anghraine | Entries tagged with fandom: bioware

I've been watching the reactions to DA:V in some fascination as someone who has never played any Dragon Age and only understands them in the vaguest way possible. I know the usual Bioware fandom warfare is particularly vicious there (I heard people referring to more batshit BG3 wank as blatantly imported from DA wank rather than usual D&D or Larian discourse, which seemed very credible). I know it's fantasy, with some Mass Effect-y elements mechanically, and... elves are oppressed I think maybe and there is slavery? possibly?? I heard Veilguard is unusually conflict averse for DA and that it traditionally leaned into the main characters being difficulty, messy people with genuine clashes (I don't know if this is true). I also know that qunari are the horned people that produced nonbinary icon Taash and I know some of the character names/designs from earlier games, but without knowing which particular game they come from or what any of their backstories are.

(I am not asserting any of this with confidence, just to be clear. It's what I've osmosed without researching anything at all.)

ANYWAY while seeing the DA:V discourses flying around, I'm busy on Tumblr having my own wanky Bioware opinions, but for ME1 (which came out nearly 20 years ago and which I've seen all the way through nearly three times) despite typically having a strong preference for fantasy over sci-fi. And I do love ME (the trilogy) a ton, so I'm just more into it fannishly than a lot of games, despite my many points of criticism (let's just say that my bff J and I once had a very fun two hour-long car ride in which we spent the whole time discussing how we'd fix the trilogy). So my Bioware fandom friends are having wildly varying strong opinions about DA that I barely understand, and I'm banging my drums in 2025 about how, uh, the Thorian did nothing wrong. Also, the volus are unfortunately an antisemitic stereotype, even though I like them as characters a lot and feel their complaints are justified (J succinctly summed up our mutual position: "could be worse, could be Watto, but they are very obviously stereotypes about Jews in space"). And I'm Team Vorcha (vs Literally Everyone).

It takes all kinds is all I'm saying. And I'm one of those kinds!

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Bad Reputation (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)

Since the Elon purchase, I've avoided using Twitter as much as possible. But I only just discovered (via Tumblr, obviously) Violet McVinnie's tradition of making "kiss and make up" videos for games she worked on at BioWare, which includes an absolute delight/horror of one for Mass Effect 3. I might have resisted the impulse to click it weren't Mass Effect, but it ... was, and then it was such absolute gold that I feel the need to also share it here.

If you lack inner fortitude like me, you will absolutely not regret clicking the video, or alternatively will regret it very much.

If you possess the strength to resist, I salute you.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: I Don't Want To Miss a Thing (Aerosmith)

Okay, so I finally got the Mass Effect LE on sale just after my birthday this year, after my best friend and I had a blast playing two full runs on his old Playstation with his original discs (a noble, heroic Infilitrator!Shepard/Liara game and later, a tragic, somewhat edgier Vanguard!Shepard/Thane one). I haven't allowed myself to play it because of the diss etc, but my best friend and I needed to blow some time, so we got it up and running and figured we'd do the character customization for the Adept!Shepard I've been itching to try.

(My fantasy-loving brain is like "ahh, the full spellcaster, I have to try it out.")

Although Elizabeth in my percolating Mass Effect/P&P fusion is an Infiltrator while Darcy is an Adept, I suspect playing an Adept will get me more in that fun Shepard!Elizabeth/asari!Darcy frame of mind.

ANYWAY the point is that, holy shit, the Legendary Edition looks so beautiful on my computer. I thought the original held up pretty well considering, but this is going to be so cool once I can actually spare the time to play it!!!

Tangent: we were talking about how we'd make a homebrew spacefaring TTRPG, and I reminded him of a previous conversation about how we would TTRPG-ify Mass Effect to our specific preferences, and what kind of person we'd want to play.

me: I still want playable vorcha.
J: But you have to do the voice.
me: Oh, for sure. And playable hanar! A gun in every tentacle!!
J: No first-person, though, you get punished somehow if you don't say "this one."
me: Of course. Disadvantage every time you skip it.
J: What would you play, though?
me: Hmm, I'm not sure. I'd have to think about it. What about you?
J, after a moment's consideration: Honestly? I think I'd play a really, really old Ardat-Yakshi.
me: ...damn. Now that's a character concept.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Set Fire to the Rain (Adele)

elperian tagged me on Tumblr! For this meme, you show your top five songs on your current On Repeat Spotify list, if you use Spotify. I didn't bother snipping numbers 6&7, so they're included for no particular reason, but:

[A screenshot of a Spotify On Repeat list, with the top seven songs visible:

1 - Nevertheless, She Persisted | Audiomachine
2 - Pompeii MMXXIII | Bastille & Hans Zimmer
3 - Who Wants To Live Forever | Queen
4 - Luke and Leia | John Williams
5 - Dauntless | Audiomachine
6 - Mass Effect Theme | Jack Wall & Sam Hulick
7 - Radio Ga Ga | Queen]

No surprises here, lol.

Tagging anyone who sees this, uses Spotify, and wants to do it!

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Who Wants To Live Forever (Queen)

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Okay, #14 is: try something new! There were a lot of cool fannish suggestions that I do not have the time or energy for, unfortunately. But on a more granular level, I am trying something that I don't usually do with the ME/P&P AU (the mods did say #11 and #14 could be the same thing!). I usually stick quite strictly to 1-2 POVs to avoid the temptation to head hop, but I'm not doing that with this. We won't get everyone's perspective, but the prologue gave us a little bit of Elizabeth's POV (which of course will be the primary one) and quite a bit from Mira Gardiner, the Anderson-like mentor to Elizabeth in the AU. Mira is a significant character, but we won't actually get her POV that much—but it seemed right for the prologue. We're also definitely going to get significant POVs from both Illia/Darcy and Jori'Zanah/Georgiana and probably quite a few more. I'm going to see if I can juggle the POVs while still keeping Elizabeth central :D

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: There Must Be More to Life Than This (Freddie Mercury)

Okay, let's see if we can power through the rest of the challenges in the next hour!

#12: Personal Win

Share whatever wins you’re comfortable with telling us all about. Found a new fandom that makes you light up? One of your creations has earned more kudos than you dreamed of? Wins from life, new job, new school, new adventure? You have a couple of wins you want to celebrate, we want to hear about them. Share a win or two so we can cheer for you.

I'm still very enthused about finishing the prologue to the Mass Effect/P&P AU I've been talking about for weeks. I actually powered through everything I wanted to do in the prologue while feeling like shit, didn't compulsively edit, didn't WIP-post it on AO3 for instant validation, didn't convince myself that it'd be fine to do it a bit later, nada. Go, me!

I've also made plans to move to a nearby city with a very close friend after I graduate, and I'm really excited about it.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Danger Zone (Kenny Loggins)

Hey everyone! It's nearly 11 PM on January 31st and I'm sick, but I threw words on the page until I had something to show for it for challenge #11 specifically:

In your own space, create a fanwork. Now, a fanwork is anything that you, a fan, creates. Fic, icons, and filling sparkly requests from your fellow snowflakes’ wishlists absolutely fit the bill. But really, your creation can be anything! Draw something, paint something, compose an ode to your current favorite movie. Whittle something to represent your fandom from a bit of driftwood or model it in clay and matchsticks or legos! Whip up a song about your favorite trope or concoct an interpretive dance number for your OTP. Bake some cupcakes and decorate them in homage to your favorite TV show or author. The possibilities are endless. Whatever means of self-expression tickles your fancy right now, embrace it! But most of all - have fun!

I thought of doing something simpler or easier but ... no, instead I word vomited the entire prologue to the Commander Elizabeth Bennet P&P/Mass Effect AU into a GoogleDoc. It's largely unedited but here it is!

Prologue

Elizabeth Bennet knew what people called her behind her back, whether they were Alliance or not.

The butcher of Torfan.

They didn’t understand. Nobody did, really, not even Captain Gardiner, who’d defended her to the tribunal, or Major Massey, who’d ordered her to take Torfan at any cost and been honorably discharged later.

Elizabeth was resigned to that. When she could do something about a problem, she acted; when she couldn’t, she let it go. And she couldn’t do anything about the past.

Least of all when she didn’t regret it.

Mira Gardiner was a failure.

A failure with a case full of medals, to be sure. She’d served the Alliance—served humanity—for decades, and the Alliance had rewarded her with a stream of commendations and promotions. Nobody talked about her lost chance to do more for their species. Not in her hearing, anyway. Even she hadn’t really thought about it in years. No point in wasting time recollecting the details when there was work to be done.

The more amorphous sense of failure, though: that lingered. Especially on the Normandy.

( Read more... )

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Here I Go Again (Whitesnake)

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Caught up to double digits! This specific challenge is pretty open-ended:

Five Things! The five things are totally up to you. Maybe you want to list your favorite 5 Friends episodes, or your Top 5 fandom friends, maybe you want to list all the Broadway shows you've seen or the 5 Times K-Pop fought global hunger. Go for it. This challenge is the epitome of You Do You (in 5-ish easy steps).

I've actually been thinking about this one for awhile, and while I had a few different vague ideas, I'm going to go with...

Five Favorite Fiction Tropes

In no particular order, some just for fic and some not, and subject to change:

1. Angst -> cathartic happy ending. This can be hurt/comfort, but doesn't have to strictly fit the traditional archetype—the pain can be entirely emotional, or a mix of angst and physical suffering of some kind, or whatever, as long as it's emotionally intense for my faves and then things are made right and looking substantially up by the end. This doesn't need to involve romance (nearly all my Psych fic reading was driven by wanting something terrible happening to Shawn, and Henry feeling really bad and not being a shitty father for more than 2 minutes at a time), but it certainly can (

incognitajones's "no grave to bury sorrow in" does a great job of this with Jyn/Cassian).

2. I was talking a bit more about it earlier today, under f-lock, but romantic or intense platonic relationships between people who (when the relationship forms) can expect to live for significantly different lengths of time, or have different aging patterns, or whatever. It just adds a delicious touch of bittersweetness to things. It won't necessarily carry an entire ship for me, but if I already like it ... delicious (I adore both Aegnor/Andreth and Finrod/Andreth for this). I also just like it as a world-building thing, even if I'm not invested in the specific relationship, like in Mass Effect with small details like the random overheard conversation between a young asari (lifespan: ~1000 years) and her aging salarian stepfather (lifespan: ~40 years) as she tries to comfort him.

3. Chosen ones! Yeah, I know, I know. Whatever. I love well-intentioned characters who are just super special for reasons and this has effects (they don't need to be the literal chosen one of the whole story or universe, just very special and cool by fiat, esp if it involves awesome magic powers). Adora has ruled my heart since I was tiny (pretty sure there's a corner of my brain that just has the S5 reboot She-Ra asteroid sequence on constant replay) but my love for this can encompass less centrally chosen characters who are just really special for arbitrary reasons (like book Faramir).

4. My ostensibly cis male fave whose fandom reception is profoundly filtered through gender is now a woman. Or she's a girl, for younger faves, or she's not exactly a woman, but a mixture of feminine-leaning and does not really get gender but rolls with "woman" or "girl" as a useful approximation. Obviously this is partly about personal projection, along with just being something I find interesting to think about (in terms of how the essential personality of the character would be affected by patriarchal norms, mores, heteronormativity, etc). It makes my fave hotter to me personally, it discards the gender filter usually surrounding the character and/or their fandom reception, it mixes up a usually male-dominated cast, and (since I am a creature of spite) it aggravates very annoying people. Wins all around!

5. Quasi-femme fatales: beautiful female characters who are intense, ruthless, usually haunted or damaged by something in their history, and scary to oppose? Yeah, it's a good one, especially if a) they know perfectly well how attractive they are and don't feel the need to use it (possibly they have in the past, but that's not necessary any more, and possibly ever), and b) the narrative has some sympathy for them without them losing their edge.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Don't Stop Believin' (Journey)

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Hey again! I've had a somewhat busy weekend (busy with FUN but nevertheless), but I wanted to do another challenge before it ends. #9 is:

Rec Us Your Newest Thing. I love seeing what people are loving on, what song that they can’t stop singing, what movie that they want to talk about but their family is tired of hearing about it, what video game they found that fills them with the sense of wonder and accomplishment that only other gamers can truly appreciate.

There are multiple things I could choose! I recently finished The King of Attolia (awesome). I've enjoyed listening to the new bombastic orchestra soundtrack-style version of Bastille's "Pompeii" (by Bastille and ... Hans Zimmer? okay), which isn't as clean as the original but is more my personal sort of thing. There's—

Okay, let's be real. It's the Mass Effect trilogy. The best friend and I are about 3/4 of the way through our second playthrough, and while it has flaws (does it ever!), I think it does fully deserve its stature in the gaming community. So much fantastic dialogue (playing a more Renegade-ish Shepard only unlocked even more of it), the setting is fascinating (I don't really care about the Reapers and wish they'd let them stay enigmatic and incomprehensible but I care so much about their impact on basically everyone else in the galaxy that it works), female Shepard is a fantastic character and most of the major characters are super compelling, it's visually beautiful, there are tons of absolutely incredible storytelling elements and the way so many choices have real effects and intertwine to create the story, etc etc. I'm not saying anything new, really. But it's a hell of a game. The Paragon genophage arc alone is worth the price of admission.

I do have serious criticisms of some aspects (a lot of choices made with Jacob and James, the asari generally despite my love for them, the ogling of Benezia, Miranda, and Samara, the villainization of politics, etc). But I love it, warts and all. And ME3 is pretty easily my favorite of the three (yes, despite the ending), so I'm just... staying away from much of the fandom and rolling around in enjoyment.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Pompeii MMXXIII (Bastille | Hans Zimmer)

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And we're back with the Snowflake Challenge! #8 is:

Talk about a current fannish project (fic, art, vid, crochet, funko pop village) (that you are creating or enjoying).

If you've been reading my DW over the last few weeks, you know what it's going to be: I'm working sloooowly on a Mass Effect/P&P AU with Elizabeth as Commander ~~Shepard~~ Bennet (a technologically savvy sniper and victor of the battle of Torfan who is very committed to only thinking of the past as it brings her pleasure) and a crew of various P&P characters, including:

Janani Hackett, a human gunnery chief who saw terrible things on Eden Prime but stubbornly sticks to her ideals;
Illia T'Arzi (Darcy), an arrogant asari scientist whose real motives are never as transparent as Elizabeth would like;
Sharra Lukarian (Charlotte), an exasperated turian security officer who finds a future on board the Normandy;
a young quarian, Jori'Zanah (Georgiana), who is just trying to prove her worth and bonds with Illia;
George Wickham, an Alliance lieutenant and reasonably skilled biotic trained in an asari-run initiative to help young biotics from other species. Definitely trustworthy!

I've written a little of it and I'm determined that this time will be different and I won't post it as a WIP on AO3, I'll just keep poking at it in my spare time until it's either finished or not posted there at all. (I will definitely put bits of it here so I don't internally combust, lol.) Not sure of the ultimate length because, even just going with ME1, there are a lot of moving parts that I'm still figuring out. But it's very exciting!

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Meryton Townhall (Dario Marianelli | Pride and Prejudice)

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I return to catch up on the challenge! Today's:

Make a list of fannish and/or creative resources. Remember that a list can have one thing on it! Or it can have three, five, fifteen, or a hundred things on it (probably use a cut tag/read more if it's a hundred things).

Some suggestions from years previous include: wikis, play throughs, shippy moment compilations, podcasts, writing communities, screenshot caches, how-to blogs, YouTube channels, Discord servers, transcripts, challenge comms, bingo card generators, software shortcuts, dictionaries, timelines, books, translations, online historical archives, et cetera. In general, if you thought it was helpful in one way or another, it can go on the list!

Okay, this is for a miscellany of fandoms, but:

Star Wars

The famous resource for all things SW is Wookieepedia, but I'm a grumpy movie purist and it doesn't really distinguish between the shape-shifting void beast of "official canon" and the films, so I prefer to rely (with some exercise of personal judgment :D) on:

Script for ANH: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-A-New-Hope.html
Script for ESB: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-The-Empire-Strikes-Back.html
Script for ROTJ: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-Return-of-the-Jedi.html
Script for TPM: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-The-Phantom-Menace.html
Script for AOTC: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-Attack-of-the-Clones.html
Script for ROTS: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-Revenge-of-the-Sith.html

(The scripts include the cut scenes.)

There's no Rogue One script, so I check against the actual film (or sometimes, gifsets in my #rogue one tag on Tumblr)

Guild Wars

Probably not relevant to anyone's interests, but it actually has the best wiki situation of any game I've played, with no ads or anything:

GW1 wiki: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
GW2 wiki: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page

The GW2 wiki also has the extremely helpful Event Timer page that shows all the major map events in real time: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers

Austen

ROP still has searchable etexts of all the novels: https://www.pemberley.com/etext/index.html

Tolkien

Tolkien Gateway is not always reliable, but it can be a useful starting place for finding references/quotes; e.g.: https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/H%C3%BArin_of_Emyn_Arnen

Henneth Annûn is old but quite scrupulous in terms of sourcing claims and so forth: http://www.henneth-annun.net/events_view.cfm?evid=477. It also has character-specific entries packed with direct quotations, as with this page for Denethor II: http://www.henneth-annun.net/bios_view.cfm?SCID=17

The best sites for languages IMO: https://ardalambion.net/ and the dictionary at https://www.elfdict.com/

Mass Effect

The wiki (despite the Fandom host being... bad): https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_Wiki

Some transcripts: http://www.masseffectlore.com/transcripts/mass-effect-1-transcripts/

Video of all possible dialogue for the prologue/Eden Prime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxU3k9XQpA0

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: You Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi)

I was reading some older Mass Effect threads on f_fa and while some were fun, and some were just "huh, guess it takes all kinds," they are (or were) so OTT hostile towards Liara while very generously reading into bland dude characters like Kaidan that I'm just "...ugh." Allegedly it's about Liara ninjamancing Shepard, but Kaidan is an entitled asshole if you're moderately friendly and don't romance him, so the double standard is really glaring. Bleh.

Current Location: Washington

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Belatedly, here's the third challenge!

Create a wish list of fandom things (podfic, graphics, playlists, canon recs translations, research help, vids, sky's the limit!) that you'd like to receive. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This one stalled me because I love art so much that it was hard to think of anything else! I'm flattered by getting podficced, but because my particular autistic auditory issues don't work well with audiobooks/podcasts/etc, it's not something I'd specifically ask for. But images are great (graphics or more traditional art). So I'll go for what I honestly would most like at this moment in time:

1. I haven't even written it yet (...okay, mostly haven't written it), but I'd love some kind of art/graphic/whatnot for the Commander Bennet (P&P/Mass Effect) AU, especially involving Elizabeth (as Commander Bennet aka FemShep) and/or Darcy (as Dr. Illia T'Arzi aka Liara, though she looks more like Aria in something like Liara's clothes in my head, haha). I envision Elizabeth as an Infiltrator-like tech expert and Illia as a powerful, skilled biotic who occasionally remembers that guns exist.

2. In terms of fic I have written, probably the single fic I would most like a visual gift for is The Jedi and the Sith Lord, the third fic in my f!Luke Skywalker series, but the first one where the plot truly is drastically and permanently wrenched off the rails by the AU. The entire fic is about what happens after Lucy (f!Luke) gets taken captive by Anakin/Vader in the previous fic, and I'm not sure how many of you seeing this have read it (if any!), but I've always thought art of the scene where Lucy strikes her deal with Vader (in Ch 16) would be really cool. But really anything for it would be awesome—it's one of my most beloved of my fics (not necessarily the best, but one of the dearest to me personally).

3. Art of Tolkien canon Faramir—long black hair (not shoulder-length "long," long enough to stream out in the wind and mingle with the considerably shorter Éowyn's), naturally beardless, grey eyes, with the canonical "fair face" (as in pretty, not pale), very tall. Bonus for a more Byzantine aesthetic that would contrast with the usual quasi-western medieval vibe. Bonus if with Éowyn (blonde, grey eyes) or Aragorn (also beardless, tall, greying hair).

3b. Speaking of the Faramir/Éowyn scene, a variant: I mentioned on Tumblr awhile back that in an earlier draft, Éowyn cut her hair as part of her male disguise. People quibbled with me being like "hey that would be cool too" but I stand by the greatness of long-haired Faramir+post-haircut Éowyn.

4. Since this is a random wish list and not an exchange, I'll actually go wild: bookverse f/f Faramir/Aragorn in basically any medium. My personal preference would be for f!Aragorn to be a tough, hardened warrior and f!Faramir to not be a warrior at all.

5. Something for Love, Pride & Delicacy.

Looking over these, all but one involve genderbent characters. Ah well, I am what I am.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: We Belong (Pat Benatar)

I talked in my last Snowflake post about my Commander Elizabeth Bennet AU: a P&P/Mass Effect fusion with Elizabeth as Shepard that’s simmering in my brain right now. I may or may not actually write it, but I do want to get the story nailed down for myself, and I’ve gotten the basic set-up established—at least, I think so!

I didn’t want to explain the entire fic (...should I write it someday) on Tumblr, but I still wanted to share some part of it with the fandom friends who might care (I’m actually very excited!). So I thought I’d post about the set-up for the story over here on Dreamwidth.

The story opens on Mira Gardiner, a decorated officer of the human Systems Alliance and captain of a new, state-of-the-art, stealth Alliance starship, the SSV Normandy (I thought about Waterloo, but idk). Captain Gardiner’s staid XO, William Collins, is her current right hand and presumed successor as captain of the Normandy according to Alliance protocols. But there’s a complication.

For years, humanity has been trying to get accepted into the powerful galactic Council, and one major step in that direction would be the appointment of a human to the elite Spectres that act on the Council’s behalf. Captain Gardiner herself was once under consideration to join the Spectres, and served a mission under the observation of the turian Specter Saren Arterius, but failed in mysterious circumstances. Now, years later, the Council is finally re-considering the appointment of a human to the Spectres, and has reached out to Captain Gardiner again. They’re not re-considering her; the current (oblivious) candidate is her favorite protégée, Commander Elizabeth Bennet. They want Elizabeth transferred to the Normandy for a secret mission under the supervision of the Spectre Nihlus.

Elizabeth is a controversial figure these days. She’s always been respectful, clever, and pleasant, even charming, but she’s never backed down from anyone or anything. She recently triumphed in a brutal battle on Torfan with batarian slavers; her forces were obliterated by the batarians, but Elizabeth used her tactical and technological expertise to not only survive but to wipe out the batarians. Captain Gardiner herself defended Elizabeth’s actions to the Alliance high command—and apparently Elizabeth’s resourcefulness and resolve at Torfan caught the eye of more than the Alliance.

( Read more... )

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Mass Effect Theme (Jack Wall, Sam Hulick)

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Hi again, all! Today's (and yesterday's) challenge is—

In your own space, set yourself some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

Unsurprisingly, my main goal is to finish my damn dissertation and (damn) PhD program. I just want to be free!!

I do have a very minor fannish goal: if you follow me on Tumblr, you may have seen my posts about playing Mass Effect (the trilogy) with my best friend and having ideas for a P&P fusion with Mass Effect with Elizabeth in Shepard's role (Darcy roughly occupies Liara's role). It's still percolating, but I'd like to get the story nailed down in my mind. I don't know if I'll actually write it, but I'd like to at least have it clear for myself—I've written some notes on how it works, but it's still quite foggy. I'll probably post a little more about it today.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Shake It Out (Florence + The Machine)

So I started half-a-dozen scraps of things!

Here's some early canon-compliant Darcy:

The first time Darcy saw Elizabeth Bennet, he noticed almost nothing about her. He was in an ill humour that evening, and would rather have attended one of his uncle’s dreadful theatricals than a village assembly full of strangers. He disliked both forming new acquaintance and dancing at the best of times—and this was far from that. He heard the barely-whispered gossip about the Bingleys and himself, he felt the gazes of the sparse crowd fixing on him, and he saw few signs of sense, fashion, or beauty anywhere.

Bingley, predictably enough, gravitated towards the only handsome woman in the room, a young lady who looked like a painting and to go by her placid, unwavering smile, seemed about as interesting a conversationalist as one.

Here's a bit about my headcanon for Elros's wife, early on:

Ithíriel lived long for one born in Middle-earth, who had only come to Númenor as a young woman. In the new land, her years passed slowly and peacefully as she gathered what records she could find, and took down more.

She was one among six other archivists entrusted with recovery and oversight of the records of the Edain. It was a great task, and would have been impossible without the patronage of their half-Elf king. But Tar-Minyatur had a great value for lore, and withheld nothing from the archives.

Even on Númenor, though, time passed. By the point that Tar-Minyatur could pause his labors long enough to see the archives for himself, a decade after Ithíriel’s arrival in Númenor, she had more lines about her eyes than he did. She always would.

Here's some Mass Effect!Shepard!Elizabeth:

Just about everyone in the Alliance, and plenty of those outside it, knew what Elizabeth Bennet had done at Torfan. But they didn’t understand. Nobody did, really, not even Admiral Gardiner, who’d defended her to the tribunal.

Elizabeth knew what people called her behind her back. The butcher of Torfan.

She’d long ago resigned herself to that. When Elizabeth could do something about a problem, she acted; when she couldn’t, she let it go. And she couldn’t do anything about the past.

Least of all when she didn’t regret it.

( Read more... )