Playing Skyrim–Beyond Skyrim

It’s not a witticism. Beyond Skyrim is one of those overambitious projects you sometimes hear about with regards to the highly modable games from Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls series that aim to expand the already huge game world by adding new provinces or rebuilding entire previous games in the latest one. But unlike most (possibly all) of them, Beyond Skyrim is actually playable. And it’s excellent. The new content is of DLC quality, virtually indistinguishable from the vanilla game, and where it differs, it’s mostly for the better.

NaNo 2019 Musings

In the previous post, I announced that this year I would be doing a modified Nano thing, whereby I’d try to complete the rewrite of the Nano 2011 draft for my story Ghost in the Machine. Tl;dr: I did not “win” Nano and I did not finish Ghost. I did write almost every day of November and I did draft two new chapters. But I’m thoroughly uninspired to go on with it.

Fanart (!) for TTSS, and Pre-Nano Ramblings

My friend, HeavenlyEros, made this fabulous poster for TTSS! Eros also helped me create the cover for it, and performed many other feats of great art and friendship, some of which I mentioned before. The Mass Effect fandom is truly blessed to inspire such talented, devoted and kind creators — and so am I, to have such friends. ♥

Two Steamy Mass Effect Fics

Nothing new, I’m afraid. Just some stories I never posted on this site because of adult content. They’ve both been on AO3 for a long time, though. The first is Inappropriate Thoughts, where Garrus and female Shepard from my other Garrus/Shepard stories share some indecent battlefield fantasies (and then go on to enact one). The other is Morning After, where Garrus and male Shepard wake up after their first night as lovers — my one and only story featuring male Shepard, written as a gift for Logsig.

Some, or even most of the people who read my Saren/Nihlus stories, may not even be aware that I used to write Garrus/Shepard at all, even though that stuff always got far more attention from fandom at large. Perhaps this belated advert will help someone discover stories they didn’t know about and hopefully make them happy.

Image: Garrus by Angua33

Thinker Traitor Soldier Spectre Finally Released!

My latest Mass Effect fic, Thinker Traitor Soldier Spectre (TTSS for short), is finally finished! It tells the epic story of how Saren and Nihlus first met and became friends, expanding the Codex teaser below into a novel:

After being reassigned to a new squad for the third time, Nihlus was introduced to Saren Arterius, a fellow turian and a Spectre. Saren was impressed with the young soldier. He befriended Nihlus and offered to mentor him.
Mass Effect Codex

Available for reading on AO3 and FFN, where it will be updated weekly, or here, where the work is posted completely.

Status Report

After heroically keeping up with my plan to post weekly for half a year, my fledgling habit faltered after I came back from vacation. I could go into a rant on how I’ve been busier than usual with my day-job, but that was only true in August. No excuse now! I’m just too lazy for it. Not just the creation of content, which is hard enough because the journalistic style doesn’t work for me; but also making myself believe that I actually have something to say that’s worth my time to write it and anyone else’s to read it.