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Not Peace, but a Longsword Argh!
Posted By: Sterfrye36<Sterfrye36@yahoo.com>
Date: 15 April 2008, 4:42 am
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Major Marcus Easley stood at the edge of the cliff, waves crashing far below him amidst jagged rocks, the noose tied 'round his neck, little green pills and a lighter in his left hand, a can of gasoline and a fully loaded M6C pistol in his right, and—as if the scene couldn't possibly get more macabre—a razor blade stuck between his teeth. His eyes were puffy and red from tears, his throat raw from screaming emo-ishly, his hair torn from his scalp because the author displayed a total inability to describe any emotions other than melancholy and depression. He was standing there because Sterfrye had managed to totally foul up what would be an otherwise interesting character by making him a one-note, annoying, and whiny bitch not unlike Bob Dylan. So, it was time to drop the lead character from the series like Sterfrye had dropped the ball on submitting parts of Longsword R in a timely manner.
Which is, to say, pretty freaking badly.
After an internal monologue regarding his own sexuality, James, his abusive uncle Guy Nix (whose appearance and demeanor were—no lie—inspired by Richard Nixon. Seriously, I'm not kidding.) and God that seemed to go on for entire chapters but will not be shown here in the interest of brevity, Marcus slowly brought his wrists to his mouth or his mouth to his wrists or possibly both at the same time, then paused. Why slowly? Why a pause? Because even though the series is primarily about blazing fast, hot, space fighter-on-fighter combat, nothing actually moves at a decent clip because Sterfrye is hoping to somehow buffalo every single one of the HBO authors into believing him to be a writer of the non-sucky type through all of those monologues and flashbacks.
All the freaking flashbacks!
Several geological ages later, Marcus made his decision. He slit his wrists, swallowed a copious amount of little green pills, poured gasoline over himself, lit himself on fire, stepped out into empty air, and brought the gun to his head, all of which caused MCC to make a tsking noise about how Ster was showing and not telling. As my entry into the "International Understatement of the Year Competition", Marcus was taking no chances. Again, MCC pointed out Sterfrye's lack of focus.
Unfortunately, as Marcus pulled the trigger, his aim was slightly off thanks to the leap off the face of the cliff. So, naturally, the bullet hit the rope instead of his face thereby slicing it in two and dropping Marcus hundreds of feet into the ocean like a bad simile. Upon safely landing in the water dozens of yards below—to say nothing of avoiding the jagged rocks through sheer dumb luck or poor writing, take your pick—the fire was promptly put out but not before cauterizing the wounds on his wrists and the shock of suddenly being immersed in icy cold water caused the Major to vomit up all the little green pills.
He was rescued by a long-lost childhood friend, though Marcus didn't know who the guy was because the jerk never realizes he's got any at all, who swiftly took him to the hospital with monologues and flashbacks to his childhood memories of the Major mercifully kept to a minimum.
The Major promptly caught pneumonia and died two weeks later.
Marcus Easley woke up in his bed, Linkin Park blaring loudly from his alarm clock. Craaaaaawwwwwllllliiiinnnnggg iiiiiiiiinnnnnn mmmyyyyyyy skiiiiiiiiinnn! These wooouuuuuunnnddss, they wiiiiiill not heaaaaaaaalll!
Damnit, he thought mirthlessly. Another dream sequence. Does Sterfrye ever write anything else? He managed to resist popping a cyanide pill while he joylessly got dressed, making sure his eyeliner and purple mascara were applied properly and his black leather boots were appropriately zipped up. These two things rather clashed with his flight suit, but he didn't care; he'd probably be dead by the end of the day, anyway, most likely from the lack of blood his extremities were getting thanks to the ultra-tight, form-fitting flight suit.
He debated grabbing some breakfast in the mess hall but decided against it; due to his rather tortuous(ly written)..."confusion", he could no longer stand the sight of Fruit Loops, nor Fruity Pebbles.
Those in the peanut gallery immediately assailed Sterfrye for stereotyping and a really poor choice of puns to which Sterfrye replied they could stick it in their ears.
After collecting his favorite necklace—one made of hundreds of interlocking safety pins for no discernable reason—he left the room half depressed, half angsty, and half delusional. Yes, that's one too many halves but the character is that weird.
The psychiatrist eyed Easley uneasily (Get it? Sterfrye really hates it when people miss these puns). His last patient, after all, had attempted to murder his co-op partner, a detail that was just meant as a passing reference to Sterfrye's most obscure series, Ever Had a Day Like This? And to answer that question, no you haven't because neither you nor anyone else ever read it.
"Okay, Marcus, we're going to try a little word association. I'm going to say a word or two, and I want you to respond with the first words or words that come to your mind, okay?" Marcus just stared with a vague sense of contempt. The psychiatrist continued on, doing his best not to be unnerved by the minor malevolence.
"Ready?" He didn't wait for an answer. "BlasTech."
"Fantastic musician."
"Azrael."
"A charismatic stallion Should do a podcast of his web series and better be prepared to do a boatload of reading for his 'fic pick' when Sterfrye submits the next part in his shitty series."
"Chuckles."
"Machiavellian superman."
"Walker."
"Whatever happened to that dude, anyway?"
"STYDK."
"Or him."
"CoLd BlooDed."
"Lurks. Also has an annoying name to type out."
"Phædrus."
"How's he get the little weird symbol in his name?"
"Skul."
"Mentioned Sterfrye once in that series of his, didn't he?"
"J.D. Ford."
"Reminds me of a truck for some reason."
"Berconius."
"Odd name that I've never researched."
"Fallschirmjager."
"German screen name I think, and he doesn't actually capitalize it."
"Kr-1426."
"Active, but he also doesn't capitalize his name."
"Spartan006."
"No, I expect you to die."
"The Militant Poet."
"I forget, does he actually write militant poetry?"
"Commander Valois."
"French sounding, isn't it?"
"Azathoh."
"Used to get him mixed up with Azrael."
"Mad Max."
"Never submitted."
"The Meep."
"Sounds like a double entendre."
"Andres."
"Is darn lucky he doesn't get hauled off by Venezuelan police."
"(ENS) Rabid_Gallagher."
"What's the ENS stand for?"
"Mainevent."
"Attends Auburn."
"Thedarkfire."
"The closest thing Ster's got to a fan; it's probably pity."
"Arthur Wellesley."
"Most overbearing screen name, but that doesn't match his personality."
"Elysion."
"Made a grand total of twenty-six posts."
"Archangel_7."
"Used to think he was a girl, actually."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"Monitor101."
"Is only here because Ster happened to see that he'd submitted something."
"Shamelessly putting everyone into a story so they'll read it, even if it's a brief mention."
"Totally legitimate tactic."
"Guys who got left out."
"Can go stick it in their ears."
"Sterfrye."
"Schmuck." The psychiatrist paused and put down his pencil.
"Why's that?"
"He has this tendency to write gargantuan, meandering sentences that seem to go nowhere for eons only to arrive at the point thirty minutes later with a ridiculous use of confusing adjectives and verbiage when all he needs to do is eschew obfuscation and get to the point because otherwise it makes him look like he's overusing the 'synonym' function in Microsoft Word."
"I thought he did use it."
"Only for the names of Covenant ships."
"So in the next stupid chapter, Zoë feels sorry for Marcus' suffering and has seven different kinds of sex with him, a new nemesis is making nasty advancements on him, and James just sort of sits around?" Samantha Matthews asked.
"Yep," Hunter Creighton replied, still stereotypically staring off into space like a lunkhead who only spoke in monosyllables whenever he was introduced.
"Given Ster's ghastly affinity for alliteration, this could get genuinely crazy. Could it be bad for business?"
"Nah, no way, nothing like alliteration during naughty narration. Ster's always avoided acrimonious attempts at amusement."
"You don't think he'd do something that dreadful?"
"Nope." There was a moment of silence.
"I think we forgot something."
"You're right."
"Spoilers!"
"Anyway," Hunter continued because every character in this series 'continues'. "What's James up to these days?"
"He took a page out of Pat Robertson's book and is now selling 'I heart converts' t-shirts. He also just got accepted by Bob Jones University." Hunter started.
"Whoa, he wants to go there? They're conservative enough to make Ster look like a wild-eyed liberal."
"And that's another problem. Ster never seems to write persistent characters. James seemed sort of like a normal guy, then bam! It's ridiculous. Can't Ster write anything other than stereotypes?"
Hunter grunted something unintelligible in a stereotypical, monosyllabic, idiotic way that he always did when ending a scene.
"Well..." Chase Warner began, his eyes already arched somewhere beyond his forehead. "Marcus is...confused."
"Why? There are two perfectly hot looking women in this squadron," Glenn asked, his eyes also arched into the stratosphere. Why? Because that's how every. Freaking. Character responds to questionable news.
"I know, but Sterfrye was a bit stung by one of MCC's comments about how little character development he had. I think he probably went overboard. I am, after all, written like some sort of ladies' man with crazy hair. I feel like the Fonz. " The fact that his hands were permanently stuck in a twin thumbs-up gesture did not help.
"And I'm his grandfather's doppelganger, but why go thatroute?"
"I dunno, he was probably desperate for names and decided to just use—"
"No, I mean Marcus being gay. Not there's anything wrong with that."
"No, not that there is," Chase agreed. The two punched knuckles and said simultaneously: "Seinfeld reference!"
"Anyway," Chase went on, "he did that because he was trying to figure out what might make a person quit coming to church and it was the only thing that seemed to make sense."
"Aren't there gay churches out there?"
"On a military ship?"
"Good point. So, do we know how it's going to end?"
"Yep, Marcus is going to end up—"
The line of dialogue cut off dramatically for a cliffhanger scene change.
Has anyone ever noticed that commanders, both Covenant and human in Sterfrye's series, are always whiny pansies?
Just checking.
"Dude," Glenn said, his eyes round with shock and awe. "That's amazing! You really think that Ster can pull that off?"
"Dunno. If he can, though, it'll take Longsword R from below average to a solid...mediocre."
"No kidding; this is going to pull in readers even better than references to Broadway musicals! So you mean to tell me that when Eagle—"
A new computer circa 2004: $1,500. Microsoft Office 2003: $80. Ticking off your readers by trying to boost your ego by artificially extend the length of this pitifully short "story" by adding in pointless fourth-wall breaking interludes separated by horizontal rules in the middle of juicy tidbits of the real story and an overabundance of the word "by" in this sentence?
Priceless. Absolutely freaking priceless.
Glenn was no longer standing. The shock from what he'd been told by Chase was too much and had forced him to sit down. He was trembling, so difficult was it for him to contain his excitement.
"Oh, man! If that works—"
Did anyone know I got into Dartmouth? Because I did!
FIN
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