i suck at introductions

michelle, 34, norwegian. BlueClanMarkings on ao3. i write a lot, think about things a lot, and i love asks.

[blueclanmarkings]

fics masterlist - if anyone's curious about what i write

Hi. 😌

I suck at introductions, but let's give it a shot anyway.

I'm Michelle or Mich, formally known as BlueClanMarkings, and I write Mass Effect and Dragon Age fanfiction. I love angst, smut, angst, romance, drama, did I mention angst, and staying away from canon events. I love AUs too.

Below is an overview of some of my fics. I have two pseuds on AO3. Click here for Mass Effect, and click here for Dragon Age. 🫶🏻

current wips:

Fifty Sovereigns - Female Trevelyan & Varric Tethras The first story in the saga of Beatrice "Bee" Trevelyan. Takes place in 9:31 Dragon in Kirkwall. It's a loss of innocence/coming of age story.

9:31 Dragon

Bann Edmund Trevelyan sent his daughter to Kirkwall hoping she'd learn caution.

Beatrice Trevelyan had other ideas.

The Shape of a Lie - Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian An angsty and long Western AU set in a fake 1890s USA. Expect horses, gunfights, hunting, death, and graphic descriptions of violence.

Hired to infiltrate an outlaw gang, bounty hunter Garrus Vakarian soon discovers that some jobs are more complicated than they seem.

Ten thousand dollars is a hard offer to refuse.

And loyalty is a dangerous thing to gamble with.

series:

By Starlight and Sapphire - Mainly Shakarian, but it's on hiatus. Follows the story of Marika Shepard from 2174 and all the way to post-war. Currently in ME2 timeline. It respects canon events to a degree before taking a hard left turn toward AU-territory. Marika is "my" Shepard: infiltrator, Earthborn, War Hero, true neutral, pragmatic, and oddly romantic. A proper best friend dynamic with Garrus that grows into romance.

The Shakarian Works - Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian Features just one-shots of these two lovable idiots. More often than not, it's just smut.

The Turian Daddy Works - Female Shepard/Other Turians Lorik Qui'in, Castis Vakarian, Adrien Victus - the other very fuckable turians in our galaxy. More to be added.

The Pinky Swear - Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian Shepard and Garrus meet up a few years after the war to follow up on a pinky swear they made right before Ilos: if both are single by the age of thirty-five, they'd marry each other. This is fluff. I rarely do pure fluff but when I do I go fucking hard.

Breaking Regulations: The Vega Files - Female Shepard/James Vega Literally just a series for all my Shega stories. Currently just one here.

Hard in Hightown, Harder in Skyhold - Female Trevelyan/Cullen Rutherford All the short stories that will span Bee's life from 9:31 Dragon and beyond.

a few chosen samples:

An Eye for an Eye - Female Shepard/Castis Vakarian (aka the most fun I've ever had writing fanfic)

Jane Shepard gets the surprise of a lifetime when she catches Garrus cheating on her with Tali. While having her boyfriend and her best friend do that to her is painful, she soon finds comfort in someone unexpected.

And that comfort quickly turns into something else.

A Guide to Awkward Courtship - Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian (aka let's pretend to date to get my dad off my back)

Some turian parents like to have a hand in who their kids end up with. None of them can compete with Castis Vakarian's overbearing nature. Garrus has had enough of his father's constant nagging, but nothing has helped stop him.

Then, Shepard offers a solution that he finds himself wanting her help with.

how to flirt with your commander - Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian (aka CSS and HTML gave me a headache, but flowed once I got it right)

Garrus Vakarian never expected his human commander to start winking at him. Unsure if she’s flirting, mocking, or plotting an assassination, he does the only logical thing: logs onto Read-It, the galaxy’s favorite extranet forum, to ask strangers for advice.

This is a romcom told entirely through forum posts, edits, and comment chaos.

rule number one: why we don't eyeball it - Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian (aka Garrus is fucking smart and I'll be damned if you forget it)

“Can it wait for a bit? I’m right in the middle of some calibrations.” —Garrus Vakarian.

Shepard knows code. Crack security systems? Easy. Rewire field tech mid-firefight? Child’s play. Get into places she’s absolutely not supposed to be? Please. Walk into the forward batteries and try to understand equations, trajectory models, and Newton’s Laws of what the hell Is that?

No chance.

So when she asks her sexy turian sniper vigilante boyfriend to teach her what ‘calibrating’ actually means, she expects a lecture drier than the surface of Tuchanka. What follows is… technically educational. Mostly hands-on. And definitely passionate.

[were--ralph]

afab only: do you wish you had a penis

yes and i don't identify as trans

yes and i do identify as trans

i dont know man its so complicated

no im fine with what i got

a button for non afab folks

a second button for non afab folks

a third button but this one does something secret

Remaining time: 6 days 3 hours

[blueclanmarkings]

1, 4, and 14 for everybody 💕

Everybody?? 😍😍 Oh, I so need to ramble. Thank you. ❤️

1: What's your OC's favorite cuddling position?

Marika: Her as the little spoon, but face-to-face instead of back-to-front. Bonus points if she can bury her face against someone's neck. Yeehaw-Dani: On someone's arm so she can lay their head on their chest and hold them. Sci-fi Dani: Little spoon, back-to-front. Vitorius: He likes being the "foundation". So whatever goes, as long as he gets to feel like the big spoon. Bonus points if he feels weight on him--he likes that. Bee: Laying on top of someone and looking down at them while they talk. Bonus points if she can dangle her feet like a teen.

4: What's an item that is deeply important and special to them? What makes it so special?

Marika: A (singular, yes) photo of herself and Vitorius. It's the only thing she has left of him. Yeehaw-Dani: Right now, I think it's her guitar. It's an escape for her. Where she truly relaxes and doesn't have to think of everything for a few minutes. Sci-fi Dani: Her tattoos and piercings, which sounds super-weird. She used to be a gangmember and was decked out from head to toe with tattoos. Cerberus, when they resurrected her, removed them. So her immediately visiting a shop to get some of them back was her reclaiming her identity, though the feelings are kind of complicated. Vitorius: A Schimitar. It's not the shotgun itself, but rather the fact he got it from Marika. He even named it after her: "Cutie". Bee: Mild spoilers, but I'll keep the function of it vague since it's a plot point for the second story. A pendant she bought in Minrathous. Varric has its twin.

14: What's something they unashamedly adore?

Marika: Babies and smutty books. Two things that sound unhinged grouped together, until you realize one is often the product of the other. Yeehaw-Dani: Garrus' drawings, but you'll never hear her say that out loud. Sci-fi Dani: Domesticity. Vitorius: Affection. He's a very tactile person. Bee: Freedom.

[blueclanmarkings]

Favorite turians that aren't Garrus?

A lot more than you might think. 😅 Garrus is great. If he hadn't been, I wouldn't be writing so many fics about him. I think we see him the most and therefore it's really easy for him to be a favorite character. He's also a really likable guy. His arc in ME2 and especially ME3 is excellent--I'll give him that--and the romance is one that reminds me of my own with my fiancé.

It can very well be that I've written him to death, but there are other turians I find way more interesting than him, especially those we don't really see a lot of. I think they're so interesting to me partly because my mind fills in the gaps, but I also tend to gravitate toward (and create) morally gray characters. Garrus is certainly morally gray, but not in the way I'm thinking of. He still wants to make the world better even when he takes matters into his own hands.

Look, I don't want people to think I don't like Garrus, because I do. He really is the best romance, ride and die, and squad mate in all three games. But it's not without reason I've based three original book characters off some turians and that none of them are Garrus. 😅

Off the top of my head, I find these characters more interesting than Garrus: Castis Vakarian, Lorik Qui'in, Adrien Victus, and Saren Arterius.

And if you wanna read my rambles, click below. I desperately need to ramble after being buried in sawdust and cutting myself on metal shavings (there's literally blood, sweat, and tears in this deck now).

Castis Vakarian.

There's almost no information about Castis, which means I took liberties when I wrote my Femshep/Castis story. I read the comic (I don't give a fuck if it's canon or not--it was published and so I'm taking it into consideration), I watched the interaction with Alec Ryder from Andromeda, and I listened to what he was actually saying compared to what Garrus was saying.

There are three sides to a story: yours, mine, and the truth, which lies somewhere in the middle. Taking Garrus' word for it, who is biased as hell, feels very unfair.

The rest was something I had to figure out on my own. What I found was a steady man who definitely loves his son and is trying his best to keep him out of trouble. I respect that. "Do things right or don't do them at all" is not really an unhealthy motto, imo. He isn't father of the year--I do think certain things he's experienced has colored his behavior in ways that isn't healthy, driving a wedge between him and Garrus.

But that's the complexity I love. He directly inspired a character in my books. Which is also why I adore Castis Vakarian and will forever severely dislike and disagree with the "he's a bastard and a bad father" take. He clearly isn't and I'll happily die on this hill.

Lorik Qui'in.

Meeting him in the game was the first time I sat there like "well hello there. who's this? 😏" after Saren. After that, my HC on this guy spiraled into something I don't even know what to call, but I loved it so much he became the second man on this list who inspired a book character.

He's the first genuinely friendly face you meet in an ice cold corporate world. Yeah, he also wants something from you, but you're the one seeking him out for something first--tit for tat, which is completely fair. People all around you point out he's a pretty good boss. He's not an asshole. Sure, he wants the admin spot, but I respect it when Lorik comes from a society based on meritocracy. If the one in charge doesn't do their job well, he'll take over and actually do it well. And he does. We see this in ME2.

I also adore his slightly-off idioms.

One day, I'm gonna write a Lorik-centered fic. I've been saying this for years, but I really mean it this time. 🤪

Adrien Victus.

Oooof. Yeah. So this is a man you actually learn quite a lot about, and you get to know him a bit. And I'm loving what I see.

I really wish we got to learn more about his rebel streak. There's one example and some backhanded comments from a few people, and that's really it. We know he does things that go against "accepted strategy" and that he also doesn't give a fuck about it either. He gets the job done his way, but also right, so the Hierarchy just has to sit there and grumble into their plates while they promote him reluctantly.

He's smart. Cunning. He feels like a man constantly playing chess, and that's one of the things I absolutely love about him. He omits the truth in canon to Shepard, but then he also sends his son to fix it, sacrificing him in the process. I don't think it's nepotism. I think he turns to the person he trusts and tries to show how seriously he takes this by putting his son on the line. It's a bit cold. But I think it also says a lot.

Ugh.

I just want more. More of Victus. I hate we don't get it.

Saren Arterius.

Aaaand no one's surprised he's here, right?

Right?

🥹

I've rambled about him before so I won't do it again. Safe to say, I love tragic characters and villains who think they're doing the right thing. I strongly disagree with the speciest (still have no idea how to spell that word) take. I want more of this guy. "He's the villain in a game" yeah but I want MORE.

[frankiesoup]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Stevaine used to bring him gifts. Little trinkets she thought he would find interesting. Then it was waifs and strays, and now just desperate plans. Was his blood really going to fix anything?

Someone had brought him lunch while he wasn’t looking – that seemed to happen a lot these days. He should probably start being a bit more careful about eating food he found lying around – not all assassins ended up as his wife’s best friend, after all. Still… it did look very tasty…

He picked at a plate of bread and cheese while the steward showed one noble out and the next one in.

Thank you for coming to the Landsmeet. It was a pleasure to see you again. Are your family well? Truly – made on your land’s homefarm? What a delight. I shall have some with my supper.

The steward showed this one out and the next one in.

Keep reading

[introvertsnation]

[blueclanmarkings]

Welp. No staining bc whoever built the deck out front lacked all of their brain cells and built it right on soil.

In Norway, mind you, where rain and moisture is alive and well.

Sooo day off. I'm catching up to what all y'all have been up to. ♥️

[wolpertingerantlers]

Soft OC asks because I'm soft rn

What's your OC's favorite cuddling position?

What's their favorite comfort food that they eat when they're sad?

What's a secret passion of theirs?

What's an item that is deeply important and special to them? What makes it so special?

Do they have any collections?

What does their laugh sound like?

If they were in a book, how would they describe themselves?

If they were in a book how would they be described by others/ the narrator?

What's something they will never fail to get excited over?

How many pillows do they sleep with?

What's their favorite thing that their partner (if they have one) has ever said to them?

What's the sweetest thing they've ever said to their partner (if they have one)?

What's the most memorable compliment they've ever been given?

What's something they unashamedly adore?

What (kind of or specific) outfit do they feel most comfortable with?

Do they have a "lucky" item?

What's their sleeping position when they're on their own?

What's their favorite scent?

What's their favorite texture?

What's something they do absentmindedly that their partner (if they have one) finds adorable

What's their dream date like

Do they have a best friend? If so who is it?

Do they like having their hair played with?

What's their favorite (non-sexual) place to be kissed?

What's their favorite place to kiss their partner?

What do they love about their friends?

What's their favorite childhood memory?

What makes them feel safe?

What's the cutest thing their pet does (if they have one)?

What's their favorite animal?

If they could have any pet, what would it be?

What's their favorite thing to do with their partner?

What's their favorite room in their home (if they have one)?

What do they taste like when kissed?

What do they smell like?

[blueclanmarkings]

Also, to my mutuals:

I'm sorry I haven't caught up to what you've been up to. Yes, I do feel quite bad about it. 🙈

I promise I'll sit my ass down and see what you've been doing while I've been busy working outside as soon as I'm finished. ❤️

[blueclanmarkings]

FMK turian edition:

Primarch Victus, Councillor Sparatus, Lorik Qui'in

...This was harder than I thought it'd be.

TL;DR: Fuck Adrien Victus Marry Lorik Qui'in Kill Laiel Sparatus

Ramblings below:

Kill is easy: Councilor Sparatus. Not because I want him dead, but rather because I like the other two a lot more. 😅

Marrying Victus feels like the obvious choice. He's handsome, his voice is 🫠, his laugh makes me smile, and he has a dry sense of humor. But that dude will be super busy, even post-war. Might not see him properly for weeks. I am rather independent. I do like being alone. If anyone ever wants him dead, I'm suddenly a target too. And it feels like a real threat.

He's a bit closed off and seems to like omitting truths. I somewhat get why he hid the bomb, but then I also don't. Will he be closed off and lying by omission in our marriage too? The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Do I wanna deal with that?

And then we have Lorik Qui'in, the hottest man on Noveria. If I take my Lorik into consideration and not the 5 minutes you see him in that hotel bar, it gets a heck of a lot harder to pick.

He's got money. Money doesn't make you happy, but it sure makes living a hell of a lot easier. He's smart. Cunning. Charismatic. I've fangirled so much over Peter Jessop's voice it's borderline creepy. Yes-man in the sense he'll try anything once. As a very curious person, that's right up my alley. I did base Julian on my version of Lorik Qui'in, but with a lot of tweaks, and that's already a huge win in his favor.

Now, he does live on Noveria which means corporate bullshit. Then again, Noveria is hella-pretty. And cold. Turians don't like the cold, which means he might need some help staying warm. It's not like you can't fuck who you're married to in this game. It just means you get to fuck them more.

It's his charisma I can see being a problem because it goes both ways. If he wants something, he'll get it by just talking. I do believe I'm good at seeing manipulation and I don't particularly like being played like that. However, I can also see him either backing down if I play his own game against him or it becomes one of out things. If not, we'll reach a mutual understanding of "let's not do that".

Yeah.

I think I'd take one night to fuck the shit out of Victus, and then marry Lorik.

[blueclanmarkings]

How are you?

How nice of you to ask. ❤️

It's Monday, it's my first day of my three mandatory and paid weeks of vacation, the sun is high but it's not disgustingly hot outside...

I'm doing pretty good. Never gotten this much vitamin D in one sitting.

I'm also dead tired from this weekend. 😅

So I'm sitting here like "okay do I just push through AND THEN relax or do I give myself a day to recover AND THEN push through?"

Sanding and staining needs to be done in clear weather. It doesn't help when today's weather report looks like this (these are two services side by side):

I'm in Norway. Trusting the weather report isn't always something you SHOULD do. 😅

[blueclanmarkings]

You get that deck done?

The construction bit is done! It used to rock more than Ozzy did when he was alive (too soon? 😬), so it was out of the question to not fix it. Thing is sturdier than a mountain right now.

We still need to sand and stain both decks (entrance and backyard). I was going to do it today and I still might, but I woke up with the worst headache and lots of other body aches. I might give myself today off to recover. 🥹

We have two electric sanders. I will be using them for the deck up front because it's small (can't be bigger than 8m^2). For the one at the back... I don't remember exactly how big it is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 45m^2 or bigger. Sanding that on your hands and knees... I'm looking at stuff I can use standing--let's put it like that.

[jeonjam-deactivated20180304]

GO ON ANON AND ASK ME ANYTHING YOU WANT

[blueclanmarkings]

I have been chronically offline while I've been fixing this deck.

I hoped to be done with the rebuild today.

The rebuild was finished an hour ago.

I'm fucking beat. Gonna sleep like a goddamn baby tonight too.

Last night I dreamed that I was singing Love Story (lol).

Tonight I'm hoping for something action filled.

Gotta say, my helper was pretty decent though.

[blueclanmarkings]

five female characters that i love (in no particular order)

@capnmarvl, thank you for the tag. ❤️❤️

This was harder than I thought it would be. Not because there aren't great female characters in media, but because it's 08:00 and my brain hasn't fully gotten online yet. 😂

Atsu (and now I kinda wanna play Ghost of Yotei again)

Yennefer (she just came to mind, and I do like her a lot)

Vivienne (not her personality, but she's a damn well-written character)

Amaterasu (okay, so she inhabits a male wolf in Okami, but Ammy is still a goddess)

Shepard (it would've been a crime if I didn't add her, lol)

I'm tagging... @sissicakes, @frankiesoup, @mimitz0-o, @chalkituptofate, @kisses-and-doodles, @garfbin

[blueclanmarkings]

Last Line(s) Written

I was tagged by @chalkituptofate and @toboe-roll. Thank you so much. ❤️

I'm tagging @mimitz0-o (sorry not sorry), @frankiesoup, @capnmarvl, @westernlarch, @volchonika, and @kisses-and-doodles, and anyone else who wants to play. ❤️

I've been firmly stuck in book 2 for a while now, so I apologize--what I'm about to share is original book stuff and not fanfiction. I'll hide it so you don't have to read. 🙏

“It’s good,” [Erica] said.

Julian perked up. “Yeah?”

“But d’you have any ice?”

Julian stilled, glass halfway to his mouth. There was a moment of horrified silence where he was sure he heard Kane blink.

Dominic turned his head with careful precision. “Ice?”

“Mhm. I like it cold.”

“Sweetheart,” Dominic said, voice low. “That pour cost more than my first car.”

“And?”

Julian leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees. “You don’t know what that is, do you.”

She arched a brow. “It’s whisky. Judging by the label, I’d say it’s Japanese.”

Dominic rubbed his beard. “Baby, that’s Yamazaki 25.”

“Okay.” A nod, then another shrug. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“It’s worth more than your laptop.”

Erica looked down at her glass, then back up. “Well, I like it, but I’d like it even more if it wasn’t room temp.”

Dominic’s mouth opened and closed.

Julian could only stare. Ice. In Yamazaki 25. Somewhere, a Japanese distiller clutched his chest and committed seppuku in the same breath. But she wasn’t being clever or a contrarian, and there wasn’t any reverence for the price tag. She simply wanted ice in her whisky because she liked it cold.

“For you? Of course,” he said smoothly. “Hand me your glass.”

[blueclanmarkings]

🩹 How do they comfort each other after nightmares? (obvs for Bee and canonical nightmare-haver Cullen lol)

💥What’s the biggest risk one of them took for the other that the partner didn’t find out about until much later? (for Daniela and Garrus)

🩹 How do they comfort each other after nightmares?

Cullen is definitely the one with the worst nightmares, yeah. 😅 No wonder, though. Lyrium withdrawal, torture, Meredith, Right of Annulment in Kirkwall... man's been through some heavy shit.

I like the way it's handled in the game. Feels very healthy. Calm questions, he gets to talk about it if he wants. If not, we get a warm redirect, cuddles, Cullen literally can't speak because he's so in love it's borderline pathetic, but also very adorable.

I kinda want him to be the little spoon whenever he wakes up from a nightmare.

💥What’s the biggest risk one of them took for the other that the partner didn’t find out about until much later?

Okay, HEAVY spoilers blow! 🤪

There comes a time when Garrus tells Dani the truth of why he joined the gang. We're talking full confession. She's understandably pissed. I'd say her choosing to let him go instead of killing him on the spot is a bit of a risk in its own right.

But I think Garrus going to his dad and telling him he can't give the gang up, thus breaking Castis' heart even more (and saying no to 10k), is the biggest risk of them all. He's essentially gambling the "right" relationship away for a criminal.