#solavellan critical

[thedissonantverses]

“Veilguard refuses to address why the Veil needs to stay up.”

No. It does. We’ve been addressing it since Trespasser. Literally the plot of the game. It’s the whole reason we’re here. The Veil stays up cause Solas is wrong to want to kill innocent people to fix his mistakes instead of letting the people of Thedas take care of their home themselves.

Solas isn’t the main character of Veilguard, or Dragon Age. Signed,

-A Solavellan shipper who cares more about the lore than Solas because I know what franchise I’m playing.

[shoutydwarf]

Veilguard ending spoilers

It's so hard for me to talk about how I feel about Solas because on one hand, there's great potential in his arc, but on the other, bioware has completely butchered that in such a profound way that I don't care to look past the hiccups to enjoy him.

First, he's race locked. This really doesn't help to contest the idea that he's a supremacist. If it was truly a time crunch issue where they added it so late they couldn't add the other races, but knew at the time what Solas was and what he meant to the plot - why, on gods green fucking earth, was it included at all? Because they spend the whole next game trying really hard to convince you he's not just an ages old racist stuck in his ways, only to not just have race locked him but to hide his most egregious act, of which he committed against a certain race he's known to be racist towards.

You'll be hard pressed to catch a certain type of solavellan, which encompasses the majority of them, even saying the word titan. The part that baffles me is you'll also be hard pressed to hear SOLAS HIMSELF saying it in game. If I'm recalling correctly, I only heard him say it one singular time outside of the mural memories. At the very end of the game.

There is zero acknowledgement on his part of what he did, at least not in any meaningful way. The orb that the evanuris made their foci out of that Solas says is an elven artifact? Titan heart. The dagger he made? Titan blood. The empire of Arlathan? Founded on the blood and genocide of titans. And I mean that in the most literal sense that I can. All of their godly powers that they used to create their empire was pulled from the well of titan souls they locked within the Golden City.

It's fucking poetic at this point. They silenced the titans so good and well that it seems not even Solas remembers what his glorious kingdom of old cost. It's even funnier if you stand in front of him as a Cadash or a dwarf!Rook.

This man they're trying SO HARD to beat into you around every corner that he's so so sad, he's so so full of regret and sorrow, he's so depressed and anguished over his deeds, not once acknowledges in a way that matters that what he and the evanuris did to the titans was wrong. And if he doesn't feel remorse over that in any way that's loud enough for him to talk about it as he does the veil, how the fuck am I supposed to believe he's sorry for all the other things?

Weekes has admitted to literally, somehow, casually forgetting dwarves don't dream when they were writing the scene of the Haven dream with Solas and the Inquisitor. Add this to how many lines dwarf!rook has of comparing things to dreams, casting necromancy spells etc and it becomes pretty clear that they never intended to afford this genocided race lore reveal the gravity it needed. They just needed it as a minor plot device in a greater elven narrative that completely, utterly, 100% unravels the message they're desperate to send with Solas. They really said to solavellans don't worry, kittens, he committed a really heinous, unforgivable act that he's not taking any strides to repair but we're not going to have him talk about it at all so you can continue ignoring it and scrolling tiktok during Harding's questline. And yall said okay ❤️ yay ❤️.

And no, you can't argue that his goal was always to tear down the Veil to restore immortality/magic to the elves AND wake up the titans. Because those are two separate things, and one of those things he never once said he was doing. He doesn't need the titans awake to take down the Veil and restore Arlathan. In fact, he very much needs them to stay tranquil, otherwise he'd finally get the ass whooping he fucking deserves when my dwarves not only attack his unguarded kneecaps with hammers but start chucking rocks at him and booing loudly.

This is why he's irredeemable for me. This is why I wanted an ending where I can kill him, not because I hate him as a concept or even as a character, but because his writing is such a fucking joke. And putting him into a sock and banging him against the counter is the only valid response to such a cosmic fumble because it's the only option that matches its freak in being so ridiculous. It's bad writing, it's weak, cheap, lazy, and directly crumbles the entire foundation.

While the ending of having him spend eternity soothing the dreams of the titans is excellent in form, because although it doesn't show him taking accountability it does show him taking steps to repair the damage he did to them, I don't ever get to establish, as a dwarf Rook or even just as a player, that THAT is why I want him to do this. Nobody says, "Make this right by earning the forgiveness of your first victim." Instead, for Solas, it's like, "well, since I have to go there anyway, I might as well. I guess. Whatever."

All this while they're in that AMA saying shit like "two groups are more affected than any other by the evanuris - the elves and (wait for it) Tevinter."

A fucking joke, I tell you.

[postcardsfromheapside]

One of my favorite books (a story about a serial killer, no less) starts "I have long been fascinated by the notion that knowledge can be created about the past."

The idea was that time, and a zoomed out perspective, and research, provides one with insight that people living in the time and space being examined couldn't possibly know.

This is sort of how I feel about Veilguard.

Solas discussion under the break.

Once Veilguard came out, so many things changed their context due to the insight provided by "time" and perspective.

In the interaction depicted here, the person I snipped this from feels that this is heartwarming. I've made no denial in the past that I found Solas irritating in the way he treated the Dalish, and always told him as such in the game, but seeing this feels especially frustrating post-Veilguard. Instead of reading this as him feeling shamed, I now see his pride being appeased.

"Oh, but he was treated badly by the Dalish he encountered-"

Solas is, for lack of a better term, a god. He is not only an adult, he ought to functionally and emotionally be above the petty blows of mortals who he continues to see as children. Instead, his pride is hurt when he isn't accepted by the Dalish (we later learn that, according to him, he attempted to reveal himself and they not only didn't accept him, but continued worshipping his rival, which I'm sure did not help his pride). He belittles the Dalish, and only feels appeased when Lavellan speaks to him in a humbled manner.

It's maddening, because later in Skyhold, he has a moment in which he wonders if the Dalish aren't so bad...because they produced Lavellan.

And yet...he learns nothing from this. He never changes his mind about the Dalish. He tries to convince Lavellan to remove her vallaslin, an important cultural marker, and maybe succeeds, but leaves her regardless. By the time we get through the end fight of Veilguard, if you have Davrin with you, Solas verbally jabs at him, asking if he's told the Dalish all about how awful he is (is this really the most important thing to be talking about right now, Solas?) and it's only when Davrin reminds him of how they're cleaning up HIS mess at the moment, that Solas subsides.

Almost everything about what he does feels as if he has to be reminded that he's the uber-adult here, with thousands of years of experience and knowledge. He ought to be the only regulating himself. And yet every single time, it's a mortal having to do the one wrangling him.

I hope you all know, I think Solas is a great antagonist. He's acted by GDL to the hilt, and I thought his performance in Veilguard was fucking masterful and I enjoyed every minute of interacting with him.

But holy shit, Lavellans, I just think y'all deserve better. Maybe a Pete Davidson.

[lizzybeeee]

Me watching my Inquisitor walk off with Solas at the end of the game like :) "aw cute ..hey if Mythal hadn't told you to stop would you have murdered her,," (I haven't played the other endings yet).

This!!!

(Obviously, not murdered her personally, but he absolutely had no qualms about doing the ritual once more - knowing the consequences of it.)

Let me preempt this by saying that I wanted there to be a happy/fulfilling ending to Solas and Lavellan. I'm not a blind hater! Just someone who finds it very hard to put my own Lavellan in the place of the 'Lavellan' provided to us in DATV.

The Solas/Lavellan relationship already was kind of iffy (power imbalance, constantly dragging her culture, removing her vallaslin/then dumping her, constantly lying to her, etc...) but DAI did a great job of making you feel sympathetic towards his plight - especially after Trespasser! He woke up in a world so divorced from his own that it was unrecognizable - the people he had done so much for were suffering from the consequences of his actions, justified as they may have been at the time (stopping the evanuris). His actions led to great suffering in the pursuit of preventing even greater suffering.

Even after we learned of his plans in Trespasser, it was very much: "cool motive, still murder."

I felt sympathetic towards Solas and the implication that we could change his mind, given to us in Trespasser, gave me hope that we would be able to convince him of another path. That he could find a place in Thedas as it is now and look to the future. That was why I chose the option to try and get through to Solas, despite knowing that his plan would lead to mass death/terror if it went ahead.

I always expected the Veil to fall at some point, but i was hoping there'd be some more nuance to it than: veil gone, demons everywhere, lots of people die. Well, I was very wrong lmao.

But, if anything, the game made me entirely unsympathetic towards Solas.

The moment he started his ritual he chose the old elven empire over Lavellan - over her family, friends, home, culture, and anything else she may have loved/valued.

And he did this twice.

He chose to pursue lowering the Veil - knowing that thousands would likely die. For all his insistence of 'minimizing the damage' he went in knowing that many more people would die because of his actions. There was no justification of stopping the evanuris this time either - no excuse of not knowing the potential consequences of his actions like the first time.

He chose to begin the ritual that ended up releasing the Elven Gods - knowing full well the risks it entailed.

He killed Varric - whether by accident or not, it was by his hand.

He chose to use blood magic to manipulate Rook into thinking that Varric was alive - puppeting his corpse around in Rook's eyes and putting his words into Varric's mouth.

He chose to manipulate, mold, and guilt Rook into the old 'switcheroo' in his mind palace/regret prison

He chose to 'free' the elven people by bringing down the Veil - regardless of their feelings about it (elven Rook can call him out on this!), never mind the consequences or ramifications of a bunch of people suddenly having their bodily autonomy overwritten by now being magic/having immortality.

He looked at the devastation caused the by the Gods and still went ahead with trying to bring down the veil again.

These are the thing he does in-game - not even mentioning making the dwarves/titans tranquil, creating the blight, started the chain of events that led to SOUTHERN THEDAS BEING DESTROYED, and taking my good gear from Inquisition!

Aside from the 'all lore leads to Solas' reveal just being really dull it also does nothing to help with making me sympathetic to him as a character. The audacity of this man to say: "it was like walking in a world of tranquil" when he fucking lobotomized the dwarves/titans is wild in retrospect.

If he didn't do the ritual at the beginning, if something else went wrong and that resulted in the God's being released, I could understand why a Lavellan would still want to get through to him. It would make sense - she could stop him from doing it again at the end too! You can still have him conflicted and torn between the restoring the past or pursuing the future - but this doesn't happen!

He never chose Lavellan in this game! Hell, it's Mythal who convinces him to stop?!! He owes her nothing! He's learned nothing from this!!! He's only stopped because Mythal 'pardoned/freed' him - once again showing that he values the ancient elves/mythal over her!!!

How impactful would it have been to have him choose Lavellan over Mythal! To show us this! Mythal, who 'crawled through the ages for a reckoning' (which was retconned to her being sad about the elves lmao) telling Solas to go through with the ritual and him touching grass and saying 'no'.

It's something I feel was wildly out of character for him as well - he never came across in DAI as being subservient to Mythal, if anything the ending cutscene gave me the impression they were equals?!

After everything he did in this game - after all we learn about what he did in the past - I had no interest in reasoning/appealing with his ass. None whatsoever. My inquisitor/Lavellan asking if Solas can be reasoned with only made me regret making that choice - perhaps other people's inquisitor's would say that, but mine would not, especially after everything that happened in game.

She came across as delusional: standing on the ruins of a blighted Minrathous, the south blighted to hell, dead all around them, blight tentacles everywhere, a gaping hole in the Fade right next to them:

Lavellan: "I forgive you! All you have to do is stop." Solas: "But I cannot."

Boom! There it is.

At this point it's not romantic, it's just sad! Sad that she's spent 10 years pining after a man who seemed to learn nothing at all from what happened in DAI.

------------------------

There should have been some sort of a dialogue option with Lavellan right before you go into the big fight - she can ask you what you think of Solas, if he's truly regretful for everything that happened, and then you can give her an answer that can 'change' her approach to Solas in the end - giving the player some agency as to how their Inquisitor would actually respond to this.

Ending One: Bye Bye Bye

Rook: "HE'S A GUY."

alternatively, "Look around you! Look at what Solas has done - what he's threatening to do even now after all of this! You gave him every chance to turn away from this path. So did Varric...and look at what he did!"

Lavellan is bitter/angry with Solas: "It seems we never were people to you after all."

Refers to him as 'Fen'harel' and not Solas - dig the knife in deeper, give us angst!

"Just go. You love the Fade, don't you? Enough to do all this - enough to kill Varric for your pride in a dead world that no longer exists. We were never 'real' to you, were we?"

Solas says his goodbyes, expresses his love, and Lavellan steps back.

Solas leaves voluntarily, his 'situation-ship very much over', to stew in his regrets for the rest of his life.

Ending Two: Bittersweet Goodbye

Rook: "Girl, it's been 10 years."

alternatively, "You loved him once, perhaps you still do even now - after all he's done - but love wasn't enough. Love does not excuse this."

Lavellan is firm with Solas, does not excuse his actions, but has a bitter sweet farewell: "I had hoped…it doesn't matter what I hoped. You made your choice - it wasn't me. It wasn't our friends. It wasn't this world. You can make a choice now - if I ever mattered you. If I, if our friends, were ever real to you."

They can have a final goodbye, a goodbye smooch, and then he can go off to the Fade.

Bittersweet ending - acknowledge what they had and then provide closure.

Ending Three: Happy Ending (?)

Rook: "He didn't mean it babe. He's tots sorry."

alternatively, "He seems to regret what's happened - I've seen his memories, his regrets. He believes this is the only path he has. Perhaps you can convince him to find another."

Default Lavellan ending basically

"There is no fate but the love we share" blah blah blah

As happy an ending as it can be when you have Lavellan fuck off to the Fade - leaving behind her life, friends, family, and whatever remains of the world for an eternity.

I'm being mean but I genuinely wanted a happy/fulfilling ending for them both too - despite the fact that this game seems to want that ending as well, it did little to convince me of that. :(

I genuinely liked Solas in DAI - despite his flaws, I thought his romance was compelling and I was hoping to be able to convince him to change/alter his path. I can see what they were trying to do with him in DATV but it's so hard to feel sympathy for him when we see/know the results of his actions. The story in this game is doing anything but convincing me to give him a 'happy ending'.

'Love' can't excuse what he did and neither would my Lavellan.

Also RIP Sandal's Prophecy about the Fade lmao

[inanshalla]

ppl attacking mythal as if solas is any better he used lavellan too (and by extension any inquisitor he had a friendship with)

he entered a relationship with lavellan KNOWING it was wrong from the start but did it anyway, his dialogue on the inquisitor wanting to pursue a relationship reflects this

he says “I’m not sure this is the best idea. It could lead to trouble”

if the inquisitor apologizes for kissing him he blurts out that she has nothing to apologize for or if she feels like she’s pressuring him after the kiss he says she isn’t at all he’s ‘perhaps’ just pressuring himself. He knows it’s wrong. Also his distance reflects that as well. He tries to pull away several times bc he knows it’s wrong and yeah he admits he was selfish for getting involved with her.

not saying he did it specifically to be a manipulative asshole I don’t think he’s some mustache twirling villain but in general one is less likely to see the faults in someone they are dating/in love with

just bc lavellan pursues him of her own volition (under false pretenses, mind you) doesn’t mean it’s less problematic especially because he’s being VERY vague about why it’s not the best idea to get romantically involved.

Also to add, the balcony scene that locks you in his romance, he’s talking about mythal but in so many words. He hasn’t seen the wisdom the inquisitor has since his experiences in the Fade… where he was a spirit and close to mythal.

“it would be kinder in the long run, losing you would be…” this man is talking about MYTHAL and her betrayal and death

it’s pretty obvious that he was seeing the inquisitor as mythal throughout inquisition if he has high approval/romance

[hyperbali]

If you're a Solavellan do not click here lmao

So I've seen that one post going around that's like "people who are shipping Rook and Solas are missing the point, they don't have a deeper connection than he had with Lavellan, Lavellan knew the real Solas"

And I have never seen such obvious cope in my life lmao

Fact of the matter is that they are both a blip in his existence. Solas knew Lavellan for 1-2 years, of course he's going to be more fixated on the romantic/platonic/situationship/whatever that lasted for millennia and literally broke the world, especially when the aftermath is that he feels like he's on such a different level than everyone left that they are pretty much Tranquil to him! This is a thought that he specifically expressed!

And claiming that Wisdom is the real Solas and Pride is not... also misses the point. Solas is Wisdom is Pride. Solas means Pride. At no point in his interactions with either the Inquisitor or Rook is he ever not lying, even just by omission. Neither of them see who or what he is as a whole, both are always operating at a disadvantage based on how much knowledge he's willing to give, and both have the opportunity to genuinely earn his respect.

As genuinely as Solas can get, at any rate.

Bearing that in mind, his chemistry with Rook compared to Lavellan is like a bonfire to a fireplace, in my opinion (bear that in mind oml). Even back in the day, I wanted the opportunity for a rivalmance with him so bad. I wanted to be able to call him out on his shit, to debate with his ideas, to meet him on a level that he was fully unexpecting and he hates that he loves it. Actively HATES it, not just that it makes him sad.

As it is, this "and so the wolf fell in love with the halla" shit is so cringy. Not at all helped by the fact that a romancing Lavellan apparently pined for him for a decade, couldn't do a damn thing to change his mind in the end, and willingly cuts herself off from her life, family, and friends to be a simpering, lovesick sycophant for the rest of her days. Because the Veil is STILL up. She IS dying in a few decades. And all of it will have been pointless.

Canon is a mess, I'm twisting it in other ways regardless, etc. etc. MY POINT IS

Shipping him with another character is not going to somehow make your ship invalid*. You can still make your favourite dolls kiss how you like. Relax about it.

(That last bit is not derogatory, as I am also proudly clanging my dolls together as usual. Just! Relax!! We are all in hell!!!)

*my 'ship and let ship' mantra has an exception and that exception is neve/lucanis. i'm sorry but it was the dumbest possible pairing for either of them and bioware should have let both of their nonromanced pairings be queer

[wardencallings]

Dipping my toes into extremely dangerous waters to say that it still bothers me that an entire experience of Trespasser and DATV is locked to characters who are not elf women specifically.

[isaidyoulookshitty]

i am probably never updating the woods again (sorry fellas) for lots of reasons (ahem cullen gives me the ick now and has for years ahem) but mainly because in replaying inquisition over the years, aria has changed for me. a lot. she's trans now! and she fell in love with solas while challenging him every step of the way (at least in my interpretation of their relationship). she'll always be important to me and that is part of why i was so disappointed with the veilguard ending.

readily forgiving a man who lied to her, broke her heart, and shattered her understanding of her own identity, all without being given the chance to hold him accountable before fucking off forever with him and never seeing any of her friends, family, or anyone else she loves again, was not the ending i wanted for her. or solas for that matter (though i care far less about him than i do her tbh). she was not a plot device with the sole purpose of "fixing" him. she was more than that. she had her own passions, fears, and motivations, her own life, and while he may have been at center of a lot of them he certainly was not all of it. the solavellan ending (i do also find it stupid that an entire ending revolved around an OPTIONAL in-game romance from 10 years ago) felt so dissatisfying for these reasons and more. yeah i guess he deserves the chance to heal or whatever but so did she, and part of that should have been laying the pain he caused her at his feet. instead i watched a character with her face and name blubber "i forgive you" at the drop of a hat, fairytale kiss everything better, and then disappear into the fade with him never to return. that felt like a cop out. kind of like the rest of the game did.

what had he done to earn her forgiveness? how has he atoned, personally, for the pain he caused her? how would he even recognize the ways it affected her? the trust issues it would've left her with, the grief she would have to cycle through, the guilt that would have grown in her for loving him despite all of it? the resentment she would have harbored for him? this is the kind of stuff that makes love stories feel REAL to me, makes them feel earned. everyone fucks up with the people they love; what matters is how we make it right. and no, assuming all of that happens off-screen is not enough for me.

"i forgive you."

there does not exist a world in which aria lavellan forgives any man who has not earned it. i would know; i created her. a one-size-fits-all disneyesque ending was not good enough for her. in a series of games known and lauded for a lack of one-size-fits-all endings, i find it sad. she deserved better.

[gxldencity]

solavellan hate under the cut

every time I think about how maybe the solavellans have a point I see the shittiest takes from them about the relationship, from the weird fetishization of lavellan's youth in comparison to solas to the double standards about mythal to solavellans pissed that there was no option to tear down the veil and begin the elvhen ethnostate where solas and lavellan will 🤮 repopulate 🤢 the world 🤮 and the lack of that option is proof that veilguard doesn't have moral complexity

At some point I think u all should just log off.

[thedissonantverses]

I’m a Solavellan shipper right? Like I am. BUT

I swear every other time I see a terrible critique it comes from a Solavellan shipper who rushed through the game to get to the ending then got mad when they missed a bunch of shit. Or that the game didn’t cater to them harder. This happens with everyone that focuses on romance more than the other parts of the game but it’s like really bad with this ship. I’m on my third playthrough and I’m still finding new things and I didn’t rush through either of my last two runs.

Not to mention just how lopsided the romance’s importance is? When has BioWare ever catered to a ship like this so hard?? Making Lavellan part of the ending to talk Solas down is really cool! But it’s also absurd how much representation this romance got on a narrative basis compared to the other romances. I’m not normally salty over stuff like this but Dorian and Lavellan deserved more than one conversation together and they should have gotten a kiss too.

Like it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. But maybe some perspective yeah?

[shoutydwarf]

and i KNOW that this discussion is eventually going to evolve into solavellans/solas lovers coping by making theories on how the titans were the villains somehow. i've already seen it starting - here and there, little throwaway vent posts. shit like "the titans attacked them first" (no they didnt). and they're going to latch onto these hallucinations so fiercely they'll have the audacity to come into other people's spaces and wave it around like it's canon, like how they've done the past 10 years re: solas tearing down the veil where they somehow got the idea that his plan was a good thing. or that one person hallucinating justifications for his racism towards qunari and dwarves.

i gain nothing by predicting this, i also cant stop it, we already got doofuses on twitter with 8k followers romanticizing the genocide for the angle of "solas crafted a body just so he could touch lavellan". i just hope DA is like well and truly dead to me before it begins in earnest

[eff-plays]

Honestly I don't even like Solrook enough to spend time thinking about it (I haven't thought about it organically since I finished the game) but the fact that it has all the Solavellans malding is really funny to me. Like we're really posting shit in the veilguard critical tag taking apart a pretty minor and unpopular ship as though a few people in the fandom shipping it mostly as a joke has anything to do with the game itself. "I don't think Solrook has any chemistry at all, you IDIOTS, he MANIPULATES ROOK and he TRULY LOVES LAVELLAN, none of you GET HIM" Ok but what does this have to do with the game. Can you take this somewhere else I'm here for people dunking on stuff that's IN THE GAME specifically.

Absolutely hilarious. Girlies, you won? Two out of the three choices from the previous game are about your OC and her man, nobody is taking Solas from your Lavellans. How are you this mad that some people like a minor ship that will never become canon.

[marilavellan]

i don't go here anymore but i just wanna say that i'm annoyed that any and all nuance has been stripped away from solavellan and that the only correct interpretation seems to be that lavellan is a lovesick idiot that's been pining for an unrepentant asshole for TEN. YEARS. and then follows him into his stupid little regret prison as if she doesn't have any friends or family of her own. like it can’t ever be about walking away and moving on from a toxic relationship because, like so many other things in this game, that would make people uncomfy :(

[inanshalla]

veilguard solavellan is also so boring like imagine building up this relationship for 10 years in your head after trespasser with the passionate glowy eye kiss, screaming after him that she’ll save him, solas being gentler to ease her pain as the mark is consuming her only to have the conclusion be solas mentioning lavellan once, lavellan’s entire character being about her love for someone who’s relationship with another woman is the plot of the whole sequel to the story they were a main character, and when it really came down to it, they weren’t even able to stop solas as it takes another woman to do it, a plain kiss and him not even asking her to come with him she has to insist and whatever trick weekes says after the game has already dropped is entirely irrelevant bc they did not make what he says clear in the game proper so it all seems like damage control

[hyperbali]

lmaooooo im a huge solavellan and youre right!!! his chemistry with rook is just DIFFERENT, i caught it the second they rewarded me for exchanging "verbal jabs" with him (what are we talking about 😏)... also like the power dynamic between both solavellen and solrook is the same hes still a mega powerful god thats manipulating you one way or another 😭😭 solavellen shippers have just had a decade to flanderize the ship to this divine extreme when its exactly as you said; its was *maybe* two years almost decade ago that would ultimately mean nothing to a god. thats part of the flavor and fun (all of this is imo of course)

also ur right about lucanis/neve what in the world were they THINKING with that it obvs should have been neve/bellara

Like, again, I'm not trying to harsh Solavellan vibes here! I like it under the circumstances I described, the idea of cracking an immortal's resolve is SO fun - one of my favourite manga was Immortal Rain (Meteor Methuselah)!

I just personally find what BioWare presented w/o any fanon involved to be a lot more enticing with Rook and Solas rather than with Lavellan and Solas. I am not going to proceed to say that Solavellan is somehow less valid as a result the way I've been seeing it happen with Solrook, lol

It's just like. One of those. 'Let the villain be villainous and stop woobifying them' kind of things

And YES, GOD. I'm sorry but the two of them each find their city far too important and would not leave it on behalf of the other. Just because they're both night owls with coffee addictions does not a solid relationship foundation make

Neve/Bellara on the other hand IMMEDIATELY got me giggly and twitterpated and I need to draw Neve looking lovingly at her AuDHD elf girlfriend while she goes off on a ramble post-haste

@banefulnightstar - I'm also stupid bitter that it's the only pairing that gets any real acknowledgement while also being horrified on behalf of Lavellan for what a "good" ending is supposed to be. Also lmfao la cocaina seal, YES that's exactly the kind of thing I meant

@internalloops - in retrospect you're right, she probably somehow dematerialized into a spirit or something since the implication of that ending is that ~their love is eternal~ or whatever, but that also kinda sucks! No matter how much you love someone, sometimes you need a damn break!

@siuilaruinofthegale - I cannot tell you how incredibly upset I am that if you do not romance one or the other, even if you NEVER bring them out on missions together, you are forced to watch their romance culmination to be able to finish Lucanis' personal quest. It is mandatory. How fucked up is that

[apanict]

solavellans having a normal one tonight