#solasno

I wondered, how lonely the name Solas sounds, so I went digging translations of it.

This is not much, but From Japan to English it goes:

to avert, to bend, to curve, to turn away, to warp

And I guess thats a bit freaky...nomen est omen

Ps. I still wonder if it translates to anything close to lonely..

So a little over a year ago, my real-life Vhenan (boyfriend, if you will) pulled out Origins and said I needed to give it a try.  Being the compromising person I am, I said sure, I would give it an honest attempt.  I played as an elf mage girl because that's what Andy suggested, and I struggled through my Harrowing and the tunnels and Jowan's betrayal at the beginning, but I got myself to just before the battle of Ostagar, and, with a headache, I said I would play more later when I could concentrate better on a larger screen and not in a hotel room.  Jumping ahead a couple of months, my roommate, who had just powered through Skyrim and got quite angry at Dishonored (I did warn her that she would find it frustrating, she didn't listen), picked it up and asked if she could play.  I told her sure, just don't delete Fjeryn, my elf mage.  

Almost right away, the differences were obvious.  She chose a city elf girl, and I was actually drawn into watching her play.  It was fun just to watch and less frustrating that way.  I am not good at playing on consoles apparently, because my roommate picked up on it super-quick.  

Then we ran into Zevran.  That's when, with some flirting options, I decided to give it a second chance.  Not even going into the discovery of the sex scenes--yeah, I didn't know about them and it was quite the wonderful surprise--it quickly became a favorite game.  I acquired the second game for PC and the PS3 for my roommate and I to continue playing at the same time without overlapping, and we were both quite hooked.  While we both romanced Zevran in the first game, she chose Anders in the second, and I chose Fenris.  I had to have assistance to romance Fenris (as I wanted the friendly-romance, not the rivalry-romance, and I kept choosing the wrong things), so I knew to expect that he would push me away for a time before we'd get back together.

I waited eagerly for Inquisition, which I bought three versions of--one for me on the PC, one for my RL-Vhenan on the PC, and one for my roommate on the PS3 about two weeks later. 

When I finally reached the culmination of Solas' romance, though, when I was so ready for the no-pants-dance, after ALL THAT TIME, he just... drops me.  At first, I was disappointed, and then it hit me, and I felt everything sink suddenly.  It was 4 am when that happened.  I spent the entire next day hoping and PRAYING he was pulling a Fenris.

He wasn't.  I was even sadder.

My RL-Vhenan introduced me to this whole thing because I have a thing for elves, and he thought I could definitely stand to expand on that a bit.  I love the games.  I do.  But man, it hurt so bad... And I didn't see it coming, which might've made it worse.  

I did warn my friend, who was going through some relationship stuff of her own.  Like, she was real-life dumped less than a week after I warned her what Solas was going to do.  I mostly warned her because I didn't want her to be blindsided, and I'd been very "I like him, a lot, I would be so into him if he was a person, he makes me think about my decisions and everything on a different level", so I didn't want her to get there and be like "STARVING, WHAT THE HELL".  She appreciated the warning and carefully chose to keep going.  I was there when she played the ending (helped her to fight Corypheus with the least amount of struggle) and she paused before going back to her quarters like "I'm pretty sure this part's going to be squee-worthy" because Solas had disappeared, and as she went to the bathroom, I realized she thought he was going to come back...

I couldn't bring myself to tell her it wasn't...  Part of me just didn't want to ruin it for her, and then part of me wanted her to be as disappointed as I had been...

She and I exchange theories almost daily on all the stuff we know, suspect, hope, and pray for.  That Solas-centric DLC can't come fast enough...