This is going to be a lot skewed because I wrote a novel as well... At the very least, I think it's probably somewhere around 240k? Give or take?
At least 100k just on AO3!
3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?
Specifically AO3 - it's kind of a huge toss up. Am I proud of the fic that has currently 95k and on going? Am I most proud of my most recent one because it shows most of my growth as writer?
Or am I proud of the one that is in a niche fandom but has some pretty great worldbuilding that I had a lot of fun with?
I think I'll go with "The Thread of Fate Says We Will Meet Again" that I am working on with @kingdomofbrokenhearts. We have such big plans for the fic that we've worked on together, and I think I am really proud of what we've come up with so far!
The base idea is all hers, but I like to think I've helped out a little!
29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?
Ahhhh... this is always so difficult. Hmmmm...
The papers sat, mocking him. His eyes felt dry. He blinked several times, hand poised and brush prepared. Words jumbled before him. What was some sort of report now read as well some of his junior disciple’s essays. He grit his teeth and forced himself to sit up, gripping the paper tight in hand, as he lifted it up to read it.
Those were certainly words.
I enjoy when I can make others laugh with my work, and this was one that seemed to tickle quite a few people.
☼ - DAYSTAR - a secret they don’t want coming to light
Augustine bristled, eyes round and wide beneath his glasses. A question directed at him; it was something he’d not been expecting. He forced the melancholy from his smile. Allowed it to grow until it was more teeth than eyes as he chittered a laugh. All the while, he kept massaging his left wrist. The rain often made his hand feel dead. “I-it wouldn’t be much of a secret i-if I told you, now would it?”
Another breath of laughter and then the young alchemist fell quiet. He crossed his arms over his stomach as he stepped out of Max’s shadow and stood before the fireplace. His back was turned to the guest, features limned in hearth’s glow, when he spoke again.
“There is a fundamental law that governs alchemy. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It is a rather simple concept. To obtain, you must give in equal measure. As above, so below.”
Augustine lifted his left hand. Fingers splayed, he tugged the black glove off. The skin was vermillion and glossy. These fresh scars coiled around each digit and trailed along his forearm. A momentary flash of pain written in his brow told of how recently he’d been burned. He cast his thread-bare smile over his shoulders, “You see, you cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. This, I learned during our business in Boralus” - there was that phrase again.
The black glove found its way back onto his hand, concealing his ugly, little truth.
“ I am reminded of the price I paid for my sister’s life. And if given the choice, I’d take another life in exchange for hers…”
Get ready for like... three of these. ☼ - DAYSTAR - a secret they don’t want coming to light - for Jax?
THANK you for the three of these.
Jax has secrets at different points in his life.
When he’s first captured, the secret is his ADHD. He finds himself with a high tolerance for the drugs the Teacher uses, and it helps him hold his own for longer than he was meant to.
With Savvie the first time, it’s himself. Under the surface of 392 that takes over, Jax is watching and waiting for moments alone and chances to escape and ways to manipulate Savvie into helping him.
After she goes to jail, the secret is his research. Dead of night, anxiety-driven research binges about lock-picking and navigating and the area she lives in, handcuffs and shock collars and household sources of poison.
And then when he goes back... He allows himself one secret, just one, and it’s the shard of glass buried in the plant pot in the sunroom, and the deepening line down the back of his collar under his hair.
the idea for monstrous came to me one afternoon about a year ago when i was laughing at myself for my weakness for fictional villains. i think i was texting a friend? anyway i said i think i’m cursed to fall in love with villains and just… suddenly i had to write that down and then this happened
12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?
...........................................................gurl. HOW DARE YOU. um. at least two more series for maintenance, the apothecary mystery, the GPS soulmate au, that bunny oneshot... i think that's it? oops.....
17. Your favorite character to write this year?
I have actually really surprised myself and have really enjoyed writing for my cranky boys. Between LQG and SQQ, though, I will have to say SQQ pulls out on top. There's something so fun about making complex assholes, you know?
I don't think I know about the OCs you've tagged! So I'm going to do random asks for each! Fizz: 15, 16, 17 Tez: 29, 35, 80 Cyrlen: 20, 36, 50 and Eris: 10, 39, 75? Can I also ask ones for OCs of yours that weren't tagged?
Thank you so much for these asks!
Fizz and Tez and Eris are all from my current WIPs of novels. Cyrlen is from Dragon Age: Inquisition. Thank you so much for taking interest in them!
Also, funny enough, a lot of your questions hit close to spoilers or important character development. It was really fun either hinting at these, or writing them out!
And of COURSE you can ask questions about any OC :D I just didn’t want to flood my tags with too many names.
Fizz
15. What was something their parents taught them?
The one thing that his parents taught him was to ignore responsibility and have fun. His parents loved their parties, loved letting loose, and encouraged Fizz to enjoy every second of life. He unfortunately has sort of chosen to ignore this in his later life and is a bit of a downer.
Everything else Fizz had to fight to learn, and he learned it on his own.
16. Are they religious?
Funny enough, there aren't necessarily any religions in this novel. No gods. But! There are a lot of myths and ideas of interconnecting worlds. And he does believe in those - along with ghosts and psychics and etc.
17. Where were they born?
This is actually really funny because this is minor spoiler territory for the novel. I can't answer this! But I can let you know that throughout the years he's traveled wide and far, and has a new story about his childhood every time someone asks.
Tez
29. How would they describe their own personality?
I think this would be best if I wrote this like an interview;
"Uh, I don't know! I tend to think I'm pretty easy going! I like to bring others up and I think it's pretty hard to get me down. Though a lot of people might say my enthusiasm is a bit annoying..."
He's a happy-go-lucky sorta guy. Lots of smiles and laughter with this one.
35. What is the easiest way to annoy them?
Honestly, it's really hard to annoy Tez. He'd get hurt before you annoy him. And if you did manage to annoy him, you've probably just pissed him off. You would have to be a really, really crappy person to make Tez annoyed.
I'd say the person he gets annoyed with the most is himself.
80. Are they a morning person or a night owl?
Tez is one of those annoying people that always seem like they're up bright and happy at any hour. But due to some secret ailments, he usually doesn't sleep well or sleep at all. So, when he does sleep, it's usually a hard crash of 12-15 hours or so for a day, then he's good for the month.
Cyrlen
20. Do they have any titles? How did they earn them?
Uhhh, “The First”, “The Herald of Andraste”, “the Inquisitor” - titles he never wanted, all sort of necessary because of how things fell into place. But there are titles like “Ser Lordybloomers” “Lord Too-Tight-of-Breeches”, or “brother”, or “my love” that he’s earned. And he keeps all of those very close to his heart.
36. What is their sense of humor like? Give an example of a joke they would find humorous.
Dry humor is where Cyrlen’s niche is. He likes quips and banter - inappropriate jokes just mostly make him embarrassed. He will drop a pun time to time just to make people groan. Though because Cyrlen is extremely hard to read, his heavy sarcasm is often missed.
--
“Boss, you fell.” The Iron Bull lifted Cyrlen up with little to no issue. Cyrlen suspected that the man mostly flexed to show off his muscle, not so much because of the strain.
“Oh? Is that what happened?” Cyrlen said as dryly as he could, despite the heat rising to his cheeks. “I thought that the river was trying to eat me.”
Sera snickered behind him.
50. How would you describe their style of clothing? How would they describe their style of clothing?
Left to his own devices, one could best describe Cyrlen’s garb as “casual” if they’re kind. Though, after becoming somewhat of a notable figure, Cyrlen started to care a bit more about his fashion. Especially because he was trying to impress a certain mustached man.
He would define his clothes as practical, but elegant. Though, he does love to wear tight pants.
Eris
10. What are some of their talents/skills?
This is a difficult question to answer without diving into the lore of the book, so I’ll say it lightly; Eris is equivalent to a wizard or a mage, and he knows his magic very well. But unfortunately, that’s about all Eris really knows.
Oh! I guess I could also say, Eris knows a great portion of the world like the back of his hand. He is a living map. You would never get lost if you traveled with him.
(I’m laughing at the idea of Eris being a living GPS)
39. What does their happily ever after look like?
Diving into the full of this would be more spoilers! So, again, lightly, Eris’ happy ending is the simplest ending of all. All he wants to be is in love, and remembered and loved by the one he loves. Simple, really.
But his story borderlines a tragedy.
75. If given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?
That depends - is there a likelihood someone will see this? Where is this paper? Who left it?
In Eris’ life, if someone hands an item to him and walks away, they’re not likely to remember him at all. So, usually he would just doodle something silly or write something mischievously cryptic and walk away.
The fun thing with Eris is that even if someone watched him doodle silly things on a paper, as soon as Eris left, they wouldn’t remember who doodled it at all.
This makes me so happy to bring up Cyrlen again :D Dusting off the poor boy.
9. What is their favorite color? Favorite animal?
Cyrlen's favorite color is gold! He likes accenting himself with it, and also thinks that it looks really good on Dorian. His favorite animal is a horse! (If you remember my fic you know I'm kidding. He actually doesn't necessarily have a favorite animal, but he admires birds the most for their freedom.)
10. What are some of their talents/skills?
There's a lot of knowledge stored up in Cyrlen's head. He's a major nerd on a whole lot of different facets of knowledge. Something that also doesn't come up a lot is that Cyrlen is a really good cook. He doesn't cook much because he doesn't eat much when he's stressed. It's hard to be inspired when you're not hungry.
Oh! He's also a relatively good dancer. But he usually will not dance outside of practices with the Dalish or on any other occasion except for when he's alone.
16. Are they religious?
Surprisingly, despite being the First, he's not religious. Not that he necessarily doesn't believe in the gods - he just doesn't believe they need worship. He finds all religious text fascinating, and loves learning about it. But he doesn't worship them.
The reason why is definitely related to some trauma.
25. What is their biggest flaw?
I could be boring and say it's him caring about others too much that he puts himself in too much danger, but I think when it comes down to it, Cyrlen's biggest flaw is that he's selfish. He doesn't even really like other people and doesn't usually try to get to know them or understand them.
He definitely likes to keep to himself - but through Inquisition he is sort of forced to get to know and understand others, which definitely helps break him out of his shell.
He's definitely a know-it-all. Maeron would definitely agree.
35. What is the easiest way to annoy them?
Cutting remarks about elves, saying his name wrong, talking down to him - it's pretty easy to annoy Cyrlen. Maeron could think of thousands of ways to annoy his brother. It definitely depends on who you are. If you're a stranger - ignoring Cyrlen and talking over him will definitely get you on his bad side.
If you're someone like Dorian and you get annoyed at something and take it out on Cyrlen? He's going to give it right back. Most times, though, if you're close enough to get Cyrlen annoyed and see his face scrunch up with it, then it means he loves you.
37. How easy is it for them to say “I love you”? Do they say it without meaning it?
It's extremely difficult for Cyrlen to utter those words. Before Maeron came into his life, he didn't love anyone or anything. And even then, before Inquisition, he didn't think he'd ever love anyone outside of his brother.
Cyrlen says "I love you" in a thousand ways without saying it - taking care of others, cooking meals, etc. But saying those words are very, very difficult for him. He'd never say it unless he meant it with every fiber of himself.
54. What is their current hairstyle? What have been some of their past hairstyles? Which was their favorite hairstyle?
This one is really fun! Cyrlen has thick, wiry hair. At the beginning of Inquisition, it's close and well kept to his head (because Maeron cuts it for him.) But as Inquisition goes on, it kind of gets away from him a bit. Near the end, he's grown it out and put it into long, elegant braids. His favorite style is his current style because he loves being doted on and loves people playing with his hair.
Thanks to @midgemsx for helping me out to answer this last question!
