#this queue is my queue

[brightephemera]

A Word On Projects

Well, apart from that Imrahil vs. Gothmog alliterative verse rap battle, I haven’t written fanfic in eleven weeks.

Cold turkey. After all this time, just...didn’t.

Long ACoT scene where SW and Jorgan exchange stories of their lives in a cuddly family sett–NOPE

The Nameless One gauging Ignus while Annah commen–NOPE

Vaylin in jail as Empress Veile–NOPE

Quinn finding out about Umb–NOPE

Wynst–NOOOPE *octopus in coconut shell*

At first I had to navigate away from the drafts file every hour or two. Now I can go days without thinking of them. And all the files are archived, I have to go to a different drive and pull them from the zip file and I can just stop doing that. it is a creative abnegation that is right for this place and time and all I can think is I should’ve done it sooner.

I feel okay about it. I feel like one million words of SWTOR fanfiction was enough. How much more could I really warp characters who were conceived back before I knew a thing about storytelling? At some point it makes more sense to create a new character than it does to write an AAAAAAU of the old. I could grind the old crew indefinitely but the stories were getting less and less valuable. I was getting more and more self-conscious. How many novels do I really want to write for a pastime that nobody I know offline likes? And if it’s so bad my family would hate it, why would I continue subjecting the Internet to it?

So, apart from the Prince of Dol Amroth and the Lieutenant of the Witch King throwing down for the bling, which was just twisted enough to capture my imagination, I’ve limited my endeavors to original pursuits. I have always longed to tell stories in a setting of my own, and SLL inspires (sometimes to the crazed pitch of my most burning stories), and that's important, but the other side of that is, I wouldn't have gotten this far with Sarah’s story if I hadn't cleared my desk first.

My thoughts about my writing are all mixed up with shame and frustration and usually I just ignore that and charge. Well, maybe I should change it up a bit? I feel with all my heart that the solution cannot be to go back.

[brightephemera]

Oh, my goodness. I’m rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s season 3 episode “Lovers Walk” and I love. every. scene. There are no scenes I don’t love. Except for one of the “Willow whines about how bad her poor life decisions make her feel” ones, but even that was made good by juxtaposition with the previous scene.

Every scene. Fist pumps. Recited dialogue. It’s my favorite BtVS episode and it’s in the running for favorite television episode. The villain from a previous season shows up drunk off his ass and weepy because his (evil, insane, vampire) girlfriend left him, but he gets this great idea to make Willow cast a love spell to get the girl back. He is a perfect comet of destruction, kicking off chaos in all three main cast romantic relationships, and it’s just glorious. Glorious.

Okay, done raving.

[brightephemera]

To oppose something is to maintain it.  They say here 'all roads lead to Mishnory.' To be sure, if you turn your back on Mishnory and walk away from it, you are still on the Mishnory road. To oppose vulgarity is inevitably to be vulgar. You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road. [...] To be an atheist is to maintain God.

Therem Harth re ir Estraven, The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin

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Ashara Zavros is on the Dark Council after the Inquisitor’s disappearance and/or promotion and you can’t convince me otherwise.

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Are you telling me you can afford sixteen voice actors to dub hours of gameplay but bringing in two to voice companion roles (1 if character A is still with you, 2 if character A is indisposed in your storyline) is too complicated?

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It had not rained, here on these north-facing slopes. Snow-field stretched down from the pass into the valleys of moraine. We stowed the wheels, uncapped the sledge-runners, put on our skis, and took off – down, north, onward, into that silent vastness of fire and ice that said in enormous letters of black and white DEATH, DEATH, written right across a continent. The sledge pulled like a feather, and we laughed with joy.

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin

[brightephemera]

Comedy: Man suddenly starts forgetting everything he has posted on the Internet. He traverses discussion forums on subjects he cares about and reacts to his own posts of yesterday and the day before as if they’d been posted by strangers. Wow, they look like they were written by assholes. Eventually he realizes what a jerk he’s been, and learns the true value of friendship.

Edit: This is probably set on 4chan.

[brightephemera]

1. Ten TV Episodes

I made a list of TV episodes I enjoyed.

Spoilers.

Not Fade Away, Angel, Season 5 (series finale). Possibly the best sendoff (there’s one other serious contender) .

First off, the runner-up series finales:

·         M*A*S*H

·         Star Trek: The Next Generation

·         Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars (it kinda counts)

Then: Angel!

Angel Season 5 is the best season of television I’ve ever seen. The humor, the tragedy, the character arcs, the showdowns, the unbelievable chemistry even as people’s lives get rearranged…it’s spectacular. And it is capped off by the perfect expression of the show’s entire message: in turns hilarious, mythic, intimate, bittersweet, and badass. Not to say it’s all epic-level theatre. In Not Fade Away, every main character gets a personal scene to show where they are and where they intend to go. Do I wish I could see what happens next? Oh, absolutely. But in a way, it doesn’t matter. We know why they’re pressing on, and that they will.

Would you like me to lie to you now?