the bathroom window

14. Character you wish was a romance option
I wish all the romancable characters from DA:O swung both ways and I wish all the party members from DA:O-A could be wooed. And Varric. And Wynne.

I've said it before - Bioware creates incredible characters. There have been points where I fall in love with NPCs who appear in the story in minor roles: Samson, Silas, Charade, Dagna, Teagan. No matter how brief their moments on screen are, they seem so real, like they really have lives of their own to return to.

( The rest of the questions )

They stood at attention while he made inspections, two neat lines. When Jorgan got to Iresso, the solider managed to still look pleased with himself, despite the neutral expression. Jorgan ignored it as he searched through Iresso's uniform and bunk. Finding nothing out of order, at least nothing big enough to pull him out for, he finally gave in and motioned to the new tattoo. "You lose a bet, solider?"

Iresso grinned. "Got it in Nar Shaddaa during last shore leave, sir."

"Uh huh. Regulation number 670-1-"

"Refer to hair and cosmetics," he interrupted, then added at Jorgan's stare, "sir. I checked before I had it done."

He was still standing at attention, hands clasped behind him, shoulders flat, head up. And still grinning. Jorgan let that slide; Iresso was a good soldier, stupid personal decisions aside. It was a big one, from cheek down to collar. Some bad interpretation of Zabrak tattoos, Jorgan thought. "Had to be the face, huh."

"Hurt like a bitch, sir," Iresso replied cheerfully.

"You should the one Lir got!" Kaelan called out, and Iresso added with a snicker, "More like where he got it."

Down the line Lir leaned out of attention, shooting Iresso a dirty look. Jorgan snorted. "You can keep that to yourself, Lir."

It started out as pity.

The coldness of Skyrim extended to its people, and even in the crowded city of Windhelm she felt alone. Her entrance had been inauspicious: she’d interrupted a shake-down of sorts; two men intimidating a woman, who’d stood her ground despite the abuse. Things hadn’t improved from there. She walked from the slums to the estates and back through again, pausing at the graveyard, then warming her hands at the blacksmith’s fire.

There was a beggar there, a woman in rags who coughed and shivered, and nearly wept when Inswe fished a septim from her pouch. The guards walked by them like they were invisible.

She found Wylandriah’s soul gem and left the White Phial quickly, pulling her hood up and crossing her arms tight over her chest. Somehow it was colder than Winterhold, even without the snow and wind, and she made her way down the icy stone streets as swiftly as she could, ready to retreat back to the sun-dappled Riften. At the gates was another beggar and when she came closer she recognized him: one of the pair who’d harassed Suvaris.

He thanked her when he took her coin, giving no indication of recognition. But perhaps he couldn’t see her face under her hood. “I could be an elf,” she said, and he frowned down at her.

“Are you?”

She pulled the hood down, exposing her round ears. “Breton. But you couldn’t have known that.”

“No,” he said and stared at the septim lying flat in his wide palm. “Do you want this back?”

It was cold and it was dark, and Inswe was tired of the city and of Nords in general. “No, keep it. Go to the inn, get a warm meal.”

The guards pulled the gates banging closed behind her and Inswe didn’t look back until she’d passed Kynesgrove and all she could see off the city was its walls.

Added a few tropes to Lt Iresso's blurb on the Characters: Star Wars The Old Republic page over at TVTropes. There weren't any! Not even Battle Couple, which is basically a trope for every romance option. This guy needs more fandom love! Awkward romance banter aside, I find him incredibly sweet and refreshingly earnest. A nice counterpart to Tharan, who continues to be a creepazoid.

It took me forever to find it, but I knew there was a trope for people who've been shipped out to some shitty locale for punishment.  Not just Put on a Bus, but Reassigned to Antarctica. Perfect.

I love tropes. They appeal to the reader/writer in me as well as my insane need to put things into lists. Trying to find some more to apply to the Consular and Agent storylines and characters, since I'm the farthest in those two classes.  It's difficult to read through the pages, since I'm still attempting to avoid spoilers... But TVTropes is so damn addictive.

Old Republic does do an excellent job deconstructing the binary interpretation of the Force, and of morality in general. Playing Empire doesn't limit the PC to Dark Side choices only, and similarly a Republic character - even a Jedi - can choose Dark or Light options. And the Light isn’t always the best (or even Good) solution. TOR is a fascinating addition to the Star Wars series, and provides more depth, more color, more EVERYTHING than Episodes 1-3 combined. Not that I’m a bitter, disappointed fan or anything. Ahem.

I think my problem may lie in the format of TOR. A MMORPG is seemingly bigger than a single-player counterpart. It’s designed to take into consideration the choices made by thousands, if not millions, of players. But it’s this very expansion that limits it. If that makes sense. Which it might not.

Ok, so, like, Revan is the main character of Knights of the Old Republic. Who Revan is is almost completely decided by the player. From gender to appearance to background to friends to choices to destiny, the player defines who Revan is, and even how the rest of the in-game universe views Revan.

This degree of customization works for a single-player game, because only that single player interacts with that world. For TOR, certain canons have to be established; to continue using Revan as an example, there'd be no way that every player's interpretation of Revan could be implemented, so that character was reduced to a single version. And that Revan is certainly not my Revan. In fact, canon!Revan completely destroys my version of KotOR.

Which isn’t awesome, but I understand Bioware's angle. I don’t judge TOR poorly because of the Revan decisions; however it provides an example as to how such an open-ended and massive universe can sometimes feel limiting. Like Revan had to be narrowly defined, so do all the characters and all the action in TOR - because it all has to fit into the same universe. Does that make sense to anyone who doesn’t live in my head. Arrggghhh wish I were more articulate.

But yeah, that doesn't mean that I cry myself to sleep or wail away at the Star Wars gods. TOR is an immersive, extensive, exciting game that I can’t drag myself away from. I'm in love with my characters, with the NPCs, and hell, even with a lot of other players' characters. The Imperial Agent storyline is a better piece of espionage fiction than most thrillers out there. The Jedi Consular storyline is developing in ways I never could have imagined. And the Smuggler storyline is creating a character who'll be out-scoundreling Han Solo. And those are just the plots I've played so far; each and every class looks fascinating.

...That damn conversation bug is a killer though. Bioware y u so buggy. You're putting Bethesda to shame.

Ugh, been so busy with the end of the semester. Working on the last assignment for my Reference class, still have one paper for Archives.

I've been meaning to make a post about the amazing bands I've seen this year, but I'm lazy and have no time, so I never got around to writing about the awesome groups and their awesome shows. We went to a lot of concerts this year, and of the new bands that I saw in 2011, my two favorite are Slow Club and The Head and the Heart.

Slow Club's a bizarre duo, a British folky, pop-y group. The New York Times loves both these albums - Their second one, Paradise, just came out in September and hot damn is it good. The sophomore album can be troublesome for a lot of bands, but the follow up to their debut Yeah, So is amazing. It's hard to explain why they're so damn good, but a big part of it is the weirdly awesome turns that the lyrics take. One song on their first album has the line "if you came back as the deep sea / I'd come back as the salt." It's so... so... quirky, but I don't mean to be dismissive. We saw them in a tiny little venue stuffed full of drunk hipsters. A great show, memoriable for a number of reasons. Par example, I was admiring the band-related swag and picked up one of the shirts. "Does this come in women's size?" I asked. "No," came the reply, "they're one-size-fits all." I turned to thank the guy and then realized I was speaking to one of the lead singers. And felt like an idiot. The pattern of being a doofus in front of people I admire continues!

The Head and the Heart is an American band. More folky than Slow Club, definitely. Picture lots of beards, lots of knitted hats. We saw them in a good size hall - Great sho with great acoustics. I'd been listening to the album NON STOP before the show and seeing them live was not a disappointment. And then I started obsessively titling stories after their lyrics. They're working on their album #2, and from what we heard at the show, it's going to be a great follow up to their first. This is driving through the country music, it's for listening to in the sun. It certainly gets melancholy at times, but even then, it's still a validation for the simple beauty in life.

Oh, and hay, Amazon's got an amazing Cyber Monday deal on The Head and the Heart today.

BB
Working on: Getting the boys back to school.
Word for this chapter: 283

The plot's gone hay-wire. I'm trying to figure out how much plot this 50k needs to encompass. In my imaginary world of make-believe awesome, this book is part of a series... Just never planned how long this series was going to be. I need to figure out where the story is going to be at 50k so I can sort out the pacing.

Catching up on NaNo this weekend. November's been a busy month - lots of school work and other responsibilities - and now I have to contend with both Skyrim and Skyward Sword. Video games! I ask you!

This draft is awful. Maybe a smidge better than last years, but still eye-bleedingly bad. Most of the cast is nameless (I've got Name, Namer, Dickface, Name, Nambles, Name, and Name-Name), half the word count is from directionless conversation ("What do you want to do today?" "I don't know - What do you want to do?"), and I've jumped forward in time so many times that I completely lost when the story is taking place. And also while I might be able to hit the 50k, the story won't be anywhere near done. So all in all, a relatively successful NaNo! I wish I were one of those people who are able to develop perfect manuscripts, who plot everything in their heads and then merely have to let their fingers walk over the keyboard to get it all down. My method of writing is to vomit up letters and hope that words come out of the mess.