Cthulhu 2020! Choose The Greater Evil!

Update: 10-7-2024

Oklahoma; we all get here SOONER or later! Several years since I've actually seriously written anything thanks to college, COVID, moving a few times, a messy computer death, and the general insanity that the world seems to be inhabiting today, I've finally started sitting down and, y'know, typed something.

Currently working on 9:27 DRAGON, a Dragon Age story that's very AU, beginning three years prior of the Fifth Blight (and DAO) with a 15-year old Marian Hawke.

JENNIFER WALTERS, AVENGER-AT-LAW and MASS EFFECT: OF LIONS AND ANGELS lost massive amounts of content (like in the neighborhood of 200,000 words) that I've slowly tried to re-work the past couple of months. It's... a process.

Stories I'm currently working on:

9:27 DRAGON

Marian Hawke is now 15 and a legal adult in the Kingdom of Ferelden. With the dream of becoming a Knight of Ferelden, she has joined the Dryden Brothers Merchant Company as a drover guard for coin, experience, and to leave her hometown of Lothering and see the world! This story will touch upon many locations seen or mentioned in the games (be it video game, codex, or TTRPG) and the first Act, "ACROSS THE FACE OF THE WORLD", will primarily deal with traveling throughout Ferelden along the Pilgrim's Path/Old Tevinter Highway, while branching off to locations both covered and not covered in media. The setting is pre-firearm Elizabethan Britton, with the inclusion of all those wonderful cultures and histories of those who live upon the Isles; Celt, Welsh, Gaelic, Britton, Roman, Norse, Norman, and Saxon. So grab a Chant and an axe, and prepare for adventure!

Thanks to RuBecSo and their wonderful, wonderful BW map of Ferelden (found on DeviantArt) that gave me Bannorns, cities, towns, roads, paths, and much more to play with. It is by far better than anything I could possibly come up with, and without it I doubt this story would be even a quarter as complex.

Currently on ACT I: ACROSS THE FACE OF THE WORLD; ARC I - COMING-OF-AGE

List of Author/Stories I Recommend:

PickleDillo's "Running On Empty" - An AU of Dragon Age: Inquisition, this Self-Insert doesn't Mary Sue. The title says it all; poor Jaime Wyatt is stuck at the precipice of the end of the world. What's worse, she isn't a fighter, she isn't from Thedas, and she has no clue what's going on. Armed with a warhammer and fueled by desperation, she fights because she has no choice. This story is a good example of a regular person stuck in a horrific extraordinary time, the author really selling the idea of the title and the confusion and desperation of being in the middle of a terrible scenario. The poor Main Character is bounced around a lot from situation to the next, has to learn how to fight (and the author does a good job of making it actual training), and is dragged through the plot of DA:I without a lot of plot armor.

Arsinoe do Blassenville's "Victory at Ostagar" - This one million plus word story answers a question; what if Loghain had charged forward at Ostagar when the Tower of Ishal's beacon had been lit? Arsinoe (RIP) weaves a tremendous story that involves DA:O and DA2 characters with Bronwyn Cousland at the lead. This story most likely covers it all, and even at my voracious reading speeds, took me a couple of months to finish it.

SomethingProfound11's "Estrangement" - Surprisingly, we shared a lot of similar ideas about ME1 without any correspondence whatsoever. SP11 shows a good deal of inner-workings and clever insights that adds more to the story about the people on-board a ship than most ever even touch. A wonderful re-telling of ME1 (with a sequel "What Lives In The Dark" in the works currently!) that shows the efforts of a good author. Also check out "The Talk" for a good giggle or three as poor Sara Ryder gets a very sad case of the birds and the bees from an unlikely source in an unlikely manner!

Exodia-Girl's "Mass Effect" - A brilliant show of military tactics and personal effort for someone who has never served in the military, E-G can certainly put a reader into the personal boots of someone on the ground. Most certainly a Reaper-less AU, this TV Series-esque is quite different from the normal novelization and AU, crafting a rather unique story that doesn't follow the rules and instead forges its own creative path.

MosaicCreme's "The Lives And Deaths Of Commander Shepard" - This HUGE story (750k words) is one of the best 'novelization-that-isn't' stories that I've ever encountered. Using a creative 'redo' plotline, this story really pulls at the reader, going through the motions while leaving you guessing. "Targeted Interference" is also an interesting story that deserves a look as well. Don't try outsmarting her; she has like four degrees!

LogicalPremise's "Of Sheep And Battle Chicken" - This series has been going on for over 6 years, is on its third story, and has damn near FORTY addendums and stories for you to peruse in this grim-dark Warhammer 40k-esque universe where there are no 'good' guys. This series touches everything; behind-the-scenes, politics, even newscasts and legit interviews, while also including a whole host of realistic O/C's, entire histories of enemies, legends and pariahs, and a very dark Sara Ying Shepard.

DigitalHelix's "All In The Details" - Probably the only Mass Effect story that deserves the 'Futurized/Cyberpunk' category for an already Sci-Fi category, this acronym and technology-heavy story employs a view of the future that exceeds most anything you'll likely see in media; print or visual. While the plot itself adheres to the game faithfully, the true brilliance of it is in the way FutureTech is shown; it's far beyond anything I've encountered in a Sci-Fi story, though I'll fully admit I haven't read everything yet (not from lack of trying). This story is William Gibson-like in ingenuity and imagination, and is worthy of looking upon.

Chimerean's "Shattered Reality" - The most unique Self-Insert (in fact, it's a double Self-Insert with a duel-authored story!) I've ever encountered, even non-SI fans can appreciate this one. Intelligent, verbose, with wide sweeping references of RL memes and links, and a story where the SIs (both of them) aren't running around blasting shit like they're Special Forces, this story certainly starts in an unusual fashion in an unusual location, and blasts off in an unusual direction. Creative and unique, this story while have you boggled as it takes a leap into an unknown (and as far as I'm aware, still completely unique) direction.

Meytel's "The Spirit Of Redemption" - Quite possibly one of the longest stories in FanFiction (it sits at just shy of 3.5 million words), this 'started right after ME2' story is one of the fullest and most in-depth stories that holds broad arcs in plot and design, encompassing years of storytime, and a great deal of originality. Featuring unique enemies, ideas, characters, situations, scenarios, and getting a little bit of a grin at Meytel tried to outguess Mass Effect 3 before it came out (the Collectors were a predominate enemy in her version), this story sweeps most everything off the board. This story covers a great deal of future concepts, ideas, and fleses out a great deal on things like Batarian culture, cloning, hybridization, and boasts ideas that are rather jaw-dropping. Meytel spends chapters on ideas (and each chapter itself is generally 10k words) and really makes you feel like you are in the story's passage of time instead of jumping around from mission to mission. If you've got about a year or so to kill, certainly check this story out. 3.5 million words... that's a 4,000 page paperback novel.