#mikhal

[ask-the-raichu]

M!A: Mikhal is transformed into a merman any time he enters water more than knee height for the rest of May. Happy Mermay~

thi5 5eem5 inconvenient at be5t.

[fellamorte]

Saw this tiktok about tattoos as a NSSI behaviour (in relation to a character in the pitt) and it was such a "OHH" moment for mikhal and his tattoos.

(putting the rest under read more just to be safe. cw general references to sh/ideation)

When i first played vg i went in w/ no real plan so the tats were just a vibes based decision. later when i thought on it + gave him custom tats I kept thinking about why he would get so many and why those tattoos. Especially because he is so particular about control. That tt made something finally click.

The period of time he gets the majority of those tattoos is in the first few years of him being stranded in Tevinter and forced into crime work. He's at his most emotionally volatile but he has no way to express that that wouldn't put him in danger.

That's where the tattooing comes in as a form of passive suicidal ideation, a way to harm himself without actively doing it. I don't think he's conscious of this behaviour. In his mind, the tattoos are a strategy to blend into society, to protect himself in Tevinter. At a glance, people see the tattoos and assume he's tal-vashoth/vashoth. But he only needed a few tattoos to do that and he has at least like. 20 tattoos. and a chunk of them aren't even visible.

There's also the element of a desire for control over his body as well as an active disassociation from it, which is a desire I think he is more conscious of/active in. There's the aspect of the Qun I find interesting about how you are not your body. In a way, Mikhal getting these tattoos is him exercising this belief in a somewhat... toxic way. The tattoos he gets are meaningless (and kinda shitty) and he lets his toxic situationship practice tattooing on him. It's like they're this permanent reminder that this body is not his. Nothing that happens to this body matters. When he looks into the mirror and sees someone he doesn't recognise its a sick kind of validation that everything has gone wrong. The life he is living is not his and therefore his actions don't matter.

He does continue to get them after leaving the thorns, one when he's with the vjs and one when he joins up w/ varric and harding. They're both very on the nose, like one is a halla, the other is a rook chess piece. He's loudly telegraphing "I'm this person now!". Both tats are very much done on a whim.

The first tattoo he gets that has any thought put into it is one he gets post-vg for lucanis/spite; two interwoven wyverns. Even still, while there is intent, it's almost ritualistic how he enters a new stage of his life and has to get a tattoo to represent it. like that tiktok says, yeah you can get the tat because you like the art and like how it looks on your body but there still is that secondary effect. The desire for control over his body and whats done to is has only doubled after finding out about solas' blood magic so whilst yeah, it is a romantic gesture, there is that aspect.

Which makes me think maybe he gets a lot more than just that tattoo post vg 💀

[fellamorte]

Share your favourite pics of your Rook

ty for the tag @rookamell 🫶🫶🫶

i have a million screenshots from this recent pt but uh top picks so far under cut

90% of the screenshots + photomode pics i have of mikhal and lucanis is goofy shit

#HisBoobs

tagging @songvs @loveydoveymerrillsabrae @bleedthebeat @thewardenisonthecase @blightedcrow and literally anyone else who sees this + wants to do it!

[fellamorte]

5 for the protagonist asks 🫶! (including rook if you want since this ask game was made before veilguards release <3)

5. Is your inquisitor jealous that both the warden and Hawke have a mabari hound?

honestly, not really LMAO. Neither ira nor mikhal are really big animal people!

Mikhal doesn't really "get" the idea of pets. He feels like keeping an animal indoors goes against their nature. Lucanis' pet snake is a bit of a novelty to him but he still finds it strange. Like it doesn't even do anything. That said, mabari he does respect as they are working dogs and in the same way he softened up to Asaan, he probably would soften up to a mabari.

The only animals Ira is used to keeping in a "domesticated" sense are halla and hawking birds, as his clan didn't keep any dogs. He liked his hart mount, Ravas, but she wasn't really a "pet" to him. He's not the biggest fan of Mabari, associating them with Ferelden humans (a mix of genuine unease but also a bit of free marches snobbery).

I did have this idea in a post-canon happy ending world where he gets some kind of "therapy" animal. That idea evolved into ira, while helping out the minrathous recovery efforts, giving food to random feral cat only for that cat to follow him home. Ira doesn't adopt her, she adopts him. I don't have a name for the cat but she's the meanest cat ever, persistently scraggly and doesn't let anyone go near her except for ira.

lazy scribble of her keeping ira company while he's dreaming :p

[fellamorte]

i don't really care about modern au beyond little jokes. that said. every time i think about modern au mikhal it just winds up being him playing video games. He runs a minecraft server like the navy + knows everything there is to know about redstone. He had to delete balatro from his steam account because he got addicted. He prefers strategy games but he will get competitive about anything, do not play mario kart with him he will find a way to cheat.

[fellamorte]

"Don't care, didn't ask, my ass is fat and my tits bounce when I walk" - Mikhal Aldwir in response to Solas, 9:52

[fellamorte]

Top 5 things Mikhal has done in the long fic (so far)

- tried to kill himself only to get distracted by a halla

- get pissy at the group of elves that healed him (bc they ruined his suicide attempt)

- disliked Varric on first impression bc he wouldn’t let him look at Bianca

- panicked about letting an abomination into the hideout, decide the best way forward is to seduce him

- jerked off in an inn bathroom only to remember Lucanis/spite has weird smell abilities, panicked, poured beer on himself to hide the smell

[fellamorte]

Thedas’s most forthcoming man