Author Archives: Illinia

Kotor II: Ruin, Mystery, Dreams: Part 4 – Winds of War

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I think I’ve figured out where I’m going with this fic. Now just to deal with the writing of it. It’s more difficult than I thought it would be. But then, I’d originally thought it would be primarily an Exile/Atton romance, and then thanks to that LP I’ve been inspired to drag in some other themes as well. Not an overabundance of Kreia, because while she might be the best-written character in the game, she’s scary to write. But her influence will certainly be felt.

EDIT: I’ve made edits to this and the previous two chapters. A lot of them have been inspired by the GitS soundtrack, and in fact the rest of the story draws on that for inspiration. This isn’t just a novelization anymore… and I don’t know how I ever thought it was in the first place. This chapter’s track is Replica.

Part 3

 

Part 4: Winds of War

 

Dantooine was the first destination on her list. She’d heard the enclave was destroyed when Malek, then a Sith, tried to kill Revan, then in the process of redeeming herself. Selyn had been raised and trained in the Coruscant Temple, but she’d been to Dantooine often enough before the war. She wanted to see if there was anything left, though she was not looking forward to meeting Master Vrook there. She would rather have sought out Master Vash first, but she did not feel strong enough to challenge Korriban yet. Continue reading →

Kotor II: Ruin, Mystery, Dreams: Part 3 – Silver

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Now that everything’s all straightened out again, I have to do something to occupy myself… and why not finish my replay of this game and the related fanfic to boot? My dreams are going overtime now that I’m back, though. I suspect that all the energy that was going towards adventuring is now channeled into my brain at night and that makes them extra weird. Also, I am in love still with this Kotor 2 LP which burrows into every possible bit of plot and is entertainingly written too. But I’m still going to play it my way, too.

Also, it is stupid hot and humid here. Can I go back to Norway?

Part 2

 

Part 3: Silver

 

“Grab on to something!” Atton yelled back into the hold of the shuttle. “This is about to get rough real fast!”

Heart beating slightly faster, Selyn took hold of the hand grips by her seat, her restraints fastened tightly. They were being fired upon as they flew over the partially restored surface of Telos. Who, what, why, no way to find out, only to trust in Atton’s skill and hope they survived. It reminded her strongly of how she’d felt when she’d been dropped on- no, best not to think about that. She concentrated on her breathing instead.

She felt the ship kick forward with a small explosion, heard Atton curse, felt gravity begin to assert its hold on the shuttle… Continue reading →

Adventure 2016 – Bergen/Netherlands

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We managed to catch an earlier train to Bergen than the one we had reservations for, and Jessica happened to also be on this train. I talked with her for a lot of the journey. We knew that Leonora and Thijs were also heading to Bergen next, but once we actually arrived in Bergen, we never saw any of these people again. Oh well, that’s what email is for!

I think the first evening we arrived, we just collapsed at the hostel. There was another actual kitchen that had pretty much everything (except a grater, somehow?) including a bunch of spices in the ‘shared’ cupboard. While Martijn checked that out, I went to the common room, where I’d heard there were amusements. I was wondering if there would be a piano…

And there was! So I sat down and started playing. It was a terrible piano with no tonal subtlety, no working una corda, and no dynamic nuance besides ‘loud’ and ‘louder’, but it had 88 mostly-in-tune keys.

Martijn: *in kitchen* I hear a piano. I should tell Jen… wait a minute… Continue reading →

Adventure 2016 – Flåm/Kayaking

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This is the part everyone’s been waiting to hear about, partly because it’s the part most out of character for me. When I first told my parents, my mom was like “but you don’t even like camping” which is totally true… unless I’m the one who’s decided to go camping, apparently. And partly because holy freakin cowbells, Norway’s nature is nature at its finest. Anyway, we started out with a train from Oslo to Myrdal. (warning: longer post is even longer)

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It wasn’t long before we started seeing patches of snow. At first we were thinking ‘that snow must be in shadow all day’ but then… I’m not seeing a whole lot of shadow in this picture, yes? Continue reading →

Adventure 2016 – Oslo

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The first three days of my trip were spent in Oslo. The Oslo Pass Card gave us free admission to museums, free public transport (although the city isn’t that big, you can walk to most of the stuff), and if you get the 3-day version (we did), the mini-cruise around the bay is also free. So we used it. (beware: long post is long)

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Technically, you’ve already seen Day 1 in the last post. So I don’t know if it was technically cost-effective, because we didn’t really go see anything on that day… but for the other two days, it was definitely worth it to not have to worry about paying for things besides food, just wave the cards at people and get let into things. We found this statue on the way to our first museum, Akershus Castle. Continue reading →

Adventure 2016 – To Norway

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So as many of you may know, I went to the other side of the planet in search of foreign lands, adventure, blond Dutchmen, and “mountains, Gandalf, mountains!”. Found all of ’em and here is the photo-evidence.

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Plane from Toronto to Reykjavik (and from thence to Oslo). Icelandair had the best deal pricewise (and I got to watch the Lego Movie on the way there!). I did have a brief stopover in Reykjavik both on the way there and back, but the way there was too short to do anything and the way back I was too tired to do anything more than sleep on an airport bench. Continue reading →

The Woman With a Dragon’s Heart: Chapter 6

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Starting working towards finishing up this thing. Got stuck on Sigrun because she was the last recruited for me, so I didn’t get any time to spend with her the first (and only) time that I played. I’ll probably take a while with the next chapter as well, as I’ve scheduled Kal’Hirol for it and it’s not a super catchy quest, although discovering the past through ghosts is really fascinating to play.

I also beat Dark Forces 2 and its horribly annoying final boss, although I appreciated the Star Wars take on the trope where you rush at each other, slash at each other, and wait like 10 seconds to see who actually struck and who dies. XD

Chapter 5, Chapter 7

 

Chapter 6

 

I wandered into the dining hall after the first night watch in late fall to find it not empty; Elizabeth and Oghren and Anders were sitting at the table closest to the wine cellar, mugs of beer in front of them. From the way they behaved, they’d been at it for a while.

“Hey, Nate!” Oghren called. “Come join us!”

“What’s going on?” I asked, taking a seat on the other side of Elizabeth from him and accepting a mug of beer from Anders, who was sitting across from us.

“Reminiscing, mostly,” Anders said. “She was just telling us how she met Zevran.” Continue reading →

Steins;Gate: Operation Fenris Deja Vu: Chapter 7: Dreamworld Poiesis

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Was kind of annoyed at how many people get slapped in this show. Can’t believe Kurisu would just put up with it, even in the depths of her despair. So she doesn’t.

I also messed with worldline formatting to make the R worldline the extra-special thing it ought to be. : P

I know in the movie, it’s Operation Norn… but Fenris is a different operation, a different worldline, a demon wolf who bit off the hand of Tyr when the Aesir bound him and refused to let him go.

I keep editing the end of this story. Hopefully it reaches a final form by the time I post it over on ff.net where people actually read it. Also HUGE thanks to chestnutchris over there, who went to the trouble of putting together a complete chart of which honorifics which characters use for whom. I thought I had a reasonable handle on Japanese honorifics, but man is the system complicated!

Chapter 6: Divergence Hariolation

 

Chapter 7: Dreamworld Poiesis

I popped back into myself, throwing my arms over my head reflexively and waiting for a deathblow that never came. The world was still in place, nothing was exploding, everything was fine… It was several days earlier, out at May Queen. Okabe was looking at me with concern. “Another failed future?”

“I… I need a minute,” I mumbled, and jumped up from the table, rushing to the women’s restroom. I locked myself in a stall and tried not to hyperventilate, tried not to cry hysterically. What had I done? Continue reading →