#mathaes

Commission for @smith-hadeon of two lovely elf boys Mathaes and Fianel

Your Seduction Style: The Charmer

You're a master at intimate conversation and verbal enticement. You seduce with words, by getting people to open up to you. By establishing this deep connection quickly, people fall under your power. And then you've got them exactly where you want them!

Lately, Zayneth has been spending a lot of time with a lovely redhead named Lydianah! There were also two new Tarts he was flirting with pretty heavily, but I’m not sure they’re still around.

Tagged by @ziasilverstar.

I took this quiz with Mathaes in mind...

Your Possessiveness Is Really Uncomfortable

It's obvious to everyone around you that you feel the need to keep everything just the way you like it, and that insistence often borders on obsession. Your persistence, materialism, and sentimentality can prevent you from ever letting things go, and the more you care about them, the more stubbornly you defend your right to own them forever. Sorry to say, but there are some things, like memories and loved ones, you simply can't own, and trying to stake your claim over them just makes you seem unbalanced and creepy. It probably wouldn't hurt to quit being such a hoarder, too - none of your guests enjoy trying to find a seat in a room piled high with reminders of everything you refuse to let die.

It’s honestly...not untrue.

RATIONALITY

You like clarity and intelligent simplicity and you get frustrated at messy thinking. This can make you seem unreasonably pushy to some, but it is actually a virtue: you are motivated by a horror at pointless effort and a longing for precision and insight into how things and people work. Your ability to synthesise and bring order is essential in producing thinking which is truly helpful.

AGGRESSION

One part of your character is anger in all its forms: frustration, outrage – and when anger is suppressed – bitterness, grumpiness, and bodily aches. Fundamentally, frustration comes from hope: you get upset because you expect your life will be more than a valley of tears. One way to deny aggression is to direct it inwards, as self-criticism. But you’re at your best when you acknowledge anger, and act it out clearly and in a focussed way, with honour.

RESILIENCE

You have a tendency, after a setback, to turn your emotions towards restriving. What attracts you is the idea of wiping out a humiliation by resumed action – overcoming weakness, repressing your fear. Because part of your motive is pride, you can sometimes be unwilling to admit weakness or to receive aid. But at heart, tour insistence on coming back and never folding has taught you a valuable pessimism: you know that important journeys are never easy.

((Boy, did they ever nail Mathaes in this quiz...))

Tagged by @saeil-moonblade

Tagging @perfume-and-parchment

Dear readers, if you find this character interesting, Mathaes has his own blog at @steelandash!

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

AGE:

Adult. Approximately 280 years old? Elven aging is a complete mess; I do not stick to hard and fast numbers. What works for me is wrong to others, et cetera.

HOW OLD HE APPEARS:

He looks like a man in his mid-to-late thirties and will continue to look that age for a few more centuries. He has aged slightly beyond what his years should be due to stress, but he is remarkably healthy despite the stress.

WEIGHT:

Around 172 lbs.

BODY BUILD:

At 6′3″, he’s not above average to tall for his race.

Broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, with brawny arms and powerful legs.

This is a man who fought many, many battles in full plate armor while carrying a kite shield; he’s strong, though a few years of soft-living have marginally reduced the appearance of his muscles. He still runs four times a week and works his arms and legs with weights three times a week. It’s less about keeping fit and more about the workout being an old habit by now.

SHAPE OF HIS FACE:

Best described as a rectangle with a pointy end rather than an oval. His brow is broad and strong, eyes slightly sunken and perpetually tired. His cheekbones are wide and jaw also wide, but his chin narrows more than enough to take the ‘crag’ off his jawline.

His lips are markedly thin.

His nose is almost classically arrow-shaped when approached from the front, with a faintly down-turned point and a strong slope.

Sometimes he shaves, sometimes he doesn’t. It often depends on how grouchy he’s feeling (prickly inside, prickly outside).

EYE COLOUR:

Fel green, but if one believes elves can have an eye color on their own beneath the green, his eyes would be storm grey.

GLASSES OR CONTACTS:

He wears thin-rimmed gold-wire glasses with a rounded rectangular shape for reading sometimes. He’s only very recently begun to need them.

SKIN TONE:

Sun-loved brown. He’s clearly been in the sun a great deal for many years and though unblemished, his skin bears the rich gold brown of a middling to dark tan.

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES:

Though his body is largely scarless for the sheer number of wounds he’s borne, his shoulders and the outsides of his forearms bear a fine tracery of white slash marks; they’re defensive scars from hundreds of cuts being healed hundreds of times and the skin eventually giving up and scarring despite the best magical healing Quel’Thalas throws at its soldiers.

Several very small, recent scars mar his fingers from things like slipped screwdrivers and pinched gears.

He has no tattoos and only one piercing per earlobe.

Though many people seem to write elves as having some difficulty growing the amount of hair humans do, Mathaes does have a fine dusting of chest hair and leg hair. Some say it’s human genetics diluting the bloodline, but his bloodline traces easily back to the Highborne; he’s just fuzzy.

PREDOMINANT FEATURES:

His thin lips.

Perpetually tired eyes.

He favors a cologne of faint citrus-lime and exotic soft woods. It’s a custom blend made just for him (with his input) and he’s worn it as a signature scent since his coming of age.

HAIR COLOUR:

Mat’s hair is a warm, rich auburn, closer to the brown side of the spectrum than red, but still very obviously red-tinted.

TYPE OF HAIR:

His hair is thick and slightly wavy with no layers.

HAIRSTYLE:

His hair falls to just above the tips of his shoulder blades when it’s loose.

He often wears it tied back in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck, tied with some random scrap of wire or thread he came across. Uncommonly, he’ll tie it back with a leather thong.

When he’s being fancy, he wears the top portion of his hair in a ponytail at the back of his head and the lower portion down across the back of his neck. Often he’ll adorn his hair with little gold beads as a sign of wealth and class. (I have a headcanon that hair decoration is an elven sign of stature.)

VOICE:

As a writer, I am very, very much not an audio-driven person. I almost never have a voice claim or ‘sounds like’ in my head when I write a character. Ironically, when I went looking for a voice that’d work, I looked at one of the two ‘face claims’ I use for him - Ralph Fiennes. (The other ‘face’ I use for him is pictured above, Frank Grillo.) And honestly? That’s what Mathaes sounds like in my head. A baritone? Whatever Ralph Fiennes sounds like. That’s him.

He sounds like this. (Ralph Fiennes interview)

OVERALL ATTRACTIVENESS:

He’s handsome if you like ‘em a little tired. He’s not unattractive, but neither is he making ladies swoon in the streets. It takes someone who likes a little weather on a face.

PHYSICAL DISABILITIES:

His right hand has a fine tremor at times due to an old nerve injury. When it flares, the tremble can be noticeable.

He has severe PTSD, flashbacks, and depression, which often manifests as night terrors, sleep-walking, and difficulty recognizing reality during an episode.

USUAL FASHION:

He tends towards button-up shirts with the sleeves rolled up.

He either wears crisp slacks...or rumpled and rough-looking cargo pants; it depends on if he’s working or not.

He does have a favored leather jacket for the cooler months on his motorcycle.

When he’s out to dress to the nines, he is very fond of waistcoats and suit jackets.

FAVOURITE OUTFIT:

An excerpt from RP in which I wrote his favorite outfit: “The warrior left his auburn hair loose but for two braids near his temples pulling wisps away from his face. Three tasteful little cuffed beads of gold filigree adorned each braid, an upper-class nobleman's nod to understated wealth. Though it was the fashion to favor red and gold - as a patriot of the nation - the red had never really looked all that good on him, so Mat exchanged red for a deep, rich brown and kept the gold accents. A faint gleam of enchanted thread formed a subtle golden pattern in his brown waistcoat, turning it to bronze when he moved. Simple cuff-links held the cuffs of his fine, palest yellow linen shirt and beneath the table, his knees spread wide in chocolate suede breeches that fit close enough to be more properly considered riding pants. Of course, concealed in his calf-high boot was both a wand and a fencing poniard, but it was rude to make that known.”

JEWELRY AND ACCESSORIES:

Though he rarely wears jewelry, he’s always sporting a wristwatch; he owns several of varying design and favors one with an engraved gold casing.

He also wears a gold signet ring on his left pinkie finger once in a while - mostly when he’s making a point about being Lord Silverdew and not Mathaes the mechanic.