Devil’s Due: Part 30: To Sleep

Time for a bit of a palate cleanser, except for the action scene, which is not a palate cleanser at all and probably needs violence warnings on it. The song lyrics he quotes halfway through are from a song I’d like to write someday, if I can actually figure out how to form a metal band and write metal songs.

The music for the action scene is this headbanger of a tune from Corpse Party! One of those songs that makes me wish I could play drums!

And more importantly, I can stop using italics to represent ghosts in Murlesson’s POV now, thank goodness, that was getting tiring.

Part 29: Don’t Forget Me

 

Part 30: To Sleep

Murlesson was completely out of it by the time they reached Ghen’s Outpost, and Andronikos, Talos, and Vany very quickly bundled him into their make-shift medical tent. He needed more medical care than was available out here in the wilderness, though, and as soon as they had looked him over and made sure he wasn’t going to croak in the next hour or so, they were back on the shuttle and headed to Voss City. There was a proper modern hospital there, one that could deal with weird things like “missing fingertips”. When Ashara was allowed into his room there, her first thought was that he looked really weird in white. He only ever wore black, edgy Sith boy that he was… and without it, he really didn’t look like himself. Though it was nice to see him all cleaned up and not stinky anymore. Continue reading

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

Fanservice Day 2020

Oops Fanservice Day snuck up on me again this year! So this is a bit hastily assembled but I hope you like it anyway. We need to keep our spirits up these days, and what better way to do that than by admiring cute cats? It’s my two Miqo’te from FFXIV, Rinala and R’nyath. Rinala’s dressed as a maid for her 5.0 boyfriend Thancred (spoilers), and R’nyath, lazy boy that he is, just took off his shirt for his 2.0 boyfriend G’raha. For Rinala, I just did an image search for ‘maid’ and R’nyath’s image search was for ‘male model full body’.

Fashion Explorer

So if you were to take:
– 1 part Apollo Program history books
– 1 part Asimov novels
– 1 part Mass Effect Andromeda
– 1 part real life
– 1 part HFY overdose
and mix until chunky, you would get my next (first?) original novel. Midori Baker is a direct descendant of Harumi Ryder, thematically speaking: I saw the potential in MEA for a sequel, one where the Pathfinder and the Milky Way gang with their new Angaran allies explore Andromeda and find the war with the Kett and the Jardaan and, presumably, stop it.

And then I was like “that’s way too much work that BioWare and EA won’t help you on. Write your own story with this idea!” So I will. Continue reading

MEA: Harumi Ryder chibi

I drew a chibi of my MEA Pathfinder, Harumi Ryder! En’t she cute <3 She’s wielding the Isharay Sniper Rifle and wearing the Pathfinder Vigilant Armour set. I was too lazy to load the game so this is from pictures on the internet, which means it’s not entirely accurate in places.

On her right cheek is a burn scar, covered with a blue tattoo. Continue reading

Devil’s Due: Pouty Face

So Sak of Resting Murder Face Studios did a thing wherein she would draw portraits for people who donated a certain amount to Australian fire-fighting non-profits, and I asked her to draw Murlesson AND SHE DID! Look how handsome my angry pouty boy is! AND she gave me permission to colour it if I so chose, so I did. (I did move the watermark/signature as it would not have been visible where it was otherwise.)

I’m considering commissioning her for a full-body full-colour portrait of him, but it might be a while before I can save up sufficiently.

It’s thanks to the plague going about that I have time off to attend to such things as colouring. As a musician, most of my jobs involve gatherings of people, so most of it has been cancelled. So I shall spend my time working on my cosplays and art and writing.

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