@serialephemera / serialephemera.tumblr.com
With one abandoned exception, I don't write story lines that are just Me and People I've Known. I take elements and I mix them in, but when it comes to it, the characters have feelings, the characters have reactions, in settings utterly divorced from my life. If I were to write to get one person back, it wouldn't be a boyfriend.
It's a bit egotistical and deeply stupid to assume it's about you.
On FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the children are picked up from daycare to go home for the weekend.
BABY KIRA: Hi, Master! Hi, General!
The Knights exchange a look. The man scowls.
JEDI KNIGHT A: I could’ve been a Master.
JEDI KNIGHT B: She can’t just call us both Master.
JEDI KNIGHT A: She can. That’s literally what people do with Jedi.
JEDI KNIGHT B: You’re still mad about Satele giving you the bad-guy title, aren’t you?
JEDI KNIGHT A: Hard decisions! Needs of the many! Quickest path to victory!
JEDI KNIGHT B: Uh-huh. Very nice, dear. I know. Help Kira with her seat belt.
JEDI KNIGHT A, bitterly: How do you know I won’t do it evilly?
JEDI KNIGHT B, mystically: I know.
We've completed Week 1 of Forced Companions Daycare, the rerelease! In this rendition, the long-awaited PLAYER CHARACTERS have come out to play, or rather, to pick up their lil' companions from daycare.
T7-01 operates Forced Companions Daycare to look after toddler versions of our companions, in a setting where recruiting them is mandatory and you can't chase them away after. With KHEM VAL, LORD SCOURGE, and SCORPIO, T7-01 dutifully looks after the children, or at least, tries. FCD is the story of their adventures.
July of 2012. I was on a deranged SWTOR fanfiction writing bender, when someone suggested a scene of Khem Val tending a tiny toddler companion.
This was to escalate.
Forced Companions Daycare was my playground and satire of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Its conceit, that all companions are mandatory and never go away, is obviously no longer in effect. But in those early days...well, you can see for yourself, as FCD is back and now on Tumblr!
Most of this series will be reprints, but I've already put in a couple of tweaks. And if we're all lucky and my keyboard is kind, we'll see some bonus materials. So sit back, enjoy the show, and maybe then go check Youtube afterward for a nice soothing video of kicking some of these brats out forever.
- brightephemera
The Youtube is not my part. other nice people do Youtube. But this linked blog, @forcedcompanionsdaycare, will be your reprint and bonus content source.
Six novellas. Eighteen novels or novel-length serials. 1.6 million words. This is the Bright!verse.
From a sorcerous fantasy romance to a children-noir adventure, Bright!verse fiction wanders the realm of speculative fiction.
Did I stop writing? Part 2, or, I don’t want to publish. My ex-boyfriend is taking a leaf from my worse ex's book: loitering in public staring at me, making absolutely certain I know I'm being watched. Just, not physical loitering. He wants to copy that behavior digitally. He knew my ex. He saw this behavior, and how unhappy it made me. Now he's bringing up quotes from my posts and repeating them in group meatspace settings to let me know he's been watching. He was quiet for a while after I told him it made me uncomfortable, but oh boy! He's back! Joining a group at a party, making sure I was nearby, and recounting a joke I had posted that no one reblogged. Just letting me know that he didn't engage, but he was watching me. He was watching me in a context that I intentionally separate from my life, and spoke up outside that context to inform me. Repeatedly. I will not reward his head games. If he wants a reaction other than this one he can damn well ask for it using words. I no longer feel safe sharing here. I know, it's public, there are no laws or regulations banning his behavior, but someone with the empathy of a concussed badger would know that trying to hurt me exactly like my other ex hurt me - "I'm watching you wherever you go, I need you to know that I am watching you, and you can't object because being in public is consenting" - is unacceptable. Hence, no more sharing. He always thought my writing was embarrassing anyway, he was the original Dave, so there, he doesn't have to look at any more of it. The only thing stopping me from deleting my whole blog is the thought that maybe someone would enjoy one of my posted stories. I mean, no one ever does, but maybe. It's just crushingly unpleasant to find that a reader beyond my average of three likes per story may exist... and is a creep. I can and will salt the earth if I feel trapped. Bye-bye.
Did you stop writing? ☹
Well, Nonny. There are two answers to that. I will address #1, Popularity, here. Warning, long rant.
Short answer: Yes.
I've been tagging ships and fandoms on four sites for twelve years now and I have a probability cloud averaging to three regular readers. I once built up to 105,000 words and earned five kudos. I am a failure. I am a bad writer. I've been writing for the love of it for twelve years of my life and it has objectively been a waste. It's not just the posting, it's the tail. I have left a long slimy trail of garbage. I thought that people might like my painstakingly documented projects as tagged here or elsewhere. Well, people do, if they already know me and cut me a break. Otherwise…I get about four kudos a month off of 120 ship/trope tagged stories. That is, in a typical year fewer than half my stories get one kudos each. I got about two likes last year on older Tumblr story chapters. Not "two groupings of likes from reading a project", two likes. Putting things out there forever does nothing. No one comes looking for more things I've done. Because my stuff is not good. I am provably inferior. I'm inferior to Redditors. I'm inferior to Tumblrinas. I'm inferior to Archivists. I could improve, maybe, if I worked hard, if I knew where to start. But my passion is about intuition. That intuition has decisively failed. I don't have the discipline or the intelligence to sort the good from the dross. (Being smarter would indeed be a big help, but we can't have everything, can we?) I just hate that I'm bad at this and it inspires zero new people to respond or remember. I make master posts and indices and blurbs and nothing happens. I write about classic projects that I was sincerely proud of and no clicks occur. I write novels about the most important things in my life and two people like them. Nobody enjoys any of this, all the stories about love and anger and wonder and trying and trying and trying; only people who already like me see anything in it. In twelve years, I have only diverted a few friends in the most selfish way possible: my stupid intuition. It does nothing for the rest of the world. And I can't do this forever. I can't run my words and my ideas and my heart up the same damn flagpole indefinitely waiting for salutes. I need to disengage. The difference between playing to an empty hall and not playing is one of sanity. I'm not holding writing hostage. I'm not saying I will write when I get X many likes. First, I would be crushed when that doesn't work, second, I despise that behavior, and third, I have nothing in the pipeline. I just want to scream, no more and no less. I'm on a lot of caffeine right now. Maybe I'll calm down. Stay tuned for reason #2 I have stopped writing lately.
Tumblr took down the original
So here
Don’t get me wrong, Nalenne/Quinn is endgame. But when two ethically loose, violence-loving renegades come up against one colossal stick in the mud, well, things can happen. Nalenne/Andronikos was never supposed to be a love for the ages, but could they be a pastime for a few weeks during a marital spat in the sequel to No Death, Only Wrath: The Helicarrier Chronicles? Signs point to yes.
*
*
The Corellian op, to everyone’s displeasure, was a bust. The military had gotten their act together long enough to take the immediate objective, and the Republic was playing it cautious, leaving nothing very interesting to storm. Nalenne heard the report and retreated to the reading nook to flop over and sulk.
Quinn followed her. “The strike team did very well,” he said.
“Quiet, you,” said Nalenne.
Andronikos sauntered out of the engine room. “Nalenne, your ship looks like an Imperial textbook had its way with it.”
In the There Is No Death, There Is Only Wrath: The Helicarrier Chronicles, the Quinncident was fatal but he got over it:
"After everything Malavai Quinn has accomplished, the most you can do when he returns to the regular chain of command is Colonel?" "My lord, since his promotion from Lieutenant less than four years ago, some of his most conspicuous accomplishments have been failing to execute a failed Sith Lord's plan and then, er, dying. We have to take these things into account when making personnel decisions."
“‘Did you get any monogrammed stuff you don’t want?’ If he said yes, I’d hurry ‘round and we’d exchange initialed presents.”
— Cary Grant on his Christmas tradition with Clark Gable (x)
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the station No sign stirred of life or of droid automation. Some contraband stockings were hidden with care, No rebels in sight. This night no one would dare.
The Stormtroopers settled all snug in their beds, While visions of victory danced in their heads. And Tarkin and I, bent on world domination, Had planned an effective ka-boom demonstration.
When off went the klaxons! It made such a clatter I sprang from my seat to see what was the matter. Away to the viewport I flew like a probe, Pushed open the blast shield and lit the search strobe.
The sky of the station, unchanged day and night, No space debris showed, and no planets in sight, When what to my wondering eyes should appear But a flight of X-wings in full rebel-scum gear,
With a cocky young pilot who’d threaten us soon: I knew he had noticed that this was no moon. More rapid than Kessel daredevils they came And a voice rising high whooped and called them by name.
“On Binli, Antilles, on Naytaan, on Gaul! On Porkins, Darklighter, come one and come all! Pew-pew them with presents, pew-pew them with cheer! The sector will know that Red Squadron was here!”
As tactical experts ‘round turrets they sped, And ducked to the trenches, still full speed ahead, So toward the exhaust port the rebels they flew, With a youth in their midst who might be Jedi, too.
And then, in a twinkling, surveillance made clear The face of our enemy barreling near! A ghost on one shoulder, a girl on the other, (You never would know they were from the same mother.)
He was dressed in a jumpsuit, and buckled with care, And he suffered, it seems, from extreme helmet hair. A bundle of toys did his astromech carry, And he looked like a target to those who aren’t merry.
The X-wings they formed up in consummate Vs, And ran down those trenches with holiday glee. I heard as I looked while the raid zoomed about, Each pilot fire presents, and miss, and fly out.
“Get me to my fighter! I’ll blow them away!” But then something shifted, the Force had its way. There dawned in my shriveled and barbecued heart Some holiday spirit, an overdue start.
“Hold fire in the trenches! Take turrets offline! Let pilots stay grounded to drink and to dine! Come, Tarkin, and smile once, it can’t be that bad, I’ll lay off the choking, so people, be glad!”
Luke spoke not a word, but he fired with joy And behold! the exhaust port was filled up with toys! Then, laying a finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, with the rebels he rose.
He soared from the trench, to his team gave a yell, And left us all feeling, I have to say, swell. And I heard him exclaim, ere he flew out of sight, “Happy Star Wars to all, and to all a good night!”
The fact that gaslighting is not merely the act of saying something that's false, and I'd have to question your trust in any online source you quote claiming that it is, absolutely fucking kills me
I can’t find it on tumblr and IT CHRISMAS GOD DAMMIT.
MERR CHRISMAS.
A holiday tradition.
I have always been torn on whether to call Niralia (gnomish frost mage) or Liranya (draenei enhancement/resto shaman) my "main."
By time it's Niralia, hands down. Niralia has been around for longer, she's the one with a PvP career, she had all the achievements before cheevos became account-wide. It's she who experiences plot first for me. And she's a more fully realized voice in my head.
But...by utility, Liranya wins. The blacksmith, the jeweler. And, most importantly, the heals. Nobody asks for Niralia unless they're feeling starved for overpull. Lir, however, can slot into any party and make herself indispensable. Lir gets the PUG invites, gets the shorter LFG queues. Lir is a part of a raid configuration that is hard to replace. Because I'm good at what I do.
If I could save only one character, it would be Niralia, but it should be Liranya.
I played WoW for several years and I had a lot of fun.
I was every stereotype of the mad DPS (my mage main) and the tank-chasing healer (my shaman second). Had a lot of fun. I was in a small social guild so I took my shaman out to PUG with larger guilds for raids semi-regularly. Far more often, though, I was the sole healer in five-player groups. I spent a non-negligible amount of time coaching fellow players in how to avoid taking damage so I could focus on the tank. I also spent a non-negligible amount of time cussing out the players who knew when to pull cooldowns to survive doomsday abilities. I didn't know they knew that. I just thought they were irresponsible monsters as the casting bar filled up.
Yes. I remember the ones who did that. I have a long memory for some stunts.
guys. healing is awesome
when I'm dps-ing I wanna kill every other player, including the tank, and myself. I'm glancing at the dps meter with hatred
healing? I wanna fuck the other healer. not even joking
thought perhaps this was going to be a post about going on a journey of self improvement.
Someone asked why I DNFed Dragon Age: Awakening, and... well, I didn't like anyone in my opening party. I started questing with three characters I actively disliked, and it wasn't fun.
Neverwinter Nights 2 might be the only other game where that happened, and, well, Khelgar and Neeshka aren't bad, only bland.
Mask of the Betrayer had Okku, One of Many, and Gann, all brilliant, in early questing.
Planescape: Torment have Morte and Dak'kon in the first full party. I would die for these idiots.
Just as good, Pillars of Eternity and Deadfire had Edér and Aloth.
Torment: Tides of Numenera had Aligern. I think Erritis was an early gain, too.
KOTOR had T3-M4. KOTOR 2 had Kreia. So much to love.
But Awakening? Anders "I'm so witty", Nathaniel "why am I suddenly not killing you" Howe, and, heh, Oghren. Nope.
