#zythepsary

[wrizard]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

HULLO MY DARLING MY ANGEL!!! THANK YOU OH MY GOODNESS <3 <3 <3

okay after some Consideration: here are my top five fics, aka ones i think are the best as a reader and also the most satisfying as a writer!! if you haven't read my stuff, these are a good cross section of The Themes And Vibe I Tend Toward. (i also write Nice things, but i don't find them as satisfying to work on or to read!!)

that said: oh my GOD mind the tags.

NOW, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, I IMPLORE YOU TO TAKE A CHANCE ON:

all of these drink blood

Hadesgame, Greek Myth and Legend Ares/Aphrodite, Ares/Dionysus; Past Zeus/Ares, Current Zeus/Zagreus, assorted others 77k, 9/9 chapters (complete), rated E ‼️Non-con, Graphic Violence

“Pops pulled a bit of a heist, last night. Went downstairs for a tick. Brought home a new cupbearer." Dionysus takes a deep draught of wine, then laughs, raspy and intent. “He’s carried off our sweet little cousin.” Ares huffs. “Which of Poseidon’s thousand bloody offspring must we bear the company of this time, then?” “Oh, no, man, not Poseidon’s — think lower. Much lower.” Zeus has taken Zagreus for his new cupbearer. Ares, subject to Zeus' attentions for centuries, is left out in the cold. But Zagreus isn't the only one at risk — and his loss may put Olympus on the brink of war.

MY MAGNUM OPUS!!!! taking a scalpel to The Dynamic -- a family of gods under control of an abusive Patriarch fumbles to reconcile their love, their pain, and their survival; meanwhile a Visibly Weird Guy with a bizarre sense of self due to centuries of grooming is just doing his best to save his cousin from the clutches of their father. also if they don't save him THE WORLD WILL END. YEAAHHHH!!! Totally readable to those who don't know the game; also there are Loads of Lore Bonuses for those who like those sorts of things <3

the naming of israel hands

Our Flag Means Death Edward Teach/Izzy Hands 40k, 5/5 chapters (complete), rated E ‼️Graphic Violence, Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

"Off the starboard bow, the fog parts, and a sleek, smooth ship slips into view, easy as a panther before a fat, helpless sheep. Atop the mainmast flies a strange, horrible flag — two daggers stacked above a grinning skull, laid a field of mourning-black. Sound falls away. Only the pounding of Israel’s heart and the creak of the rail under his white-knuckled grip remain. Pirates." When Israel Stockard's ship is raided, he catches the eye of a strange, brilliant young pirate named Edward Drummond -- and finds himself stumbling face-first into a new world of violence and intrigue.

A gritty pirate thriller full of sex and violence and the power of claiming your own identity in the face of losing everything you've ever known. If you like Boat Media and damaged dudes trying to survive while also falling hard for one another in terrible circumstances: This One's For You!!!

we ate the birds

The Iliad, Greek Myth and Legend Patroclus/Ajax the Greater, Patroclus/Achilles 11.7k, complete, rated E ‼️Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Handsome isn’t quite the word for Ajax; he’s too strong, too solid for it. Too loud and large and warm. He carries his family’s cheekbones, though, the same ones borne by Achilles, and the same thick, curled lashes. With the right wife, he would bear beautiful daughters, and handsome sons, skilled and strong as the children of kings ought to be. Idly, Patroclus imagines the grip of those great hands around his waist. If he did not have Achilles… But he doesn’t. Not really. The cold-hearted creature in his tent is far from the noble man who called to his soul, even in childhood. The Achilles he cleaved himself to, the one he would never betray – that man is gone. And Ajax’s eyes shine so dangerously in the firelight.

this is one of my absolute favourite pieces i've written point blank. an exploration of betrayal, sex, wanting, guilt, and the day-to-day life of a decade in a camp full of human beings who AREN'T demigods. also dramatic irony. can't forget the dramatic irony :)

sparagmos

Our Flag Means Death, Greek Myth & Legend, Hadesgame "Calico" Jack Rackham/Dionysus 3.7k, complete, rated E ‼️ Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Violence

Flesh and blood and bone, wine and breath and being fucking alive: that’s the real God. That's the God that follows Calico Jack Rackham.

CJ RACKHAM: A FAVOURITE OF A GOD HE'S NEVER HEARD OF IN ANY REPUTABLE CHURCH -- A GOD OF SURVIVAL AND BLOOD AND FUCKING AND WINE AND PLEASURE, WHO PULLS HIM FROM THE ASHES OF HIMSELF TO REJOICE IN THE GLORY OF THE FLESH!!!! a backstory and an explanation of the world's most emotionally stunted frat boy cowboy pirate, from rat's blood to wine to seawater to the blood of men. i LOVE the structure and style of this as much as i loved writing it.

a monologue for two faces

Our Flag Means Death Lucius Spriggs & Izzy Hands, Lucius/Pete 4.5k, complete, rated M ‼️Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

An empty stage. Remnants of life: a net in one corner, floorboards pitted, dark stains spattered over the wall, a sketchbook propped up against the wall. Or not. Maybe it’s just empty. A YOUNG MAN enters. Uncomfortable. He takes a trinket from his pocket – a wooden shark toy – and places it down. The position is wrong; he fixes it. Fixes it again. Curses. He’s tried too many times; it will never be right. He crosses to the wall, curls up against it. Breathes. Counts to ten, uncurls deliberately; a breathing exercise. Shakes out his hands. YOUNG MAN: This is so fucking stupid. Or: the man who used to be Lucius Spriggs mourns.

so when i watched ofmd s2 i had... complicated feelings about it, and this piece leapt from my hands as a way to explore specifically what the fuck happened with lucius and the wedding and the funeral. it gets heavy but it's scraped up from the bottom of my heart, and i love it very, very much. also it was nice to go back to script format (my background is in theatre)!! a story about grief, love, and piecing yourself back together after you fall apart. xo

❤️❤️❤️ if you read this far i love you and also i hope you enjoy!!!

[thali-lemmonpie]

To Make Dreams Truths

Connor is kidnapped. With RK-900's help, Hank struggles to find him.

Read the fic here

----

My part of the HankCon Big Bang 2018, I really loved to work on this and with @zythepsary 

[homsantoft]

dragon age, 46: share a scene of a story that you haven’t published yet

Ok, here’s my favourite unpublished scene, from the doc titled “bull vs feelings” - I’ve talked about it before, but it’s the one where Dorian and Bull hook up as friends with benefits in the wake of Bull/Inquisitor failing. I’m sure nothing could possibly go wrong with this arrangement.

.

It was just after the fifth bell when Inquisitor Cadash came to find Dorian—for what purpose he would never know. She found him where he was accustomed to sit in the library, watching the dust motes shimmer in the sun above the pages of his book.

Under his clothes, scratches stretched in aching lines across his skin, intimate and lingering as kisses. It had been three times—twice more than Dorian had intended, and immeasurably fewer than he might wish. Good sex was not to be sniffed at. There would be a fourth, almost certainly; a fifth, probably.

"You seem busy," Cadash said, perfunctory as a secretary. Tired, though; and why wouldn't she be tired? "Deep in thought? I can come back."

Dorian stared at his hand where it lay flat on the page, partially obscuring the twisting lines of glyphs. The dark lake of a bruise above the fourth and fifth metacarpals where, careless in the heat of the moment, his hand had caught on the frame of the bed. A stifled groan. Breathless laughter.

He twitched his hand away from the page; shut the book one-handed so that the snap of it startled the ravens on the floor above into rustling, shuffling motion.

An assistant in another alcove coughed.

Anxiety pooled in Dorian's lungs.

"Certainly not," Dorian said. "I was hoping to speak with you, in fact. About the Bull."

"Oh, really," Cadash said. "Pretty sure I've had more than enough talks about the Bull, actually. Most of them from people I like better than you."

Blackwall, tactless and well-meaning. Sera, who could make Cadash laugh. Cassandra, presumably, although Andraste alone knew how awkward that would have been. Of every mage in the stronghold, only Vivienne might be ranked among the Inquisitor's truly close friends. And of course, Vivienne was also Bull's.

Dorian shrugged. "Perhaps one day you'll come to see how charming my personality is. But not, I fear, today. And still: I do need to speak with you."

She waved her hand sharply, like swatting at an overly familiar fly. Assent. Turned with a quick jerk of her head towards the still half-ruined rooms above the gardens.

The summer air was mild; the room she chose filled with trailing vines, cascading down from the corner where the roof had given way. Cadash, with her arms crossed, leaned against the wall; a figure from some myth, a weathered statue, wreathed in living green sunlight. Her red hair gleamed. What was she afraid of, this woman? There was something. Something secret and dark, held close as a lover. Closer.

Dorian stilled his restless hands; turned his face towards the sun for a moment as though he could draw strength from it.

"I would not generally consider my personal affairs anyone else's concern," he said, "but things being as they are, I feel I must tell you—"

"You're fucking him," Cadash said.

"Crudely put." Anxiety, anxiety, filling him until he could choke on it.

Cadash's mouth twisted, her lips pressed thin. "If you're trying to say it's more romantic than that—"

The Bull's hands clawing at the sheets on either side of Dorian's head, his breath coming in grunts. Dorian's foot kicking at the Bull's arse, come on, you can do better than that—I should just find a toy and fuck myself if that's all you've got—make you watch—

"It's not," Dorian said.

"Then you're right," Cadash said. "It's none of my damn business. I assume you weren't doing this while he and I were involved."

"I may not be a very good person," Dorian said, "but the Bull is. We're friends. This is simply an—arrangement. A recent one. But as it seems likely to continue, I thought I ought to let you know rather than sneak around in the dark like a petty thief. I respect you, for all our differences. And I'm not ashamed."

Cadash flinched, shoulders tightening. Her right hand closed convulsively on her left sleeve, green spilling between her fingers.

"Fuck whoever you like," she said.

"You're the one he's in love with," Dorian said. "You could snap your fingers and he'd go right back to you. I wouldn't stop him."

"Don't talk about what you don't understand," Cadash said, with considerable bitterness. "You've said your piece. Carry on with him. I mean it. Fuck knows he needs a project. Now go and do something useful."

[junemermaid]

dragon age, 24: favorite scene you’ve ever written

This is a totally unfair question because a) I have slightly conflicted feelings about my writing at the best of times and b) yet I have plenty of scenes I’m quite happy with!

Here’s one that makes the top 5 though, from the city joins us with hands of grace, with Bull and Dorian at supper. It’s got good flow, a nice emotional progression, and some pretty prose.

Bull chuckles, mutters something sardonic about delicate palates, and ponders as they eat. About Dorian, about where the evening's taken them so far, and about fragments and shadows, slices of the left and the loved.

"Why this?" he finally asks, over the second set of pretty, bite-sized food in the same colourful bowls. They've eaten in mellow silence. The sunset over the old city has come and gone in the meantime, until the light faded to the glow of the candles on the table.

"This?" That lone word intimates Dorian understands that the topic's shifted from the scarce remarks over the food. The food's damn great. Bull might've held his tongue and enjoyed that. "Oh, this. The conflicted nostalgia."

Well. It's not like Bull ever told Dorian where he strayed the previous night. They can still, after all these years, cross paths in the most abrupt of ways.

Dorian uncrosses his ankles. "Because this is the best part."

The pause is for effect and for something more. Bull fills Dorian's empty goblet, foregoing the water at Dorian's absent-minded gesture.

"I talk about Tevinter a great deal these days. I miss Mae, and my mother, and a few others. But all I talk about are the problems, and how to solve them."

In the fickle way of memory, Bull drifts back to cracking open one of the spice seller's boxes and stifling a gasp at the honeyed waft of dried whiteflower and unfermented tea. On Seheron, Vasaad used to go to the tea pickers and the herbalists and make his own blends; he'd tuck a cloth bag into his belt when the call came and find a pot for brewing when the first lull fell.

"I wanted..." Dorian stirs the wine in the goblet, dark ripples lapping against the rim. "I wanted to remember some of the better things. And share them with you. Was that flagrantly selfish of me?"

Bull was raised with one dominant theme: if the basra are the ignorant waiting for the Qun, then Tevinter is the enemy standing in the way of that illumination. My dear Bull, Vivienne remarked to him once, in a benevolent sort of mood, Perhaps you need only to look at your choice of companions to be sure of where you stand.

He'll never be fond of the Imperium, but it sent Krem tumbling his way. It gave him Dorian, who chose to stay.

He raises his half-full goblet and clinks it against Dorian's. "Here's to the best part."

[adoribullmb]

Come Forth Into the Storm

Author name: zythepsary

Artist(s) name: hyliari

Story Title: Come Forth Into the Storm

Link to story: AO3

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Casual sex, drinking, voyeurisim, threesome

Story summary: “I could bed half the men in this castle.“ A joke turns into a friendly wager between Dorian and the Iron Bull.

Link to art: Tumblr

Rating: SFW

[orenroran]

adoribull minibang illustrations for @zythepsary‘s Come Forth Into the Storm 

this story was such an absolute pleasure to draw for !!! it’s such a great read !!! the emotions in it are SO good !! so intense !! my emotions had such an amazing ride going through this !!!! the building tension and relationship between Doriand and Bull is WONDERFUL !!!! the writing style is marvelous !!!!!! i LOVE !!!

[justjasper]

what setting(s) are you most comfortable writing? and are there any that you haven't explored, but you'd like to one day?

For Dragon Age, it’s canon setting all the way. I do have a modern idea I’m working on, but I am must more at home in the canon era.

If we’re talking settings like places... I like very contained scenes more than anything else. Bull’s room, for example, is my default place I use when exploring an idea for them.

[anadoribullholiday]

For: @zythepsary Prompt: Resting (and/or celebrating) after a dragon battle. From: @damnyoualex

Dorian wakes stiffer and sorer than he's been before in his life. For a moment he wonders what happened to get him in such a shape, but as he slowly blinks his eyes open and stares up at the shadowed canvas roof of a tent and the events of the previous day return to him.

With Corypheus dead, the Inquisitor had finally been able to divert inquisition resources towards rebuilding Judicael's crossing and had decided to examine the ruins beyond, a process that had involved taking down not one, not two, but three dragons – without any of their usual pauses for recuperation between battles. A worthy cause no doubt, both because dragons were a menace and because their parts would sell at a high price, necessary now because the lack of any immediate threat meant that donations to the Inquisition were dropping away. But being worthwhile didn’t change the fact that the battles had been strenuous, particularly the third in which Dorian's well-honed fire spells had been useless. By the end Dorian had wanted nothing more than to be transported back to Skyhold and a rest up in a proper bed, but Bull had been ecstatic and desperate to celebrate such a phenomenal conquest and despite his reservations Dorian had found it hard to resist being swept up in Bull's enthusiasm.

It had been a glorious evening to honour a glorious kill.

Now though, Dorian is remembering that he is not as young as he once was. When he moves he can feel an ache in his back that radiates through him with every shift of muscle and at some point during the night his blankets have ended up half tangled, half tossed across the test - it's too damn cold to go with without them but he’s not sure he can muster the strength to fetch them back. He presses his arms against the bedroll pushing himself up as far as his elbows before giving up and flopping back down with a groan. Conjuring fire in a tent is too dangerous, Dorian’s control is good but such spells can get out of hand so easily and if the walls of the tent catch alight, he’ll have an ignoble end. Instead, he's going to freeze to death. Wonderful.

As if summoned by his irritation, the tent flap slips sideways as Bull nudges his head inside, horns first. "You up?" he asks.

"No."

Dorian feels he does a pretty job of conveying with that one word how far he is from up and how unlikely that situation is to change any time soon.

Bull chuckles. Infuriating man.

He ducks back out of the tent and Dorian huffs discontentedly. If he'd been a little smarter he would have asked Bull to at least shuffle the blankets back towards Dorian before departing, so as to prevent his imminent demise.

A few moments later through, the tent flap moves again and this time Bull enters fully, carrying with him a dish piled high with fruits and nuts and the strange hard traveling cheese that the Inquisitor favours so much.

"Worn out from yesterday?" Bull asks, and even manages to keep mostly from smirking. "Hell, three dragons were a lot, even for me."

Dorian nods. "I'm exhausted," he pauses, and then throws a wistful glance in the direction of the blankets. "And it's cold."

Bull grins, "Y'know what'll warm you up?" he says.

Dorian supposes it was too much to hope that Bull would be sympathetic for long, and twitches his fingers threateningly. "If you're about to suggest any sort of vigorous activity..." he says. He won’t conjure fire in the tent but there’s plenty he can do to make his displeasure clear to Bull without putting either of them in danger.

Bull just laughs. "Sit up," he says and Dorian makes a grudging second attempt, levering himself as far as his elbows.

Bull raises and eyebrow and Dorian raises both of his right back. "I am tired," he explains emphatically.

Placing the plate on the ground, Bull lifts Dorian's torso a little higher and slips in behind him, settling his legs on either side of Dorian and letting Dorian lay back to rest his head against the generous expanse of Bull's stomach. Dorian tried resting his head against Bull's chest before, but for all Krem's quips about pillowy man bosoms, Bull's pectoral muscles are too well toned to make for good cushions. This, though, is good. Bull puts out heat like a hearth and seems also entirely unaffected by even the grimmest weather. It makes no sense for somebody who's come from climes even more northern than Dorian, but he won't question his blessings. Bull's thick thighs heat him on each side where they’re pressed against Dorian and he can feel the tension ease out of his muscles as he sinks into Bull’s embrace. Bull’s hand cards gently through his hair and despite his aches Dorian presses upwards into the touch, causing Bull to murmur, "Look at you purring like some pampered pet,” pausing before adding, “Like an Orlesian lap nug."

Dorian swats at him and he can feel the rumble of Bull's responding laugh as the man says, "Okay, not a nug, what else do they have?"

Rabbits and peacocks, Dorian thinks, which are hardly much more flattering comparisons. In Tevinter the trend was for snakes and exotic birds, and of course Fereldans were even faithful to their hounds. With nothing better to offer he grumbles, "I am simply worn out by the company of a ridiculous oaf who thinks that dragon fights ought to be followed up with outlandish acrobatics."

"You weren't complaining about any of those acrobatics last night," Bull teases, and he's right. Even now, Dorian can't muster any sort of significant annoyance, he aches but it's a well-earned one, and if that ache gets him here then it's well worth the effort.

Bull hand slips out of Dorian’s hair and towards his neck, broad thumbs working slowly at the knots of tension found there as Bull hums some unfamiliar tune.

Dorian’s eyes slip shut, blocking out the dimly lit tent in favour of focusing on Bull’s careful soothing touches as the man chases away his aches.

He doesn’t even notice himself falling asleep.