another Dragon Age blog stuck in Solavellan Hell || 34yo, she/her 🇧🇷 || mostly reblogs || not spoiler-free || +18 sometimes (may the Dread Wolf have mercy of our thirsty souls) || twitter: @thatssolavellan
My embroidery of the Sera character card from Dragon Age Inquisition is now complete!
75 hours of work, 11.5x19.5 cm
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[Image description: An embroidered version of the Sera character selection card from Dragon Age Inquisition. She stands atop a slanted tree trunk with her bow held suggestively between her legs, looking at the Skyhold tower in the distance, where the tiny figure of the inquisitor is present in the window. Mountains and turrets make up the background behind her.]
I saw a post that said “Dragon Age discourse walked so that Baldurs Gate 3 discourse could run” and that’s absolutely false. Dragon Age discourse sprinted, foaming at the mouth, so that BG3 discourse could skip happily through a meadow
"Vhenan" isn't JUST "My heart" as we might understand it in our lives. It is SO much more than that.
Let's break it down, shall we?
Vhenan is made up of two parts.
"Vhen", which refers to the Elvish people, their community, and their culture, and
"An", which I've seen used as "to be", and "place of".
To explain JUST how serious it is to call someone Vhenan, we need understand that Elvish is a vague language. It's been lost to time and is a video game language, so it isn't fully fleshed out. So, in many instances, instead of there being separate words for similar things, there is one word to describe the essence of that thing, that can then be easily used in conjunction with other concepts to get a NEW word.
For example, learn is directly "Communication directed towards oneself" Dirth(communicate)+Ara (towards oneself), and Tell stories is directly "communication directed away from oneself" Dirth(communication)+Era (away from oneself).
Elvish uses "vhen" as the root concept for the following words.
Elvhen (Reffering to the people, or the language)
Elvhenan (Reffering to the culture, TO BE Elvhen)
Vhenadahl ( The tree at the centre of most alienages that represent Arlathan, The heart of the Alienage and the heart of their culture.)
Note that this isn't "Arlathanadahl" or the tree of Arlathan, but the tree of VHEN. Vhen is the concept of the HEART of the people. The HEART of their culture, the HEART of the community.
So, "vhen" isn't a heart, in the way that we associate it with love, "vhen" is a heart in the way that a hearth is the heart of a home, and THAT is why it represents love for the Elvhenan.
Consider how much these concepts mean to Solas. How much he is aching for a sense of community, his people, his culture, throughout your conversations with him, and then consider that he calls you... Vhenan.
To him, you are his community. You're his culture. You're his people.
You are his heart.
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Please take my translations with a pinch of salt, I am trying my best to piece the Elvish we have together, but there are a lot of inconsistencies that I am trying to work around.