Category Archives: Writing

Fiction, non-fiction, fanfiction, poetry…

DA2: Please Stay Part 2

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Part 1

 

A Bitter Pill

Reid bent down in front of the elf girl. “What was your name?”

“Orana…”

“Okay, Orana, I’m going to help you, so listen carefully. Once you make it out of this cave, can you get to Kirkwall on your own?”

“Y-yes…”

“All right. My name is Reid Hawke. Go to Hightown and find the Amell estate; my mother, Leandra, will let you in. Tell her you’ve come to work for me. Do you understand?”

“Go to Hightown in Kirkwall and find the Amell estate. Tell your mother that I’m going to work for you, Master Hawke. Right?” Continue reading →

DA2: Please Stay Part 1

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In the second half of Nanowrimo this year I realized I didn’t have the energy to hold down five gigs and finish writing my complicated final arc for Devil’s Due, but I still wanted to finish Nanowrimo so I could get that discount on Scrivener (I like it! I think it’s really useful). So I turned to fluff instead, and since I’d recently restarted playing DA2 with yet another rendition of Reid (now with an actual family!) I needed to write some FenReid friendmance. It’s interesting because Fenris and Murlesson share a character archetype – emo angry OP escaped slave bishounen – so in this story Reid is quite different from some of his other iterations in order to better contrast Fenris. Also because Sarcastic!Hawke is great fun to play with.

Going to take a second here to complain about how rushed DA2 is. I love the characters, but they’re shallow as puddles; I like the visual design, but that’s the most egregiously recycled part (especially the maps, obviously); I like the story, but I don’t like how all the time I spent in it feels like an appetizer for another game. (I did acquire Inquisition, but Frostbite makes it look like garbage so I need to mod it up before playing. MEA looks better than DAI. : P ) It seemed every five minutes I would notice something that wasn’t quite polished about this game. The only thing that is absolutely top-notch is the voice acting: the characters may only have one note each, but their voices play that note beautifully.

So this is all pretty messy writing by my standards, and I don’t care, it’s for the fluffy fluff and the feels. Some headcanons and character build: Reid’s autoattack spells in this story aren’t determined by his staff, but by what he learned to control personally (so he only ever uses lightning as an auto, not fire or force or whatever); he has some of the Primal tree, all of the Entropy tree, and a little Blood Mage and Force Mage specializations; I played on Easy so there’s no friendly fire. I downloaded a hair mod and a freckle mod, and the Vow of Pride robes mod (though I didn’t give those to him until Act 2; in Act 1 I wore the default gear for the RP). A screenshot and another screenshot.

The second little bit is inspired by a mod that removes the dead bodies out of Fenris’s mansion after you recruit him.

Spoilers: Isabela leaves (I didn’t have her approval high enough), Anders dies (sorry, Anders fans).

The dog is named Bo after Sorne’s dog in our DnD game.

This story is rated M for incessant swearing and mild sexiness. Continue reading →

Devil’s Due: Part 32: Battle of Wits

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This one took a while… not only was the actual writing complicated and challenging (and I went for a round of beta-reading just to be sure it makes sense, which was the best idea), I had been working on my Halloween cosplay and playing the other four SWTOR routes that I didn’t play when I first tried the game five years ago. I’m pleasantly surprised, they were all pretty enjoyable. Warrior is still my favourite overall, but Bounty Hunter is up there with Smuggler for entertainment value. Meanwhile, I had to restart Agent three times in Act 1 though until I found a set of decisions that I was happy with. It’s just really not comfortable playing a hardcore KGB officer, you know? And it’s much more fun if you put on the Ghost in the Shell OST. Anyway, my personal tier list is probably: Consular < Trooper/Knight < Agent/Inquisitor < Bounty Hunter/Smuggler < Warrior.

That being said, I need a break from the game and its terrible awful no-fun gameplay. I do want to ask if it would be worth getting into… the entire rest of SWTOR, as I vaguely remember playing Ilum once four years ago and that’s as far as I’ve gone. And if it’s possible while still maintaining my stance of boycotting EA financially. But it’s going to be a while before I feel like slogging through more terrible boring pointless mob-infested maps, so don’t expect any sequels in the near future even if I do decide to play more. XD Continue reading →

Devil’s Due: Part 31: How to Start a War

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AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH It’s been a literal year and a half since I last wrote this, so terrifying has this last story arc been. I will admit to being distracted by other things – work, GW2, DnD – but also just… how to follow up on Kel Reu Giri?? How to follow up on literally punching ghosts in the face?? So I put it off.

Then I started feeling last month like “hey, you should pick that up again” and I was like “maybe in September, after I finish my Rinala cosplay” and my feelings were like “no you should do it now” so I re-read the fic twice (once to read it, once to correct a whole bunch of embarrassing typos and adjust small scenes that I thought weak) and played the Corellia arc of the game. (And I’m working on the other four storylines that I didn’t play before. Man, Consular is boring.) Continue reading →

Where the Heart Is

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The other fic that’s been flopping around my skull since Carmen Sandiego Season 4 came out on Netflix. I liked the ending, but my shipper heart couldn’t decide if I liked Carmen/Gray or Carmen/Julia more. So, in the spirit of ProZD solving anime, here is a bisexual Carmen polyamory fic. And I fully acknowledge that should they come out with more show or spin-offs, this will almost 100% be non-canon, but eh, it’s just for fun.

I did the bare minimum of research for this fic; all my research juice is going towards Reid’s stories (currently agonizing over whether he wears shoes on a regular basis or not, and even more about socks). Also literally nothing happens except talking, because this is entirely self-indulgent low-effort fluff. Huzzah!

 

Where the Heart Is

Chapter 1: Gray

The bells on the door of the convenience store jangled as the slightly stocky young man pushed in casually, hands in pockets. He strolled over to the pop, then to the ice cream, then turned around and nearly bumped into the young woman with the red hoodie absent-mindedly browsing behind him. “Whoops, sorry- Carmen!?” Continue reading →

Reason to Live

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My old Shakarian fic was feeling a bit outdated, a bit juvenile, especially considering I never actually bothered to title it… So after playing the trilogy again earlier this year, I felt the urge to write a new one. I don’t feel it quite gets across how fascinating turians are, how the whole idea of ‘alien’ is alluring (Mass Effect does not really do a great job of expressing alien cultures in a culturally alien way, though I will grant that’s not the point of a swashbuckling space adventure), but it certainly feels a bit more in-character than the old one to me.

It doesn’t have every bit of detail in, as it’s only really supposed to replace the whole “reach and flexibility” conversation and still leave space for the “interspecies awkwardness thing” conversations that come after.

 

Reason to Live

Shepard took a moment to sigh to herself before she reached out and tapped on the Normandy’s main battery door. It had been an intense day, and she still wasn’t sure if she’d given him enough time to sort through it all. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Hurry Up and Wait

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Okay so I was like “I’m just going to put enough of the DRK quests that people understand the DRK quests are happening, like I’ve been doing with the other class quests” and then I rewatched them and was like “I have to put them all in because I love them so much”. (Thank you Natsuko Ishikawa!!!) So… hope you like DRK quests because more are coming! XD

It’s time to proclaim that I think Heart of Steel by Beast in Black is an excellent theme song for Sid! I used it for the second fight. (Also I looked up ‘tramontane’, it’s a northern wind.) For the first fight, I used Nail of the Heavens, which might have been Vivienne’s in-game theme-song if not for the fact that everyone associates it with BLU now. (I don’t remember Vivienne’s exact glam, but I think it’s something like the Omicron fending top and gloves, the Abyss pants and boots, and the Chaos helm (the Abyss helm is more stylish, but it clashes with the Omicron top)) (also I’m not sure what sword she has right now, because as soon as she gets Cronus Lux she never uses anything else, but the Baldur Blade is pretty close in shape so let’s go with that) (who else misses Dark Arts?)

Also it’s terribly annoying to me that Alphinaud has finally deigned to reveal when Elezen get their second growth spurt, because it’s thrown off my own plans to LET MY CHILDREN GROW. (I haven’t played since 5.0 so no spoilers please but one of my friends told me the news.) Sooo while I was planning to have the twins full height by SB, and started dropping hints about it already, I have changed that to reflect my new knowledge.

Chapter 25: Hraesvelgr

 

Chapter 26: Hurry Up and Wait

Estinien had remained behind to stand lonely watch over Nidhogg’s lair, while the Warriors of Light and Alphinaud returned to Ishgard to find if Cid Garlond were in the neighbourhood. While the others scattered across the city, some to the Jeweled Crozier, others to the chocobo stables, Achiyo, Alphinaud, and R’nyath went to the manor – for as Honoroit said archly, “When it comes to – ahem – exchanging information of uncertain origin, Lord Emmanellain is something of a prodigy.” R’nyath had winked at the boy. He knew exactly what that meant. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Hraesvelgr

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Hey, I’m keeping a steady pace with these chapters. Maybe I’ll be done HW before EW comes out? (probably not, it’s longer than it looks)

I went and rewatched Castle in the Sky for the little bit of vocabulary in the middle.

Chapter 24: Primal Alliance

 

Chapter 25: Hraesvelgr

Achiyo had seen many incredible things in her life, especially after she’d come to Eorzea and found it safe to look outside herself, but the summit of Sohm Al had to be among the more amazing places she’d been. The floating mountain peak, glowing from below, was awe-inspiring from afar. She could not wait to ascend it and see what waited beyond. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Primal Alliance

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Was going to try to get all the way to Hraesvelgr in one go but decided to split it in half to reduce my (completely irrational) word-count anxiety. Which turned out to be an excellent plan.

Hey, if Ysayle knows that Hraesvelgr ate Shiva so their souls would be “entwined forever”, how come she thinks she’s Shiva reborn??? (Still, having a primal inside you and the Echo at the same time must really mess with your head. I feel bad for her. And then they fridged her. Not as fast as Moenbryda, but still! Ugh.)

I actually used Footsteps in the Snow to write the boss fight, because I like it better than Ravana’s themes.

Chapter 23: Loneliness

 

Chapter 24: Primal Alliance

Achiyo hurried through the streets back to the manor with Tataru’s anxious voice ringing in her horns through her linkpearl. All about her the streets were buzzing with urgency, which she feared stemmed from the same source – but she would know soon enough. Continue reading →

FFXIV: Loneliness

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So pretty much nothing happens this chapter except class quests! Figured that since I was always planning to add the DRK quests, I may as well add some of the others, as many as work with the characters, and then I figured I’d put them here before the momentum builds to the point where I can’t pause to throw in this sort of thing. Also can I say that the PLD quests are so bizarre that the NPCs are questioning it??? What is this paladin dominance thing??? I dislike. Achiyo doesn’t have anything to do with the Sultansworn anyway, so I wasn’t planning to include those particular quests in the first place. But I love Constaint so he’ll show up somewhere else eventually. My favourite class quests are DRK, BRD, and WHM, though I also like a bunch of the others as well, just not as much.

Again R’nyath references a song from the choral side of my career, Soldier Won’t You Marry Me by Paul Halley.

Vivienne’s quest was heavily influenced by the Japanese dialogue as translated by Haillenarte on tumblr – doesn’t it make so much more sense? I think the localization team were kind of trying to set up the next level 50 quest (the first of the 50-60 quests) with the whole “Temple Knights asking after you” thing, but… no. Get that irrelevant nonsense out of here. Give me sad yandere Fray. (still not entirely happy with it, may edit over the next couple days, but I also want to move on.)

I made some small edits to Chapter 7, as I never liked Chuchupa’s hinted backstory and I wanted to add more for Vivienne now that I know her better.

I promise we’ll go on a road trip next chapter!

Non-story news: I finally bought a doll to be Achiyo to the doll I bought to be Aymeric. (Aymeric is played by the BTS j-hope Barbie, and Achiyo is played by Basketball Stacie – I intend to rehair/repaint them a little like some of the YouTube channels out there, except I’m going to use mini paints instead of pencils because miniature painting is what I know.)

Also I’m impressed I managed to write this while work was in high gear; I’ve been so busy omg. Continue reading →