Category Archives: Star Wars

Devil’s Due: Part 29: Don’t Forget Me

Now this chapter I’ve been waiting years to write. Soundtracks: general mood is Corpse Party (one of the best tracks on the OST imo), I used If by Ayane for Ashara’s determined charge, and I can finally, finally bust out the main theme song! WHOO LET’S F-ING GO, LET’S DO THIS, BABY

Part 28: Madness

 

Part 29: Don’t Forget Me

Ashara tried to will the elevator to go faster, only one thing on her mind – to catch up with Murlesson and… and… She wanted to beat the ghosts out of him, but how could she do that? If it were so easy, Murlesson would have done it a long time ago. He was much cleverer than she was, after all. Her heart hurt, her eyes hurt, she wanted to scream and cry and collapse in despair.

Logically, there was nothing to be done. Zash had looked, and Ashara and Drellik had helped her look, and they’d all found nothing about unbinding Force ghosts or curing the malevolent effects of possession by Force ghosts. Logically, Murlesson was gone, practically already dead, and the ghosts were all that was left. Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Part 28: Madness

OMG I wrote a chapter!?!?!? One of the chapters I’ve been looking forward to writing for a long time, too. : ) But I had to rewrite it at least twice; I was going to write it from Ashara’s point of view and got four pages in before I realized it didn’t work. That, not to mention being a little burned out from the winter’s intense writing and afraid of failure, meant that I didn’t start writing this until Camp Nanowrimo started at the beginning of April last week, and my word count has been very conservative by my standards.

This chapter’s theme is Sacred Worlds by Blind Guardian! I was asking Aristheron’s player what kind of apocalyptic music he could suggest and I settled on this one. I love it! So orchestral, such heavy percussion, so much vocal emotion.

I assume paratroopers exist in Star Wars, but I’ve never seen any evidence of it. So I have no idea how paratrooping technology might work in this time period in this galaxy, but I’m using it anyway because I think it’s cool.

Part 27: Her Wounds

 

Part 28: Madness

After sending Murlesson to bed and briefing Clay and Pyron, Aristheron sank onto the cot in the Viper’s medical bay and tried not to wince. He’d been pummelled harshly in his fight with Giri, and he was expecting more of the same on the morrow – though, hopefully, with fewer walls. But right now, he needed to get kolto on as many of his injuries as possible. The Force had shielded him from the worst of it, but still his back was harshly bruised, his left arm was speckled with shrapnel from where his coat had been shredded over his bicep, and one of his ribs had been cracked for sure. He’d managed to keep his head high through all the excitement of escaping, showing no signs of weakness in either demeanour or spirit, and now at last he could soften slightly. But not enough to wince. Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Part 27: Her Wounds

Warnings: drugs, depression, sexy times (I’ve never read any of the official Star Wars published accounts of people on glitterstim so that spot may be inaccurate) (also yes I’m a sheltered middle-class person so it’s probably gratuitous anyway)

This is actually the second time I’ve posted this; I had thought it was done, and then I started writing the fourth chapter of this arc and decided it had gone a bit ridiculous. Which bothers me as the whole reason I started writing this fic was because I felt BioWare had gone a bit ridiculous. Everything’s mostly the same in this version except the action scene is swapped out for a better one. If you had the misfortune of reading the previous version, please scrub it from your memory! I apologize for the initial lack of quality. Sometimes you have to write the wrong story before you find the right one, but I shouldn’t have uploaded the wrong one.

And the second posting’s taken so long because January was a month of Mondays, as they say, and I was half dead of stress hahaha. Finally scraped the spoons together to get the revision done. And then proceeded to wait some more until I got my teeth into the last chapter just to make sure I hadn’t screwed it up in a different way. (Fingers crossed that I don’t have to change too much from now!) I’m doing much better but the writing is still slow going. Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Part 26: Death Knell

Lots of interpersonal interaction in this one! May have gone a bit overboard with the ritual but… uh… I like torturing my characters haha. (trigger warning for suicide attempt, even D:)

This is as far as I’ve gotten in writing over the break, so updates will resume being sporadic from now on, but I won’t stop until I’m done this story!

Part 25: A Dying World

 

Part 26: Death Knell

Murlesson, returning to his hotel room after dinner, found Xalek had followed him. “What do you want?”

“A moment to speak, Lord.”

Well, that was unusual. He let him in and went to collapse on the couch and put his feet up on it. He left his boots on; it was a bad idea to take them off these days. And hey, he didn’t have to clean the couch. Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Part 25: A Dying World

Believe it or not, Aristheron was the one who got me into Disturbed (also David Draiman kind of sounds like the Sith Warrior male voice? Maybe I’m just imagining it). Aristheron’s music playlist is pretty all over the place, but the selections all add up to an uncompromising warrior whose indomitable prowess is only matched by his nobility of spirit, a dark knight who is yet a good person. I believe his new armour set is the Heavy Exoskeletal Warsuit. I managed to dig up my old screenshots from our playthrough together (back on my old laptop that couldn’t handle good graphics lol). He’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he?

His original theme was The Vengeful One, and his romance theme with Vany is The Light. At some point he acquired Wake the White Wolf, and he can also make use of Indestructible, Ten Thousand Against One (please to ignore terrible music video), and one more that I’m saving.

The chase scene in this chapter was written to Corpse Party: Unavoidable Tragedy (or Tradegy, as the video spells it >.>)

Part 24: Unnecessary Melodrama

 

Part 25: A Dying World

“Well, that’s dramatic,” Murlesson said. “Elaborate, please.” Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Part 24: Unnecessary Melodrama

I really need to stop listening to Disturbed; it seems like every new song I listen to (some of which I’ve listened to before tbh) fits Murlesson lol. Or maybe he should stop being such an angsty teenager?

But it didn’t stop me from using Enough as a fight song for this chapter!

Both Tharash and Yllamse were really helpful in helping me to hammer out the sequence of events here and getting them to fit with the emotional tones I was going for. Thank you!

P.S. It seems that Thanaton doesn’t actually make it to the Dark Council until you make it to Voss, not ‘shortly after you make it to Act 2’ as I had assumed. Pyron tells you about it after you get the CN-12 for him. Oh well, it changes literally nothing about the story to do it this way.

Edit: Changed Ziost to Commenor for reasons.

Part 23: Idealism and Cynicism

 

Part 24: Unnecessary Melodrama

Four days could not pass fast enough. Lord Cressinth, though she maintained her detached demeanour consistently, prowled through the fleet, not confining her observations to the Acrimonious. She was constantly fiddling with a datapad, not even looking up at her surroundings, yet all the crew gave her a wide berth in case she should suddenly show her temper. For all her show of indifference, she was not a fond friend of boredom, and several men ended up in medical for no reason other than that they were available to be a target. Fortunately, none of them were injured more badly than a broken arm. Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Part 23: Idealism and Cynicism

This chapter was so long I decided to cut it in half. I know that makes this one a little bit short, and the next one’s still pretty long, but it doesn’t split well anywhere else. We’re almost ready to rock and roll, though.

EDIT: Changed Ziost to Commenor, it makes more sense in the long run.

Part 22: Virus

 

Part 23: Idealism and Cynicism

Kallig vanished off the ship at some point that day, and Pyron did not see or hear from him for eight days afterwards. He’d begun to feel abandoned – had the Sith decided the 44th wasn’t worth the effort? – but one evening he returned to his quarters to find the young man sitting in one of his chairs, reading one of his books. “My lord.” Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Part 22: Virus

I never liked how they just handed you a fleet in the game, and so late in the game, too. It always felt too easy and improbable. So… let’s go work for that fleet, guys! (I also didn’t like how Xalek joined the party late enough that he felt incredibly extraneous, so hi, creepy-pants, welcome to the team)

I hadn’t expected Pyron to take over the POV so thoroughly, but it works, so I’m happy! This story arc is actually really complicated, so I spent half the HDD-less break working on it lol. Probably too complicated to fit in a videogame, particularly an MMO? I hope it works for you! Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Part 21: Venom Rising

Had a bit of a scare with my hard drive in the last couple days; my computer keeps forgetting where it put my HDD, which I keep all my stories and games on (including SWTOR). I managed to save a copy of this story to my SSD first, so I kept writing. Apparently the HDD is wearing out and needs to be replaced. But it’s within warranty, so that’s good! But I have to pause here for a bit until it’s fixed. I know it’s not a very satisfying place to stop, but hopefully it’ll be fixed soon.

Murlesson listens to death metal! (optional listening with swear words) I don’t care for it personally, (symphonic/power metal for me!) but I respect his choices. (Ashara probably listens to, like, J-pop or something. I know the Republic has got a more Classic Rock/Country feel going on, but she doesn’t strike me as either of those, personally. Or maybe I just like J-pop.)

You know what, Khem reminds me of Sten from Dragon Age Origins. >.> Big, grumpy, honourable-combat-obsessed warrior with an oversized sword. Or maybe that’s just how I wrote both of them, oops.

Part 20: Convalescence

 

Part 21: Venom Rising

He was getting better physically every day, though he was still far too tired and his appetite was still low. But though the ache persisted – an ache he now knew was linked to his body falling apart, as his headache was linked to his parasites nibbling at his mind – he could bear it enough to move around as normal.

Which led to Ashara bouncing into his room after a few more days, and poking him with both index fingers in the shoulder. “Hey. Hey hey hey. Let’s spar today. Stop with the screaming noises and spar with me.” Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Part 20: Convalescence

Trigger warning for discussion of depression, which will continue until those ghosts get exorcised. Possible discussion of suicide in upcoming chapters, just so you’re not caught unawares.

I hit 50K for NaNoWriMo today!

Nightmare music. Depression music.

Part 19: Conflagration

 

Part 20: Convalescence

He couldn’t see, he couldn’t move. Dread filled him, a mindless, all-encompassing terror that would have paralyzed him if half of it didn’t come from being paralyzed to begin with. He wasn’t bound or tied down, he simply could not command his body to move. Continue reading