OCs & Fashion
Adelaide is motivated by conflicting desires when it comes to how she presents herself: a lifetime of camouflage, of blending into the background on purpose, of necessity, of wanting to be safe and keep her family safe, contrasted with a deep and abiding love of rich colors and textures and knowing she could show off, just a little and would probably be completely capable of pulling it off? There’s just a hint of self-doubt there, because of course she never has actually let herself do that. Instead she has leathers and basic raw blouses and trousers and practical boots and is both entranced by and terrified of the way her options change once they’re in Hightown, and especially once she’s Champion, and no longer has to hide, no longer can at all.
But that doesn’t mean she’s safe either. So she tends towards long trousers still, split or short skirts she can run in, long sleeves and sturdy fabric with fancy embroidery. (And if her heels are too high to run in, you can be damn sure they’re easy enough to slip off that she can stab you with them. Not that a mage needs a back up weapon very often, but it’s better safe than sorry.)
But when she does indulge? She goes all out.
In modern terms, she’d have been the first person to buy black pumps with bright red soles, suits with bright patterned interiors but very respectable cuts, and/or the cool grey jacket with a jewel-tone shell beneath it. She likes tweed, and suede, and raw silk. Mostly relatively basic separates she could mix and match. Plus the occasional splurge on very fancy shoes to balance out the rest of the mostly practical sneakers and ankle boots and low-heeled pumps. Modern Adelaide would mostly be adorable, rather than armored.
Theia adores soft fabrics, pastel colors, dresses and drapes and robes and shawls but sometimes the bodice is surprisingly low cut, or tighter than the usual style, or there’s an edge of steel hiding somewhere on the edges. (Frequently literally.) She likes to make sure she is clearly feminine, and sexual, but frequently projects an entirely false image of innocence in order to make sure that even the people who know better are likely to underestimate her.
Like, lilyxandra’s rose gown is maybe a little too on the nose, so to speak, and would need a slightly different cut to accentuate Theia’s larger size, but it does pretty much scream Theia whenever I see it.
But she is perfectly well aware of how to change her fashion to suit her circumstances and goals, and the almost violent use of it to surprise and manipulate people is something that eases, a bit, once she’s Inquisitor.
That said, one of her favorite games (even when she’s generally less prone to power plays) is meeting unexpected visitors/messengers in basically her nightgown or a flimsy robe and looking at them through bashfully lowered eyelashes, because they’re usually so busy stuttering apologies they tend to tell her more than they are supposed to about whatever brought them to her door. (Alternatively the particularly obnoxious self-important ones are so clearly either ogling her or feeling superior she can get more out of them than they mean to let slip and she can then blacklist them from ever coming to the Inquisition again. She really enjoys being powerful.)
Erana’s main goal, once she realizes she’s going to have to present herself to shem all the time, once she’s accepted the responsibility of Inquisitor, is mostly to make sure they never forget that she’s Dalish, and that they chose her to lead them despite it, and that she and her Inquisition are strong in ways they dare not ignore.
So she wears the Inquisition’s sigil, though she hates the echo of Chantry oppression that it represents. She wears bright colors and bold patterns, high-cut coats and long trousers to emphasize her height, the length of her arms and legs, her face. Never a mask or a hat to shadow her vallaslin. Basically she is on a continuous quest to be as un-Orlesian as possible and make them like it.
When she’s not being Inquisitor, she does indulge, just a little, in the fact that she can have clothing that doesn’t have to stand up to travel and fighting and camping and weather. She likes green.
