Who was your first muse? / (@aetherianxarchive / @valorcorrupt / @quiisquiliae)
i'm pretty sure i've answered a similar question at...some...point, but it was auron from ffx, and my baby ass had no business trying to write a grown ass man (this is what squeenix thought was "old" at thirty-five, y'all). this was back in the ye olden days of livejournal and greatestjournal rp, and how and why i got approached by the final fantasy house cult (if you don't know, you don't want to know, i promise) which was a ride, let me tell you.
OTP for your muse? (@intothewildsea)
outside of strife? (i'd give my eyeteeth for a strife to write with.) canon-wise, probably neve or davrin, actually. with a side of zevran, but that was based on jokes and a vibe and while it counts to me, i'm not sure it does to anyone else. neve is very much the pragmatist to his idealist, and davrin is...i mean you've seen davrin, right. you've seen him. also the single dad meetcute has a vibe, you understand. in either case, it's generally people who live exciting lives (whether they intend to or not), and by extension pull him into that chaos. so i guess when you boil it down like that, my otp for emmrich is having a life outside of his weird culty bubble.
What’s one random headcanon about your muse that people mightn’t know? (@aetherianxarchive / @archaeval)
emmrich's been snatching cuttings of native plants everywhere he's been in thedas and water propagating them in empty ink bottles. part of it is pure curiosity and they serve as a souvenir of the places he's been and the things he's seen, but partly it's academic curiosity, because the herbariums he's seen have been woefully under sourced and has toyed idly with creating his own in more depth once, you know, the whole stop the blighted gods business is taken care of.
Who is an author that inspires you? (@knifesharps)
generally, the answer is tolkien, no one's ever gonna world build quite the way he did, tho i'm forever salty we only got bits and pieces of khuzdul, could have thrown me a frickin' bone-
no, seriously, he's an influence, for sure, but my tone and the way i write changes so drastically between both my characters, what has inspired me for those tones and structure are things that are kind of...subconsciously pulled from very different places, i guess? like, for tony i lean on more...conversational, informal prose, for the most part, and i promise you that definitely comes directly from all that stephen king baby me read like it was going out of style. there's also some...philip k. dick and carl sagan in there, too.
for emmrich, it's more...purplely. you know what i mean? so things like...we have always lived in the castle, carmilla, the castle of oronto, etc etc, but also faulkner (as i lay dying in particular), welty - i do like a little touch of southern in my gothic, don't @ me - and right into cosmic horror like ambrose bierce and chambers. it's the vibe for me.
What do you look for in a rp partner? / (@valorcorrupt / @inevitableking)
my biggest green flag for other rpers are those that, yes, take their characterization seriously, but aren't pretentious about it. like, we're playing paper dolls on the internet, you have to be able to be silly (because i will not stop the dilly dallying or shenanigans and if that ain't for you we aren't going to vibe) i fully understand digging into something to build something, but at the same time, i'm not gonna be super serious about 90% of anything i say, so people who get that and can bat the ball back are my favorite. if you can't joke about your blorbo, it ain't it. i will bust this man's balls until the heat death of the universe. i'm going to invest time into the minutia of things, yeah, but i don't expect anyone else to take that shit as seriously as i do. we're here to have fun, right, so people who are having fun, i'm gonna go sit at their lunch table.
Favourite trope? (@intothewildsea / @valorcorrupt)
slams the buzzer mutual pining. with a side of mutual obsession. honestly, this is probably because i've been writing tony stark for way too goddamn long, and his and steve's mutual obsession / pining has permanently warped my brain, but there's honestly something 🤌about the it's requited, they're just idiots concept to me. or the idea of chances to say something being passing ships in the night. bonus points if the pining and navelgazing continues even after they get together.
Least favourite trope? (@intothewildsea / @valorcorrupt)
god i have so many (ask me how i feel about angst for no other purpose than the angst - bzzt wrong answer i hate it i need an emotional payoff), but for the sake of brevity and to keep it strictly emmrich-related here, i really, really am squicked by the teacher/student thing. like...by a lot. it is not for me. i also don't think it's for emmrich, which i've...talked about at some point, but i think it's a no-no for his ethical standards. he gets uncomfortable at the idea of what i literally cannot envision even being that big of an age gap (am i the only one who - unless stated otherwise - sees rook in their thirties? no?), can you imagine? how he would not handle the student thing? even a little? also the power imbalance kind of makes me uncomfortable just...overall.
Are there any AU’s you’d like to explore but haven’t had the chance to yet? (@mastcrmarksman / @inevitableking)
warden emmrich. warden emmrich. and listen, i do mean au in the loosest of senses, there's no synopsis for it or any real details, just vibes and a need, one day i'll sit down and actually flesh it out, but the bare bones (heh) of it is like...if emmrich had been an option for getting snatched (i mean, he is a mage) and got blighted. joining happens, blah blah blah, yeah he might not have to be a warden (and honestly i think he would think he's not warden material, but this ain't about what he thinks), but you know...it being a case of going from being afraid of death, to knowing you have about x amount of time left before death comes for you in the form of the calling. and what he would do about that. accept it gracefully? or start thinking doing what johanna did (and not fucking it up) looks real good.
And any of the spicy aus you haven't even mentioned ever on the dash or havent quite worked out the gory details :) come on theres gotta be some niche in there for emmrich :) (related bonus from @mastcrmarksman)
i...may have considered a starfield verse for him. nothing concrete, nothing set in stone, but i was leaning toward him being part of a group within house va'ruun. really thought heavily about some technomancy on his part (manfred being a robot, etc). but i haven't put any meat on it at all, just rotated it slowly a little.
Do you listen to music whilst writing? If so, what kind of music? (@aetherianxarchive)
yes? and no? depends on how overstimulated i am; most of the time it's, you know, fine, but there are times where if there is even the slightest noise out of place in an otherwise quiet room i feel murder enter my heart. as for what, it really depends on who i'm writing? like, if it's tony's turn to have the x-box controller, tony's workshop playlist (built from songs mentioned specifically by him in iron man comics from 1963 - present day, with some extrapolation to round it out) is my first most-reached for, since it gets me in a good headspace for him, since he's that kind of guy, that'd have an internal backtrack to his life. emmrich's a little harder, because i still haven't made a playlist for him i'm particularly pleased with entirely (i'm working on it), but i have been known to put this on repeat and just go.
Are there certain characters that you gravitate towards? (@nekrotisch / @quiisquiliae)
characters who understandably could have turned their backs on the world and gone back to their special interests and nothing but their special interest with a not my problem attitude but don't. that...seems to be the trend, because even hector barbossa falls in that range. true, in his case it was more about saving his own ass, but that man has never been asked to do something he didn't say fuck you to, just saying.
What about your muse are you most proud of? (@aetherianxarchive / @inevitableking)
i'd like to think - i don't know if i'm ultimately managing to do so, but we've got the spirit - i've done a good job fleshing both of them out a little more in things canon hints to in both cases, or that i find a grounding in canon to build that headcanon, some...throw away line that maybe didn't mean much but given what i know about them actually leads down a rabbit hole (tony having similar distichiasis as elizabeth taylor, for example, because there's a whole issue where people do nothing but talk about how beautiful his eyes are, or knowing what kind of nib emmrich probably prefers on his pens - semi-flex fine). and while i'm not proud of it, actually, my disturbing ability to name comic issue by nothing more than a crop of iron man's ass.
He accepts the letter as it's offered, between two fingers. His other hand cups his cheek where he leans against his desk, eyes on Nero rather than the paper, which gets dropped onto his desk amongst it's peers.
"Did you read it?" he asks, curious more than anything. "And don't point out the wax is intact, I'm sure you're more competent than that."
"So, what do you do here exactly?" asks the young man with the fade in his hand (officially just another Inquisition recruit, though the word circulating Haven seems convinced of him as a 'herald,' someone holy.
"I get the impression from the commander that you two know each other,"
"Right, I forgot you came from the Circle." He feels silly for forgetting, especially considering how much the experience has completely shaped their life. So much so that they even -
"Wait, really? I knew they didn't let you out, but to not have the experience…" He can't imagine not having the experience of being outside when the world is otherwise quiet, especially considering his entire childhood was spent either in the noisy side halls of a castle or in the outdoor pens with the dogs, snoring and whimpering and barking out whenever they perceived something in their dreams.
He'd never considered it an advantage before. "You…. you must truly feel out of your element out here, then. This is very much nothing like the halls of the Circle - even I know that."
Alistair offers what he hopes is a friendly smile in the dark, even though they likely can't see it. "What have you noticed the most?"
❛ &* what you said is 𝒔𝒐 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒓 of you. ❜ exasperation draws the elves brow to arch , slender arms crossing one over the other as she eyes him. ❛ do you not see yourself as different from before your encounter with that demon ? that it shook you to your core ? dealt you a great deal of trauma you'll never be able to shake enough to return to who you were previously ? ❜ her head cocks to the side. ❛ were you a spirit , i imagine you'd have had a strong chance of becoming a demon yourself. they are nothing but a soul that is deeply wounded. they do not start out that way. ❜ a dismissive gesture , then the dalish-born sighs. ❛ they are made by force. trauma. justice becomes vengeance. hope withers to despair. swallow your lack of wisdom before you choke on your pride. ❜
Cullen raises his brows in return, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips in the face of Nero's tone but he manages to keep his expression neutral.
"Prefer is a strong word..." he muses. "As flattering as I'm sure that name is, I'm required to sit in those meetings. The ogling is optional, though."
patch. help my muse patch up a wound. — @knifesharps (cybel).
❛ ah— ! ❜ the small whimpers of retort are involuntary, already succumbing to the notion that the life form in front of him is ( at least, for now ) a benefactor. it doesn't mean that the pinpricks in his thigh hurt any less, or that he isn't worried he'll have been injected with some lethal dose of a venom not yet discovered by earth.
to clear my name a little here, i couldn't have known that something as seemingly harmless as a plant had a porcupine - like defense mechanism. we have venus flytraps, and at least those look like they'll cause some damage. if the flora here didn't want to be touched, it shouldn't have looked so darn fascinating.
his unexpected saviour ( he seems to be racking up a few of those ) plucks another thorn out of his skin and he grits his teeth against it, tries talking to alleviate some of the irritation with distraction. ❛ so, i'm assuming this likely isn't fatal if you're, you know, helping to take them out. ❜ unless this is the equivalent of seasoning, an appetiser that marinates the main course before it's ready to be consumed. oh, god.
Gawain was no stranger to duty. He came from a line of kings and nobles who occupied themselves with duty and he cared deeply for the responsibilities thrust upon his shoulders. But when he looked upon Iphigenia, he couldn't help but feel that duty wasn't the most important thing in the world.
He tilted his head and chewed on the inside of his cheek, hating to see the princess so disheartened. "I think there's much outside of duty," he said eventually. "We all have our duty, but there's more to life than that."
Perhaps it wasn't his place to say so, but it was how he felt. "We have no duty to bask in the sun or to watch the waves and yet we do it anyway. Simply for the enjoyment of it." He gestured to the sea stretched out before them.
