DirThenera

She/her. Solavellan hell. Art, snark, and fic. On AO3 with the same handle. TheneraLavellen is my main. 

[nananarc]

Solas The Dread Wolf Model Reference Images

I extracted his model to take some ref pics. You can get the blend file here.

(he's so wretched, so dreadful. I love him so much lol)

[mostwantedpotato404]

Emmrich my love <3

[the-lighthouse-librarian]

I'm haunted by the idea of Lavellan visiting the Lighthouse after meeting with Rook the second time, after all the murals are unveiled. I'm tormented by the idea of her wandering around, seeing Solas in the small details as well as the paintings on the walls. I'm in agony over the thought of her seeing the memories through her unique perspective tinted with compassion and empathy (as opposed to the heavy judgement from the resident gang). I'm going feral thinking how the Caretaker would welcome her: how she would be instantly recognised.

"Your memory has walked these halls. The Dread Wolf's heart is welcomed here."

[miurgen]

Good morning :>

[blightbright]

friendly reminder that solas' goofy hat in halamshiral is the helm of the drasca, the hats an anti-imperial rebel group wore fighting against tevinter and against the orlesian empire AND possibly modified it to make his elf ears stick out too

because even if nobody catches the reference, the Rebel Wolf is committed to saying fuck you to empire

[dirthenera]

I’m writing semi regularly again, and I now have over 150k posted on my longfic! It’s the longest thing I’ve ever written- before starting this my record was 27k.

If anyone wants- here’s the link. It’s Solavellan with looooots of mutual pining, active consent, snark and banter, and a veeeeeeeeeeerrrryyyyy slow burn. Also kinda a MGiT? Kinda. Oh and some light bdsm. Explicit rating for the smut scenes being *very descriptive*

Anyway here’s an excerpt of one of my favorite tropes- Solas giving the exact advice he should take.

“You worry where your responsibility meets your power,” Solas said calmly. She nodded, trying to stop her leg from bouncing again. “All you can do, all any of us can do, is the best you can with the knowledge you have. It is folly to take on the guilt of gods. You cannot know the outcome to all things. You cannot know before what only the experience of having taken action will teach. You cannot afford to crumple under the weight of ‘what if.’”

[kindly-whisper-tolkien]

author’s note on fanfic ch4: i’ll probably have it updated by the end of this week!

author’s note on fanfic ch5: so i know it’s been two years but i can explain

[hollytree33]

Young lad who’s a few hundred years old

[lostiel]

Solas: When you grow quiet, it is part of your soul reaching for a feeling and finding emptiness, because I failed.

[fenrelmercar]

copying the idea from this amazing post because I can't help myself

[coffeeworldsasaki]

I can't believe I woke up to Trick Weekes having talked about Solas' kinks in a twitch stream

[mythalism]

genuinely curious how the writers and larger dragon age audience would treat thom rainier if instead of being appropriately* repentant and putting himself in prison he blew up a major orlesian government building to instigate a chevalier rebellion or tried to have someone do some necromantic blood magic ritual involving uncertain danger and possible sacrifices to bring the innocent children he ordered killed back to life

[mythalism]

*appropriately as in showing the expected amount of remorse in the appropriate way in a society founded on guilt and shame. i think blackwall actually tells us a lot about how dragon age's writers conceptualize justice and deserved-ness of punishment. im glad we get the option to forgive him but why do we get the option when anders is exiled at best? and later characterized as a villain by dai, when solas is willfully imprisoned at best and trapped in a horrifying psychological torture chamber at worst? blackwall gets a full redemption happy ending if inky so chooses, and im not saying he shouldnt. i forgive him every time, but its so interesting to me that narratively speaking, he seems to earn his happy ending through submission to punishment via imprisonment... as does solas but blackwall is portrayed far more sympathetically overall. there isnt the same meta-level narrative slander and clear agenda on behalf of the writing to make you feel a certain way about his crimes. as there is with anders and solas. why? whats the difference? what did he do to buy himself that narrative goodwill? put himself in prison? why do the writers love carceral punishment so much lmfaooo

i think theres actually a strong argument that thom does not do ENOUGH to right his wrongs. where is his effort to reform the orlesian military? where is his criticism of orlesian imperialism? how does serving in the inquisition or in the wardens have a direct impact on the people he harmed? it doesnt really, only indirectly by helping the whole world. which is fine, but this is a story that is supposed to mean something. when you compare him to someone like roy mustang (yes im comparing him to roy mustang this is my blog and you are never going to escape roy mustang comparisons here) roy's political ambitions following his war crimes are directly related to those war crimes and his goals directly benefit the same group of people he harmed. its their ancestors and family members like, LITERALLY. same exact community. everything he does is for them and will eventually directly benefit them. meanwhile blackwall just kind of does vague “good” deeds and gets a full redemption. he really does not make much effort to repatriate the harm he did as a soldier... he just moves on.... which sounds.... familiar. but why is that the ultimate path to redemption? moving on and forgetting about it? and again no shade to blackwall. my inky forgives him. but why is the narrative portrayal of his redemption so different from solas? or anders who gets no opportunity for redemption at all?

[mythalism]

nvm guys they solved it. thanks for playing

[enigmalea]

Actually, I don't think it's militarism at all. I think it's something slightly more insidious actually.

The Rainer/Blackwall story line never sat well with me. First, it's unclear whether Thom actually knew innocent civilians (women and children) were in the carriage when he gave the orders. There's some dialogues that suggest he's aware, some that he is not.

Either way, his MEN were aware. They could have not gone through with it. "I was just following orders" has not been an acceptable excuse for war crimes in the real world since World War II. I know this is Dragon Age and supposedly it doesn't follow our modern morals, except that... it does. In lots of other ways.

And further, if Blackwall DIDN'T know, then he couldn't have stopped his soldiers. His soldiers should have been smart enough to just... not kill unarmed women and children. Right?

But regardless, we end up with this LEADER - a warrior - being a good guy and being forgiven for having his men kill a few innocents, even though it was arguably NOT for the greater good. And he redeems himself by absolving them of the actual murders and taking ALL the punishment himself.

Meanwhile, Solas... who was a soldier... in a war... is ordered by his leader (Mythal) to create a dagger that can be used to severe a being from its mind/dreams, and the dagger is used... and the narrative places the blame 100% on the soldier. Not on Mythal who gave the orders. Not on the Evanuris who started the war. It is SOLAS' fault. He should have said no. Because "I was just following orders" isn't an excuse. Or at least, not an excuse for Solas.

In the same way, after 10 years of begging for peaceful solutions, Anders using an explosion to stop the Final Solution to the Mage Problem (literally named after the Nazi plan for the Holocaust, if you're not aware), is framed as a bad thing. It's HIS fault that this happened. He shouldn't have killed those innocent people (which were retconned to be a lot more than implied in the game originally).

And what to Anders and Solas have in common? They are mages.

Essentially, David Gaider created an in world religion that persecuted mages. It treated them as power hungry and dangerous. Something to always be leashed and never trusted or given agency.

And the narrative, time and time again reinforces this idea. Mage following orders = bad and beyond redemption. Mage fighting back = bad and beyond redemption. Warrior Ordering Men to Kill Innocents = good if he tries hard enough.

I don't want to blame this all on Epler, but it does feel like to some extent that Epler bought into the prejudices of the Chantry, and continued to reinforce the ideas the mages will always be power hungry (the entire story of the Evanuris just reinforces this, really).

It's also not lost on me that Solas is an elf, and that Epler's character Bellara struggles quite loudly and verbally with the "original sin" of the Evanuris and constantly tries to take responsibility for their evil. As if elves are always just evil. Nothing that Rook or the other companions do to try to ease her distress really works. And it's almost as if her anxiety is subtly trying to excuse the poor treatment of elves. "Well, maybe they deserve it because the Evanuris are evil."

Any way, IDK how much of this is intentional or the devs just not thinking things through fully, but there is definitely an anti-mage and anti-elf bias that you can see in the comparison of these storylines and the treatment of these characters.

[pixdoodles]

She found his Randy dowager inquisitor centerfold limited print issue.

its HEAVILY annotated

[queensvana-blog]

The Solavellan ship and DreadRook ship like

Solas: my vhenan, you are the universe's most precious creation, and I am but a monster

Lavellan: our love is far greater than our circumstances

vs

Solas: I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL

Rook: YOU TELL THEM WHO SENT YOU

[krembruleed]

curiosity

[rosieofcorona]

alexa play i bet on losing dogs

[krems-chair]

Something something who you are during times of chaos/desperation/war is who you have to become to survive, not who you would like to be.

Something something as far as we have been led to believe, the first chance Solas has to exist in a world where the onus of saving it doesn't rest entirely on his shoulders (of course plotting is going down, but it isn't the sole activity) he finds the right materials and picks up a paintbrush. He surrounds himself with scrolls and lets these strange new companions tease him and sometimes lets himself bite back. He searches for knowledge of his people and delights in sharing what he's learned with those who ask. He finds a spirit and makes sure he never feels alone in this world they never thought they'd be a part of.

And yeah, he doesn't think he can keep it, any of it. He refuses to let himself see the souls past the scar tissue stifling his own. Because the war never ended, it can't have ended. His friend hasn't unleashed her reckoning, his wrongs sit unrighted and rotting. The war drums were never gone, just dim for a moment. But he never forgets what it was like, even for a little while, to just be Solas. And when he finally gets to lay down who he had to become for who he wants to be, it sends him to his knees, and personally, I just think that's neat