Thank you for the tag you beautiful, creative people! @vhen-harel, @cryptid-catt, @dirthera15! You're all working on such amazing things!
I'm here being slow and planning some scenes between Eclipse/Solstice and Solstice/Solas. Currently replaying through DAV and DAI to take screenshots and references for said scenes (it's going to be a while). Also because I want to involve Lavellan in the events of Veilguard, because there's no way my girl isn't seeing the Lighthouse and Solas' regrets.
Anyway, have a few photos, it's all I have to show for now.
Dumat/Dirthamen's toad feels plot relevant for the siblings
Solstice DAI slider
Lace and Eclipse also deserve a scene (while Lavellan is having a mental breakdown in the Lighthouse).
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I can't get over how my idiot Rook is looking at Lace, it's like heart-shaped eyes are hardcoded into their animations. I thought I might be romancing someone else the second time around, but how could I bring myself to separate these two when they both light up around each other? π
26- what is the definitive moment of their relationship and what's their most romantic moment ever
34- what are the external and internal obstacles they face in making the relationship succeed
48- where does their relationship mostly exist: in public or in private
And a Solstice and Eclipse for the road!
44- do they handle separation well? can they withstand being apart or is it difficult? and is it harder on one more than the other
Thank you for these 𧑠and thank you for including Eclipse!
26 & 48. Relationship presentation and romance
They were open about their attraction to each other during the events of the inquisition. Even before the vhenan declaration (which is what I consider their definitive moment). It was obvious to everyone who cared to notice that they preferred each other's company. So there was a public relationship as well.
But the true intimacy happened in private and off-camera. Even for the time they were apart, Solstice nurtured a relationship with Dream Solas, the fleeting feeling of familiarity that was always out of reach, who kept bringing up their memories together along with some new clue about his intention, his plan, his whereabouts. She held these dreams really close to her heart and never shared this relationship with anyone, not even with Eclipse. In her interpretation, she thinks Solas is simply telling her "I'm still alive, I still love you, I'm still going on with the plan." And knowing that he's still out there and she might still reach him fueled her determination.
There are many scenes in my mind related to their off-camera romantic intimacy, all of which I have yet to put in proper writing. One starts with them cuddling under moonlight, discussing what life would have been like for ancient elves. Under the guise of speculation, Solas is sharing his own experiences. Once Solstice falls asleep, Solas meets her in a shared dream, where he summons visions of ancient Arlathan. They continue their discussion from earlier while walking the magically lit streets of Elvhenan's greatest city.
34 - Obstacles and adversity
(This is such a good question, I had to think about it for a while)
We all know the external obstacles solavellan faces throughout the games, so I'm not going to elaborate on that. And on Solas' internal struggles and motivations, from what I gather from the fandom's response, I think we all agree on those as well, so I'm not going to go too deeply into them either. One of the biggest pennies that had to drop for Solas, (and it took him until the end of DAV to get it), is that whatever he experienced before, in whatever type of relationship he had with Mythal, was manipulation and not love. And that he should allow himself to be loved wholly and fully. That's how he will begin to heal once in the Fade Forever Home.
Solstice has quite a lot of obstacles to overcome for their relationship to be successful once in the Fade, the girl is traumatized by everything that happened to her. She's dealing with grief, loss, phantom pains from the missing limb, learning to live with disability, depression, insomnia and PTSD. She has the support of close friends, but close doesn't always mean in proximity. She seeks sometimes advice from compassion spirits, working through her feelings like we in the real world would do in therapy. But for the most of it, she has to deal with all of this alone. In a way, leaving it all behind and joining Solas in the Fade was the best possible outcome for her.
44. Solstice and Eclipse on separation
They would handle separation from one another about as much as one can miss a beloved family member without needing to move back in with them. Once Eclipse has departed from clan Lavellan, the siblings end up leading very different lives from one another, going through events that teach them self-reliance. Traveling a lot is also teaching them to not form too great of a worldly attachment to things, because things don't last long.
But they do miss each other and they do keep thinking of each other. Solstice wrote letters that were never sent to Eclipse, where she told him about her days in the inquisition. For an outside observer, it looked like she was keeping a diary, because she never mentioned Eclipse's name between those pages. She included sketches of scenery, people, objects, plants, even if drawn poorly, it was her way of showing him the world through her eyes.
And Eclipse collected trinkets from his travels, because he was remembering a younger sister, child-like in nature. Wooden figurines, intricate charms from the armors or accessories of defeated enemies, shiny things, colorful things, all small enough to fit in a pouch, as he couldn't overburden himself.
When they reunited after the events in DAI, they exchanged boxes of mementos and told stories of their adventures, catching up basically. And they continued to create memento boxes through the following years; the siblings lived with absolutely certainty that they will meet again.
But if we're talking about when Solstice left him forever to go into the fade.... Well... That was absolutely brutal and it will take Eclipse his whole life to deal with that grief. He gets separation anxiety for a while after that and will cling to Lace for support.
I keep drawing a parallel between the atonement ending and the ending of lotr when it comes to solstice-solas-eclipse. Solstice is Frodo, too wounded to keep living in the mortal world and is joining the elves in the Grey Heavens (solas in the fade). And Eclipse is Sam, sad to be left behind, but who will go on living a happy mortal life.
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[...] considering my brain is still rotting away by trying to rewrite veilguard to make sense, I thought it about time to subject y'all to my Rook headcanons.
Sibling of Solstice Lavellan (my solasmancer inquisitor)
Background:
Eclipse and Solstice both grew up in clan Lavellan, with Eclipse being the older of the two. As they were both gifted with magic, and with Eclipse being rather protective of their younger sister, they volunteered to be the one who left for a different clan when they came of age.
As life has a sense of humor, it turned out that Solstice never needed protection. Between the two siblings, Solstice had always been better at magic, at learning and retaining information, at surviving and even at leading, as she went on to become The Inquisitor. Contrasting, Eclipse never became as skilled, never found a sense of belonging with a different clan, nor within themselves as they started questioning and understanding their own identity. They ended up moving around for most of their life, with change being the only constant.
During the events of Inquisition, Solstice covertly sent a couple of letters to her estranged sibling, if only to inform them of her wellbeing and current events, but mostly has kept their existence a secret, out of fear of endangering yet another clan, the same way she endangered clan Lavellan when she became the Herald.
Soon after the events of Trespasser, as the inquisition was now official disbanded, Eclipse reunited with their sister, shockingly finding her bare-faced and one-armed. Solstice caught them up with everything that had happened in the past years, including Solas' real identity, her relationship to him, and the new information about their elvhen ancestors and gods, thus explaining her decision to have her Dirthamen vallaslin removed. The removal of her vallaslin, a design which the siblings shared, felt like a personal betrayal to Eclipse. Struggling to come to terms with the overwhelming amount of new information which contradicted their teachings and faith, Eclipse went their separate way once again.
Eclipse ends up joining the Veil Jumpers, looking for information to verify (or validate) what they learned from Solstice, determined to uncover the real history of their ancestors and help the Dalish in preserving it. This is how, eventually, Eclipse is found and recruited by Varric.
During the events of Veilguard, Eclipse, now known as Rook, is approaching the missions and their interactions with Solas from the perspective of a very pissed off older sibling who's after the ex who broke their little sister's heart.
Neither Solstice (Lavellan) nor Eclipse (Rook) have a vengeful personality. They would prefer to talk over differences, reach common ground or simply move on, than to waste time plotting revenge. But it also depends on the proportion in which they are wronged.
In Solstice's case, it was Corypheus. This monstrosity that caused so much death, corruption, suffering and instability in the world, who also personally came after her. So she takes it personally as well and hunts him in kind. Lavellan doesn't just need to save the world from Cory, but make him pay for the hell he's put her through, for the marked hand and the responsibility of the inquisition, for the sleepless nights and the bruises, for the worries and the regrets and loss of life, for all the trauma.
And the story is picked up by Eclipse, who is also not vengeful by nature. He loves tomfoolery and would reply humorously to jests and antics, but then, there's SOLAS. Rook blames Solas for his sister's bare face, missing arm and broken heart and so he's seeking payback. It takes Lavellan, Varric and Lace to convince him that Solas is worthy of saving, because Solas is sure not giving Rook any good reasons during their interactions.
𧑠4. Is your OC a risk-taker? Do they take well-calculated risks or are they impulsive?
There was this Troubled Birds book with a meme-famous quote saying "The risk i took was calculated, but, MAN, am I bad at math". That's Rook. They even described themselves as "a walking disaster", everything they do ends up blowing in their face. They don't think of themselves as impulsive, but more often than not they are put into a situation where they have to think fast and act quickly and that doesn't allow for a lot of planning. Rook is adaptable and relies on instinct, which, from the outside, looks a lot like impulsivity and recklessness.
Solstice, however, is not quick to act. She's not even quick to form opinions, as I was sharing in another post. Lavellan is strategic and calculated, she approaches things slowly and meticulously, she wouldn't take any unnecessary risks. She doesn't even like betting in card games.
Solstice definitely considers Solas to be her soulmate in every possible definition of the concept. They were bound by circumstances and magic before they even met. They connected through child-like wonder of each other and reinforced their binding through their love. When vhenan was professed, it was as much a declaration of love as it was a promise that their destinies belong together. There is no Solas wihout Lavellan in my world state.
Rook never thought before that they might have met their soulmate, and they aren't sure what to make of the concept, whether it's a spiritual/religious belief or some universal truth that spirits come in pairs. Rather, Eclipse believes that they can create multiple meaningful connections and tend to them throughout their life, and only at the end of it they might look back and think "ah yes, that was my soulmate". They are even open to the idea that a person might have multiple soulmates or might become soulmates through their actions, there isn't a single spot reserved for "the one". Even their sibling connection might be considered as soulmates from Rook's perspective.
