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Sorry to not keep on schedule with my NaBlo posts yesterday and the day before. I started writing this post on Tuesday morning but a combination of a deep lack of sleep, a 12-hour workday, and all of the hullaballoo with the U.S. elections squarely got in the way of finishing this post. By the time I got home, the 6^th of November had come and gone, and I was a crazy mix of drunk (wheee, alcohol), wired (wheee! Great election results!), and exhausted (booo… no solid sleep for days…). Yesterday, I decided to take a MUCH NEEDED “fall off the face of the earth” day. I slept until early afternoon (yay! Sleep deficit resolved!) and then I sequestered myself in a coffee house with a book. Dinner somehow ended up involving a lot of tequila as my dinner-mates monitored state and county election returns (at that point, only 60ish% of our state’s vote had been counted, and less so for our populous county). I finished writing this post late last night (after sobering up) but was too tired to post it. Clearly I need to catch up with my NaBlo posts by doing double posts over the next few days. 

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Today’s post is about one of my WIPs, This Bird Has Flown (Alistair/Surana, Cullen/Surana). A 500 word excerpt from my draft of the first chapter is at the bottom of this post. 

This Bird Has Flown grew out of the first DA:O fanfic that I drafted almost a year ago. The story hasn’t yet seen the light of day because the idea needed a lot of time to cook. Along the way, it merged with a few other story ideas until one day the whole thing just *CLICKED* and I could see the entire novel. At that point, I only needed to sit down and write it. (Harharhar.)

While TBHF is narrated entirely by Alistair, the story is just as much about Neria’s friendship/relationship with Cullen in the Circle and Alistair’s prior friendship with Cullen as monastic brothers as it is about Alistair/Neria, Alistair’s relationship with his royal-blooded family, and Alistair feeling unsure about what he wants out of life.

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NaBlo #3. Which Ser Cullen is in your canon? (And how might that change your expectations for Cullen in DA3?)

Am I looking forward to the possibility of Ser Cullen making an appearance in the DA3? Yes. Definitely yes. If Cullen ends up as a companion character, I’ll hunt the game for clues to figure out how to recruit him as early as possible. If a little Cullenmancing is available, I certain that my PC will lay out the welcome mat for that templar, no matter the roller coaster ride the romance provides. Flaws and all, Cullen’s characterization has interested me so far and I love how Greg Ellis brings this character alive.

But, despite all of that, I actually have doubts about Cullen playing a major role in DA3. Why? If Cullen is brought back as a companion character, the breadth of his prior history makes him a difficult and polarizing character to write.

Also x-posted on tumblr