His lone hand trailed down her back, following the nubs of her spine through his own clothes. If he had both his hands he would have trailed her into his lap where she belonged. With only the one he made do with simply enjoying the feeling of her as the kiss deepened.
They'd been here before. He blamed his own lack of self-control when it came to Cassandra. He needed her lips on his, their bodies pressed against each other, the sweet sounds she made when the passion took over. Only every time he had stopped himself. The voices in his head becoming too loud and insistant until he pulled away and tried to reign himself in.
Even now he felt the urge to break the kiss and come up with some excuse to leave. He couldn't use a shower as an excuse — though he was becoming very acquainted with cold showers to calm himself down — his hair was still damp from the one he'd taken before bed.
And the last time he'd done that he'd had his furious twin sister storm into his bathroom and give him a verbal bollocking.
Jasper broke the kiss only to breathe. He felt himself panting like he had just finished an intense training session. Was he really that out of practice? Maybe he was just needy. He accused Cassandra of that enough but he knew he was just as bad especially when it came to her.
"I need—" he started and then stopped himself.
He had a plan for how tonight was going to go and this was not it. Jasper knew he needed to talk to Cassandra. He needed to tell her that he had feelings for her. Properly. Not done when he was half-dead and being wheeled into surgery and she probably thought whatever pain meds he'd been given had made him lose his mind. He'd planned to talk to her when it was just them, alone and in bed where he felt like maybe he could open up his heart to her and she might not run away.
And now his own sex drive had fucked that up too.
But he absolutely didn't want her to go anywhere. "Stay. Please." Jasper Trevelyan begging, now that was something that should be noted for the history books, he thought sardonically.
Does Alistair see the Fade/Crossing roads as en elf, or as a human? Or somewhere in between?
I had to think long and hard about this one, mostly because the conclusion I've come to is that it's probably something in between. He's got those elf genes so there's no reason he shouldn't at least have some of the abilities those genetics provide. But for the sake of addressing him only being half elf - and let's be real, for the sake of making it more interesting for us as readers and roleplayers - I don't think it's exactly as an elf sees it.
I think he sees in shades of color, muted or neutral but not quite the greys that humans see it in. Which might be a little more unnerving and a good reason for him to dislike the Fade as much as he does, because it's almost normal but just uncanny enough to clearly be wrong and that's almost more uncomfortable than being an obviously different place.
It might explain why he has a hard time differentiating reality in the Fade sometimes (other than just sheer desperation), and it explains why he can't tell that he sees it differently than any elf or human. An elf tells him it looks perfectly normal - and it definitely doesn't - whereas a human comments on how unnatural it feels. So of course he thinks nothing of the fact that he and other humans are seeing something completely different because he has no reason to think so. Not unless somebody comments on the huge lack of color or how completely different everything appears, and then he might have a reason to question exactly what other people are seeing versus what he himself is in fact seeing. But the chances of that feel so low, especially at a point where he might take the comment to heart and really think about whether or not there is a difference.
I think his night vision is probably much the same. It's not strong enough that a human might comment on something and him think, "Oh, I clearly do see much better than them," outside of it just being a normal difference in vision, but it's also not so weak that he can barely see anything. He just doesn't realize the latter.
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.
send 🪵 and i'll say a positive thing about my own blog
[thousand yard stare] this is torture fjdkgh i think some of my headcanons are cool! i like reconstructing the idea of the dread wolf as an emblem of rebellion and how it's carried down to the dalish, that wolves have stayed consistently a symbol of toothy protection.
send 🌴 and i'll recommend a blog i haven't spoken to yet but admire from afar
@extravagantliar. i swear i can hear varric in my walls anytime they talk about his character. AND!! they seem very nice c:
Would Felassan shake the bed for Solas to soak with his partner?
@nekrotisch / unprompted. always accepting.
felassan is unavailable for comment. he’s too busy howling with laughter over the idea that solas might ask him to do this. not that he thinks he would, but if he did the answer is no. if he finds someone who will, can he please be there to mock him. he promises the only make fun of him a little.
Fenris is handed metal cooking tongs. Does he instinctively clap them a few times?
i can see it now: his brows raise, and he blinks a couple of times before he does, indeed, clack them together repeatedly. and then he claps them again for good measure, and he passes them right back to whoever gave them to him.
It was a question that was bound to come sooner or later. He had let his guard down, gotten too close. Of course she had to wonder. The signs were all there, one only had to pay attention. And she was smart.
It was no surprise then that she had cornered him, demanding answers.
"Cassandra," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Please believe me when I say I do not wish to deceive you. But truly, it is of utmost importance that this conversation stays between ourselves. Do you understand?"
