Tag Archives: Dragon Age

Blue-eyed Mother and Daughter

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lizarmida2

Felt like drawing one of the scenes from Perfect Time 3, even though it’s been an exhausting week. Everything work-related has been accomplished successfully, which is good, and the Messiah concert was lovely. Working on WWADH but it’s slow going still. I have some ideas, I just need energy to hash them out. (And Akuliina’s calling because I played SWTOR today. I didn’t even play Akuliina.)

Difficult to research male Italian-specific Renaissance clothing? Yes Armida is in boy’s clothes. And Liz is in a dress. Hey, she’s worn dresses before. If she wasn’t wearing her sword, now THAT would be weird.

Ship was loosely traced over from a picture by Thari but I did a lazy job with it. I might fix it when I have more energy.

Perfect Time: Part 3

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This is the chapter with all of the feels, and you know how I can tell? I made myself cry multiple times writing this chapter. I just have a thing for heartwrenching innocent kids, I think. It was like when I wrote the Canas/Nancy/Hugh thing back in Anima’s Seal, but worse because LizZev is much closer to my heart than Canas. D: (sorry, Canas, you’re still cool) And yes, it’s extremely self indulgent, but hey, I hardly ever kill off my characters, even though I should probably. Unfortunately, my own feels only work on me once. If I read it in a year I’ll probably cry again. Also also I seem to have inadvertently set up a parallel to Dishonoured 2 here in a way.

Also for those of you wondering when I’ll ever finish WWADH a.k.a. the Awakening fic, since it takes place before this one… Soon? I’ve been trying, I’m still stuck on writing Kal’Hirol. I’d like to do that one next and finish it with November, and then I can start on Akuliina with December and finish all that by the New Year? Maybe? Tbh guys I’m flagging; this week has also been extremely busy (emergency last-minute Messiah performances tonight and Saturday! Whoo! also I took my car in to get the brakes repaired/replaced and found out there are more things wrong with it. Typical.) and I would like a break; I’m quite tired, not just of creating, but in general. Maybe clear some of those games out of my to-do list (and try not to write fanfics about any of them).

Part 2

 

Part 3

He woke to the change in Liz’s breathing beside him. The room was still pitch black, in the depths of the lengthening fall night. It was raining gently outside. Though he listened, he couldn’t hear if Armida had stirred in her room beside, so it wasn’t that which had awakened her. Continue reading →

Perfect Time: Part 2

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Vaguely annoyed because yesterday afternoon, before work, I had some pretty great scenes for this, and when I got back from work, I was too tired to remember them in detail and I still don’t know if the ones I eventually hashed out are as good as they were when I first imagined them. Typical. (But Morristair alert heheh)

Steam sales are evil, you guys.

EDIT: remembered that Elra exists, plopped her in a bit.

Part 1

 

Part 2

Life as the Consort of the Grandmaster of the Crows was not terrible, as it turned out, and two years later she was still alive and living in Antiva with her beloved. She’d taken to wearing local fashions, feminine but as practical as she could find, but she refused to style her hair in the Antivan way, or to wear loads of glitzy jewellry, and Zevran laughed and said that was all right. Continue reading →

Perfect Time: Part 1

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Title of this fic comes from this song, which has the name Elizabeth in it. And it has lots of passion in it, and the words interpret pretty well.

Warning: sex, again, because Liz and Zev can’t keep their hands off each other : P

Different warning: I haven’t played DAI, and I still haven’t finished DA2, so this may have very little relation to the Dragon Age official canon as it now stands. However, I don’t really care too much, as I may never get around to playing DAI. I’ll definitely finish DA2 someday, but DAI is yet another big long singleplayer game and I already have a lot of those.

 

Part 1

Antiva City was the strangest, most exotic city she’d ever been to. Considering she’d been outside of Ferelden exactly never, this was hardly surprising. She’d been expecting things to be different from home, but… not this different. The climate was hot, humid, and her clothes clung to her skin under her ironbark armour. The sun was brighter, the sky bluer, the sea in the harbour milder. The crowds were more brightly dressed, dazzling and shimmering before her eyes; the buildings whiter and taller and festooned with greenery, wide arches letting the wind blow through the hot city. 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 →

Elizabeth Cousland

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So here’s Liz Cousland from my DAO fics, post-dramatic haircut, with her lightning sword, supposedly leading a charge on Denerim. She didn’t have a Warden flag then, but the court painter insisted. Said it would be “dramatic” and “good for posterity”. ; ) Also, her theme song. : D Continue reading →

Heraldry

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Wrote a short story tonight about Liz’s search for personal identity. Haven’t forgotten about WWADH, just been busy finishing up work before the December break, choosing, making, and sending presents (and Christmas cards), and playing Bioware games (ME1 and Jade Empire!).

I could have put this story in the main fic at some point, but I figured the chapter outlines were full enough and didn’t need another two pages of filler. So here: a short fic set at an undefined time (anytime after the Noble Conspiracy Assassination Attempt, really).

 

Heraldry

I wandered into the dining room and paused. Elizabeth was sitting at the table, parchment and quill in hand, and a look of intense concentration on her face. For once, her hair was not pinned up into its usual neat buns, but hanging in twin braids down her back. It was longer than I had thought.

I walked quietly up to her. “More budget problems?”

She jumped. She must have been concentrating very hard indeed if she missed hearing me. Or maybe I was getting better at being stealthy. “No…” She tried to hide whatever she had been working on, but I was too quick for her and swiped it off the table before she could pull it away. Continue reading →

The Woman With a Dragon’s Heart: Chapter 5

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Moved some exposition up from THE LAST CHAPTER to this chapter. I was really certain that there was more talking with the Architect in this part of the game? Oh well.

Lizrage! Once again you can thank Attack on Titan from the SnK OST (the same one that I used for the Rendon Howe fight). Yes, I’m reusing it for inspiration. I can’t help it; I associate it almost entirely with Liz these days. I would wish to have the Aldnoah OST as well so I don’t get tired of the SnK OST, but I don’t, so I’m trying to use it sparingly…

With the letters at the end, I wanted to make it clear that they’d been sending more than a few letters back and forth through the summer, but it doesn’t really sound clear to me. Any advice?

Clocked in NaNo at just under 75,000 words; not too shabby for a month when I was so tired and distracted by other things that I almost thought I wouldn’t finish at all. And thank goodness for Liz, eh? I would love to finish this story while my inspiration is fresh and my momentum is good, but maybe I’ll work on other things when it’s not Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday evening. 😛

Chapter 4, Chapter 6

 

Chapter 5

 

A day later, Elizabeth had finally managed things such that she could leave affairs to Varel and Garevel for several days. She found Velanna, sent for the rest of the Wardens, and departed again for the forest.

“Finally!” was Velanna’s only comment. “I thought I was going to go crazy waiting for you slow humans.” After that, she stubbornly said nothing, even when Anders attempted to flirt with her. Continue reading →

The Woman With a Dragon’s Heart: Chapter 4

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The Oaths of Fealty scene at the beginning of this chapter was very interesting to write! It came together in bits and pieces as I figured out how many threads I had going and what points would be made where and the PACING of it all. Also you can thank Jiyuu no Tsubasa for Liz’s speech there.

And I’m going back to rewrite bits of the earlier chapters already! Nate’s not conflicted enough! I need to check the subtext of everything! I might be able to remove some extraneous expositions!

I’m so looking forward to Chapter 5. I might write most of it tonight.

My best friend is finished Part 1 of the rewrite of his story… it’s magnificent. It’s got so much tone, and character, and maintains a ‘legend’ quality even when it goes into snarky dialogue and action scenes, and yet it doesn’t feel pretentious like it might be easy to fall into for an inexperienced writer. Cullean and Asrath are vying with Varel for ‘favourite badass old man’, and Dann is adorbs.

Chapter 3, Chapter 5

 

Chapter 4

 

The Wardens from Orlais had brought the white and blue uniforms of their order with them, and one of Elizabeth’s servants, Firiel, brought me one to wear. I went down to the Great Hall a little late to the gathering. I had no particular desire to stand out, either from my smart blue and white uniform, or from anyone recognizing me as Rendon’s son.

Unfortunately my wish was to go unfulfilled, as only a minute after I entered the Great Hall – the room now looking fresh with autumn flowers – Bann Esmerelle, who governed Amaranthine City, spotted me and came to speak to me. “Nathaniel Howe!”

I bowed to her rather stiffly. “Bann Esmerelle, I believe. It’s been a while.” Continue reading →

The Woman With a Dragon’s Heart: Chapter 3

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Lots of repetitive exposition in these chapters, especially if you’ve already read My Dark-Haired Fereldan Beauty. I apologize. It’s easy to write about things I already know. On the other hand, I don’t understand all the darkspawn politics, so the exposition you get on that is suuuuper vague. I apologize for that too. Although in my defence I’ve gone back and looked at game videos and it’s super vague in the game, too. Those darkspawn aren’t too bright.

As of this chapter, I officially passed NaNoWriMo for this year. I’m going to try to keep going while I have inspiration on this story, why not? Get lots of it done now and if I run out of steam, at least I made a good start on it. (But the chapters are getting longer, help, I don’t want them to be super long)

Of course, the situation in my apartment is really starting to get dire, and I have three concerts of varying stress levels coming up, and I had Japanese take-out yesterday evening that was highly disappointing. BUT FOR SOME REASON I’M HAPPY. Guild Wars 1 and 2, maybe?

Chapter 2, Chapter 4

 

Chapter 3

 

“Your husband?” I asked Delilah, when Elizabeth was out of earshot.

She nodded. “His name is Albert. He’s a good man, much nicer than that stuck-up noble that Father was trying to set me up with a couple years ago.”

I raised an eyebrow. “This wouldn’t be Albert the Grocer, would it?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a grocer, Nathaniel,” Delilah said. “And… after how Father changed…”

“He changed?” I asked, a sinking feeling in my stomach, although I already suspected.

Delilah looked at me sadly. “You really don’t know, do you? Come in. I’ll put the kettle on and tell you everything.” Continue reading →