Art Blog

Light NSFW:

Which fictional character are you marrying ?

❗️❕️❗️

Thank you for the tag @unovafarm, I think you seriously hit the jackpot with Wyll and I'm so happy for your newfound happiness! 😜

(Please send me an invite when you get married ? I love weddings ! 💖)

Ok so for me, I had no idea how far back I was gonna have to scroll because I don't really keep pictures of my blorbos on my phone, since I usually save them to my tablet for drawing references...

BUT!! I found this image from one of my recent posts...

The picture isn't clear, but it was my BG3 party from an earlier save. My OC Elore, Karlach, Shadowheart, and Astarion. DAMN! I should be so lucky ! ☘️

Obviously I then had to load the save and take a photo of my new partners as if they were looking lovingly at me (low POV because I'm a shorty... 😅)

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME MY QUEER ASS IS NOW IN A 'TILL-DEATH-DO-US-PART POLYCULE WITH THESE MAGNIFICENT INDIVIDUALS?! 😍

Well, fuck me. (No seriously I mean it!)

Who said that ?!?!!

🙄🫣

Two elves buried beneath titles.

Two elves turned into symbols by others, until the person underneath becomes harder to see.

Two rebel elves standing against established orders.

Two elves who spend their lives trying to fix disasters they never intended to create.

Two elves forced to live with consequences of their actions that stretch across years.

Two elves who are seen as dangerous because of what they have become and what they can do.

Two elves who's lives change forever when they 'leave' the Fade.

Two elves who carry fragments of their lost civilization.

Two elves searching for home.

Two elves who sacrificed their bodies for the world.

Thank you for tagging me @kcwriter-blog 💚

Last Song:

“Downfall” by Matchbox Twenty.

One of my favorite Solavellan songs!

Favourite Color:

Black, white, and neon colors!

Currently Watching:

Dorohedoro. I love Mr. En ♡

Currently Reading:

Books about illustration techniques.

Current Obsession:

FF14! I wonder how long it will take before I finally meet Mr. Emet-Selch… lol

But I’m really enjoying the journey. Maybe that’s why I’ve been putting a little less effort into my daily art lately 😅

Also LADS. I love Dr. Zayne so much. I finally got his affinity to 146, and “Melting” made me cry so hard 😭

But of course, the center of my heart is still Solas and Uisce!

Last Google Search:

Gnosticism. I feel like it lies at the root of many works I love.

Currently Working On:

My daily Solavellan drawings, my post-Trespasser series, and many other ideas living in my head.

It’s a little sad that I don’t have enough power to bring them all out yet 🥹

tagging: @celesenova @crimsonphantasmagoria @ddworks @legolokiismighty

I saw these hilarious posts which inspired me to share my own headcanon around this.

So I don't think removing the Anchor was possible before Trespasser because I don't think Solas knew how to. There's no evidence that he did.

In the *On Rifts and Rituals codex (which he writes sometime in the years after Trespasser), Solas is still mystified by the Anchor and studying it: "It may also yield the final elements that have eluded me." Everything about the Anchor bonding to the Inquisitor shouldn't have been possible in the first place. Corypheus couldn't remove it - "The Anchor is permanent. You have spoiled it with your stumbling" and neither could Solas at that time. Because I think Inky changed the Anchor. That spoiling line certainly makes it sound like it.

So I think the two years between DAI and Trespasser were spent searching for a way to separate the Anchor from Inky without killing them (amongst other activities of his). I don't believe Solas wanted the Inquisitor dead. If he did, they would be dead. I imagine him returning to the Lighthouse, consulting spirits, researching, doing experiments and trying to understand how to unweave the Anchor from their body.

Eventually he discovers a way to separate it, all while the Qunari situation is gaining speed. That's how I line up the timing of Trespasser.

As for why he removes the Anchor and leaves them there... yeah. Lol.

Solas is a strategist so he's going to look for solutions that accomplish several objectives at once. By the time he knows how to remove the Anchor without killing Inky, the Qunari threat has escalated, he needs the Inquisition involved, he needs to reach Inky, AND he still wants to tell Inky who he really is. Once Solas sees several paths converging, he's very good at positioning himself to benefit from all of them. The downside is that when he's focused on the larger pattern, he can lose sight of the more personal human cost - and he's a weird spirit alien man who isn't always good at the human side of things. He's also very good at compartmentalizing, which allows him to approach the Inquisitor as a problem that needs solving.

However, through a romance lens (and a friend lens too), seeing that person he cares for (or loves) standing in front of him in pain is an entirely different matter. Suddenly he can't be as distant or clinical.

For me, every moment spent with Lavellan makes it harder for him to leave. Staying carries its own risks as well. If he returns her to the others himself, he's suddenly back among the people he spent two years avoiding. There would be questions, arguments, appeals to stay even, and before long he'd be pulled back into relationships and entanglements.

And ultimately, he's not a monster (fanfic preferences are one thing but I'm going on game context, text and dialogue). Whatever magic he applied, we see no blood in Trespasser. The arm is still engulfed in bright green magic, almost like a cocoon wrapped around it. Solas could have killed the Inquisitor there, but he didn't. Their death would've caused **unnecessary chaos, and he genuinely wanted the people of Thedas to experience relative calm before Veilfall. Narratively, it makes more sense to me that he'd ensure their survival until the others could reach them, opening the eluvians after he passed through his so the group could get to Inky.

I mean, it's still cruel - but that's the fun part to reconcile in a Solavellan world - I love how messy it is. 😂

I'd love to know how others reconcile this.

* I don't subscribe to the idea that Solas literally has the Inquisitor's arm. In Trespasser, Inky still has their arm when Solas leaves, and the grammar of the codex points to a remnant of the Anchor being studied alongside a sketch of the arm. I believe the Anchor was a physical magical glyph of sorts that had woven itself into the Inquisitor and could only be wielded by them. Otherwise, Corypheus could've just cut off Inky's arm and used it himself.

I think of the term vhenan as quite sacred a word - to me it has always felt like a declaration of commitment, like a vow. And so I researched the use of it in Thedas and found it was a very rare term indeed.

There are only three instances across Dragon Age where the term vhenan is used for someone.

Merrill to a romanced Hawke.

Solas to a romanced Lavellan and vice-versa (Lavellan is the only protagonist to use this term)

The spirit preserving Telana's memories crying out for Ameridan.

Sera never uses it for a romanced Inquisitor, Veilguard gives us two elven companions who don’t use it and even elven Rook never uses it for their LI. A non-elf Rook acts as though they have never heard of the term before when talking to a romanced Lavellan - so rare indeed.

And naturally my brain started looking for patterns between Merrill, Solas, and Telana (aside from all being mages and elves) and why, do they reserve it for only one person in their romanced narratives?

But I think Felassan would’ve seen the real Solas. The vulnerability after heated debates, after the plans, after the victories that cost them way too much, after the failures where they all should have known better. He would’ve been there to pull Solas back to himself when the burden of becoming Fen’Harel started consuming the person underneath it. He would’ve seen the anger, the guilt, the doubt, the fear that Solas could never afford to show publicly while an entire rebellion was looking to him as a symbol.

And what makes their friendship so painful to me is that even though Felassan loved him enough to see the damage being done, he still helped build the legend of the Dread Wolf anyway. And Solas let him.

Felassan encouraged it because the symbol worked. The Dread Wolf inspired people and the rebellion needed something larger than life to rally around if they were going to stand against the Evanuris and free their people. Felassan understood that better than anyone. He knew stories had power and so even while watching Solas disappear deeper into that dark role, he still helped build it forward because the cause demanded it.

There’s something so sad in imagining Felassan watching his friend become darker, more hardened, more isolated, more willing to sacrifice himself and others piece by piece for victory, and never quite finding the moment to say to him, you can stop now. You don’t have to keep turning yourself into this weapon for everyone else.

And maybe part of the reason Felassan never said it is because he couldn’t stop either. He was trapped in it too. Two people trying so hard to save the world and their people that they kept justifying what the cost would be later, until later never came.