “Until Ashuon told me the story of her ascension.”

Wordlessly, Solas gets up, turning away from the fire. Felassan watches him pace, slowly, the tense line of his back.

“Ghilan'nain would've loved you, I think,” he murmurs. He leans his knee against Saar’s. “Not sure if that's a good thing, though.”

Saar chuckles drily. “The Maker loving Andraste sure didn't save her.” She extends another finger. “Oh, and the one about Fen'harel and Andruil! ‘The Dread Wolf and the Tree’? Ashuon told me that one too.”

“Ah, yes,” Felassan says, keeping his voice light. “The Dread Wolf’s famous cunning.”

And his slow arrow being too slow to save him, even if that part never made it into the stories. Solas stops pacing. He glances back at them, over the fire flickering between. This once, Felassan can't bring himself to smile.

“Sounded more like desperation to me,” Saar mutters quietly. She's watching the fire, how the flames dance. “I mean, he's trapped, and outnumbered, and his choices are getting murdered or gettting raped. I don't think anyone's cunning under those circumstances.”

“Yes,” Felassan says softly. “I imagine he would be.” His chest aches, where the knife pierced him clean through. But the pain feels so much like an old panic, running after Solas who had gotten himself in over his head against one or more of the Evanuris. Damn him.

I was fine, Solas had said back then, and on so many other occasions. The situation was under control. But he had not resisted Felassan’s embrace, or his steadying hands.

“Stars, this is depressing,” Saar groans. She rubs her left hand across her face, stands up, stretches. Her gaze drifts from Felassan to Solas and back. “Tell me something fun? Either of you, I know you’ve got more stories packed away.”

The fire crackles.

“I did encounter a spirit of amusement, once,” Solas offers at last. Felassan suspects no one else would notice it, but Solas’ voice… it wavers, just a little. Saar grins and hooks her arm over Solas’ shoulders, then drags him to sit down beside her, with Felassan on her other side.

“The epitome of fun, huh?”

“It considered puns the highest form of humor,” Solas says flatly, and Saar laughs.

It’s a good sound. Felassan’s not gonna pretend he doesn’t like hearing it. Or that he doesn’t enjoy the way Solas’ expression fractures and softens helplessly, gazing at Saar. Serves him right.

[loquaciousquark]

DAI Update

I haven't forgotten Tav's BG3 playthrough (I have the pictures put together, just need to assemble the posts), but now that I've gotten through the first Solas romance scene, I felt the need to share some DAI screenshots to mark my progress.

This is Adahla Lavellan, electricity/spirit mage. She likes history and religious study and puzzles and, much to my chagrin, Solas.

She's got the vallaslin of Dirthamen (secrets, knowledge) and a hunger to understand the roots of major historical & legendary events. I'm still learning her as I play, but so far I know she's very self-assured and has almost no regrets; once she commits to a path, she lets go of wondering what else might have been and completely focuses on the decisions still ahead.

I've been trying to lean into the spy stuff mentioned in the prologue & in her codex. I know she was a foundling left with the clan at birth by non-elves, and she has a fascination with other cultures and especially with the various theologies scattered across Thedas. (I'm pretty sure she devoured every Genitivi text she could find growing up.)

While she does worship the elven gods, she doesn't disbelieve in any of the others; rather, she's deeply curious about finding ways where the elvhenan tradition and Andrastian tradition can both be true, or where the legends of the Old Gods and Tyrdda Bright-Axe might have overlapped at their religious root.

Her familiarity with these cultures made her the most suitable to represent the Lavellan clan at the Conclave. The mark is more of an exciting mystery to her than a painful burden, and though she does believe in the diplomatic efforts of the Inquisition and is firmly comfortable in her place leading the charge against Corypheus (since he wants to kill specifically her), she's secretly most invested in the Inquisition's acquisition of ancient texts, access to libraries, and uncovering of secrets. For her, "Inquisitor" is a decidedly literal title.

Romance stuff under the cut.

I was very unsure of how the Solas romance would go with a character like her. As @silksieve said, I'm coming at the romance from the wrong end; I already know who Solas is and yet know literally zero of the romance structure. I needed to create a character who could survive a heartbreak, and I think I've done that, but I'm fascinated to see how the intermediary beats shake out.

However, the romance ended up sparking naturally due to lovely happenstance. I've been keeping Solas in the party almost constantly so I can learn to like him, which meant he was present as I worked through all the astrariums and ocularums in the Hinterlands, the Storm Coast, and most of the Emerald Graves. (Yes, even here, I'm still a completionist.) This led to a nice bit of headcanon that Adahla & Solas worked through a lot of the star puzzles together, which meant that later in the Graves, when I stumbled upon one without Solas in the party, Adahla & I both had a moment of seriously missing him and wishing he was there.

It felt natural, therefore, to examine (logically and methodically) why she was missing him so much, and after bringing him a copy of the unsolved map so she could watch him solve it and judge the number of tries it took him, I think she realized she was growing interested in more than his stories of Fade wanderings and legends out of time.

Considering this whole relationship started with him being grabby and rude while she felt like death, I'm amazed they've gotten this far. She may not have always liked him, but she has always respected him, and I the player was surprised at how smooth the change in her opinion felt.

Also as a player, I'm still a bit unsure of Solas myself. I like the deep wealth of history and knowledge he provides, but there's a...a sort of rigid pride to him that I personally still find off-putting. As I mentioned on stream, I'm going to need to see some chinks in the armor to really buy into the romance in any major way. Plus, he's just so...blandly designed! I dunno. Bald, beige, and a boring dresser? I know this is a me thing, but dang, seeing the concept art with dreads...well, a girl can dream.

Adahla, however, is having a great time. Once she decides on something, she commits with her whole heart, and now that he's admitted to being thrown off-balance during the Fade scene, she's made it her mission to keep him on that back foot as long as possible. I again have no idea how the romance plays out, and please God don't spoil me, but she & I are both hopeful that she'll keep him guessing through the end.

In terms of gameplay, I've about finished the Hinterlands, the Storm Coast, the Emerald Graves, and the Forbidden Oasis. I plan to do Wicked Eyes & Wicked Hearts (or whatever it's called) next, followed by Crestwood, and then will keep working through the maps one by one. The level gating isn't quite as bad as I remember, though still annoying, and my few QoL mods have shaved off the worst of the gameplay irritants (thank you @bettydice!).

All in all, I'm having a really good time! Like I said, I'm still a little doubtful about Solas myself, but the character concept coming into shape for Adahla feels sound, and I think she's resilient enough to weather some of the revelations that Priory wasn't. I'm excited to keep going and find out! :)

Also, my girl, because I still love her best:

[solavellan--hell]

It is important to me that people know that, in the Crestwood cutscene, Solas does not take Lavellan there with the intention to drop the vallaslin lore bomb and then dump her.

I don’t know why, but I keep seeing comments talking about this scene in particular like it was all some kind of master manipulator move on his part, like he planned for things to happen the way they did.

I’m going to be paraphrasing Trick here, this is not just personal interpretation. Solas took Lavellan to Crestwood with the intent to tell her the whole truth, because she mattered that much to him. But his resolve breaks once he starts telling her, so instead of telling her the truth about himself, he tells her the truth about the Vallaslin. He gets scared and backs away.

Now, in the interview, Trick says that after Solas kisses Lavellan, he is “ready to lose himself and forget about the past”. But he realizes that he has to break it off, or he would have betrayed himself. Personally, I think “himself” means more himself in terms of his self-perceived purpose and responsibility, because we know leaving is not what he actually wants. The Veilguard letter confirms it, but we kinda already knew.

Anyway. I know this hurt. Trust me, I still ugly cry to this one cutscene. But he did not take Lavellan there because he had nothing better to do than emotionally traumatize her. Doesn’t change the outcome in the end, but intentions are an important part of any character.

[lanafofana]

Veilguard spoilers below cut

Solas wanting to remove Lavellan's vallaslin takes on a whole other, deeper, personal meaning when she's wearing Mythal's.

And yes, of course, he loves her no matter which way she decides to go forward. He loves her for her spirit and it's what's on the inside that counts and yada yada but still.

Like, just sit with it for a minute. His heart, wearing on her face, the image of his oldest friend before she changed and became someone who took him from the fade and branded his face with her vallaslin and sent him into war. Not only would it have been a slap to the face to mark a former spirit with an image of your own spirit but also as a form of ownership? And it's not outside the realm of possibility that Solas asked her to.

Cole: It's not abuse if I ask!

Solas: Not always true.

Lavellan who keeps her vallaslin tells Solas in DAI, maybe that's what the markings used to mean but now it's been reclaimed by the dalish and means something else when he tells her about it's roots in elvhenan's slavery. Maybe like Lavellan, Solas learns to reassociate Mythal's vallaslin, not as a reminder of his past, but as another part of his heart and his future.

Or do you think the fade tear closed behind them and Lavellan was like "I changed my mind, Vhenan, take her off my face before I figure out how to do it myself."