#minna tabris

[armor-goblin]

love languages

@dirthara-mama this is the first tag in like three months that’s worked for me and i’m gonna roll with it !!! you’re supposed to take this quiz for your ocs' love languages. tagging with no pressure and no idea who’s done this: @jarino @lonely-spaghetti @puddle--wonderful @star--nymph ?? and anybody else who wants to do this too

mireille trevelyan -- it’s definitely acts of service. she’s easy. 

miri’s action oriented but has trouble articulating that, and thus finds herself going out of her way for people she cares about to do things like make their tea the way they like it or pour their coffee first so it’s got less dregs in it or take tasks off their plate or try to help in any way she can. sometimes to the point of being overbearing, i think. miri is such a mom friend. 

brynn ashton -- a mix of gifts and quality time. 

brynn, i think, is one of those people who just...really likes giving people things. she likes paying enough attention to someone that she knows approx what they would like to receive, and waiting until they’ve forgotten they wanted it to give it to them. she likes creature comforts, especially little frivolous things, and especially giving them to her loved ones. i think she views quality time as enough of a gift for herself because she’s had a history of not being allowed to have a lot of clutter around her, and actually receiving gifts flusters her for a bit before she lets herself lean into it. 

minna tabris -- touch. 

minna is super touchy-feely in very casual ways. she props her feet on alistair’s lap. she leans her elbow on zevran’s shoulder or sits next to him, watching him repair shirts at camp. she loops her arm with leliana’s and braids her hair. the more she likes someone, the more touchy she will be (if they’re okay with it, of course). her relationships are basically all cuddling. naturally the person she cuddles most with is her giant mabari because of course it is. 

[billy-ruffian-archive]

Describe your OC: 1, 12, 18 and 20 for Mainna Tabris (bc I need to know more about other Tabris elves chinhands)

Thank you! And once again, apologies for the delay in getting round to asks at the moment. I don’t give Minna as much love as I should, so:

1: their voice

Minna’s voice is high with a slightly dry, cracked quality, like sandstone. She speaks quietly for the most part, although her voice takes on an unexpected strength when she addresses a crowd or gives orders. It can express great gentleness, but it can also be very cold and detached, formal. This is how you know she doesn’t like you.

12: their romantic life

Minna doesn’t have much of a romantic life in the Alienage. She had a couple of boyfriends back when she was a kid, the kind where they’d hold hands and kiss on the cheek and steal jam together to eat on the rooftop, but since those days her life has become too taken up with caring for her family and the alienage kids to worry much about romance. That’s not to say she’s not attracted to anyone there, but she has little time and less energy to pursue anything. Her inherently secretive and polite nature also tends to push away all but the most determined suitors.

Alistair’s sense of humour gets under her guard and brings out her cheerful side. She finds herself absently joking around for the first time since she was a child. Their relationship builds from a lightness Minna didn’t know was in her, something she likes and is fascinated by but which she could never have had in the alienage where she was surrounded by people and yet knew so few of them very well. It’s the singularity of her mission as a Warden that allows romance to blossom for Minna.

18: how they sleep

She dreams vividly, sometimes of good things: meadows full of sunlight and birdsong, a rooftop full of her old friends, alienage children running wild and laughing. But the vividness gives these dreams an oversaturated quality that exaggerates every sense, and they can quickly become unfamiliar or sinister. The meadow is too quiet, too bright; she doesn’t recognise her friends; the children’s laughter turns to nightmare shrieks.

Still, she tends to sleep the whole night through when she isn’t dreaming about Darkspawn. She’s so used to these dreams - they began just after she left the Alienage, although their sinister quality increased after the Joining - that she barely remembers them. She shrugs them off, but the contribute to her detached, haunted quality.

20: their reaction to a mystery love letter

Minna’s probably going to hide it for a long time and spend ages poring over it in her tent, trying to analyse the handwriting and work out who it’s from. She acts unconcerned but she’s kind of touched and it gives her a warm, tingly feeling to think someone thinks about her like that. She knows it might be a joke and she’s not going to let anyone catch her off-guard so she carefully assesses the chances that she could look like an idiot. The love letter remains crumpled in her pack, a gentle and amusing mystery.

[armor-goblin]

leap of faith

@lesquatrechevrons requested CUDDLES for the tabris/sera heist au and who am i to deny anyone the heist au 

except i’ve never figured it out so have? some early cuddling that’s only sort of cuddling ‘in the back of the car’ i improvised haha

from this cuddling ask meme! 

The note had said here, this alley, this day, this time, and there was nothing here but a couple of crates and a cart of dry brown leaves. Sera had ducked into one of the crates when the gardener -- at least, she looked like a gardener, elfy but mud on her boots and gloves and one of those pretend-posh hairnets they wore to look nobby -- came by with a wheelbarrow. More leaves. Was she shaking them off the trees? 

Who knew with Val Royeaux. Maybe Orlesians liked their trees in the nuddy. 

The crates were full of chamberpots, but they were the empty kind. Still gilty though. Giltier, maybe, than the used kind. Sera clambered out when the gardener had rattled her wheelbarrow off out of the alley and squinted up against the sun, gleaming through the railings of a balcony overhead.

The note said here, so where was this stupid Jenny? Sun overhead, the note said. Well, the sun wasn’t over anybody’s stupid head unless they were standing on the side of the stupid building, so -- 

The sun flickered.

Sera opened her mouth and got out an accusatory “About time, innit?” as a woman in a guard’s uniform leapt over the balcony railing, skidded down the roof tiles and launched herself off the gutter to land heavily in the dry leaves. 

“Ow,” the leaf pile said, as it settled. 

Sera looked around, but she couldn’t hear the wheelbarrow and none of these stupid guards would have the bollocks to jump off a building, so she walked over and kicked the cart’s wheel. “You the Jenny, then? This your idea of a meet? You’re cracked, you are.”

The leaf pile stuck out a hand and said, “Help me -- wait, ‘scuse me?”

“Means you’re bloody insane,” Sera said, and kicked the wheel again. The cart groaned. Or maybe it was the woman. “You stole some rozzer’s britches?”

“And her chainmail,” the leaf pile said. There were sounds of a struggle from within the leaves. “And also some nob’s daggers, are you going to help me out of this or not?”

Sera folded her arms. “Don’t see why I oughta. You’re bloody starkers mad, you. You’ll muck up all my plans.” (She’d been in Val Royeaux approximately a year and a half. Her plans were -- well, they were plans, and they were brilliant, thanks. Probably brilliant. Definitely brilliant.) 

“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” the leaf pile said, and sat up. She peeled the mask off and brushed leaves out of her bleached white hair, wrinkling her nose. Her skin was dark brown, her eyes almost black, the sides of her head shaved and growing back dark and her ears shiny with silver piercings -- 

Sera swore, very loudly, for about ten seconds. 

Minna Tabris glanced up at her and blinked, three times, and said, “Sera?”

“You’re this bigshot Jenny from Denerim? What shite -- ”

“Wait -- ” One of her long ears flicked. “Someone’s coming.” 

Sera turned around to look at the mouth of the alley and a hand gripped her wrist and yanked her into the unexpectedly crinkly pile of leaves face-first. Leaves did not taste as nice as they sounded under your feet. Kind of dirt-like. 

She spat and Minna (Minna) (she’d met minna on her hanging night and had skipped Denerim as soon as she could after and Minna, Minna had stayed for the alienage, and she’d never understood why) clapped a hand over her mouth and pulled her farther into the leaves, a chainmailed arm wrapped over her shoulders when she didn’t hold still.

The rattle of the wheelbarrow -- 

She hadn’t seen Minna since she was fourteen and Minna was -- was -- who knew? Who cared? Skinny, older than her but not by a lot, angry angry angry but so elfy sometimes that Sera’s mouth tasted like cookies when they talked about trees and ears and people. She hadn’t used to have those big ropy muscles currently holding Sera in place, that was for sure. 

Or the shoulders. Or the -- hands? Of course she’d had hands, but -- 

A thunk and a crispy scrape of metal on wood, and sudden weight as more leaves were shoveled onto their backs. Minna -- Minna pulled her in closer, hooked her foot around her bare ankle and tugged it hidden under the leaves. She was in chainmail. It wasn’t all that comfortable. 

It could be comfortable if she wasn’t in chainmail -- 

Sera huffed against the hand on her mouth and the gardener turned to go, rattling the stupid wheelbarrow off out of sight. 

Minna kept holding onto her even after the wheelbarrow turned the corner and Sera grumbled against her hand. Sera, for her part, decided not to resist too much. She hadn’t spent a lot of time -- cuddling, not since that cute little smith left the city again. Muscles were good for that. She’d take it. Give her time to work the blush off her face.

After long, tense moment full of crinkling settling leaf sounds, Minna let go of Sera’s mouth and patted her shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”

She shimmied out of the cart with surprising speed for someone wearing a guard uniform. Sera flicked leaves out of her face and popped her head out of the leaves. Minna was already shucking off her boots. 

“What in the shite are you doing here?” Sera demanded, folding her arms on the base of the cart. “Thought you were doing elfy crap back in Denerim.”

Minna shot her a look, ripping open the buckles on her chain shirt and dropping it to the ground. She didn’t actually say anything. Just shucked off her gambeson and threw the stupid gold guard’s mask into the open crate, and flipped up the hood of her shirt, and then she said, “Had to leave. Didn’t want to stop being a Jenny, they told me I could come to Val Royeaux. Help out.” 

Her sleeves were rolled up and the shirt clung. In good ways. Kind of damp -- 

Sera blinked and scrambled out of the cart, dripping with dead leaves. “Who says I need help? I need arrows, that’s what.”

Minna tossed a dagger at her and she caught it out of the air. The hilt was all glitter and gems. “We need to get out of here is what. Are you coming?” 

Sera blinked again and glanced her up and down, as she threw the last of the armor into the crate and dusted off her hands. She stuffed the dagger into her belt and said, “Right, well, you don’t know bits from bobs, so I’m leading.” 

“What? Whose bits from whose bobs?”

“Just bits from bobs,” Sera said, and patted her on the arm. Woof. “Don’t need your help all that bad, but you jumped off a bloody roof, right? Figure you’re cracking, prob’ly lost or you’ve got some head trauma, need someone to lead the way.” Was someone shouting in the distance? Someone was shouting in the distance. “To a safehouse. Or somethin’. Right?”

“All right,” Minna said, sounding doubtful, but she didn’t resist when Sera grabbed her wrist and hauled her away from the crime scene. 

[armor-goblin]

C1, D1, and E1 :)

i’m going to tap miri and minna for this one!! (only because i just did C1 for brynn, haha.)

C1. how do they sit in a chair?

miri: with her feet not touching the floor, so she sometimes tucks them under her or crosses her legs. if she’s concentrating she’s on the edge of the chair hunched over the desk. it’s very cute. minna: as lounged as humanly (elfily?) possible. minna, like a cat, is basically a liquid. she also tends to sit on the floor. 

D1. how would they decorate a house if they had one under their name?

miri: mireille has only really ever had an office to herself, and even skyhold is decorated for her. if she had a choice, she’d have a small house. wooden walls, maybe a tapestry or two. dried herbs and small bowls, probably a mess, about fifteen bookshelves. tapestries on the walls. cozy with a fireplace. near the ocean, several windows, lots of blankets and throw pillows. in the modern au it’s very similar, but she also favors the sort of gloomy seascape you usually find in a thrift store in a really large antique frame -- landscape paintings, in general. she also has a weakness for tiny glass and pottery bowls. (don’t we all?)

minna: oh, minna. she grew up in denerim’s alienage, she moved to amaranthine and it was chilly and cold and there were not enough people in the vicinity and she basically just fucking hated it. camping was better than that. i think if she had the choice, she’d move to a city and live in a high-up apartment with two different ways to shimmy down off the balcony, and fill it with plants. minna loves plants. in a modern au, she has a tiny little apartment and sleeps on a futon and when her friends come over she has them take the futon and she sleeps on the floor. it is FULL OF PLANTS. i am positive there’s a flower shop au where minna runs the shop. 

both of these two, btw, take a lot of time to get to this point...i think both of them are used to small quarters not quite their own and they both had dramatic, violent experiences when they left their homes, and it takes them both a long time to kind of...reaccumulate a life in a new place. minna, especially, is used to moving around. 

E1. does the way they do things portray their internal personality?

miri: yeah. i think she’s pretty up front about the kind of person she is -- an academic, a mage, a healer. someone who’s going to fix you if you’re hurt or broken. she’s tried pretending that’s not the case before and it just doesn’t really work, she ends up being a healer and doing her thing anyway. 

minna: kind of...minna comes from denerim’s alienage and as the warden she’s mostly nervous and angry, but she’s also being continuously told that she, as an elf, is pretty much nothin’. so minna at 28 in inquisition is fuckin’ done, and is both more subtle about her feelings and more honest about them. minna at 17-18 wore her heart on her sleeve and was vividly furious, and with the little power she had at the time, she did what she could. minna at 28 has seen it all fall apart and now she’s much more...calm on the outside, and lets her anger roll up and then does something about it later. i love minna. 

abc ocs asks!

[armor-goblin]

15 and 30 for Minna!

thank you!! 

15. How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first? 

minna tends to be a little brusque; she’s not highly educated and she won’t use five words when one will do, which is why her dialogue is so damn hard to write for my wordy ass, haha. she knows when to bite her tongue, but she’s not the sort of person who thinks thoroughly through her words before she says them, either. she likes to talk with people but is also the kind of person who really values comfortable silences. 

30. Who do they most regret meeting? 

in canon, where she’s the warden? alistair. he’s her dear friend, and then he becomes king, and completely ignores everything she ever said about elves and takes away their bannorn she fought so hard for -- for, as far as she can tell, no reason, since shianni was killed by humans. that burns a lot of bridges for her, and she ends up leaving ferelden furious that she ever even tried to be friends with him. in the heist royeaux au where minna’s a red jenny? probably just vaughn, that motherfucker from the city elf origin. he’s always high on the list of people minna is not happy she ever knew, although definitely also high on the list of people she enjoyed killing. 

uncommon questions!

[armor-goblin]

look!! at this beautiful minna that @thedosian-cabbage drew me during his ko-fi commissions!! i am in love!!!!!

[armor-goblin]

Minna, 3, 12, 18!

3) If they were a god which god would they be?

SUCH A GOOD QUESTION. minna tabris is violently protective, not unopposed to vengeance, slow to trust but feels deeply…i would consider her right in the border between mythal (mother goddess of justice, known for being vengeful) and fen’harel (god of rebellion, trickster figure). (she would NOT agree with solas, but i think her personality isn’t all that far off his.)

12) Do they have a type?

if they look like they give good cuddles, minna’s into it. (minna is ace, but she REALLY likes cuddling.)

18) What would their ideal home be like?

so minna grew up in denerim’s alienage and it was shitty but it was her home, and part of her story is losing that home bit by bit between the blight and warden-commander and the death of bann shianni, and that makes home a really abstract concept to her. i think minna’s used to, at some point, being on the move and on her own, and home just becomes a comfortable place to set up her tent, with fresh water and her bedroll and her blanket and a good view of the surrounding terrain and her dog Petunia. if zevran’s there, it’s even better.

(if she had a choice, though, she’d live in a city again. she’d live in a tall building on the top floor and decorate her walls with tapestries and have a little bookshelf and a lot of plants and a big bed and zevran would be there. or sera. depends on the au, haha.) (in the modern au she has fourteen strings of fairy lights and eight million different plants, all of which are named, and she keeps all her clothes in a duffel bag because at some point she just decided it wasn’t worth unpacking it all the way because then this will be home and she’ll be able to lose it again.)

d&d questions!

[armor-goblin]

ya know that moment when your partner in crime leans over you to plan your next heist and you suddenly realize oh no she’s hot

(background image of the summer bazaar borrowed from here on the DA wiki)

[armor-goblin]

hear me out: what if tabris escaped hanging in denerim by the grace of the red jennies, and became sera’s partner in crime

[armor-goblin]

never to return but i never learn it’s a pity, oh

[armor-goblin]

why do i keep having to reinstall my drivers?? why u do this wacom??anyway here’s rian surana all grown up and mercenarial 

also i’m incapable of drawing elves without this haircut apparently so here is a bonus (with a slightly clearer version of rian’s first layer of clothing):

[armor-goblin]

@thedosian-cabbage

minna REALLY likes flowers. 

[armor-goblin]

more of that stardew au

There are signs everywhere, like how the leaves turn over before a thunderstorm: a life was here that Minna has no idea about. 

She’s written her father a few times now that the parsnips are in and the beans are trellised. No service, so paper mail’s the only way. She’s gotten back a little money and a precious tin of Alarith’s blister balm that reminds her so much of Denerim that her eyes prickle when she rubs it into her palms. (‘Cos it’s made of rat oil and lemons, she tells herself every time, and shoves her hands into the old gloves to hide the smell.) Nothing from Shianni yet, or Soris, or anyone else. Only her father’s forgiven her for leaving. Not surprising.

One of his letters says: she took you to the valley one summer, when you were four. She doesn’t remember that. She could make herself think she does, maybe, but it’s not the same, and all her father seems to have are those sorts of soft answers. Nothing but ‘you knew her better than I did,’ and that’s a lie. Minna doesn’t know who her mother was.

The villagers seem to. The mayor says her mother worked too hard, and drinks for her every Friday, with a melancholic look on his face. Robin says almost nothing and her face makes Minna wonder what she’s hiding. Linus calls her Adaia one day as she’s passing by and she just grimaces and hands him a wild leek to cover it. There’s nothing full, just half seen glimpses of a person who looks kind of like her, and it’s infuriating, and therefore she’s been spending most of her mornings with an axe and a grudge. 

She’s halfway through the trunk of a tree when there’s a sharp bark and a gentle curse behind her, and she turns too fast, axe in hand.

Marnie says, a little breathlessly, “Miss Minna, do you like dogs?”

The dog flops down and scratches a floppy ear, lolling out its tongue. It is offensively cute. 

“I’ve never had a dog,” Minna says, setting the axe down carefully. “Where did you find it?”

“Wandering around, poor thing. It’s still too cold for a dog to be out these nights. I’d take her in, but she disagrees with the goats, not to mention the horses...” Marnie puts her hands on her hips and looks down at the dog. “I just don’t know what to do with her, and, well, I’m sure it gets lonely some nights out here in the woods. I thought maybe you’d like her.”

There aren’t any city sounds or screams or sirens here, just owls and rattling branches, and Minna holds out her hand to the dog. The dog gives her an obligatory sniff and immediately pushes her flat head into Minna’s palm for a pet. Her coat’s a little scruffy but she’s got the big broad skull of a mabari and the soft light-brown eyes too, mixed with something else. (That’s where Minna’s dog knowledge stops, and she almost reaches for her phone before she remembers she can’t look up “dog with curly hair floppy ears” out here. Fuck.)

Minna nods at Marnie, who grins, clasps her hands together. “Oh, wonderful. I know you’ll take good care of her. And she of you! She looks a bit like she’s mabari, doesn’t she? And the farm used to have a dog, if I recall.”

“It did?” Minna asks, kneeling down, because the dog really wants petting. She smells like mud and new grass and, well, wet dog. 

“A big grey mabari,” Marnie says, her face lighting up. “Oh, she was beautiful. Adai -- um -- your mother went everywhere with that dog. Such a sweetheart, too. I’ve never met a friendlier mabari. I think she called it Waffles.” 

That actually clinches it as truth instead of legend, because Minna’s seen her mother polish off four waffles in a morning, in those days when she was there. She scratches behind the dog’s ears a few more times, gets licked a few times. Then she stands up, but it’s with an effort because the dog really wants to be petted, and it bumps against her leg in the insistent way only a hundred-pound-dog can. Quietly she says, “I’ll take care of her. Do you sell dog food?”

When Minna lies down in bed that night, aching and blistered and smelling of rat oil and lemons, the dog -- Camellia, because it’s a nice name -- curls up right in front of the fire and promptly begins to snore. And the cottage feels a little bit more right. Something’s fallen into place. It’s still drafty and musty and the bed’s got lumps and her palms are getting so hard that they scrape against her skin, and they only sell the cheap shitty toner at the local market so her hair’s a little more yellow than white, but...

My mother had a dog named Waffles. My mother picked onions and dandelions and made dandelion wine and shared it with the guy who lives in a tent all year round, because he appreciated it. My mother worked hard, whatever that means, and she took me here when I was four. My mother was a farmer and she never planted flowers.

She blinks her eyes open during the night to the sound of rain drumming on the new shingles, and thinks: I’m going to buy some damn flowers tomorrow. 

[armor-goblin]

slightlymaladroit replied to your post: TMI TUESDAY

Tell me about your favorite oc’s ideal date!

i’m gonna cheat and tell you about the DA OC on my mind and my favorite d&d character!! 

minna tabris likes outdoorsy shit. her ideal date would probably be climbing up a cliff in the early morning and having a beer at the top and watching the morning arrive, then climbing down and getting a HUGE greasy brunch, then taking a well deserved nap and cuddling for a while. 

coin the bard, in contrast, is an active revolutionary turned vigilante, a chainsmoker street kid, and in general, a garbage fire of a semi-human being?? i’m not entirely sure what her ideal date would be but it’d probably involve filling people with arrows and a lot of snarky one-liners and would very likely end in setting a city block on fire. (in her romantic heart of hearts, she’d like to believe it would be something cute like meeting in a rainy alley and lighting each others’ cigarettes, then walking off into the sunset, somehow, but realistically speaking she is kind of a trash fire and also really likes shooting people with arrows.)

[armor-goblin]

Tabris would look real good in my armor??

[armor-goblin]

i’ve been sitting on these latenight mobileblogging thoughts about tabris since like thursday??

Minna Tabris was two months off eighteen when she got married, and then kidnapped, and then conscripted, and this was not the first time she’d taken a life.

In another world without Duncan to intervene she might still have been saved - the alienage was already talking about her stupidity in furtive whispers but they were also, even quieter, praising her bravery. Red Jenny might have taken notice, saved her from the noose before it pulled too tight (because you know she was going to die, and she knew it too, which is why she killed every single shem she found in that keep; it might not have been the best idea, but it was the only one she had). Maybe. Hopefully. The alienage needs a folk hero too after all. Minna, before her fame (or infamy) made her wear her surname like a badge, has never let herself be anything but brave. She's been burning up inside with impotent anger since she was seven years old and the first little girl called her a dirty knife ear. (It wasn't the first, though. it was just the first she heard.) She's been stealing from shems and getting into fights on her friends' behalf pretty much since then. Even when she was Minna she was unbending, determined to be justice where there was none, albeit for a child's value of justice. 

Being Warden Tabris gave her the power to actually be justice. Suddenly people were asking her to arbitrate, even if they were asking Alistair first and then looking down at the dangerously calm elf standing in front of him. And there's a year, a horrifying beautiful year full of dark tunnels and the everyday atrocities people of all types commit on each other and also freedom, respect even given grudgingly, and Tabris rides that all the way through the ashes of Denerim to slay the archdemon (expecting that the trick won't work, expecting to die, figuring there's no better damn way to go than in the city she was born in, surprised to be breathing through cracked ribs) and be named Hero. This is her highest point: when everything comes up right and no one dares laugh when she demands a bannorn for the alienage. When she can finally give them power. When she makes them listen to a dirty fucking knife ear for once, and thinks maybe she sees some understanding on a few of these rich noble faces.

 Of course, it doesn't work out that way, does it? Shianni is murdered and the bannorn taken away as if a shem knifing her in an alley proves something about elves and their lack of responsibility. Minna becomes Tabris in full that day, threatens to show Alistair exactly where he can stick his crown and also this giant knife, and that's when she starts to travel. Because she's tired. Damn it all, she's tired, and the flush of power she had has already faded, because she is a city elf and a woman and the blight didn't touch Ferelden quite enough for it to care what she says six years later. (She wishes it had, that she'd taken a little longer, some dark days.) And then -- well, who do you trust when someone you thought was your friend betrays you in the worst of ways?

your dog. dogs do not betray. dogs are loyal to the end. and if you eventually wander to the north, and find that the assassin who fucked up killing you so badly that you recruited him, who’s always said to you if you need me i will return, has always intended to keep his word even when you’re three countries and six years of living apart -- well, then you become a party of three.