#ᵗʰᵒᵘˢᵃᶰᵈˢ ᵒᶠ ʳᵉᵈ⁻ᵉʸᵉᵈ ᵐᶤᶜᵉ ˢᶜʳᵃᵗᶜʰᶤᶰᵍ ᵃᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ᵈᵒᵒʳ; (queries)

[vhenadhal-blog]

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PET PEEVE HEADCANON

               people who play devil’s advocate, or anyone going out of their way to find something to criticize something by for no apparent reason??? that isn’t even helpful and just serves to feed their own ego????? that brand of purposeful negativity/cynicism aggravates her many pre-existing negative mindsets caused by her depression that she’s worked hard on trying to push aside. 

              she isn’t the most optimistic or idealistic person, but boy does it grind her gears when someone tries to ruin a good thing just because they can.

[vhenadhal-blog]

"How long has it been since you lost them?"

           ◐ || “it’ll be fifteen years, next week.” she sighs from her nose                    solemnly and crosses her arms, but otherwise she doesn’t                    seem to be threatening to get soft on him; god forbid she                    look vulnerable, or something. 

                 “___ANYWAY, the judge pushed the court date to the 31st.                    just thought i’d let you know now.”

( deep-ass starters )

[vhenadhal-blog]

hands & eyes

physical features

HANDS

if someone held a knife to merilin’s throat and said she had to name her worst bodily insecurity, she would say her hands. they’re littered with small scars, especially her left, which saw a lot of bloodletting at the base of her thumb from poor technique when she was first learning to shoot an arrow. her palms and the pads of her fingers are always dry, rough and calloused. 

her hands overall seem a touch larger than average at first glance. her fingers are long and retain a considerable amount of muscle, while her lesser trained wrists are thin by comparison. many unfitted rings she tries tend to be too small, and bracelets awkwardly hang limp from the heels of her palms instead of secure.

semi-relevant but her rough man-hands are a big reason she makes a habit of not touching others unless it’s strictly necessary or if she’s comfortable enough with them. she exclusively wears leather gloves when she’s armored, and more often than not while in business-appropriate wear.

her nails are maintained semi-regularly to be reasonably short, especially as she commits to training as a rogue and depends heavily on refining her fine motor skills. when she begins favoring diplomacy later in her inquisition days, the callouses chip away some and soften, but the extensive penmanship practice and letter-writing gradually wear down and dent her finger where a quill would typically rest.

EYES

her eyes are easily her most striking features. they’re round, a little wide-set, and glint in low lighting, as is typical for elves. they’re sharp and attentive, calculating, and betray more of her inner thoughts than she’d like bared. she lines them with kohl for some measure of sun protection, an unintended side effect being that it intensifies her gaze even further, adding to the mild unease they can bring, or emphasizing the alluring edge they have, depending on one’s tastes.

there are small bags that hang beneath her eyes, along with dark circles that are always present (they lighten when she is rested, but become much more prominent when she isn’t, giving the illusion that they’re a bit sunken).

her irises are a medium hazel, a murky and vague color that mirrors her perceived place in the world well; never just one objective shade, never allowed to exist in its own right; not meant to be remarkable, nor looked at twice.

[vhenadhal-blog]

ME FIGHT ME????? ROAST ME

i did my best

lemme whisper sweet nothings at u

[vhenadhal-blog]

hair and face!

physical features

HAIR

her hair’s dark and thick, bordering on coarse, and frizzes easier than she knows how to deal with. taming it is her first task each morning, her most tried and true methods being gathering it up into a tight bun behind her head (the heights vary depending on how it behaves that day), or tugging it into a single tight braid. she’ll never willingly be seen in public without it tied or pinned down in some fashion.

in private though, when she literally lets her hair down, it falls to the small of her back in waves, and reaches her hips if straightened with oils and heat and various other treatments she thinks are more trouble than they’re worth. she always wonders if she should cut it short, but ultimately concludes each time that a thick mane of shorter hair will make her damage control methods way too difficult.

tldr; merilin’s hair is the stuff of fluffy dreams but she thinks it’s a chore and she’ll happily enlist someone to braid it for her if they’re willing

FACE

merilin’s face can best be described as ‘heart-shaped’, with everything a consistent width until her jawline tapers into a small, prominent and pointed chin.

her cheekbones sit quite high on her face, but aren’t particularly prominent otherwise. a jagged scar from decades past runs down from the bottom of her right eye all the way down to cut over her upper lip. she used to have a few pock marks as well, but those have healed with time, and would require uncomfortably close inspection to notice traces of.

she has an unmistakably ‘elven’ profile, but even more specifically it denotes her as having northern blood, what with how her forehead doesn’t define a mostly-consistent slope down her nose bridge. there’s a dip inward where her brows meet, a slight bump in the middle, and another smaller dip as it thins to the tip. it comes to a low point, but does not protrude heavily from her face overall. 

she also has a piercing in her left nostril, kept there with a modest and unobtrusive nose ring she wears regularly; one of few remnants she keeps of her childhood, and even fewer of her rivaini heritage.

her ears are pointed of course, but aren’t very long. as inquisitor, she sometimes opts for hairstyles that manage to obscure them a bit, even if it fools nobody.

as of the time she becomes inquisitor (late 30′s-ish), she’s begun to develop crow’s feet around her eyes

[vhenadhal-blog]

help me understand. (from solas but i dont feel like switching accounts on mobile OOPS)

deep-ass starters

             ◐ || “SOLAS…” these debates about the implications of her                      actions tire her, but he won’t relent until it’s out of his system,                      merilin knows this. she’s thankful they share a mutual                      respect, because she doesn’t know how she’d fare under                      his critical gaze otherwise. she accepts the consequences                      of the future, but that isn’t always enough for him.

                    he won’t see that merilin cannot afford to dwell on the past,                     lest she looks back and recognizes how closely the ghosts                     loom at her heels (or worse___they leave).

                    she rubs at her temple and shuts her eyes, frowning at her                     own inability to articulate herself as well as he does. maybe                     if she had the words, he could actually understand and escape                     the discussion. 

                   “what’s done is done. i let morrigan drink from the well                    because she is more qualified. that’s all.”

@fadedforthem