To be posted 16 July 2010 on StarwarsKnights under The Critic returns and Lucasforums under the Critic’s Two Cents.

I will tag those I liked as pick of the week. Check at StarwarsKnights for the best of the best.

Pre KOTOR: A slice of military life, medical leave

The piece is a bit of perfection because the worry about what might have happened is right there where every mother wife, lover would feel it. The worry about why he’s home now rather than at other times; communicating even to the son who has to go to school instead.

Naming the soldier in question was left to the perfect place, so that you get all the worry before you know, and it gives us that extra insight into who waits.

Pick of the Week

A great story. Very good.

*claps* Wow, that's a really good oneshot! It's an interesting twist for Carth (a rarity in itself)!

I think that this was a perfectly well written view of Morgana, who doesn't get much attetion. You made it very touching and realistic. Great work. :)

I have to say that I really enjoyed this story. I tend to shy away from any story that focuses on Morgana, though I don't really have a valid reason why. I guess she doesn't really appeal to me much. But I am definitely glad that I read your story. It makes me second guess my thoughts on her. She always tends to come across as intangible in other fics and really just a plot device for Carth to experience some angst. But I think you've done a good job of fleshing her out some more and give her a personality (not just here, but in your longer fic too). And the story didn't overstep its bounds either, you didn't try to make some grand plot or anything, you worked best in the limitations. And you pulled it off marvelously well. Great job!

Xen,

You could remove all the SW references and this could be a short story about an American military wife. The anxiety level was perfect, and balancing dealing with a child she doesn't want to expose to the horrors of war vs. knowing how her son misses his father, along with her own worries about what may have happened to Carth.

It was very real and very ponient for this day and age.

Applause :)

Aw... I knew that it was going to be Carth and his wife. That was a great story! Keep up the good work!

Very nice Xen!

I've tried to post a review and it doesn't seem to like me. Hope this one works...

You know how much I love this piece. Morgana is a character that often gets the shaft, so it is wonderful and fantastic that she not only gets the spotlight here, but that she is also given complex characterization and the respect that she deserves.

I particularly love how you explore how difficult it must have been for her all those years that she was at home worrying and waiting for Carth (and he doesn't even send her a reassuring note – way to go, flyboy). You've created an entirely believable version of a woman who must have been amazingly strong and patient to deal with how difficult it must have been to be married to Carth.

Fantastic job... and welcome to the cult of Morgana...LOL

Bah, there was nothing I could find at all wrong with it, except the word niggling, and I am more and more convinced that this Morgana would use that word.

That's the thing you do so perfectly in this. You're in her head so completely that the very language changes. It's a dramatically different style than Coming to Terms, and a dramatically different personality. And you flesh her out completely. Real, human, precise (because she is precise), living breathing Morgana.

"Reaching out, he touches the military datapad I have taken pains not to look at while I worked. It sits heavily in his small hands, with a weight and depth all out of proportion to its size. It seems to become more real, as if leeching the reality out of everything else and pulling it into itself, like a black hole sucking in some poor unfortunate that had strayed over its event horizon."

Loved that paragraph, but then I loved them all.

This is extremely polished, extremely clear and extremely real. Her language and her profession mesh together so perfectly.

It is very very good. There's a kind of writing I think when you get into the character's head so clearly it's like channeling them. I think this is what you're doing in this...and it's so well done.