2: three songs that show their character progression: have you got it in you (imogen heap) >> wargirl (sybrid) >> champion (barns courtney)

4: what was their favorite subject in school? linguistics and any language class

7: if they could control one of the elements, what would it be? Air

19: what would they like their mark in history to be? gods, she’s just trying to get through the day from the age of fifteen without a panic attack. she would very much not like to be just a classified Alliance file, though

18: what would their ideal home be like:

Hannah: small cabin or cottage style house on a wooded lake. Warm and cozy

This meme is from like a month and a half ago, and I’m really sorry for only now getting around to it.

15. What is something about your OC can make you laugh? Every interaction with her teammates. They’re all assholes, but they’re each other’s assholes, you know?

16. What is something about your OC can make you cry? I’m never gonna be over her scrambling out of that box and clinging to Olivia.

4. In developing their backstory, what elements of the world they live in played the most influential parts? Olivia and Garrus. There’s a line in unposted fic, when they’re having one of their very first conversations about kids, and Olivia says “I just want to give a loving, happy, safe home to a few kids that don’t have one thanks to this war.” And I think, even if her childhood was just as wonderful and her parents just as loving, if that - love, happiness, and safety - weren’t the utter central core of her parents’ philosophy, Nora’s abandonment issues and anxiety would be a lot more prevalent as an adult. 

On the somewhat negative side of the same coin, having parents that are Captain/Director Shepard and Councilor Vakarian really doesn’t help when she pulls a couple of bad grades or gets rejected from things. Her parents couldn’t care less about a C in biology (”You hate bio. How’d you do in linguistics?” “A+.” “Then who cares about the stupid fruit fly project.”). But, a lot of times, Nora just sees her mom’s list of accomplishments trying to tell her it’s okay she got a C, rather than actually her mom telling her it’s okay.

8. What (if anything) do you relate to within their character/story? oh good lord, so much. Primarily, her anxiety and her love of frozen drinks.

17: What was your character’s favorite toy as a child?

Quentus: he had little action figures - a couple of turian superheroes that his (birth) dad got him for his birthday right before the war started; he played with them a lot during the war, and even made up stories for Nico to keep him distracted and calm and quiet. He doesn’t play with them much after the war because memories, but he hangs on to them; they’re on a shelf in his bedroom.

Nico: blocks and other building-type toys. He has a very active imagination, and doesn’t like it much when toys come with rules, or even guidelines. Zaeed gets him a giant box of Legos for his birthday one year early on, and it’s the absolute greatest thing; he spends years building intricate cities and spaceships and all kinds of stuff.

Nora: coloring books. She’s pretty easily startled and frightened for a few years, as I think most small children are. But with coloring books, she can just focus on the page in front of her and making it as pretty as possible, and it doesn’t matter if Quentus is kicking his durak ball around the house again even though Mom’s told him three times this week that the house is not a sports venue.

19: What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before? 

Quentus: chronic hero syndrome, oh my god. Also, a Hufflepuff who thinks he’s a Gryffindor. This guy is so committed to other people that he can easily forget he’s important too, which led to a couple of pretty unbalanced and unhealthy relationships until Hannah gave him A Talk one Christmas. 

Nico: he’s actually spectacular in relationships; if he has one flaw around them, it’s that he can fall for people really easily, and can get blinders on so that all he sees is the sparkling fun stuff he loves, and not necessarily see that he has a crush on a terrible person.

Nora: is pretty closed off; she knows she’s going to have to tell anyone she ends up with about the control chip, and that’s just a really scary discussion to imagine. So she avoids it entirely by just not getting in too deep, which occasionally means the other person is way more invested in the relationship than she is and it ends kind of unfortunately.

22: What does your character like in other people?

Quentus: be reliable, be there, love stupid jokes, don’t be a dick

Nico: be kind, be calm, always come back when you promise to, understand that he needs to be asleep by 10:00 because bread is an early morning asshole

Nora: be nice to people, keep up with her snark, be able to pull your own weight, dance it out 

24: How quick is your character to trust someone else? I mean, she trusts people. She’s not walking around paranoid and suspicious of everyone she meets. Nora has pretty good situational awareness and is an amazing judge of character.

25: How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person? Again, she’s a great judge of character, so if she suspects you right off the bat, it’s for a reason. The people she’s closest to have never (and will never) given her reason to suspect them of anything, but I feel like, if they did, she’d be pretty blind to it until whatever it is became super obvious. 

35: How does your character behave around people they like? already answered

36: How does your character behave around people they dislike? She gets really polite. Like, aggressively polite. 

34: Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method? 

Quentus: mopes around a bit bemoaning that his solution didn’t work, but that’s part of his process for coming up with an alternate solution

Nico: is probably already onto the next solution before the first one’s even had a chance to fail

Nora: Little Miss Bang Her Head Against The Wall Until It Falls Down

35: How does your character behave around people they like?

Quentus: your inbox will be overloaded with memes 

Nico: he starts engaging with you beyond answering whatever questions you asked

Nora: she’ll sing along quietly with whatever music’s playing; you know she really likes you when the singing is at the same volume as the music

The general theme with all three of them is “went through some traumatic shit as kids that never really wore off, as a result do not usually open up to new people immediately, they will be visibly relaxed around you if they like you”

B A S I C S

full name: Nora Abigail Vakarian

gender: female

sexuality: bisexual

pronouns: she/her

O T H E R S

family: Olivia, Garrus, Nico, Quentus, Hannah, Zaeed, Solana, Castis

birthplace: Cerberus Station orbiting Rayingri

job: kid, later N-level engineer (maxing out at N5), much later human ambassador to Tuchanka

phobias: [spoilers, I promise this fic is coming early 2018], snakes

guilty pleasures: shitty reality television, fancypants frozen coffee

M O R A L S

morality alignment?: chaotic good

sins - entitlement isn’t in the list, but boy is that hers; also wrath

virtues - patience, diligence, kindness 

T H I S - O R - T H A T

introvert/extrovert: extroverted introvert

organized/disorganized: somewhere in the middle

close minded/open-minded: open-minded, unless she decides you’re an idiot (which she does somewhat impulsively)

calm/anxious: anxious, though she’s been on meds and in therapy for it for years, so she comes across as calm

disagreeable/agreeable: generally agreeable, unless she decides she doesn’t like you

cautious/reckless: good balance of both

patient/impatient: patient

outspoken/reserved: outspoken

leader/follower: leader

empathetic/unemphatic: empathetic

optimistic/pessimistic: optimistic, with some moments of serious pessimism

traditional/modern: modern

hard-working/lazy: hard-working

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

otp: very very eventually, Nora/Micah (yes, Kyliespawn; he’s in this universe as her team’s tank)

ot3: nope

brotp: Nora+Quentus, Nora+Nico, Nora+Alle

notp: I don’t really ship with Nora, honestly

2. Did you design them with any other OCs/characters in mind?

Nora was always Olivia’s and Garrus’ daughter. I went through several iterations of how that happened before I landed on her canon, but she was created as their daughter.

3. How did you choose their name?

I’m not actually sure. I recently found some fic babble about her that dates back to late 2014, so she’s been around longer than I thought, but I don’t know where I came up with her name.

12. What have you found to be most difficult about creating (any form of) art for your OC? 

Remembering that she has another brother, for one thing. She and Quentus have a very well-developed relationship, but I have, like, ten words of her interacting with Nico.

Without giving too much away about her fic, I have a lot of trouble managing a certain aspect of her anxiety. Most of her anxiety I can write just fine (because, hi), but there’s one part of it that is extremely specific and it’s hard to balance “her anxiety is a legitimate and real thing, let her feel it” with “she’s also 26 and been in therapy a good chunk of her life, and she’s an N3 soldier and team leader who’s literally on a mission right now; she has all the skills to shut it down.”

15. What’s one thing about your OC that can make you laugh?

“I’m sorry. Are you unclear about the concept of ducking?”