worldbuilding sideblog.

bold     what  always  applies.    italicize     what  sometimes  applies.    crossout  what  never  applies.

EYES     :    avoids   eye   contact   when   nervous   |   maintains   eye   contact   when   agitated   |   avoids   eye   contact   due   to   being   neurodivergent   |   enjoys   eye   contact   as   a   means   to   read   and   convey   emotion   |   looks   down   when   emotional   |   looks   up   when   emotional   |   cries   openly   |   wipes   tears   quickly   |   suppresses   tears   |   wandering   gaze   when   lost   in   thought   |   holds   gaze   while   thinking   |   seeks   out   eye   contact   for   reassurance   |   seeks   out   eye   contact   to   gauge   enthusiasm   during   conversations   |   eyes   constantly   move   during   conversation   |   expressive   eyes   |   emotions   only   evident   through   eyes   |   uses   eye   contact   to   intimidate   |   looks   up   while   thinking   |   looks   down   while   thinking.

HANDS     :    clasps   behind   back   |   rest   in   lap   |   fidgets   with   clothes   |   twiddles   thumbs   |   chews   at   nails   |   pushes   back   cuticles   |   draws   patterns   on   table/counter   surfaces   |   makes   animated   gestures   while   speaking   |   only   gestures   to   emphasize   |   utilizes   sign   language   |   speaks   only   through   sign   |   calluses   |   scars   |   smooth   |   wrinkled   |   worn   |   soft   |   delicate   |   bony   |   slender   |   thick   |   veiny   |   touches   others   while   speaking   |   reaches   out   while   laughing   |   reaches   out   to   comfort   others   |   reaches   out   to   seek   comfort   |   places   face   in   hands   when   exasperated   |   places   palms   over   eyes   to   hide   when   overwhelmed   |   rests   chin   in   hands   |   taps   fingers   when   impatient   |   taps   fingers   when   nervous   |   taps   fingers   while   thinking   |   scratches   scalp   |   strokes   chin   |   rubs   back   of   head   |   toys   with   objects   around   them   |   runs   fingers   over   surfaces   while   walking   by.

MOUTH     :    chews   lip   |   chews   at   inside   of   cheek   |   licks   lips   |   bites   tongue   |   chews   on   straws   |   resting   frown   |   resting   smile   |   neutral   resting   expression   |   resting   pout   |   grinds   teeth   |   flexes   jaw   |   covers   mouth   when   laughing   |   covers   mouth   when   shocked   |   covers   mouth   when   concerned   |   hands   to   lips   while   thinking   |   covers   mouth   when   chewing   |   chews   with   mouth   closed   |   chews   with   mouth   open   |   smirks   |   grins   |   subtle   smiles   |   wide   smiles   |   sad   smiles   |   intimidating   smiles   |   menacing   grins   |   openly   smiles   |   tries   to   suppress   smiles   |   bares   teeth   when   angry   |   lips   quiver   when   emotional   |   stutters   |   speaks   quickly   |   speaks   slowly   |   good   pronunciation   |   poor   pronunciation   |   moderate   pronunciation   |   purses   lips   |   sucks   in   lips   |   holds   mouth   open   when   shocked   or   confused.

LEGS     :    bounces   leg   when   nervous   |   draws   knees   to   chest   when   sitting   |   draws   knees   to   chest   as   a   means   of   comfort   |   sits   on   knees   |   sits   with   legs   criss-crossed   |   sits   with   legs   spread   open   in   chairs   |   crosses   legs   when   sitting   in   chairs   |   sits   with   one   leg   folded   under   the   other  |   places   feet   on   furniture   |   never   places   feet   on   furniture   |   sits   on   counters   |   sits   on   desks   |   sits   on   tables   |   sits   on   edge   of   seat   |   sits   hunched   over   with   forearms   on   knees   |   arches   one   knee   up  |   sits   on   the   arm   of   chairs/couches   |   feet   on   dashboard   |   swings   legs   back   and   forth   when   sitting   somewhere   elevated   |   wiggles   toes   when   nervous   |   wiggles   toes   as   a   general   tick   |   shuffles   feet   |   kicks   foot   into   ground   |    stomps   feet   |   loud   footsteps   |   quiet   footsteps   |   silent   footsteps.

HAIR     :    runs   fingers   through   hair   |   tugs   at   hair   |   picks   at   scalp   |   chews   on   hair   |   twists   locks   of   hair   while   thinking   or   nervous   |   smooths   out   locks   of   hair   while   thinking   or   nervous   |   prefers   hair   out   of   face   |   prefers   long   hair   |   prefers   short   hair   |   wears   hair   back   |   keeps   hair   down   |   smooths   back   hair   |   plays   with   other's   hair   while   talking   |   plays   with   own   hair   while   talking   |   strokes   hair   to   comfort   others   |   likes   having   hair   stroked   for   their   own   comfort   |   braids   others’   hair   while   talking   |   braids   own   hair   while   talking   |   flips   hair   out   of   face   |  pushes   hair   out   of   face   |   leaves   hair   alone   even   when   falling   into   face.

lanaya hugging solas at the end of vg and/or a kiss. a really good, tight hug and she has to pull him down a little. she wipes the blight off of his face and kisses him. is this the last time she ever sees him? who knows. she doesn't think it's the last time and he'll find a way but a part of her believes it and she will never, ever see him again. can i be convinced that she'd go with him? honestly, yeah. could she also join him later on? yes. also them crossing paths in minrathous. (they kiss) (she breaks his nose) (they kiss some more)

the amount of assassination attempts the inquisitor lives through during dai and after and probably for the rest of her life. does she want to be surrounded by guards? no. she hates it. she hates feeling that she's lost her freedom.

lanaya relearning everything after losing her arm. i'd definitely say it destroys her and she doesn't know how to cope with not only losing her arm but losing her skills, but her survivability, her role as a hunter and protector, her connection to music and making music. she also misses the slight connection to the fade it gave her. she didn't know it also connected her to solas but she realizes afterwards that, yeah, she misses that as well. also her go-to instruments were string instruments which required both hands, but she ends up settling on focusing on the piano because it's tolerable with one hand.

lanaya + grief + loss because by the time of inquisition she has a somewhat healthy relationship with it. she loses her older sister as a teenager / preteen and her twin in her early 20s. they're not close together but being a teen and experiencing loss meanwhile there's so many other hormone things going on. that's rough. there's probably "graves" for them somewhere and lanaya visits them every year. she talks to them, updates them and leaves behind gifts they'd like. if you're lucky, she might bring you with her.

the way she's a natural but reluctant leader. she's the best for the job but doesn't want it. people look to her because she has a warmth about her, but she doesn't want that.

her love language being gift giving and gift giving being a way dalish court other elves. she also collects things from different places since the clan moved around so much, it's like she needs to take little things from the places they go to to remember them.

lanaya being able to be an agent for briala if she isn't an inquisitor and how she could be an agent for fen'harel without knowing -- and how briala and lanaya are both from orlais and have that specific experience of being an orlesian elf. inquisitor!lanaya forms an actual alliance with briala imo and they remain allies. and given how briala is for the modern elves, they could work together post trespasser.

i think she had a wolf companion while a hunter for the clan. no reason for this except for making her princess mononoke.

there's a lot of parallels between her and solas but i especially thinking about how she wants to remain herself and lanaya throughout it all and clings to what she knows because she doesn't have anything else + how solas asks her on the balcony if she's changed + solas once being wisdom turned to pride + lanaya probably would've been hope turned into despair.

lanaya after veilguard. there is so much to do and rebuild but she's exhausted and doesn't want to do it anymore, but she does it anyways. she's no longer hunting solas or fighting, so she has no idea what to do with herself anymore. she's restless, she wants to stop, but she can't. she wants to settle down. but she doesn't. she doesn't know the difference between want and need or if her wants and needs are her own.

lanaya + being a spy for clan lavellan. which happened prior to the conclave. i think deshanna sent her to kirkwall as things were getting tense.

she also loves using terms of endearment for close friends, family and romantic partners.

hamalshiral. she enjoys investigative and spy stuff. sneaking around. the adrenaline. doing things under peoples noses. collecting clues and figure things out on her own. gathering blackmail, secrets, etc.

temple of mythal. specifically the puzzles in the beginning. i fear she was actually enjoying herself and hopping from one square to the next.

(I’m so pissed right now because I must’ve accidentally hit a key to refresh the page, and of course lost the answer I was almost done writing... so this is the second time I’m typing this out... Anyway, most of this information is from The Masked Empire, with a little also from the DA:O codex Alienage Culture.)

Val Royeaux Alienage:

Home to ten thousand elves.

The walls are so tall that light doesn’t reach the vhenadahl until midday.

It’s about the size of the Denerim market district.

Elves routinely suffer from the Academies des Chevaliers’ graduation ritual, where chevaliers ride through the alienage streets at night, killing for sport. They are legally allowed to do this. [Link]

The streets are described as thin, crooked and maze-like.

The vhenadahl in the market square is adorned with ribbons tied to branches, and sticks with colourful bits of cloth stuck in the dirt around it as offerings.

Halamshiral Elven Quarter:

Where elsewhere elves are confined to alienages, because there are more elves than humans in Halamshiral, it’s the humans who separate themselves away behind stone walls in the High Quarter.

The streets are lit with torches rather than glowstones found in other Orlesian cities.

Guards and nobles descend into the Elven Quarter at night to beat and sometimes kill whoever they catch.

The only streets kept clean and repaired are the ones leading from the gates of the High Quarter.

Elves are not permitted to carry blades longer than the palm of their hands. Members of the Thieves Guild get around this by carrying their blades at the hips, as a dare to guards to start a fight with the guild when they weren’t technically breaking the law, until they’re witnessed touching the weapons.

lanaya, most certainly, retreats to her living quarters after a long day of adventuring / socializing / inquisitor things. it's emotionally draining. she's an extrovert, but being ' the herald of andraste ' and putting on that mask for people is tiring. if she can, she goes for a walk where she knows nobody else will be (like the woodsy area in the outskirts of haven). haven is a place where she doesn't have a lot of her own things because she didn't think she'd be gone for so long, she didn't think to pack and instrument to keep herself sane. she's also a creative person at her core, so not having an instrument on her hurts when she needs to express herself (even if it's in the comfort of her own room), but she does settle with writing songs and poems in her journal (she's been writing since she was living in val royeaux, it's just something she picked up and as an angsty teenager living in a place where the sun didn't even). by the time skyhold happens she's picked up a lyre and/or a lute (maybe more musical instruments!) and can be found at the piano in heralds rest in the middle of the night. she also loves paper-folding. it's very therapeutic for her to do it after a long, stressful day. you can find them scattered around skyhold or given/left as a gift. i imagine she doesn't only use paper, but leaves and other things from nature (maybe it's dalish in origin? who knows).

she DOES NOT fall asleep easily. she's very restless and takes a long time to fall asleep, whether she's in haven or skyhold or anywhere else. she's used to the sounds of the forest and skyhold is so quiet at night, which she isn't used to. she'll often stare up at the ceiling, count sheep, go for a walk around the skyhold grounds -- and once she's more comfortable she'll be at the heralds rest playing the piano late at night.

unprompted questions (always accepting!!) btw this did get very off-topic.

so, i haven't thought that much about this. like, at all. originally i was simply thinking she got it alongside other people her age, maybe she was 18-20 or so. but upon thinking about it more, she got it after her twin sister died (which happened when she was around 19/20). it was months later and on their birthday. while lanaya knew her sister would not live much longer, they did talk about their vallaslins, they were excited for them! so, lanaya did it in honor of her sister.

or she told herself that was the reason.

at the time, lanaya was grieving and poorly. she was very close with her twin sister, it's a loss that she never fully recovered from. she accepts it, but it weighs her down immensely. they were also identical. it was hard enough when people mistook them for each other, but now her sister was dead and she was wearing a ghosts face -- she was a reminder of what was lost. sometimes, lanaya thought that their parents would've wanted them to swap places. lanaya's grief was angry and mean and at times selfish. she thought nobody else understood her, meanwhile she wasn't the only person who lost someone. her parents lost two children and another was sent to a nevarran clan.

she most certainly rushed into getting a vallaslin. it is something she wanted regardless, since it's so important to her people -- she actually started thinking about what design she'd get years prior when she was still a teenager. but deep down, it was a way for her to physically separate herself from her twin sister (who does have a name btw, i realize i've never mentioned it but her name was taralin). while she adored her sister, she really felt that she was walking in her shadow -- or her memory. she will forever see her sister in the mirror, but she can help things be easier for her, right?

she chose a ghilan'nain vallaslin (i actually still don't know if i like the dao one or the dai one or the mod i used in dai halfway through lol), but it was also for the halla and what they represent.

never forget that the halla once bore our knights into battle. The fierce blood of a warrior still runs through her veins and she would sooner fight to the death than demean herself. like the dalish, the halla are proud. a halla knows who she is, and will tolerate no being that tells her she is less.

(it's not super relevant to the question but there's definitely some symbolism in lanaya allowing (romanced) solas to remove her vallaslin and at this point she's accepted what she's lost and she has learned to appreciate how similar she looks to her twin sister. it isn't something she's ashamed of anymore. she'a also 'free' of those former feelings and is allowing herself to let go. -- (she's also horrified over what he tells her about the history of the vallaslin, which is also extremely important.)

cw for : imagery of body horror, potentially tropophobia (this one is linked and not a direct c+p) -- all are at the very bottom.

This is part of my Dragon Age meta series. Frankly I could care less about semantics so I’m calling it meta while I’ve made up most of the stuff. It’s all made up. Don’t take these ideas and claim them as your own. If you want to use aspects, just ask me.

Originally posted on the 23rd of February 2016.

First off all all the canon information on calendars was put together in this online calendar generator, with some minor fill-ups. You can find the code for Thedas’ calendar online here:

{“year_len”:360,“events”:1,“n_months”:12,“months”:[“Wintermarch”,“Guardian”,“Drakonis”,“Cloudreach”,“Bloomingtide”,“Justinian”,“Solace”,“August”,“Kingsway”,“Harvestmere”,“Firstfall”,“Haring”],“month_len”:{“Wintermarch”:30,“Guardian”:30,“Drakonis”:30,“Cloudreach”:30,“Bloomingtide”:30,“Justinian”:30,“Solace”:30,“August”:30,“Kingsway”:30,“Harvestmere”:30,“Firstfall”:30,“Haring”:30},“week_len”:7,“weekdays”:[“Monday”,“Tuesday”,“Wednesday”,“Thursday”,“Friday”,“Saturday”,“Sunday”],“n_moons”:2,“moons”:[“Luna”,“Satina”],“lunar_cyc”:{“Luna”:30,“Satina”:120},“lunar_shf”:{“Luna”:0,“Satina”:0},“year”:930,“first_day”:1}

This calendar system was developed in Tevinter Imperium and influenced by the elves of Elvhenan. Eventually it developed into the system used nowadays, influenced by the Chantry and spoken in the King’s Tongue.

Months

Verimensis / Wintermarch: The Tevinter name, Verimensis, literally means ‘month of truth’. Its King’s Tongue counterpart is based on the ancient elvhen word of 'edge’, as this month signifies the last month of winter (winter’s edge). It is the first month of the year, and has on the first day Thedosians celebrate ‘First Day’, a celebration for the start of the new year.

Pluitanis / Guardian: Loosely translated Pluitanis means ‘the month in which it rains’, as its start signifies the end of winter and the change of weather. Guardian refers to the passing period of time where citizens had to guard their crops and possessions from the cold weather. On the first day Thedosians celebrate ‘Wintersend’ (previously called ‘Urthalis’ meaning belonging to Urthemiel), a holiday which signifies the end of the winter.

Nubulis / Drakonis: Nubulis translates to ‘month of marriage’, while Drakonis is derived from the Alamarri term for ‘dragon’, which itself is derived from the Tevinter term, ‘Dracon’.

Eluviesta / Cloudreach: It is not truly known where the name Eluviesta came from, but it roughly translates to ‘month of deception’. It is thought this name comes from legend, after the rye harvest after the cold winter months became infected with fungi which could cause hallucinations. Cloudreach refers to the cloudy weather observed in the south of Thedas during the month.

Molioris / Bloomingtide: Translates to ‘month of awakening’, and the latter meaning refers to the month being the causation of the blooming of nature. On the first day of Bloomingtide Thedosians celebrate ‘Summerday’, to celebrate the start of summer (previously called Andoralis as in belonging to Andoral).

Ferventis / Justinian: Translates to ‘burning/boiling/hot month’, and refers to the weather conditions. Justinian comes from the first divine, Justinia I, as in this month the sun shines brightest, the symbol of the Chantry.

Solis / Solace: The Tevinter term stands for Thedas’ sun, while Solace is either a bastardization of ‘Solis’ or represents a period of comfort for Thedosian citizens as harvest is bountiful.

Matrinalis / August: Matrilanis roughly translates to ‘month of the mother’. August is a derivation of ancient Tevene for ‘plenty’, which refers to the harvest. On the first day Thedosians celebrate All Soul’s Day (previously dubbed Funalis, a day which honoured Dumat).

Parvulis / Kingsway: Parvulis loosely translates into ‘month of unimportance’. Kingsway refers to the responsibility local lords had in order to secure food for their general area, as this month is generally the last month of full harvest.

Frumentum / Harvestmere: Harvestmere refers to the decline in harvest, while the name Frumentum is Tevene for ‘grain’, linking it to the last month in which grain can be produced.

Umbralis / Firstfall: Tevene for ‘month of darkness’, as days tend to get shorter. Firstfall links to the start of winter, as the first snow starts to fall down. The last Thedosian holiday of the year is at the beginning of this month, Satinalia, a name from Thedas’ second moon. In ancient Tevinter that day was attributed to Zazikel.

Cassus / Haring: Loosely translates to ‘the month of emptiness’, while Haring refers to the illusion of the quickening of time due to less daylight.

Which diminutive you use depends on a few things:

Is the noun in question referring to a person, animal, or thing?

Does the noun end in a consonant or a vowel?

1. If the noun is a person, you can only use either -ain, or -udh. 

If the noun ends in a consonant, or u, you use -udh.If the noun ends in vowel, you use -ain

2. If the noun is an animal, you can use either -ain, -udh, or -lin.

If the noun ends in a consonant, or u, you use -udh.If the noun ends in a vowel, you use -ain.-Lin can be used with everything, because gRaMmAr!

3. If the noun is a thing, you use -lin.

Following these rules, ‘baby fox’ or ‘little fox’ would be halain. Note that this would be a homonym with hallain (baby halla) as they would both be pronounced the exact same. However, given that -udh is considered ‘more feminine’ than the others, you could use haludh (halu for short) if you specifically wanted to mean a female baby fox.

Hope that helps!

dragon age zodiac

using the constellations in inquisition! i really tried to make this feel reminiscent of the cycles upon cycles u can see in real life zodiacs (this is based off just western astrology tho). some signs are pretty samesies to their western quality element equivalent, others not so much. i wanted to get creative and put different spins on the quality element combos! so here we are. descriptions of all the signs under the cut!

it also turned into a deep curiosity and appreciation related to magic. she loved watching solas practice magic, sometimes she even catches herself being distracted during a fight, sometimes it's vivienne or dorian instead. sometimes she'd ask solas about his magic with genuine interest. she liked asking questions and he liked answering them.

the anchor fuels her curiosity for some time but there's no information they can gather on it, but she does offer to be poked at by dagna in order to learn more.