"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
- Albus Dumbledore

Age: 22 (Note: No, I'm not. This was written over five years ago, but I don't feel like rewriting the whole thing, so let's just keep it, okay?)

Nationality: American

Hobbies: reading, writing, making up characters, putting characters through Mary Sue tests, and hopelessly attempting to do research for stories.

Favorite movie: Guess. Wrong. It's Whale Rider. Star Wars is...um...my life? (Translation: are you saying that is just a movie?)

Favorite book series: Young Wizards, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Circle of magic, Narnia, Pendragon, the Old Kingdom, the list goes on and on...

Favorite books: Over Sea, Under Stone; My Side of the Mountain; Alas, Babylon; The Book Thief; Shatterpoint (Clone Wars); The Wild Girls

Favorite author: Hilari Bell

Favorite genre to read: any, but fantasy often has the best stories

Favorite genre to write: fantasy, borderline fantasy/sci-fi

Religion: agnostic/Humanist/Jewish

Pet peeves:

- "ALRIGHT". No such word exists. Try "ALL RIGHT."

- Inappropriately long paragraphs. This is a great way to make me stop reading your story. It gives me a headache to force my eyes to not only read the second half of lines or just skip most of the paragraph.

- Disclaimers. Who, exactly, is going to come and arrest every one of us for posting fanfiction on a site that is meant for it?

Acknowledgments:

- Melannen Halfelven for bringing me to this site (and occasionally gushing about and/or critiquing my stories)

- My friend "Minas Ithil", aka E-gor the Undead, for critiquing my stories, fueling my Star Wars obsession, drawing my characters, and listening to me talk about stories and topics she isn't very interested in.

- Xrai for betaing my stories, being an excellent author, showing me a wider view of the world, and teaching me the value of the simple act of replying to reviews

NEWS

I'm on hiatus from posting (not reviewing or betaing) for a while. I swear this is temporary. I will be back soon with either a continuation of Elanna's story or Miriam and Will's Ordeal. Hopefully both! (The first is more likely to come soon.) (Note: hahahahahaha it's been five years since I said that)

In Life's Name readers: Want to hear more about Miriam and Will? Read Chapter 2 of Granted by Issac Blast!

I'm looking for (Lord of the Rings) stories about:

1) The flight to the Ford and what happened afterwards as seen by a character who was more conscious than Frodo. Sam's point of view would make a good story, I think, but any character would be appreciated.

2) Elves in Middle Earth after Sauron's defeat.

I prefer to write original character stories. I'm closer to owning them if I do that. I also usually try to write canon-acceptable stories, but I might write a Star Wars AU sometime.

Order of Akite's stories:

"The Last Laugh", "Survivor's Guilt", "On Jedi and Alcohol", Friends, Younglings, and Masters, Bloodrain, and finally "The Way it Must Be."

MY STORIES

The Last Laugh: I thought this up one night and had it almost entirely written in my head by the next morning. Stories don't usually come so easily to me, and I think that they are best when they do.

Survivor's Guilt; On Jedi and Alcohol; and Friends, Younglings, and Masters: After I wrote "The Last Laugh," I decided that I liked the character of Akite and wanted to continue with her. These stories are narrated by her: "Survivor's Guilt" as she leaves Geonosis, "On Jedi and Alcohol" as she looks back on her childhood, and Friends, Younglings, and Masters as she recovers from Geonosis. "Survivor's Guilt" is thoughtful and philosophizing. "On Jedi and Alcohol" amuses me, but, of course, I'm the author. Friends, Younglings, and Masters is and emotional roller-coaster of sorrow and hope.

Bloodrain: This is also narrated by Akite, but it is the only story that I consider to be full-length. Even Friends, Younglings, and Masters was written as a short story and broken into chapters to make it easier to read. This one was written in chapters in the first place. Bloodrain is probably unrealistic (in canon terms of course, since Star Wars is unrealistic in so many ways), but I don't mind too much. I call it drama, but it includes some romance, some tragedy, some angst, some friendship... though no action. If you're looking for action, get off my profile. I'm hopeless. And another warning. I write my stories to ask questions, not to answer them. Note: It turns out that bloodrain is an actual phenomenon, it's just not common (and it's not called bloodrain, of course). I love it when I turn out to be smarter than I thought.

The Way it Must Be: To me, this is the most significant of Akite's stories, if for no other reason (though there are others) than I have held onto it since just after I wrote The Last Laugh. Yes, it is that old. Yes, I wrote it second, but I hope you will read it sixth, where it belongs. And I won't say any more about it.

Candles:I wanted to write a story about Jedi after the invasion of the Temple. One night, I made up these characters. It's the only story I started on a whim and got anywhere with. I had high hopes for it, but even though it's modest, I like how it turned out. I still love all seven of them.

The Wizard's Manual: I started this four years ago after a spontaneous role-playing game with my best friend and her little sister. I was Fae. My best friend's sister was Dawna. My best friend was the Hogwarts train window. (She was very tired that day.) I kept writing the story for them over the next year. The rest of the time between then and posting has been a bit of editing and a whole lot of procrastinating. The story is a multi-way crossover, but I try to explain everything that the average reader wouldn't know. It's a serious adventure and mystery overall, but it is also random, quirky, and very funny, or at least we think so.

In Life's Name: I've wanted to do a story for Young Wizards (READ IT!) for a long time, but I can never think of a plot. But one day, it occurred to me that I could do a story just about taking the oath. No need to think of the Ordeal. Just taking the Oath. So I started a series of one-shots. The only bad thing is that I want to figure out what happens to the characters next, and I don't know what I would do with them. I'm open for ideas... Until then, I'll content myself with having characters from earlier stories appearing in later ones.

Not My Fault: Self-explanatory. If you don't have time to read it (it's only 333 words total; don't believe the site), I'm sorry for you.

Gift of Stars: This is, of course, my first Lord of the Rings story, despite my penname. I have had an idea of a character like Elanna for years. I could not fit her into any plot, and she always seemed to be a Mary Sue. I hope I've fixed her enough. At the moment, the story is a one-shot somewhat in the style of "Survivor's Guilt". Not a good idea, considering that I have 106 hits on "Survivor's Guilt" after three years. Um... this is 83 hits in about five weeks. Maybe LOTR readers like this kind of thing better than SW readers do. But I am planning a long story, mostly following the journey by the residents of Rivendell to Gondor for the wedding, to follow the first chapter. I'll see whether I can finish it. I've never posted a story before I finished writing it. (Edit: I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen.)

CHARACTER PICTURES

My friend, Minas Ithil/E-gor the Undead, found a face-making program made by someone on DeviantArt. Naturally, I have wasted hours on it.

Address of the facemaker: http:///art/FaceMaker-52755515

I will email bitmap (pictures from the Paint program that comes with Windows) images of the following faces on request. Jenna, Vinka, Elanna, and Linloth can be sent without exchanging email addresses.

On Jedi and Alcohol: Zefel, Fang

Friends, Younglings, and Masters: Zefel

Candles: Jian, Vinka

The Wizard's Manual: Fae, Dawna, Evan, Steven

In Life's Name: Miriam, Kara, Will, Anna, Jenna, Greg, Aileen, Bridget

Life of a Jedi forum: Maynashan

Gift of Stars: Elanna, Linloth

I have some pictures of Akite; however, horns are not an option on this program, and all choices are limited. For a picture of Akite (and one of Zefel), I suggest visiting Minas Ithil on DeviantArt.

READING

I usually browse Lord of the Rings stories these days, though I still look through Star Wars ones. Every once in a while, after a sensible amount of time to get new stories in, I check the Old Kingdom or Young Wizards. So if I saw your story, here are some possible answers to questions you might have.

Why didn't you read my story?

- It was too long. This is a variable limit, but I usually look for stories under 5 chapters or 10,000 words. This can be different for complete stories, but I've only twice braved an incomplete story of more than 20 chapters.

- It was parody, involved the characters living in present-day society (YW excluded, of course), or otherwise ridiculous.

- It clearly involved slash, OOC, or Legomance (LOTR). I'm not interested.

- It was girl-falls-into-Middle-Earth or parody-Sue (LOTR), Padme-lives, Anakin-didn't-turn-evil, Luke/Leia-was-brought-up-by-someone-different, Anakin/Obi-Wan's-past-was-different, or someone-else-was-the-Chosen-One (SW), or something Darine-Roshaun (YW) and didn't look unique or especially good.

- The summary included misspellings or un-capitalized names. The summary is an indication of what is inside, and if you don't put effort into it, the story won't be worth much.

- The summary included an apology, usually "I suck at summaries". (I may make exceptions for "I'm not a native speaker", but it's better if you put that inside.) If you can't write a summary, you can't write a story. At least fake it.

- At the most extreme, you couldn't come up with a title or summary at all and told me to "Just read it." I won't.

Why did you quit reading my story?

- It was long, and I got bored. My problem, not yours. Sorry.

- The distances between updates was so long that I couldn't remember what this story is when I got the update. This usually has to happen at least twice before I give up.

- Its characters, plot, or style sucked.

- It turned out to involve slash, OOC, Legomance, etc.

- It seemed to be either very unoriginal or beyond suspension of belief.

- The grammar or spelling was unbearable, or other aesthetics, like the paragraph length, or canon manipulation was unbearable. Sometimes, when it comes to canon, this is my own problem. Sometimes, I will just quit, and sometimes I will leave reviews stating my issue, but if you don't even give me an explanation of why you can't change, I will quit.

Why didn't you review my story?

- I just started reading, it was long, and I was working too hard to catch up to take time for reviews.

- For one-shots or updates, I had several stories to read and didn't take time for reviews. (most common reason)

- I was tired of saying that everything is good without having something better to tell you.

- I was in a bad mood.

- I was so disgusted that I decided you didn't deserve my reviews. (This is rare; I usually don't get to the end of a chapter of those stories.)

- I was embarrassed that I was reading your story for some reason and didn't want to leave my mark on it. (This has only happened a couple of times.)

Why did you review a story I haven't touched for four years?

- I read one of your recent stories and decided to look through your archives. I knew you were still active, so I reviewed. Otherwise, in the below circumstances, I most likely did not check the date.

- I was looking at a community and found your story or a forum and found you, then looked for your stories. Some of that can be very old.

- I searched a certain character that there are not many stories about.

- I was searching for some particular subject that there are not many stories about.

Why did you leave a mean review?

- The story was a waste of my time and I thought you deserved it.

- The story needed help and nobody else was giving it to you.

MATTHEW STOVER CAN'T COUNT

Matthew Stover is one of my favorite authors. He is the reason for the existence of Star Wars EU. I would do anything (short of becoming a Sith) to be able to write like he does.

Unfortunately, he appears to have some trouble with math.

I’m sure it’s not all his fault. He probably wasn’t the one who defined Mace Windu as being 50 years old in Episode II. (Maybe he was. I don’t know.) This age already doesn’t make sense. If he was 50 in Episode II, he would have had to be 40 in Episode I, and he was already the speaker for the Council – and retired. Most Jedi must to survive longer than that without retiring. The galaxy needs as many as possible. And he doesn’t seem quite good enough to be a senior member of the Council at that age, let alone the most important next to Yoda.

But the real problem is Matthew Stover’s fault. Here’s where the arithmetic comes in. If you can’t stand math, skip on down to my stories.

Depa Billaba, Mace’s former padawan, was on the Council in Episode I. We all know that Mace was the youngest person ever to reach the Council (before Anakin Skywalker) – age 28. Let’s say for simplicity that Depa was 30 when she was first elected to the Council. I’m sure she was much older. Let’s say that this was her first year. It probably wasn’t. But assuming these things, Depa was 30 in Episode I and Mace was 40. This makes him ten years older than she was.

Which is fine. He could have taken her when she was twelve and he was twenty-two. Or even eighteen or nineteen or whatever, if you think that my calculations of her age are low, as I do. But here comes the problem.

In Shatterpoint, Matthew Stover says that Mace discovered Depa. I quote: “I found her after I fought and killed the pirates who had murdered her parents; these pirates had kidnapped their victims’ lovely infant daughter.”

Let’s say that “infant” extends up to age two. That means that Mace must have been, at the most, twelve when he fought these pirates.

I suppose he was a padawan by then.