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elspeth lifecanon

Greetings and Saluations

I'll answer to Elspeth. I am a thirty-something fanwoman, a midwestern transplant from New England (USA), a freelance editor, and an occasional writing instructor. My interests these days include baking, playing The Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age, writing about the former and reading about the latter, and binge watching television shows of varying quality. These include (but are not limited to) Merlin, Game of Thrones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead, and Criminal Minds (which I've convinced myself is less of a crime procedural and more of a low fantasy).

I'm writing a series of novel-length fan fictions on Skyrim, which can be found on my wordpress blog, Elspeth's Epic Skyrim Disaster, and AO3.

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Dear Cullen Stanton Rutherford,

You are only meant to be a swoony rebound, intended to heal the wound in my heart left by a certain egglord. Stop being so awkward and adorable or I may be forced to love you.

Yours sincerely,
Elspeth

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That Moment...

When you fall ass-over-teakettle in love with your own original character.

I wasn't sure who my canon Inquisitor would be, although I had pretty much decided that Shula Lavellan has a twin brother, Andil, who is an archer. At some point, I'll design his face in the character creator. He's getting the mullet in honor of male Dragon Age twins with unfortunate hair and also so that Dorian can meet him with, "Is your hair on purpose?"

But until yesterday, I hadn't thought of him much. And then on our long drive to my mother's house, that is basically all I thought about. Having him arrive in Skyhold, soon after Haven is destroyed, to check on his sister. Wary of humans and terrified of the anchor and what it means, Andil, Dalish and proud (way prouder than Shula ever was), is confused and terrified for his sibling. But he joins the Inquisition, and after a rough initiation, creates a niche for himself within Shula's inner circle, making his own friends, falling in love, etc.

Andil is the name given to someone from my Dragonborn's past, someone very important to her, a young Bosmer who died when they were 19 years old. I feel like this is a chance to give him a story he deserves.

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Maker plz

Every time Andy (spouse) has his Inquisitor flirt with Scout Harding he looks back at me with this big adorable grin on his face.

He's starting to get it.

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There will come a day

when I will form a more nuanced character analysis.

But it is not this day.

There will come a day when I will understand the lore of Thedas and respond to plot twists appropriately.

But it is not this day

( Initial reaction type ranting... )

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Oh and here's my precious nerd

I figured out how to get clips from my Xbox to twitter. It's not as good as a screen shot, but I'm working on it.

( Look at this face! )

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Is this Aveda?

If you haven't played through a Solas romance you might not want to read, but really there are no content spoilers here. It's about the music.

( Petty irritances ahead... )

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Well then.

I thought I got it before.

It made sense to me, in an intellectual sense, the attachment people have to these games.

But really, I had no idea. None.

Now I do.

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But really...

( Dumb ramblings )

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It Happened

I am now 100% completely and totally emotionally compromised by my Inquisition romance. I even told my husband.

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Cullen

There's a Cullen thing that happened that I've wanted to scream about.

( Here be squeeing )

If I ever

gain the nerve to write and post Dragon Age: Inquisition fan fiction, I am 93% certain that it will be about a non-Inquisitor OC who lives at Skyhold and works their way into the Inquisitor's inner circle by way of Cole. Or maybe Bull.

~Fin~

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Inquisition Thoughts (minor spoilers)

I am still so far behind in this game and want to read everyone's impressions so badly, though I am exercising restraint in that regard, which is saying something. I'm one of those people for whom spoilers in television, film, and books don't bother me that much. But games are different. In any case, I've got some random thoughts and impressions. No extensive meta or crit just yet as I barely have enough time to play much less devote any writing or thinking time to the game.

( Read more... )

An Inquisition Confession

So you guys can see what a bad video game player I am:

I rage quit the character creator. Four times.

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Inquisition, quick update no spoilers

We opted to get a new console so I'm actually putting off Inquisition until it arrives (tomorrow). I did manage to play through the introduction since I was pretty much in the middle of the introduction when Andy and I started chatting over IM about getting a new system sooner rather than later. Still, I am so freaking excited I can't stand it. To distract myself, I've been packing my days with work so I can spend as much time as possible playing when it gets here.

I am so excited to go back and read everyone's thoughts once I get further into the game.

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Tales of Mediocrity

Well, I managed to finish my chapter. It still needs some heavy editing, but with some discipline and time management, I should have time to edit and post it this afternoon. My small cadre of regular readers will no doubt be happy for the update.

This chapter includes a bit of smut. I have a love/hate relationship with writing smut. On the one hand, when it works, it's exhilarating and exciting. On the other, trying to convey the all emotions tied to physical intimacy is difficult. Trying to capture a tone that doesn't deviate from the apparent style my story has taken on is even worse. Sometimes it's easier just to write a straightforward, explicit romp. Indeed, my first draft paragraphs often alternate between romantic erotica and straight-up, hard-core banging. This story tends toward the former though my next one, a Dawnguard-based fiction, will definitely embrace some of the latter.

And to this point, not all the sex in my story has been romantic. It's just that my language tends toward the erotic and suggestive, rather than the explicit.

But in this last chapter, I decided to pair my protagonist with a popular canon character. And the results are...awkward to say the least. And why shouldn't they be? Unremarkable, average sexual encounters are part of life, no? And it's not as if there is a dearth of exciting smut featuring this guy.

But sweet Dibella's tit writing mediocre sex is difficult. And there isn't exactly an abundance of writing advice out there. There is plenty on how to avoid bad sex writing, but not on how to write bad sex well. In the end, I employed most of the same advice I've always used, with occasional tips taken from the DON'T column. At some point, when I don't have a thousand things on my To Do list, I may write a comprehensive post with some advice on this.

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All Right, Let's Do This

No, I have not been meeting my writing goals but I've been getting a lot done for someone who completely underestimated how much work she had to do to prep for teaching.

But, I'm finishing the chapter from hell and I will have it posted before DA:I.

I can and I will.

I will also pick the books I plan to teach next semester and catch up on correcting this semester's response papers. Somewhere in there I will find time to do laundry, bake a cranberry upside down cake, and roast a chicken.

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I can do this, right?

I've been saying for a long time now that my Epic Disaster of a fan fiction has become what my dissertation once was. If nothing else, that means I'll finish it. Eventually.

I write a lot, and I still work on my story most days--even if it's just a little bit or something that's going to happen in the future. My problems seem to be focusing on the next chapter and managing my time.

So instead of starting a new story for the month of November, I am going to be using the NaNoWriMo daily writing goals to push forward on my current story. To do this, I am going to be rearranging my sleep and work schedule so that I am up very early on work days, which will give me more writing time at night. I'm not sure why, but I am much less inclined to waste time on the Tumblr at 5:30AM than I am at 9PM. I think it's because the only thing that really offsets the sheer pain of being up that early is focusing all my energy on editing or correcting papers.

So, I've got myself a little word counter on my main story blog and starting tomorrow I'm going to log all the words I type. I'm also going to do enough editing to publish chapters as I finish them. This is so far beyond the point of NaNoWriMo, but I think it's exactly what I need to. And if it works out well, I may just stick to that work/writing schedule indefinitely.