You Can't Save the Spider *and* the Butterfly
Dragon Age, Doctor Who, MCU, Final Fantasy, cats, etc.
Feel free to add me as a friend on any site profile I link to on here, but do keep in mind that my Twitter is a private account. This doesn't mean I won't add people back, just that if your Twitter name and your Tumblr name don't match, I might need you to shoot me a message so I know where I know you from!
(Current avatar is cropped from a painting of my Elissa Cousland by roryseviltwin.)
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Dirty thunderstorms
A dirty thunderstorm (also, Volcanic lightning) is a weather phenomenon that occurs when lightning is...
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the-thought-emporium-imperial:
Dragon Effect
by ~AndrewRyanArt
oh god dat tali
Pretty sure...
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that is to say that my idea of what makes a woman character strong has shifted remarkably since i ventured into fandom. i was always...
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brennacedria replied to your post: im just about to start dissent, and as i was…
It sounds familiar, at least. Romanced or not, I...
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[x]
Being an update and revision of my guide to to Alistair-related mods for Dragon Age Origins.
“My name is kinlochhold, and I’m an Ali-holic.” (And Tumblr shakes its collective head and moves away from the crazy lady…)
Some of these are actually general gameplay or atmosphere mods, but since I archive them in my ‘Alistair’ folder, I’ll address them here. For nude body replacers and alternatives to the default smallclothes, see this post.
Aesthetics
Alistair Morph - Highlights [mirror] by rak72. A beautiful, subtle tweaking of Alistair’s vanilla facial proportions, with coloring and hairstyle options a-plenty. Requires Pineappletree’s Vibrant Colors and Eye Color Replacement. kinlochhold is, as always, partial to a Light Brown hair with brown eyes Vanilla hairstyle/custom Light Brown edit of Duncanstair no-earring one-two combo. Haters, hate away!Armour
The Determination of Alistair by Hilde. Uses one of the standard heavy armour models, isn’t horribly overpowered, and gets Alistair out of that damned splintmail. Comes in two flavours (Tier 2 Grey Iron starting gear, and Tier 4 Veridium, suitable for around level 7). Can be tiered at higher levels (and so remains useful for much of the game). Also, can be dyed with the Universal Dye Kit.
I also use a really nifty mod called ‘Epilogue NPC Changes’ that places Alistair in his DAA Kal’Hirol-style armour (rather than Calian’s armour), post-coronation. But I cannot remember where it came from, and searches on both DA Nexus and BSN came up dry. :-(
Other stuff
Alistair’s Oath by KuroNekosama. Gives proud Grey Warden Alistair a Warden’s Oath amulet of his very own. Compatibility files for Improved Warden Oath, Grey Wardens of Ferelden, and Improved Atmosphere are available.
Alistair Adore Items by rak72. A restricted ring and amulet that automagically show up in inventory when Alistair and the Warden reach ‘Adore’. Will transfer to DAA, unlike that darn vanilla plot rose!Forbidden Love Lockets by rak72. A pair of lockets restricted to a mage and templar.
Two recent additions to my Alistair-related mod list are Alistair’s Rose and Alistair’s Mothers Amulet, both by Jinxy Jo. Equippable amulets, restricted to Alistair and the Warden, respectively. As with rak’s mods, these are a nice touch for roleplay purposes, and the rose amulet transfers into Awakening.
Romance Mementos for Awakening by Gewitterwolke. Adds Alistair’s Rose as a plot item to the Warden Commander’s inventory, if it was received in DAO, along with a relationship-state specific ring or amulet, if certain conditions are met. Works fine in my installation, and even correctly recognized an imported, non-canon Amell Queen of Ferelden.Gameplay
Improved Romance Scenes and Fixes - Alistair [mirror] by cmessaz. Even if not romancing Alistair, this is, IMO, an an essential mod, for the fixes, restored content and tweaks. And if your Warden is romancing Alistair, there’s all the hugs! All the kisses! All the sexxytimes! All the sweet special romance scenes! All the punching Alistair in the face at Fort Drakon! I use the ‘Party Camp’ optional fix as well. The optional Epilogue Fix/Edit files are included in ZDF, which I also use, with tweaking as per the IRS-Alistair readme. And I apologize if any of that is confusing!I should probably mention here that according to tmp7704, the current version of Mild Romance Scenes is not compatible with IRS-Alistair due to the addition of content not addressed by IRS (a new, optional scene that allows the player to spend the last night in Redcliffe with Alistair instead of performing the ritual, if a relationship threshold is met). When I inquired as to the continued compatibility of the two mods, tmp was kind enough to offer the following workaround:
afraid not, in the sense this version of the mod won’t have the things IRS adds on its own, and IRS doesn’t have a way to trigger the new scene. As a work-around, you could simply uninstall IRS for a moment when you reach Redcliffe castle and install this version of the mod, choose the scene, then remove the mod and put IRS back. Or alternatively, unpack this mod to ‘override/toolsetexport’ folder so it gets higher priority, and remove it after you’re done viewing the scene, so IRS can work again.
Alistair’s Kiss [mirror] by DahliaLynn. Improved repeatable kisses! Also, a better Fort Drakon final kiss for HF Wardens who actually let Alistair sacrifice himself. (You heartless harpies!)
Alistair’s First Night Love Scene [mirror] by Dahlialynn, in both standalone and IRS compatible versions. Replaces the default ‘First Knight’ cutscene.
Alistair’s Epilogues: The Royal Wedding [mirror] Big ol’ wedding cutscene for Lady Cousland. And only for Lady Cousland.Dark Ritual Deleted Scene [mirror] by TheOneKnight. Not a ‘deleted’ scene in the strictest sense, this mod adds a fan-made version of a cutscene inspired by the Revelation comic (a collaboration between Aimo and David Gaider) which provides (when specific conditions are met) some context to Morrigan’s offer of the Dark Ritual.
Rendezvous at the Tavern by cmessaz. Sexxytimes with Alistair (and the other LIs) at the Gnawed Noble Tavern.
More options at the Pearl by Firinneach. Mostly silly and head-scratchingly bizarre sex cutscenes involving a wide array of NPCs. I only keep it around for the pole dancing. Pole dancing Alistair makes me happy.
Gatekisses by charsen. Adds a dialogue option to the City Gates farewells which leads to a kiss with the Warden’s romance partner. My experience with this mod has been frustrating thus far, since it breaks Alistair’s dialogue referencing Morrigan’s ritual, at least for female Elves. I do use it, nonetheless, and try to avoid the problematic dialogue path. (I prefer to install the current manual version of Gatekisses to its own folder, and deal with the conflicting files from ZDF and Morrigan Restoration Patch by adding .BAK to those file names, rather than installing to one mod over the other and overwriting files as recommended in the README.)
Anyone Can Marry Alistair by trcvrs. Removes the gender and origin checks at the Landsmeet, so Elves, and Dwarves, and men can all arrange to be the Queen of Ferelden, too. Doesn’t affect the persuasion and approval checks, and does not trigger the Royal Wedding mod cutscene.Someday I’ll be silly enough to actually follow through on this…
The Last Night by Kianta405. This mod adds one last opportunity for some Alistair/Warden sexxytimes if Morrigan’s ritual is refused. The scene triggers if there is an active relationship, or Alistair was still in Love after a post-Landsmeet breakup. Not compatible with the Morrigan Restoration Patch, but I found it easy enough to drop this mod into my \override\toolsetexport folder and then remove it after the scene played. (Removing MRP, adding this mod, and then reversing the procedural would work just as well.) More ‘caps from my play test of this are in this post. The same modder has also released two other mods, which I have not used yet, but which I will mention in the interest of completeness: Alistair’s Funeral, a scene that plays if something very bad indeed happens to Alistair at Fort Drakon, and A Heros Sacrifice, a cutscene that plays after a Ritual-refusin’ Warden (or a romanced Alistair) kills the Archdemon.
(via rhulaurious)
They’re even walking in step with one another… >.>
Esme: You do realize that your hand is inside my pants, Nathaniel, don’t you?
Nathaniel: Is it?
Esme: Yes.
Anders: That’s very bold, Howe. I would have just reached under the tail-flap… well played!
Justice: Move aside, my lady, and I will exact justice on this foul invader of your pants!
Esme: *giggle* That’s what I call Alistair!
LOL. What’s that you’ve got Esme in, btw? I can tell it’s based on the Warden mage robes, but don’t recognize it otherwise.
See that last one? That’s where she’s decided “hell yeah, I’m gonna use all Loghain’s blood to ensnare these nobles into letting me be queen”.
Yep. She used Loghain’s blood, after distracting them with her boobs and thighs. Esme is multi-faceted. (And doesn’t Alistair look yummy in the Warden Commander armour? I like to think he’s much happier kitted out in stuff picked off of Demon!Sophia’s corpse, than in the Dead!Cailan darkspawn scavenger hunt set.)
I mean yeah, it’s snazzy and all, but I just don’t like massive armor on him. I’ll go with heavy if I have to, but I like his repaired-too-many-times splint mail. <3
Obviously he does too, since he just has a newer suit of it in Silent Grove :p
I hate the giganto-pauldrons, but when he’s tanking, he’d die if I kept him in anything less than massive. I do play on Nightmare, with a difficulty enhancer. And Alistair is not allowed to die. If he dies, or the Warden dies, I reload and do it all over again. OTH, my Warrior Babe Cousland tanks, and I keep dual-wield Alistair in heavy stuff, because he’s all dex, and that is a thing of beauty. He did a fecking backflip when he killed the Broodmother that brought a tear to my eye. *misses Alistair*
I let him have the death blow on Flemeth sometimes, but Elissa gets the awesome acrobatics on every other major kill. Assuming she’s visible in all that blood, of course.
See that last one? That’s where she’s decided “hell yeah, I’m gonna use all Loghain’s blood to ensnare these nobles into letting me be queen”.
Yep. She used Loghain’s blood, after distracting them with her boobs and thighs. Esme is multi-faceted. (And doesn’t Alistair look yummy in the Warden Commander armour? I like to think he’s much happier kitted out in stuff picked off of Demon!Sophia’s corpse, than in the Dead!Cailan darkspawn scavenger hunt set.)
I mean yeah, it’s snazzy and all, but I just don’t like massive armor on him. I’ll go with heavy if I have to, but I like his repaired-too-many-times splint mail. <3
Obviously he does too, since he just has a newer suit of it in Silent Grove :p
Everyone always complains about how horrible it is that Anora is splashed with Loghain’s blood when he’s executed. But turn off persistant gore, and the blood slides right off Teflon!Anora. Yes, it does.
*coughs* There was a lot more blood on Anora at my Landsmeet *cough*
See that last one? That’s where she’s decided “hell yeah, I’m gonna use all Loghain’s blood to ensnare these nobles into letting me be queen”.
Accidentally click on Morrigan when executing an area transition during the Battle of Denerim.
Find out that there is some post-ritual conversation with her that I’ve never heard before.
Abandon any hope of ever seeing or hearing everything this game has to offer.
Yeah, I got that on my last Elissa pt. I played around with it, of course, then I had to pretend I’d never heard of it because it breaks Elissa’s head canon. :p
Esme tells her betrothed(!) to “Shut up and put on the damned crown.”
It’s not often that the in-game dialogue choices are exactly what Esme would say, but this is a happy exception.
Holy shit. Random Choice Landsmeet Esme refused to duel Loghain. Alistair overruled her and accepted the challenge. I didn’t know such a thing could happen! *swoon*
Well how is she going to have the time to blood magic everyone into letting her be queen if she’s busy fighting Loghain herself?
*cocks head* Doesn’t Alistair take the throne without any input from the Warden? (It’s so long since I let him duel, I can’t remember how it plays out. And yes, I do have the game paused, mid-duel, so I can Tumblr. And make a cup of tea. kh has priorities.)
I think in the very end it comes down to Warden decision regardless. I know Hubby flat out did everything possible to get Alistair to lose the Landsmeet and he still had the option at the end to put Alistair on the throne. But regardless, Esme needs the free time now before the final decisions are made, to make sure that all the nobles in attendance, as well as the Grand Cleric, are her thralls. ^_~
LOL! You just want to Esme to be queen so the wrath of the fandom will rain down on me for my evil lore-breaking, mod-using Alistair fangirl ways. ;-)
No, I want Esme to be queen because it’s fucking hilarious, and anyone who can’t get over ONE character of ONE player going off canon like that can shove it up their own asses. It’s not like there isn’t already plenty of fic where AU Amells end up queen anyhow.