9058 réponses à ce sujet

[Sarah1281]

One of the ways I always know that I have to spend less time on my papers than I thought is when the teacher actually asks us to raise our hands if we've taken an English course.

[Avilia]

My prompt response - apologies for its brevity.

I wasn't sure what tack to take with this one, I toyed with the idea of doing it from Namaya's PoV, then I thought about making her a villian. Finally I thought, Anders did use her. Its clear to me from their conversation and his reactions that he did. Whether he had good reasons for doing so is another thing. The other question in my mind is 'did she know the Templars were setting Anders up'? That's the biggy for me and the answer to that is what either makes her a sympathetic character or a villain.

-----------------

He'd forgotten about her. Well, not forgotten so much as, mislaid the memory. So much else had happened in the past few days, Anders thought he had some excuse for forgetting about Namaya. Being captured by Templars, attacked by darkspawn, conscripted into the Grey Wardens and finally being free of the Circle.

He spotted her the second they came up the stairs near the Tavern. Waiting right where she'd said she would. Feeling a quick stab of guilt he hesitated. Trying to distract himself and perhaps the others, he made some silly remark about the pitchfork stuck in a tree.

It didn't work, Namaya was still there, he still felt guilty and, yes, the Commander noticed her. Cursing silently he followed Lilibeth when she approached the waiting woman.

The conversation went the way he'd thought it would. She was angry that he'd seemingly forgotten her. Not seemingly, but Anders didn't think telling her that was necessary.

Namaya had done as he'd asked and tracked down his phylactery. He'd half thought she'd give up and leave when the Templars captured him but she hadn't. She'd kept her word.

He hadn't.

. . .

"What was I supposed to do!?"

Nate leaned back against the wall and watched the mage pace. "Feeling guilty?"

"No." Cursed Howe. "You think I should?"

"I think you do." That had been clear to him since they'd met Namaya in Amaranthine. Anders had done something a gentleman shouldn't. "Why?"

"Namaya promised to help me and I promised to help her. I didn't."

"Do you think she knew about the Templars in the warehouse?"

Did he? "I'm not sure. If she was angry enough she might have agreed to set me up. I just don't know." Anders would like to think he was a better judge of character than to trust someone who'd betray him, but on the other hand, he had forgotten her. And his promise.

"Women can be unpredictable when they're angry."

"You're not telling me anything I don't already know. Curse it. I promised."

Not normally one to pry, Nate thought in this case he would. Anders had started this conversation by storming up to him after all. All he'd done was look in his direction for more than a second. Which apparently meant he was judging and making assumptions. More evidence that the mage felt guilty. "What did you promise to do?"

"Help her leave Ferelden. Get her on a ship to Rivain."

Nate nodded. He knew it ordinarily wasn't easy for elves to travel. It required money for bribes and forged passes for the guards. "Did she travel here with you?"

"Yes, from Highever." He'd met her there. "We, well, as you know, Namaya managed to find out that the Templars had moved the phylacteries. It seemed easier to travel together. The Templars were looking for a mage alone and as I." Anders paused. "Am human, Namaya had that protection from being harassed."

"And when you reached Amaranthine?"

"It went badly. Namaya left to scout out information and I managed to get myself captured." Leaving Namaya alone. "My own fault."

"If you're right and Namaya didn't betray you, perhaps you should make good on your promise."

"How should I do that? I may be a Grey Warden but I have no money and no way of acquiring any."

"I have an idea. If you're willing?" Nate pushed away from the wall. "If we can ensure you weren't betrayed deliberately, I say we speak to the Commander about this. As Arl she has power we don't."

"You know Howe, if you don't mind me saying, you're alright."

. . .

Finding Namaya again wasn't easy. It took them almost two days of searching and discreet questioning before finally tracking her down. In the Chantry of all places. Not praying but seemingly waiting. For what?

"Namaya?" Anders stepped back when she stood. "I need to apologise."

"You're alright? I heard what happened. I didn't know, you know that don't you?"

"I left you here alone. I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd helped them." He was relieved when she frowned at him. "They captured me you know, that's why I was gone."

"I know that now. That woman, the strange one, she said you'd run off. I wondered if you had."

"No, they were taking me back to the Circle. Thankfully the darkspawn stopped them." He let out a breath when her expression lightened. "You kept your promise and found my phylactery. I need to keep mine."

"Oh?"

"Here." Anders held the documents out for her take. "The Arl of Amaranthine is sending you to Rivain on Grey Warden business." Once she had the papers he held out the coin pouch. "Here's your passage money."

"Anders."

"Take them. We had an agreement." Finally she took them both. "There's a ship leaving tomorrow morning."

"Thank you." After hesitating a moment she nodded and walked away towards the doors.

Anders watched her leave, feeling a little better for having forgotten her. Catching sight of Nate's expression he sighed. "What?"

"Nothing." He wasn't going to say what they both knew. Namaya hadn't wanted to leave, she'd wanted to stay. Here. With Anders.

[Sarah1281]

Oh, poor Namaya...I'm glad that Nathaniel found a way for Anders to help her after all and I like the thought that they had an arrangement of mutual support.



You know, given how popular Namaya is with Anders fans I'm kind of surprised by how sympathetic all the prompts have been so far.

[Miri1984]

*wibbles at Avilia*



This is certainly bringing out the sadfaces...

[Avilia]

Apologies for the slow responses:

@Sabreene - great fun - brought back a lot of memories from my childhood watching Bewitched. (I'd love to say repeats of Bewitched but I'm not sure I can (ooh just checked the dates - I can say repeats yay! I'm not as old as I thought ;-) )). Slightly OT - it always annoyed me that Darren wouldn't let Samantha use magic - she's a witch isn't she? How can he love her and want her to be something different. I'm sure someone somewhere has analysed that one to death.

@Sarah - poor Namaya - lost her Tavern and forced by circumstances to help Anders. Then she gets cornered by Rylock.

@Miri - again poor Namaya. I like that Anders admits he was overconfident in saying he could heal Geoffrey.

@Sarah and Miri - thanks guys

We really are pulling out the sad stuff for this one. I actually felt a little bad for Namaya - that char model is not good (to put it mildly). You might recall I created a new morph for her.

Modifié par Avilia, 05 novembre 2010 - 01:34 .

[Sarah1281]

You know, I'm not a modder and I don't know that much about it and certainly don't want to demean the efforts of those who do but...people come up with far more attractive morphs for characters than the game has ALL THE TIME (YMMV on some of the ones on Nexus, of course). Why in the world do we get characters that look like, say, vanilla!Namaya when we could get characters that look more like Avilia!Namaya?

[Avilia]

I think its 'minor character syndrome' at times. Or just one person pumping out a lot of chars and they get lazy. Or they have some way of automating the process. Usually its okay but poor Namaya is an example where it all went skew wiff.



I'm not saying all chars should be pretty, but some effort put into their appearance would be good. Take Rylock she's a good model, one look and you know she's nuts ;-)

[LupusYondergirl]

@avilia: I love that Anders managed to find a way to help her out in the end.


I sometimes wonder if they have some kind of script that churns out NPC heads. Awakenings is really the worst for crazy looking background characters.
I use the Namaya with Dragon Age redesigned. It's close to the same face, but with corrected proportions so she doesn't look like a member of the Hapsburg dynasty.

Modifié par LupusYondergirl, 05 novembre 2010 - 03:43 .

[sabreene]

Wow, the thread has been busy today! I'm gone for just over twelve hours and there's already three stories!!!

@Sarah - I liked that idea, and the details you put in about why the phylacteries were moved, as well as the bit about them losing Anders 'on hand' blood during the whole blood mage/Uldred thing. It was nice seeing it  all from Namaya's POV, too!

@Miri - I felt sorry for Namaya, losing her brother. It was a nice touch tying the growth disease (cancer?) that his mother died of into the story. It gave losing Geoffrey more poignancy. (That was your young!Anders story that it referred to, right?) And I looved the last line  Nice ending!!

@Avilia - I liked the addition of Nate, and how he helped Anders to solve the problem. Again I felt sorry for Namaya -- who wouldn't want to stay with Anders if given the chance? I think I actually have more sympathy for her when looking at your face morph instead of the original.

A lot of the original morphs (like the horrible one in Leliana's DLC for the city elf's mother!! Or at least an elf with the same name) are just terrible. I think they have to have some sort of system -- no one could make morphs and go, Yes, bright pink eyeshadow and a jaw a foot long! I like it. Finished.

And thank you everyone for comments on Bewitched!   Avilia you can't be older than me, and I used to watch reruns in the afternoons after school, too. I loved it the show... although my favorite was always when Serena, the dark haired cousin came to visit   Watching it now is a strange sort of commentary of that time period, similar to I Dream of Jeannie.

I don't know how many people have seen it, but thinking about analysing TV shows reminds me of the scene in Dazed and Confused, with the girls discussing the political and social ramifications of Gilligan's island, the whole MaryAnn vs Ginger thing.

@Lupus - Ugh, Zeno's paradox! I couldn't stand the philosophy classes in college, so I feel your pain. I ended up taking Logic as my 3 credits. I loved Logic, it wasn't like philosophy at all

[Avilia]

sabreene wrote...

[snipped]

@Avilia - I liked the addition of Nate, and how he helped Anders to solve the problem. Again I felt sorry for Namaya -- who wouldn't want to stay with Anders if given the chance? I think I actually have more sympathy for her when looking at your face morph instead of the original.

A lot of the original morphs (like the horrible one in Leliana's DLC for the city elf's mother!! Or at least an elf with the same name) are just terrible. I think they have to have some sort of system -- no one could make morphs and go, Yes, bright pink eyeshadow and a jaw a foot long! I like it. Finished.
And thank you everyone for comments on Bewitched!   Avilia you can't be older than me, and I used to watch reruns in the afternoons after school, too. I loved it the show... although my favorite was always when Serena, the dark haired cousin came to visit   Watching it now is a strange sort of commentary of that time period, similar to I Dream of Jeannie.

[snipped]

That line made me laugh - you have to wonder sometimes don't you?

I'm 46 - so I'd bet I'm older ;-)  I'm just slightly too young for first run Bewitched but I did watch it in black and white (we didn't get a coloured telly until 1974). It is very 'of its time'. Darren is very 'man of the house' isn't he?  Endora was always my favourite - did she ever get his name right - "Derwent".

Thanks for the story comment - I based that morph on the bride from CEM origins.

@Lupus -thank you  I wanted Anders to feel guilty, but in the end he's a good person, so he'd want to help her. 

[Sarah1281]

So is it sad that the first time I heard of Bewitched was when I was watching an old Charmed rerun and Phoebe and Cole were talking about the whole giving up your powers for the one you love aspect of the show around the time they got engaged? I still never saw the show although I did see the odd remake movie.

[Bruddajakka]

The even more annoying part is when Star characters end up looking like they were slapped together in a couple of minutes in the case of Sigrun, and Velanna.

[sabreene]

Sarah1281 wrote...

So is it sad that the first time I heard of Bewitched was when I was watching an old Charmed rerun and Phoebe and Cole were talking about the whole giving up your powers for the one you love aspect of the show around the time they got engaged? I still never saw the show although I did see the odd remake movie.

Cole I remember that episode.

The odd remake movie was odd. And not like the show <.< And the first Darrin was totally better, if you ever do see it

I would guess they had different reruns on when you were a kid!  Also, I think it's totally different now, with cable & tivo. There's soo many shows on. When I got home from school as a kid there wasn't much variety. So it was the line-up of shows like Bewitched, The Brady Bunch and maybe a little later in the evening, Three's Company! Risque!

[sabreene]

Avilia wrote...

sabreene wrote...

[snipped]
And thank you everyone for comments on Bewitched!   Avilia you can't be older than me, and I used to watch reruns in the afternoons after school, too. I loved it the show... although my favorite was always when Serena, the dark haired cousin came to visit   Watching it now is a strange sort of commentary of that time period, similar to I Dream of Jeannie.

[snipped]

That line made me laugh - you have to wonder sometimes don't you?

I'm 46 - so I'd bet I'm older ;-)  I'm just slightly too young for first run Bewitched but I did watch it in black and white (we didn't get a coloured telly until 1974). It is very 'of its time'. Darren is very 'man of the house' isn't he?  Endora was always my favourite - did she ever get his name right - "Derwent".

Thanks for the story comment - I based that morph on the bride from CEM origins.

@Lupus -thank you  I wanted Anders to feel guilty, but in the end he's a good person, so he'd want to help her. 

lol, Darren is very man of the house. It was very much "I'll go off to work and you have dinner and a drink waiting when I get home". They always had cocktails when he got home from work! I remember telling my mom to "make mine a double" without really knowing what it meant.

I know when to admit defeat, I guess you do have me beat on age I'm 38... although by the end of the workday I usually feel like I'm about 65!

Modifié par sabreene, 05 novembre 2010 - 04:41 .

[Avilia]

'make mine a double' that's priceless. Typical I always win the competitions I'd rather lose ;-)



Cole, that's Julian McMahon isn't it? He's more than a bit yummeh imho.

[tankgirly]

Hey, elethe did this for the prompt!

[Estral27]

@Sarah: Makes perfect sense, Rylok would certainly skulk about in corners!!

@Miri: I love the ending, I can just see him smirking about it.

@Avilia: Beautiful. Go Nate!!!

Can I throw in a prompt response?





I spent more than an hour on it (Struggled with Namaya's poor face, until I decided to just turn her around) but it was a welcome change from being frustrated with a few tasks at work. Hope the text is readable... probably a bit small.

[Estral27]

Haha Tank - you beat me

I'm still a bit slow with my Internet-Fu

[sabreene]

Avilia wrote...

'make mine a double' that's priceless. Typical I always win the competitions I'd rather lose ;-)

Cole, that's Julian McMahon isn't it? He's more than a bit yummeh imho.

It is, and I agree I started watching Nip/Tuck just for him. Although I didn't continue following it. Seeing dotted lines where they're going to make the incisions makes me both mad (why? why!)  and a little sick (surgery phobia!)

And, for topic:



@Gala - That reminds me, I missed seeing your comment .Reading it, the idea of Justice inside Pounce is a good one! That would've been perfect! Ah, well. Missed opportunity

[Sarah1281]

Oh, Anders...feeding a pret...well, a girl a sob story and then totally ditching her may be easier short-term but in the long-term, it could lead to a death trap. Nice.

[sabreene]

@Estral - That is priceless!! lol ! I love Anders' expression. I don't blame you for having trouble with Namaya's face... I think it's a good thing you turned her around

[Estral27]

Thanks Sabreene! Unless using Avilia's mod - its probably best that Namaya is turned around Also I loved Bewitched - nice work!!!

[LupusYondergirl]

Sarah1281 wrote...

Oh, Anders...feeding a pret...well, a girl a sob story

And I'm cleaning diet coke off my keyboard.  Well done!

@sabreene: just realized I didn't comment! I loved it. I used to stay up and watch Bewitched reruns on Nick at Night after we got cable for the first time. (I'm 31, so probably at the tail end of people who remember life before cable.)

@Estral27 : I love the expression on his face.


And in my fic Anders TOTALLY deserves to be set up by the templars. Completely. So I'm not quite sure how I'll handle this. (funny since I picked the prompt...)

[Asepsis]

Sarah1281 wrote...

Oh, Anders...feeding a pret...well, a girl a sob story and then totally ditching her may be easier short-term but in the long-term, it could lead to a death trap. Nice.

Hahaha!

[Miri1984]

I never could watch Bewitched for more than a couple of minutes without being filled with rage, I must admit. Same with I Dream of Jeanie.



@Estral - that's a gorgeous likeness of the Anders smirk - loved the text too! I think I tend to make Anders a bit too nice and good - but he is older and reformed now that he's met Neria. Back with Namaya he was still a bit of a bad boy .