Fanfic writer with a passion for exploring romantic relationships // Fandoms: Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age // Fandom: Dragon Age, Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect
Gift drabble for @ilikedetectives because she is wonderful and sweet and takes wonderful HZD photos and DESERVES ALL THE NILOY FLUFF. (Pretend for the sake of this drabble that this is early in the relationship when Aloy is still in denial about how cute Nil is.)
Inspiration: Aloy and Nil’s matching facepaint. ❤️
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Nil placed his thumb gently on Aloy’s cheek. “Be still, now.”
Aloy swallowed hard at the touch of his thumb, then rolled her eyes belligerently as he brought the coal-tipped stylus toward her eye. “Remind me again why I’m letting you paint my face.”
He smirked, but didn’t speak until he’d finished the marks under her left eye. “It’s not about the look. It’s the fine art of intimidation. These marks will be the last things they see when their lives flash before their eyes.” He tilted his head and pursed his lips in a mocking expression of thought. “Perhaps one or two will get away, but let them flee. They’ll spread the tale of the Nora huntress with two pairs of eyes: one pair that brings life, and one pair that heralds death.”
She wrinkled her nose. “One pair that brings life? How do you figure?”
He shot her a slow smile. “How else would you explain the rush of joy that these fatal encounters bring?” he said. He carefully painted her right under-eye, then leaned back and studied her face. “Don’t deny the rush, Suntress. I live for these moments. I know you do too."
She shook her head. "Nil, I told you – I don’t enjoy this.” She stood and headed toward the bandit camp before he could see the flushing of her cheeks.
He caught up to her easily with his graceful lope. “And yet we continue to find each other,” he mused. “If it’s not the blissful scent of blood, there must be something else that draws you in.”
Her face grew even hotter at his purposefully bland tone of voice. She threw him a dirty look. “Be quiet,” she said firmly. “We’re getting close.” She pulled her bow from her back and crouched in a nearby thatch of grass.
He drew his own bow and crouched beside her. “As you say, Suntress. Life and death, blood and breath: I follow your command.”
She bit back a smile as she notched an arrow in her bow. Nil might not be the most – well, reasonable – company to keep, but she could say this much for him: he was a good partner.
Eye of the Storm.
Photo by my dear friend Bchan, who posts INCREDIBLE PHOTOS like this on Instagram at @seekers_sanctuary. FOLLOW HIM. HE’S AMAZING.
$15-20 Portrait Comissions are open for the holidays! Approximately 5″x7″, you pick the subject/character Will work form a photo Game characters, pets or real people welcome (The pics in this post are examples and only available as prints) Original will be mailed to you free of charge! DM me~ ❤
OMG Danielle is an INCREDIBLE artist. This price is a STEAL considering how beautiful her work is!!!!
Jigglewarrior on Tumblr gifted me with this breathtaking sketch of Aloy and Nil! It’s so beautiful and I’m totally in love… I instantly made it my phone background, not gonna lie.
I can’t thank you enough!!! (I only wish Tumblr would tag you!!) xoxo ❤️
Special thanks to @pikapeppa who is super awesome and supportive and I love her!
AHAHAHAHAHAAH I LOVE THIS MORE THAN I HAVE WORDS FOR
Writer’s Reflections: Tag Meme
This little tag meme is an opportunity for writers to reflect on (and promote!) our own writing, but also to hear about the work of our fellow writers and to find something new to read!
Rules: answer the following questions about your own writing, whether fanfic or original. If you can’t/don’t want to answer a question, just put N/A. If you don’t have that many posted works, tell us about your WIPs or individual chapters/drabbles or even your ideas! Then tag as many writers as you like 🙂
What’s your most popular fic, by whatever metric is most relevant to you (hits, kudos, comments, reblogs, some other trait)? My first and longest Aloy/Nil longfic, Stormbirds and Stalkers. It’s got the most hits/kudos/comments/bookmarks of everything I’ve written so far.
What’s your favourite fic that you’ve written? Stormbirds and Stalkers is also my favourite thing I’ve written. I’m nostalgic sometimes about the feeling I had while writing it – almost 100,000 words in a month of super-late nights while working full-time hours, frenetic writing while commuting/eating lunch/at 1am just because I couldn’t get that story out of my head. It was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, and Aloy/Nil are still my OTP, even if I’ve kind of run out of juice for writing them.
What’s your best fic, and is it different from your favourite fic? Umm… (I came up with this question and I find it hard to answer! Lol!) I think maybe the best thing I’ve written to date is my Abelas/Lavellan fic, The One Who Lived On, along with the post-Trespasser sequel Don’t Wake Me Up. I’m pretty proud of the emotional tone of those pieces and how “tight” or concise they are given how relatively short both works are. As much as I love Stormbirds and Stalkers, it could definitely use some tightening up in the first few chapters especially.
Do you have a fic whose popularity surprised you? Within the Dragon Age fandom, I’m super happy with how well my little Cole/Lavellan fic (Become Human) was received. It’s actually my Dragon Age piece that’s received the most kudos on AO3!
Within the Horizon Zero Dawn fandom, I wrote a minific called Stealth Trials for Aloy and the Spurflints Hunting Grounds Keeper that was meant to just be a smutty oneshot, but it got so many positive comments and encouragement that it ended up mutating from a PWP into a three-part mini love story. (For anyone who doesn’t know who the Spurflints Hunting Grounds Keeper is, this is him – he’s hot af and that’s literally the reason I wrote this piece.)
Do you have a fic you wish more people would read? I wrote a couple of Blackwall/Arya Lavellan four-chapter fics that haven’t garnered much attention – people seem to prefer Blackwall oneshots? The Big Beardy One™ just deserves more love!! Why is he so underrated? Why???
I also wrote a very rare pair for Mass Effect (Reyes Vidal/Aria T’Loak) which hasn’t gotten much attention either, but it’s a total rare pair, so that’s understandable. But spirits, do I love those two. They’re terrible together and it’s so fun to write.
Is there a ship or fandom you haven’t written, but really want to? I’ve been meaning to write Frank Castle/Karen Page from Netflix’s The Punisher for some time – I LOVE JON BERNTHAL A LOT, and his depiction of the Punisher hits all my Fictional Husband™ buttons (broody, tragic backstory, hardened shell shielding a tender heart, and very violent as a bonus trait).
Tell us a random fact about your writing process: Uhhh. I often listen to the same song on loop while writing a chapter. And I always like to have tea while writing, but I often forget I’m making tea, so it sits and steeps for an hour and by the time I remember it, it’s gone cold…
The Sharper Edge of Love: Romance, Sex, and Fanfic 