Melancholy

in my dreams, we are always together and there are no odds stacked against us. there are no wars, no fights, and tragedy doesn’t stand between us. there is only you, knuckles in my cheeks. there is only me, palms on your neck. just us and we are at peace and that is all that needs to be said. - in my dreams, we’re together by wt

[solavellan commission by @yelenhol]

Dragon Age: Inquisition - concept art - early rejected pitches for multiplayer characters by Matt Rhodes [source]

Art by Matt Rhodes.

Friendly reminder that:

Qunari are empowering Saarebas with lyrium so that they can become stronger, open temporary Rifts, slow time down, and use mysterious spells, all through unknown means.

Tevinter is terribly weakened, corrupted, and will not last in the war against the Qunari.

Fen’Harel, now incredibly powerful, is planning to eliminate the corrupted parts of the Qun (good thing), but also to tear down the Veil (not that good, depending on the consequences). He will probably help the Tevinter slaves in rebelling against their masters too.

Titans are awakening. They are enormous beings living deep underground, whose blood has been consumed for millennia by mages and Templars alike, shaping the world as it is today. They also seem able to influence events above ground and they are very angry with the world or at least with the elves. They will probably re-establish their contact/link with the dwarves.

Something is happening in Weisshaupt, the Wardens have gone silent, and a new Blight is most likely coming.

The Evanuris are still locked away, but it’s obvious they will get free soon. They are a bunch of homicidal assholes who will not think twice about conquering Thedas again. They might be also tainted by the Blight, if the theories “Evanuris locked away with the Blight in the Black City” are true.

If Kieran was born, Flemeth/Mythal took the Old God’s soul from him, planning to do something with it. We still don’t know what it is, but it’s unlikely she will stay “dead”. She still has to have her revenge, her “reckoning which will shake the very heavens”.

Either Morrigan or the Inquisitor drank from the Well of Sorrows and the consequences of that act are still unclear, but whatever they are, they are going to suck or at least be mildly disturbing.

Mysterious Dalish elves live in the Tirashan. They are violent, cruel, and worship the Forgotten Ones.

Strange people from the Volca Sea are returning after a long absence, claiming a terrible calamity struck their lands.

We still don’t know what lies beyond the Amaranthine Ocean, but whatever it is, it makes people go insane and suicidal.

Basically Thedas right now:

Weisshaupt mission was insane I still think about it ghghghhg

Perhaps this will prove an unpopular opinion, but I think that, seeing as they chose to make everything hinge on the inquisitor being high approval with Solas & wanting to save him no matter what & locked his best ending behind having romanced him, so that if you wanted a satisfying ending to the series you HAD to choose to redeem him with a female Lavellan, otherwise the inquisitor's only purpose in VG is to hand you a wolf statuette...(?!?? and even that's tied to the redeem ending, lol) ANYWAY, seeing all that, I believe they should've committed even more to it and have it be an option even for non-romanced inquisitors, regardless of race, to offer to join him à la Witch Hunt where you can offer to join Morrigan through the eluvian even as a friend, only you can actually go through with it this time. Now, before I'm pelted with rotten tomatoes, I think it should've been an option just for an Inky who didn't romance anyone, so that fans could have their happy ending with their LI of choice (though I am compelled by the idea of the inquisitor as someone, like Solas, who puts their duty to the world above everything, but that's another discussion). But I think it makes sense, both as a choice made by an Inquisitor who became close friends with Solas and never lost faith in him and doesn't want him to face everything alone (could there be other Feelings involved, too? that's for us to headcanon, ofc) AND as a purely pragmatic choice, seeing Solas as someone who shouldn't be left alone to their own devices for long, esp in such a vulnerable state - just like Mythal needed his Wisdom, one could argue he needs the Inquisitor to guide him back to being Wisdom again (or maybe they just wanna nope out after failing to save the South, considering we're told repeatedly that they're the only thing holding it all from collapsing and then we find out it's all gone, yeah, I'd go into witness protection too, lmao). ALSO, I think it would slap to have a dwarven Inquisitor say that they're interested in being a part of soothing the Blight (or, at least, supervising and holding him to it) and that THAT should be his priority. Anywho, thots? Am I cooking or is there a gas leak?

i think you're cooking.

i agree that the atonement ending is the most satisfying narrative - the player stats prove that's not an unpopular opinion. more explicitly tying the inquisitor to solas narratively would have been interesting. inquisition did this soooo well with in hushed whispers specifically but also literally every quest. even the non-romanced atonement scene is so good, inky says something like "you're free to find a new purpose" instead of the "banal nadas ar lath ma vhenan" and i actually prefer that to the elven with the botched translation LOL. i also like the interpretation i've seen that the "veilguard" is really not Rook & Co. but is actually solas. he's the one that tied his life to the veil. he's the one keeping it up. he's the one guarding it. so having the inquisitor join him, especially a dalish one, whether romanced or not, and especially a dalish mage, whose job as first and eventual keeper was going to be to protect their clan from the dread wolf. protecting the whole world from the dreadwolf by helping him atone is a natural extension of that, and i think is very satisfying. i also agree it would be really interesting and meaningful for a cadash to have the option to participate in the healing of the titans dreams.

i also agree that a lot of people would get mad about this because to them it would threaten lavellan's being "special" but i dont believe in that so idc. i think its an interesting idea!!

sosal? (извините)

DA:TV Solas-themed narrative sketches and captions by Nick Thornborrow, under a cut due to spoilers and length:

[caption is for images below] Nick Thornborrow: "These sketches were tools of pre-production where we were exploring possibilities and challenging assumptions about the story of Veilguard without the constraints of production, or the birds eye view afforded by new iterations."

Nick Thornborrow: "I only say that because I've picked up on discourse lamenting cut content derived from concept and narrative art that isn't reflected in final game. Emphatically, I want to state it's not cut content. Pre-production is where ideas are weighed for going into production."

Nick Thornborrow: "When cuts are made, it's typically at a more advanced stage of production that involves multiple disciplines, Whereas scruffy sketches like these are useful in pre-production to see what resonates because they're quick to draw and the emotional toll of throwing them out is minimal."

[source thread]

Art by Nick Thornborrow.

Something I didn't realise the first time I watched it – and that made me feel much better about the whole thing – is that it's actually Solas who kisses Lavellan, not the other way around!

I slowed this down so you can better see that she stops before kissing him and it's him that closes the distance.

And it's hard to see because of the classic Bioware bad camera framing and all the black archdemon gunk on his mouth, but he is actively moving his lips as he kisses her and leans in.

I'm feeling insane about them and I need to get the flycam mod immediately.

Veiltober - day 26, Ghilan'nain

Our new mommy figure, AHHHHH!!! I don't know what else to say here except that I am READY TO MEET HER!!!

I've got Internet problems so I wasn't able to upload this one to Redbubble, but everything else is there right now!

Prompts for Veiltober by @lynnerdo as always!!

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION EXTRACTS - SOLAS HEAD TURNAROUND