#bright commentary

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.

It is a fundamental tenet of the Bright!verse that pain can be fought. Demons have face and form. Doubts have answers. Treatments are available and they work. Drama rises from choices, not callous fate. I don't give things just to take them away. The bad things can creep, and bludgeon, and violate, but they cannot win, not against a person of grit and kindness. It isn't all fluffy puppies, not that there's anything wrong with fluffy puppy narratives. People screw up. They get mad. They get in too deep. They love unwisely and hate too well. But people who are acting in good faith are not automatically trounced by people who aren't. And the universe doesn't set everyone's efforts to zero for no reason.

And nobody has to face these trials alone.