the veil is thin here

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest man.

[amoaliquis]

How does your OC need to be loved?

Thank you for including me @zennihilation [x], @redaresss [x], @shadowknight19kay [x], @apothe-cary [x], @tieflingsorcerer [x], @jukkaricity [x], @wickedadaar [x], @booksncatsworld [x], @k1dspl4t [x], and @lampost-in-winter [x]

They don't.

/busts out laughing.

I had too damned much fun making this. I had previously made the stupid screenshot edit. This is so much better.

I love you guys. Thank you for letting me be silly!

[artemorte]

Someone mentioned braids in the tags of that hairy Abelas art and it took me like 2 secs to start painting this just how weak am I

[loquaciousquark]

Solas & Adahla Lavellan: new growth.

I commissioned this piece from the unbelievably talented Hotwe, who is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, deliberate artists I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I cannot express how grateful I am for the kindness shown towards my imaginary dolls at every step of this process. Thank you! <3

This is a paired piece to this one, also by Hotwe, which I commissioned immediately after finishing Inquisition for the first time. Once I finished Veilguard and filled out how the story ends for these two, I knew I desperately wanted the other half of this diptych.

Close-ups and lengthy notes on the incorporated symbolism are below the cut.

Where the first piece was much more somber and determined, I really wanted this moment to feel triumphant (if not unreservedly happy). These are two people at the end of a long war with each other, and moving forward doesn't mean erasing the road before.

Some notes in no particular order:

Solas's hands are now open, releasing the hard and inflexible grip he had in the original piece

The constellation is Fervenial, the Oak, for its associated concept of Vir Tanadhal: "fly straight and don't waver, bend but never break, and the idea of balance. ...The imagery of the hunter (Adahla) metaphorically striking like a bolt on Solas' plans and forcing a reframing of the lightning/smite-y/fate concept of Fulmenos into a concept of balance and growth/organic/spring" - straight from the artist's massive brain

(I've written about why constellations & stars, especially Fulmenos, are important to them here)

Red embrium leaves for healing

Spring growth for seasonal change

Solas, being pushed forward by the strong wind behind him, is finally able to stop thanks to Adahla's pressure

Adahla's dress is inspired by this statue (San Joaquín, Santa Ana y la Virgen Niña by Juan Alonso Villabrille y Ron), but has been reworked with Dragon Age motifs and emblems

The gold vines are from my post-Veilguard fic for them, The Heart Where I Have Roots

I plan to do one more post with both of these pieces together as soon as I can; their journey's been messy to the max, but it honestly brings me so much joy to know they've landed somewhere like this, and I'm again so thankful to Hotwe for bringing that ended war to life.

[okthisway]

[veilishvixen]

Cheek to cheek

[magekrove]

may the dread wolf never hear your steps

[okthisway]

Solas Romance - Winter Palace hug cutscene fix

Mods for Solas' cutscene during Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts quest, when he offers to dance and you choose "Just keep me company". Requires:

Frosty Mod Manager

Ultra mesh quality settings in the game

Mods:

Cutscene Fixes and Tweaks by sialivi - fixes Solas' arm passing through the Inquisitor

Solas Halamshiral Hat and Neck Clipping Fix * by Dmitrias - fixes clipping of Solas' hat and reduces neck clipping on his outfit * doesn't work with Solas Hat Removal mod

Solas Hat Removal by xstephyg - removes Solas' hat during Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts

Note: Solas Hat Removal is a .daimod file, meaning it was made to be used with DAI Mod Manager, BUT I tried adding it to Frosty Mod Manager and it worked 🙌🙌🙌 It was probably covered before, but it took me a long time to find and test, so putting it all together for myself in case I forget how to do it and for anyone who might need this as well :)

[vhen-harel]

Last Line Written

Thank you for the tags @transhades @teamdilf and @daylinlavellan

In the Fade Prison server I'm in we have a weekly writing prompt - 100 word drabbles. This week's prompt was 'busy' so this was the last thing I wrote (ok ok it's more than just a line).

How low the candle on his desk burned down had become a measure of when she would appear, asking him to take their evening walk through the garden. Looking at it now, he knew it was time. Solas busied himself tidying up his desk until he heard his name softly spoken. Looking up, he set the last book onto the pile for the day, a smile forming on his face as he looked at her, nodding. “Shall we?” he asked, blowing out the candle. A candle he would light again tomorrow evening, waiting for his Heart’s voice at the doorway.

Tagging @lagunapoint @lanolynn @callme-becks @songofamazon @seffie-is-ageing-dragons @prideofelvhenan @mythedaslore

[asneakyfox]

one of my favorite bits in lord of the rings is something the movies didn't really try to do because it's entirely internal, but sam's carrying the ring and it starts trying to do its work on him, so he's having these intrusive visions of himself marching at the head of a vast and terrible army, and he just starts laughing because, me? samwise gamgee? sam gamgee the general sam gamgee the dark lord are you for real? man i just want to go home and do some gardening. and the ring gets frustrated and it starts trying to figure out other stuff that would actually tempt sam and it's finally like, okay, but hear me out: imagine if you could have...A REALLY REALLY BIG GARDEN

[asneakyfox]

and then he's like, i don't know that sounds like a lot more work than a regular garden actually. why don't we just get on with finding mister frodo

[swellbythewind]

Lost on the lonely wilderness, lost in the depths of her owl-golden eyes, you slip away into the night.

not my art but my commission.

artist：齐秦

[loopofrosewood]

dragon age isn't real. and it can hurt you.

[elkattacks]

In Trespasser behind some of the library areas you can find orbs. Nobody comments on this but I had to stop this playthrough.

What must the Inquisitor be thinking in this moment? This object that destroyed her old life, set her on a completely new and terrifying path, and currently is almost certainly killing her.. and here's a couple just laying on the ground. Forgotten. Next to some small fen'harel and mythal statues.

How strange her life has gotten in the three-ish years since she touched that first orb. And how much she still doesn't understand.

[veilishvixen]

Probably felt like:

[lethendralis-paints]

Oh, hey! I haven't yet shown the finished illustration for the Dragon Age Annual zine @dragonageannual !

My task was depicting the Red Lyrium Future, including Blackwall and Varric. I had so much fun exploring this darker concept and painting our beloved characters!

[miraenart]

Skyhold.

The Sentinel of the Frostback Mountains.

Prints here!

[vhen-harel]

While the Inquisitor carries many titles, the least spoken of is the one given by the spirits. When the Augur calls them “the one who blazes like fire and mends the air,” it feels less like his wording and more like the words the spirits themselves gave to him. And they insist on seeing this person when they arrive.

But I'm particularly interested in how the Inquisitor is percieved by spirits and some dialogue gives us a clue.

Augur: How do you think you appear to the gods of the Fade? To those beyond the Veil, your hand burns like the watchman's bonfire.

The one who mends the sky is here, the one who closed the Breach has arrived - and they press what they know upon the Augur, recounting what the Inquisitor has done: Hushed Whispers, Champion of the Just, the Well of Sorrows. In the Fade, nothing about them is hidden. Their deeds travel ahead of them, and their light gives them away wherever they stand.

Inquisitor: Are you saying every spirit in the Fade knows where I am? Augur: Only those nearby, but thoughts spread quickly among the gods.

Awareness travels among spirits - the one who blazes is near rippling through the Fade as spirits watch.

But spirits also feel the Inquisitor and recognize something familiar in them, perhaps that's part of what draws them - yet they don't quite know what the Inquisitor is.

The Spirit of Command: "What of you? I felt your coming. Is there something alike in us?"

They feel their coming before they even see the Inquisitor - they know that great blaze is drawing near. Command senses something familiar but also knows the Inquisitor isn’t a spirit. So what's it noticing?

The Anchor is rooted in ancient magic from Solas, Solas' own power stored over a millennia through his orb created the Anchor - that power which now weaves itself through the Inquisitor's body. It connects them directly to the Fade at all times. If spirits respond to what something is at its core, then reacting the way they are suggests the Anchor has changed the Inquisitor , being a part of the Veil changes them (metaphysically, physiologically).

In my own interpretation (as I've shared before), I believe the Inquisitor is a changed, liminal kind of being (all versions of the Inquisitor):

So, when I think of the Inquisitor and how the Spirits, with their spirit eyes might see them in the waking world while they are in the Fade - these are the images I have in my mind:

images from Pinterest

[obsidian-bone]

"Speaking with The Dread Wolf" Imagine you're a scout, or perhaps a freed slave of the Evanuris, with information that would be invaluable to The Dread Wolf's cause. You expect the man to be violent, terrifying, and monstrous, just as the Evanuris describe him. Instead, you're met with a soft spoken young Elvhen man who sits across the fire from you and listens as you tell your tale.

[satomidee]

He has to kiss her...just one more.

[veilishvixen]

Happy Valentines, my dear Solavellans!❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

I'm just going to drop this sappy wip I've gotten far too carried away with here. Hopefully, someone will pick it up and run with it. It was the tune of Dark Sunrise by Sobba that inspired me to start writing this scene. Stay hopeless. Stay insane. Stay in love.

Now without further ado...

🥁🥁🥁

Genya was unwavering in her rule, sage and radiant; as stunning in battle as she was in a waltz at court. She found rhythm in the taloned grip of demons and courtiers alike, laced through their hearts with viridescent threads of burning, limitless light…but she was never vulnerable; she was untouchable. Or so the rest of the world could go on believing. 

Her breath is slow and even, her lips still parted in the thrall of her dreams. Solas had been torn between waking her and letting her sleep for nearly an hour now, anxiety having chased him from the fade long before dawn could break. He couldn’t keep a foothold when he knew how quickly the waking moments were passing. He couldn’t bear to miss a single twitch in her brow or flutter of lashes…a brush of flushed skin or the puff of a soft sigh. He needed to witness and remember it all. 

Solas curls a bit closer and can still smell the mint and orange blossom from last night’s bath on her hair. “Vhenan,” he whispers into a blushed, pointed ear. 

A soft breeze, heavy with the damp of rain whispers over his skin and he tugs the fur they shared up to her shoulder, his gaze settling on the little bells and bobbles that swayed above for a time, their song a distant sound…almost dreamlike from the great height they’d been strung. Had she managed it all by hand? He wonders, having come to find that there was little of the ordinary Genya was not willing, or rather, determined to do without magic. But with the ability she'd mastered over the arcane, and the well of curiosity he’d yet to find a depth to, Solas could not imagine that her reasoning was rooted in fear or prejudice. Sometimes, it was as though she wished to be everything and everyone all at once; a knight, a mage, a dalish, an andrastian, the order, the chaos. Even in her sleep, she would twitch occasionally, true rest never quite within her reach. 

How much of the blame could be placed on his shoulders? Perhaps all of it? What place was there for an elf in this backward world but in the wind? What place could there be for the Herald of Andraste but in obscure legend? Even to the oldest of spirits, she would remain a mortal mystery, lost too soon to time. 

In his dread, he reaches for her again, running a hand down her arm, all the way to where she kept her hand tucked between her knees. He pulls her fingers to his lips, pressing a kiss to each knuckle, “Emma lath.” My love.

In these hazy moments between waking and dreaming, she was only sweetness; soft and yielding…she stretches against him, baring her throat in silent demand...spoiled. He doesn’t hesitate to indulge her though, leaving only himself to blame. 

A sigh blows out of her that dips to a moan when his teeth graze her windpipe. “Vhenan.” The endearment rumbles out of her like thunder on a balmy summer day…mellow and rolling; the sound of bliss. He closes his eyes and presses a cheek to the humming drum of her pulse, bowing slightly under the nails that push past his tunic and drag lazily down his spine. She seems settled again, a moment or so passing before she suddenly huffs a chuckle, “Did you actually wake before me?” 

He smiles into the crook of her neck, “I needed to see something.”

“Oh really?” 

He rounds a hand over her backside and drags her hips flush to his, “Really.” 

Her heart is a war drum against his, but when she pulls back, her smile only tells tales of peace. She kisses him tenderly, pulling at his neck until he’s rolling overtop of her, chest to chest. 

She was more luminous than any star, more inviting than any winter flame. 

“Genya,” he breaths her name, the name she’d given him, that he would never let be forgotten. She claims his jaw with both hands, hooks him around the waist with a knee. Vhenas, his soul rejoices when he surrenders the full weight of his hips to her. Home. “Ar lath ma,” she voices his every thought aloud. I love you. I love you. “I love you,” he whispers back in her favored tongue, and she kisses him deeper; whole and ardently. 

Could a heart swell until it burst? Was she feeling the pulse of his just as he was feeling her’s?  

A light knock on the door below nearly answers the former.

They glance at each other, then instinct has him rolling away and lunging for his belt before Genya can so much as utter a command. “Solas…” she sounds panicked and though it makes his fluttering chest plummet, he could hardly blame her. His eyes dart around the room, where had he- ah. He snags his frock off the back of the sofa and pulls it on before striding to the center of the room again. It was far too early for his presence in her chambers to be considered anything but intimate. Genya would have to-

Genya sits cross legged in the middle of her great Orlesian mattress, damp hair flipped to one side with furs wrapped all around her, watching him as if he were the most amusing spectacle in the world. 

“I would appreciate a warning if you’re about to leap head first off the balcony, Solas, or were you just going to hide under the bed until they left?” 

He stares wide eyed at her, still clutching the belt to his fool chest. “I…”

She slips off the bed and gives him a soft smile in passing, “I’ll send them away, though I’m sure it’s only Josephine. She’s likely given up and slid her manifest under the door by now.”

He backs away to perch on the side of her bed, heart racing so erratically now, he thought it might skip. Genya appears again only moments later, a small sealed missive in hand. She tosses it onto the mantle after taking a moment to identify the seal. “Forgive me, Solas. It was foolish of me to ask that you stay last night. I can cloak you from sight if-“ 

“No!” He sags further into the bed with a sigh, “No, vhenan.”

She waits by the dark fireplace, the perfectly poised picture of indifference, and for a moment, he wishes to tear away the mask of her flesh, to see the truth of her soul laid bare…but he knows she could show him, right now if she wished. She no longer felt it wise. 

He rises steadily to his feet and reaches for her hand, of which she is still generous enough to extend. “Ir abelas. I only fear that the world would wield this…me, against you. You are so important to- to think that my selfish desire to be close to you might one day bring your ruin…” 

“My ruin is already promised, Solas.” He shakes his head to reject the words.

“With or without you…it is already certain. One day, I will fall and not rise again,” he cringes and starts turning away, but she holds fast, “but I will know peace on my way down, because of you,” she traces his brow, “because of the love I gave and received in turn. Memories are all we are left with in the end, and when the best of mine play, your face will be of the first to greet me.”

He’s stopped breathing and does not entirely care to start again. He’d wished to see what laid beneath that beautiful, bewitching flesh…and now he wondered if he’d even survive the honor. Blessed, blinding spirit. He’d already landed his fall, had torn straight through the natural order of this world on the way down. Yet here he was, standing once more, because of her. She’d turned the winds, changed the course of everything.

She presses a hand to his chest, “You needn’t fall with me, emma lath. I have made many enemies, and I will only continue to make more on this path. If it would put your mind at ease, no one need ever know.”

He would never deserve her. Not then, not now, not ever. 

Solas pulls at her waist so he may better breathe the air she sighs. Deceiver, his thoughts lash at him, but he tells no lies, “You are my heart, Genya. Without your wind, there may be no flight for me. If you are promised to fall, then so am I.” 

He feels her fingers curl into his tunic, those cinder lit eyes glistening under a sheen of fresh tears. They all seem to fall at once as he drops his head onto her’s and moves to gather her close. 

They stay like that until the sun crests to chase the morning chill from their skin, his hands gliding slowly up her sides, going back to the dip of her hips again and again. They’d started to sway at some point, to the time of the breath they shared. She tilts further in to steal a kiss, then another, and another…lingering longer on each one. Then, with a reluctant sigh, she withdraws…though not very far as he tugs her back with his eyes still closed. 

“Once more,” he mumbles and she laughs, obliges him once, then twice.

“As much as I love a scandal, you know I detest tardiness,” she nips one last time at his bottom lip, "Put your belt on, I’m not trekking down this mountain on an empty stomach.”

He smiles at the order, taking a mental note down to pass through the kitchens and grab the breakfast she was sure to forget once the fortress got news of her waking, “Ma nuvenin, vhenan."