Darkniciad

51 more blocked spammers and I'll be at the halfway mark of the total for last year in only three months. Considering how little I've been posting in recent months, thus reducing my visibility, that's something. If I get a few stories posting and the forum/blog/twitter/facebook start getting updates, I can almost imagine what the spam explosion is going to look like.

So far, so good. The new version of that scene feels as if it has the right pacing, and it's flowing right along. It also adds an element that I think will help it in the category I'm leaning toward -- Exhibitionist and Voyeur. That's on Lit, though. On Lush, those two categories are split. I think it will end up being exhibitionist there, because the POV character spends a lot more time participating than watching. Both Chapter 7 and 8 are going to be a bit longer than all those preceding, but I think they'll both come out about the same length, so that's acceptable to me.

Tweaking this one again. Fortunately, that first half of a scene I wrote only needs a few minor adjustments. The second half I had planned simply wasn't as good in full form as the synopsis in my head made it out to be. Changed locations ( thus the need for tweaking the completed scene ) in order to get the feel I want. Crossing my fingers that this turns out as good as it seems in my head.

May be finally getting there. I'm getting ready to start the second half of a two part scene that will finish off the new version ( as of only a couple of days ago ) of Ch. 07. Chapter 8 is already 6900 words long, because something I'd written previously got moved there. All it really needs is a tiny bit of bridge between the chapters and the ending, which has been set for quite some time. We'll see what happens. I'm close enough on this that I'm concentrating on it instead of starting the new Magic of the Wood that I hope to put out for Earth Day this year, *fingers crossed*, an entry in the latest Lushstories contest, a couple of quickies for the RR "Hot Shorts" page and a pair of regular length RR stories for the story sites.

They keep going the other way, and that's exactly what makes me think Fitz and Simmons are going to end up together. First, they tease Simmons and Trip. Now it's Skye and Fitz. I'm thinking season 3 ( there had better be a season 3!! ) Oh, and in your face, Cal. "She'll see how they treat people like her..." The team finds out about Skye's powers, instantly face off against a Kree warrior and Lady Sif to protect her. That's how they treat people like her -- like family. Love this show

Cut off one head, two more shall take it's place. Fine, how about I cut off all the heads? The mid-season premiere was brilliant. While I'm at it, the finale of Agent Carter was as well. That cameo at the end is one of the things that is so brilliant about what Marvel is doing. Each and every thing is a part of a larger whole. I remember reading comics back in the 90s and thinking there would never be even one good movie from Marvel. Now we have this vast interwoven universe where everything is pure magic. ( Now, new and improved with 100% more Spider-Man! ) There's only one word that can sum up my feelings. Excelsior!

The finale of Agent Carter was brilliant -- especially the final scene.

I'll be so glad when the 50-shades hype is over in a couple of days.

Spider-Man is coming to the MCU! I'm hoping and praying that this means Sony understands their reboot is complete ass, and that Marvel's expertise is the only thing that can save a once lucrative property. If they're willing to take Marvel input as well as loaning the character out for Civil War, there might be some hope for Sinister Six and the third Spider-Man film. If Marvel keeps the ball rolling as they have since Iron Man, I think there's a fair to middling chance Fox will see the value of partnering up as well, even though they've redeemed X3 and Origins with the last 3 X-films. Not so optimistic about the Fantastic Four reboot...

I really hope Marvel sees the value of producing mini-series to fill in the mid-season breaks of AOS. Agent Carter is brilliant. They have more money to spend per episode, and it shows. Great action. Great storyline. Strong ties to the larger MCU. Taking advantage of the opportunity to give backstory to a major character in the films. ( I won't say who, in case you have it DVR'd and haven't watched it yet ) Because it's a mini-series, they're also not tied to doing a season 2 next year if they can't come up with a really good story for Carter. They could produces a mini-series highlighting some other property, potentially filling in backstory for a character in some upcoming film. I do hope they come up with a good story, though. The chemistry between Peggy and Jarvis is great. Wish we could see more of Howard. The storyline doesn't support it, though. It really alleviates the pain of waiting for AOS to return by being there in the same timeslot.

Just spent like 45 minutes on Amazon rating and marking things "not interested" and still didn't get a recommendation of a damn thing I want to watch on Instant Video

And, it's tracking time again. http://darkniciad.com/hotlink_pics/All_3_Names_02_04_15.htm Sweeps for the monthly contests took a serious bite from my vote totals across the board. Fortunately, that nightmare is almost over. The monthly contests are almost caught up, so I don't have to worry about 3-4 huge sweeps per month for those in addition to normal sweeps -- only one. Naturally, my lack of activity has also hurt my stats. Haven't put out any new stories in three months. My scores are basically even. Votes are up by 2-3 on average, 681 in total. Views are up a little over a grand on average, 348,794 in total. PCs are up by 20. Favs are up by 179.

This is the place where I ( and anyone else, if they so choose ) can ramble about anything or nothing. I'll begin with this: In "Forever of the Wood", there's a scene early on where Gary is telling Brina that Kia is planning to skip out on a talk with Xantina. If you want to know exactly how I hear that moment in my head, Watch "Robin Hood: Men In Tights" all the way to the end, after the initial credits, until the brief scene back at Loxley Hall where Robin is about to unlock the chastity belt, and discovers it won't open. Brina's sudden change in inflection for that scene is exactly the same as when Marianne says, "What?"

Wow... I had no idea how long this one has been languishing. As much as the far-flung dates here suggest, it's barely the beginning. I probably started this in early 2013. I've fiddled with it any number of times, and finally picked up what I believe will be the 7th and final chapter. Should be close to the end of it now. Yet another example of how my writing drive just isn't what it used to be. Even my production as RR has gone down to a trickle, and those stories are short snacks that I used to commonly crank out in 24-48 hours. Hoping to put this one out soon, but I thought that back in June of 2013, didn't I?

LMAO... Spammer gets untainted IP address. Uses an email that can verify, and does so. Posts spam while I'm asleep, making it possible for the post to survive -- however briefly. Does it in the LST3K forum, where no posts appear until I approve them. Spammer, heeere's yer sign!

Looks like the spammers got an early Christmas gift of new, unsullied IP addresses *sigh* Fortunately, most of them aren't validating. Again, probably because the email addresses are fake. Set up to monitor their posting and block them from using PMs just in case. ( and a couple of other really suspicious registrations as well ) If you are a legitimate user and find your PM ability blocked, just make a post in the forum. While it won't show up to anyone but me, it will go through, because I only set questionable members to moderator preview, rather than blocking their ability to post entirely. I'll go back every few days and check those questionable registrations. As soon as they add spam to their profile, try to post spam, or show up in the anti-spam database, they'll be gone and reported if there's any spam evidence.

Tonight's episode threw another serious curveball. Well, two really. Ward is all over the frikkin' place. LOL I have no idea where they're going with him, but it's a fun ride. Was seriously not expecting the end, though. Every time you think you know who a character is, something else pops up. This series doesn't remotely get the credit it deserves on its own merits, or as a part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Looks like the speculation that "the city" is Attilan is wrong, though. I seriously doubt they're going to reveal that so far in advance of "The Inhumans", and the previews for the next episode ( two weeks.... GRRR! ) seem to indicate they're going to find the city then. Doesn't mean it isn't connected, though. It could be an abandoned Inhuman city. And while I'm talking Marvel, "Guardians of the Galaxy" hit digital today. If you haven't seen it, you should. Brilliant movie. If Marvel manages to deliver in such a spectacular fashion with their other minor properties like the Inhumans and the Black Panther... Stay tuned, True Believers.

Had a brainstorm that solved a problem I've been pondering for some time, which has also been holding up progress on the series. I've been trying to figure out how to deal with Xannera finding a mate, and more importantly, how to deal with the resulting kid(s). Of all places, the inspiration comes from an Adam Sandler movie LOL The "Big Daddy" route where the mother ( supposedly, in this case ) gives up the child to the natural father requires only a paternity test to prove her mate is the father. From there, I can have the children enter the world without any legal weirdness.

Tracking time again: http://darkniciad.com/hotlink_pics/All_3_Names_11_02_14.htm There was a massive sweep of the Sci-Fi & Fantasy category this quarter. For the first time since I stated tracking, my vote totals as Dark went down. My average score is up, but I estimate I lost 700+ votes across all my stories in the category this quarter. Somebody was really trying to beat down the competition. Despite that, I'm up 3338 votes, 492,644 views, 68 PCs, and 330 favs for the quarter. I also moved up to #195 on the all-time favorite authors list as RejectReality with 971 author favorites, breaking into the top 200. Between Lit, SOL, Lush, and my website ( all have exclusives not available elsewhere, though everything except the Royal Sacrifice series is available as an Ebook in my downloads section ) I just broke the 2 million word mark.

That's weird... I'll double check it and re-upload if necessary. EDIT: Give it another try. Somehow, I had two files on there, and I don't know how. I just downloaded it to the Kindle app on my tablet, and it's working fine.

Just doing a little brainstorming on Saggitariad. He's one of the companions in the Nobles by Deed series who hasn't had much exposure at all. I think he only has a single line in one chapter of Danica plus a mention in another. He's also the character who had the least development in the game. I never really figured out where I wanted to go with him. This is as much notes for me as anything, but feel free to comment. I'm tempted to write a short story about the fall of Northreach ( which I need to remember is the name of the Duchy that I established in Danica 18. I keep calling it Mithas, after the knights who held sway there. ) So, Northreach fell in 990 by the timeline I have established. All of my characters are hitting 18 at 1042-ish in the timeline with the exception of Darkni, who is older. That puts Saj born in 1024. Think I'm going to have his father get a late start and be 34 before having him. That works out to his dad being in-womb at the time of the fall. So, it would be Saj's pregnant grandmother who fled Northreach. Doing that, an interesting twist would be for Saj's dad to have a young bride. That's another potential short story. That only puts Saj's dad in his late 50s at the time the companions lead the rebellion in Egoria. The way aging works in my world, he would be perfectly fit for a campaign of that nature, and most certainly would have participated. I could have him injured in some way beforehand, but I'm leaning toward him helping to rally the exiled knights once Saggitariad asks the Knights for aid. The Knighthood had become political and disconnected from the populace around the time of the fall. Serfdom had become common, for one thing. I'm thinking that in exile, they've become even more so. The reason Saj's dad and the older knights don't end up in control once Egoria is retaken is because the young rally around Saj to return to the Knighthood's roots of honor and protection. Without the power that already holding the land would provide, the older knights have to defer, and quite a few come around to the new way of thinking. I have to keep in mind that nobody other than Thakkor can have an established relationship at the time of the rebellion in Egoria. Christi says in Blackhawk that everyone was making passes at her except Mindblind, and Thakkor because he was already married. So, I need to keep Saj's eventual wife out of the picture for a while in any history stories. Her name is Carol Darkholme, by the way. Sounds like a knightly surname, so a good point to meet her would be at the time Saj is rallying the knights to help retake Egoria. One thing I've always had in my head for telling Saggitariad's history story that coincides with Merchant Princes, Casting, and Lowborn is a scene from Chrono Trigger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEOQWsVBDSk That's about the best video of it I can find in a quick search. It's the Telepod scene at the beginning, and you'll probably have to expand it to theater mode to read the text. Odds are that when the story comes out, you'll know exactly where to start playing that epic Chrono Trigger theme in your head. It's not going to be time travel, but I'm absolutely going for that selfless rush into unknown danger. Just getting some thoughts down as I muse. May expand this in days to come, as I'm beginning to think Saggitariad is the next companion who's going to get a history tale. This also has some ties to the sequel to Blackhawk Hall, because Ari's barony borders Northreach.

After rewriting two or three times, I put this aside for the longest time. I'd saved the original chapters that I considered close enough to done to prompt me to start this thread, fortunately. After all those rewrites and all that time, I ended up going back to the original chapters, with only a few tweaks, and finished six tonight. That was originally supposed to be the last chapter, but it was getting too long, and I found a nice transition point into chapter seven, so onward I go. This is a serious case of second-guessing myself too much.

The latest track is up. http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink_pics/All_3_Names_08_02_14.htm Scores stayed even. Up 1583 votes, 337,825 views, 26 PCs, and 202 Favs. Sort of a slow quarter, but there were also a lot of contest sweeps from catching up the monthly contests. That cancelled out a lot of new votes. Edging ever closer to 10 million views and 2 million words.

Just a reminder that if there's any of my work you'd like to see as an Ebook, feel free to request it. Hell, if you want digital copies of things like my lost work and ancient stories, I'll do that. ( though some of that stuff is so crappy it's hilarious ) Likewise, I'll create versions with text-only covers if you'd rather not have the explicit covers showing up in your Kindle carousel when someone is looking over your shoulder. Eventually, I'll go back and convert all those original releases to the "final" format I came up with. No whitespace between paragraphs, but with whitespace on either side of screen breaks, and the larger covers ( where possible ). When I get around to that, I'll probably use this thread as a master list of which Ebooks have been updated, so you can download the new version to replace the old, if you choose. "Final" is in quotes there, because if I find something that creates a better presentation on the Kindle, I'll do it. I'm happy with how they look now, but you never know.

Think I'm going to go through and update the spam filters on my contact forms and such to automatically block any email address that has more than 4 pips present. Loads of names like joh.nn.y.sp.am.a.l.ot always come up in the logs, and they're always spammers.