Why Not This One?

I Can’t. 

When Solas tells Lavellan, “In another world” he was right. His love for her is real but it exists in the wrong world.

To Solas, modern Thedas is a direct result of his actions - altered through his most destructive mistake. When he tells Rook that the Veil is a wound on the world that must be healed, it is his wound. The Veil is a boundary that will forever separate him from the world he once knew. He is a man exiled - physically and existentially - his homeland cut off from him. 

When Lavellan asks, "Why not this one?" she is asking something impossible of him - to live in a world that is a constant reminder of his darkened past.

The Letter to Lavellan 

In his letter to Lavellan, Solas writes: 

"I could have shared the truth, or even put my plans aside and simply stayed with you as Solas." 

"Putting plans aside" does not sound like abandoning them altogether - it suggests that, for her, he was willing to put his plans on hold – at least while she lived. These words confirm for me that even if he had stayed with Lavellan until the end of her mortal life, he was always going to tear the Veil down. 

She was unique to him, someone in this haunted landscape that he somehow fell in love with. Unique enough for him to consider for a time, of remaining by her side.

I believe he did the right thing in leaving her.

I don't know if he could have ever gotten to a point where he'd accept Thedas as it is. It represents the chains that bind him and had he stayed with Lavellan, their love was at threat of being buried under them.

Leaving feels symbolic, the beginning of Solas starting to break free from those chains. His many acts throughout his ancient life were done either in service to others or to his guilt. His decision to leave Lavellen was made from love for her, not in service of it. It's an important distinction. She truly did affect him, enough for him to make this type of choice, breaking a cycle that could so easily end up mirroring his relationship with Mythal.

It's why the Atonement ending is powerful, it's another decision he makes for himself alone, not tied to devotion or obligation. He doesn't expect forgiveness, he is choosing to atone because it is the better path. Even though Mythal, Rook, and Lavellan's presence helped him reach that decision - they did not make it for him. He accepted the physical world of Thedas has a right to endure - without him.

Why Thedas May No Longer Be Lavellan’s World as Well 

For my protagonist, joining Solas in another world could not just be about ‘going where Solas goes’. It had to be about her own journey as well - something critics of her character often exploit, given how much the game leaves to interpretation. I considered what Thedas has become for her as a Dalish elf and why stepping away is a decision that extends beyond her love for Solas, shaped by the choices I, the player, made in Inquisition and my world state. 

"Every time you’re “more than just a person” to someone, you’re also less than a person to them." 

Harding’s words from Jaws of Hakkon are a perfect summary of this character in my mind. Lavellan is not just a person in Thedas - she is a symbol. No matter where she goes, she will always be expected to be the person who once led an empire of faith and power - one built on human belief.  

This Dalish elf can't return to her clan, for they are gone in my world state. She no longer even bears the mark of a Dalish. The Inquisition is dissolved, or at the very least fractured, leaving her power fleeting and her influence tied to a cause that no longer exists. The south is in shambles. 

Some have criticized the narrative of Lavellan leaving with Solas, arguing that it is her responsibility to stay and rebuild the south. 

Says who?   

The Inquisitor’s role, the title of Herald of Andraste was tied to something otherworldly. Their purpose was to uphold the veil by destroying Corypheus, healing rifts. As a religious symbol, the Inquisitor was seen as a divine protector, a guardian against threats not of this world.  

She has fought to defend Thedas from otherworldly destruction twice. Even with the Inquisition dissolved, southern Thedas still turned to her to lead the fight there, and she did. And now, with the Veil strengthened once and for all, no one has the right to demand anything more of her.  

Solas entrusting the dagger to Rook is his acknowledgment that his time in Thedas is over. He is leaving the Veil, the boundary he once sought to tear down, in Rook’s hands to protect. An unspoken act of trust, relinquishing control.

Lavellan leaving with Solas is her own unspoken nod to Rook. She too is entrusting the future of Thedas to those who remain. Her fight is over. The burden of 'divine' leadership, of guarding what is left behind, now belongs to others of Thedas.

The Dread Wolf and Herald of Andraste can finally lay down their mantles.

The World They Can Be Together In 

Solas meant it when he said, "In another world."  

And over time, Lavellan came to that understanding as well. 

When Dorian asks her in Veilguard if she will be leaving once it’s over, she simply replies, “Something like that.” It’s a quiet acknowledgment, like she has always known the outcome before it unfolds. This short response shows how Lavellan understands Solas. She believes that if they can reach the wisdom within him - find a way for him to see another path - he will take it. It implies she has a sense of what decision Solas will make and is prepared herself.

Solas does not ask her to join him and to me this feels right. He has not earned that right, he does not deserve it. But when she offers there is no debate. He only gives a soft warning of what their path will be. She softly accepts, like she already knows.

This is a fundamental shift for Solas.

By allowing her to decide for herself, Solas is trusting her judgment and no longer dictating another's path. He no longer sees their love as something to deny. Accepting Lavellan’s choice transforms their relationship into one as equals - it won't be easy, but both are willing.

was tagged by @lilywatt to share some last lines written, and since it's sunday, i figured i'd give you the last six sentences i wrote. this is from chapter 2 of the slasher au where syb's internal monologue is recounting the night she killed her daddy:

She then spent the rest of the night in the garage, chewing through his meat and bones with a handsaw before stuffing him into his many beer coolers and driving him out to the bayou to dispose of his remains.

That should have been that. Daddy was a bastard and a son of a bitch. She was his only family; nobody would miss him. But the Devil must have owed him a favor, because her already shit life couldn't even be flushed down the toilet properly. The damn thing just clogged up and started overflowing with even more shit.

General

Name: Rory Sinclair

Callsign: Lamb

Age: 36

Date of Birth: September 5, 1988

Birthplace: Vancouver, BC, Canada 

Citizenship: Canada/UK (dual)

Face Claim: Phoebe Tonkin

Occupation: British Special Forces operative

Affiliations: British Army, Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR), TF141

Rank: Lieutenant

Height: 5’6”

Languages: English, French, Arabic, Pashto, Russian (minimal)

tagged by @lilywatt to do this fun little wip game (thank you macy!)

rules: for each letter of the word you're given, share an excerpt from a wip that starts with that letter. the word i was given is SIGH.

All of these excerpts are from various points in the slasher au <3

S — "Shut up," Sybille snaps.

"You don't gotta do this," the woman pleads. Her lip quivers, voice trembles. Eyes glisten with tears. "Just lemme go n' I promise I won't say a word to no one. Not a peep. I swear."

"Shut up!" she snarls again, and she uses the barrel of the gun to shove the woman towards one of the chairs. "Sit down."

I — It's for survival, she tells herself. Cuddle up to the predator. Bat your eyes and roll over to bear your belly. Prove you're not a threat. If you're good and useful, he'll keep you safe. And she ignores the voice in the back of her head warning her of the danger of that. That this is exactly how Mama ended up stuck with Daddy.

G — Giving the sole of her boot a nudge with the toe of his own, he grunts, "Get up."

"Why?" she scoffs. "So you can take me on a death march? Can't look me in my face when you kill me? Gon' take me out executioner style?"

"Not gonna kill you," he grunts, and he slings the rifle over his shoulder.

H — Hot sauce smears across her face and her fingers shine with grease. It's like watching a wolf rip apart a deer's carcass—loud and messy and primal, uninhibited by meaningless things like manners.

in theme with my current wip, the word i'm giving y'all (should you choose to accept it because i know there's some overlap between my and macy's taglist) is: FEAR

The Dalish have been established over all three games as a people who have spent the last thousands of years desperately scrounging for whatever scraps of their culture they can find, a struggle that has cost them dearly as typified by Merrill's plight trying to restore a single Eluvian which had previously Blighted two of her clan mates (an Eluvian that she can't open or use, and doesn't actually know what it's for by the end of her quest line). Multiple Dalish in Inquisition are killed trying to regain their history ("The Knight's Tomb") or trying to prove themselves by regaining even a talisman related to their culture ("Someone to Lose"). They are an insular and guarded people because outsider interactions frequently invoke a heavy toll in Dalish lives, up to and including entire clans. And yet, we are supposed to believe in a single throwaway piece of dialogue that in the 10 years between Inquisition and Veilguard, the Dalish have (offscreen) gained enough access to Eluvians as a piece of technology that they can afford to just "gift" one to the Grey Wardens without explanation.

There are constant revelations of this kind where pre-established parts of the lore are just thrown out the window. Things that had great emotional weight or impact in previous installments of the series are used for cheap thrills or plot-hole fills without explanation, justification, or even gravitas from the game. You have a moment in one of Emmrich's quests where you stumble through a portal directly into the Fade that Hezenkoss opened in Blackthorne manor, and you're tasked with closing it again. All of this is done entirely without the Anchor or even an implied blood sacrificial ritual, and it is never commented as anything particularly groundbreaking (when going into the Fade physically through tearing a hole in it was a Big Fucking Deal in Inquisition). You encounter a Compassion spirit in a side quest investigating the deaths of citizens in Tevinter who were murdered by a demon of Despair, and it is strong enough to not only retain itself through sensing the (unanswered!) suffering that these people experienced, but it also resolves to protect others to keep them from the same fate (when Cole was so traumatized by a single person's death that he completely reshaped his entire being around them). So on and so forth. Don't even get me started on Bellara's comment that the ancient elves "made most of their buildings in the Fade".

I'm not asking for someone to hold my hand and spoonfeed me information. I frankly don't care if an obscure codex entry, a reddit AMA question, bluesky tweet, or headcanon exists somewhere to patch in or bandaid over all of the jarring details like this, because it doesn't change the fact that the game itself should be doing this. The game itself should be taking the time to explain this in a way that is not missable, the game itself should be taking these things seriously, it should recognize when it is doing contradictory things and rush to justify itself accordingly, because these are things the emotional beats of previous stories hinged on. Like, when the game has Taash say a line like "The Qun isn't a prison, you can leave if you want", it's the responsibility of the writers to show that this is Taash being misinformed, not because I'm too stupid to headcanon that this is the case, but because this line is a symptom of how the entire game's writing seems to have forgotten about the Ben-Hassrath as a thing that exists in this setting.

Previous Dragon Age games are no stranger to "We quietly removed Solas' network of agents and spies offscreen"-style writing, but it usually didn't feel like a constant deluge periodically uprooting my emotional investment and immersion. There's only so much I can take in good faith before I realize that this game was just not written with any care towards ensuring that the worldbuilding made sense and felt right to the player, leading to awkward backpedaling in reddit threads like "no the Crows haven't changed as an organization, these are just the unique Good Crows and we forgot to mention it".

I'm a ghost, Fade into the dark like a ghost

I'm so close to getting to Rory's MW2 fic and the playlist has been playing on loop and thus she had to be drawn (guess it's official, art block is broken)

Have some ghost team Lt. Rory Sinclair (bit of a redraw of an old piece now that i've improved upon my linework)

tagged most recently by @socially-awkward-skeleton and @simplegenius042 to share some wippy stuff (thank youuuuu~ i promise i'll start catching up on tags later this evening i know i am. behind orz) some werewolf au syb waking up from her nap after getting home from the hope county clinic after her incident at st. francis. this is. uh. a little gross, so trigger warning for a human (or. werewolf in human form/human unaware she's a werewolf) consuming raw meat.

It’s her stomach that draws her out of bed before she’s fully awake. The soft haze of sleep still clings to her vision, blurring the harsh edges of reality into gentle shadows and muted colors. Pale light from the waning moon streams in through the windows as she stumbles in a stupor out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. She stops in front of the refrigerator. Her fingers curl around the handle, flinging the door open.

She reaches inside not for the pitcher of water nor the bag of shredded cheddar, but rather the pound of ground beef sitting on the top shelf. The plastic wrap gives way as she tears into it. Her fingers dig into the soft, wet meat, curling her index and middle finger to spoon it into her mouth raw. It squishes against her palate and between her teeth, smooth and creamy. The flavor bursts on her tongue, sharp, metallic, but with an underlying sweetness that only seems to stoke her hunger, rather than sate it. 

A low, satisfied moan rumbles deep in her chest. She leans back against the counter and slides down to sit on the cool linoleum floor. Already, her hands are tacky with blood. Her tongue curls around her fingers as she sucks them clean, desperate to savor every last drop. 

It isn’t until she’s shoving her face into the styrofoam tray and licking the cellulose pad in an attempt to suck out more blood that she registers what she’s actually doing. She freezes and the empty tray falls to the ground as she stares aghast at her red-stained hands while her chest heaves with rough, ragged breaths.

and some of the viking au that's been coming together in bits and pieces. here's some syb (a frankish christian living in england and a prisoner of war) having a bad shroom trip because faith gave her a potion (bliss) that made her see visions of her and jacob (pagan, the one holding her hostage) where she is behaving in very. uh. un-christian ways.

[Sybille’s] head throbs and her stomach cramps, her guts threatening to turn her inside out. Tears burn her cheeks as they streak through the dirt and grime, and she stares up at the wicce who forced her to drink that vile potion. “Why do you show me these things?” she sobs. 

Faith dips a rag into a bowl of water and gently dabs the sweat from Sybille’s brow. 

“She shows you nothing,” murmurs the False King, “all she has done is open your mind to the Will of God.” He leans in close, piercing blue eyes staring into her very soul. “Tell me, what do you see?”

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