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lexacoolfox · 3 years

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I saw your bio about angel of death too!! May i request nagito X s/o who's like zack!!:D I hope i don't bothering you and have a nice day^^♡♡

Yes finally! Also your not bothering me, and thank you for wishing me a nice day! Your such a sweet heart adelia-Chan!

Nagito with a S/O like Zack!

Now it is modern time, you probably aren’t a murder but you can be, um…problematic.

You liked to beat people up when the looked to happy or mad. It made you feel good.

You obviously laughed like a mentally insane person when you did.

Now on the first day of school you saw a boy with white hair looking way to happy, he looked like a good target.

He noticed you right away and introduced himself with that smile, he sounded so joyful while doing it. That just made you want beat him up even more.

“Hello I’m Nagito Komeada!”

“Hey Komeada. I’m S/O. You got three seconds to run.”

The last part you said with a dark tone. He looked at you confused.

“Um…why would I need to run?”

“Cause you look way to frickin happy, makes me want to beat you up! I like to give people a fair chance to try to run away. As long you beg or scream for me not to hurt you to bad! I love seeing fear on my victims faces! Gets my blood bumping!”

He softly chuckled.

“Oh I’m not going to run away. I’ll let you do it. Come hit me! An ultimate like you hitting trash like me is an honor!”

You stumbled back and leaned by a nearby trash can and threw up.

“Man is something wrong with you. That’s the most messed up thing I’ve ever heard. You not running away or begging for your life. it makes it no fun. See ya later weirdo, I going to class I guess.”

Unfortunately (or fortunately) you both had the same class.

So you really couldn’t escape him, you had to listen to him insult himself and his thing on hope. Which kinda annoyed you.

You interested him and he wanted to get to know you. Like what your hobbies, your goals, or why do you like to beat up people who look happy.

“Is there a reason why your following me like a lost puppy?”

“Your interest me. Just pretend I’m not here.”

You saw a group of girls. They were laughing at another girl. They poured milk on her and laughed even louder. This brought back a memory from your childhood. A very bad memory.

You feel into a rage. You ran and proceeded to beat these girls to the point where they were knocked out. You turned to the girl who they were bullying you held out a hand for her to grab. You helped her getting up, patted her head then walked away.

Nagito followed close behind. You forgot he was following you. You went somewhere quite with a low chance of other students walking by. Then you grabbed him by the neck and shoved him against the wall.

“You better not tell anyone about anything you saw! Or else your gonna end up worse then those girls!”

“Oh I was never going to tell anyone anyway!”

“You better not be lying! I hate liars more than anything!”

“I’m not lying.”

You looked at him in the eyes. He was completely honest. You let him go.

“I thought it was kinda cool to see you standing up for that girl.”

“I wasn’t doing it for her. I was doing it cause it reminded me of something. Something I’d rather forget.”

“Even though, your speed and strength was amazing to see in action. You also held such passion in your eyes.”

You started angry mumbling not because he was annoying you but your were honestly embarrassed, you weren’t used to hearing much praise.

One day your class decided to have a party, you don’t know how they convinced you. But they did, you didn’t listen to the details just the time and place.

The party was a bonfire party.

Once you arrived you were the last one to arrive, they started off the fire. To where you started internally freaking out. Also frozen in fear.

At some point you were escaped into the back of the woods, Nagito noticed and went to follow you. He heard you near by. You found you punching a tree while yelling. You hade to stop cause of your hands

You wore bandages all over hands, shoulder, arms, and up your back a little, from a incident from a long time ago. You heard a twig snap.

“Who’s there! Show yourself!”

“Oops looks like I’ve been spotted.”

“Ugh! What’s with you and following me!”

“Well I noticed you left the party. I just wanted to know why.

He said sitting on a tree stump. You lean against a tree.

“Don’t tell anyone this. But. I’m scared of fire.”

“Oh. Well, how about we go to a near by gas station. We can get some snacks!”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Don’t worry I’ll pay.”

You weren’t saying no to free food. You guys got a couple of snacks and went to a nearby park to sit on a bench.

You actually had a nice conversation with Nagito. You actually were laughing a lot. For the first time ever somebody smile didn’t want to make you beat them up. Nagito smile made you smile.

You developed a crush on Nagito.

You treated him different from then on.

No threats were thrown his way from you. You didn’t mind when he talked to you. Anytime somebody gave him a nasty look for saying something. You punch your hand against your palm as a sign. You often lean against him when he talks to somebody. Anytime he says an insult to himself, you put him in a headlock and start giving him noogies while saying “why do you keep saying that! Do you got some screws loose Huh?!” You could say it’s tough love. Everbody knew you had a crush on Nagito. But you were to dense to notice your own feelings and Nagito was to oblivious to notice your change in behavior. Surprisingly you and fuyuhiko had a kinda Frenemy thing going on. You two acted like you hate each other, which you do. but you two had a lot in common so sometimes you got along. He’s the one to point out your feelings

“When you going to tell Nagito you like him?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“It’s so obvious you have a crush on him. Which is kinda weird.”

“What’s a crush?”

He gave you a shock looked. Then called you an idiot. He explained a crush and then it made sense to you.

“So…how do I tell him.”

“Just tell him. Unless your a chicken.”

“Shut up! I’m not a chicken! I’ll go tell him right now!”

You stomped away looking for Nagito to tell him. You found him being Ganged up by some guys. You beat all of them up. Some puked from your punches, some passed out, some ran away. You picked up Nagito and threw him over his shoulder and started walking away with him.

“Um s/o can you let me down? I can walk on my own.”

“No.”

You went back to your place and threw him on your couch.

“Thanks for saving me back there. I didn’t think you would save me like that.”

You flicked him in the forehead.

“Of course I saved you. I love you dummy.”

He blushed at the sudden confession.

“I love you too.”

You blushed and pulled him to your chest. You cuddle him, so you guys are now a couple.

Here somethings you do now your a couple

You are always touching him in someway, simple hand hold, hugging, leaning against him, just anything works.

Your like his own personal bodyguard.

He helps you with your bandages when you need to change them.

He comforts you when there’s fire.

You give him random small kisses.

Everybody and anybody is too scared to flirt with Nagito.

When you two are anywhere like a booth at a restaurant. You have you arm wrapped around Nagito shoulder.

After a long time. You told him things about your childhood, which he understood and helped you deal with your trauma.

Bonus: for this to make sense. I ship fuyuhiko and Peko.

You noticed how fuyuhiko acted around peko. You and Nagito decided to play match maker.

Nagito invited fuyuhiko to a cafe to hangout. While you did the same with peko.

They arrived at the cafe both texting you asking where you were. Both of you texted something came up with your significant other so you couldn’t make it. They spotted each other and decided to hangout. Just according to plan. you and Nagito where wearing disguises to watch them. Nagito went up to their waiter after he took their order, saying he’ll pay for them.

When they learned that somebody payed for them and the waiter pointed who. They realized it was you two. You practically grab Nagito and made a mad dash for the exit.

Later that night you got to listen to a mad fuyuhiko, while receiving passive aggressive text from peko.

“Why you so mad? I’m just helping you out. I mean you helped me and Nagito get together. I’m just returning the favor.”

“What?! Are you implying I have a crush on peko! What gave off that idea?!”

“A lot of things gave off that idea. C’mon you like her. Don’t be a chicken.”

“I hate you!”

“The feelings mutual. Just go for it.”

“You don’t tell me what to do-“

You hung up. You put your phone on silent and went to sleep. Luckily it was Friday so you didn’t have school the next day. So they couldn’t bother you about it.

#anime #s/o x danganronpa characters #danganronpa x you #drv2 #danganronpa goodbye despair #danganronpa 2 #nagito komeada x reader #nagito x reader #nagito komeada #fuyuhiko kuzuryu #peko pekoyama #angels of death #zack foster

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secret-engima · 4 years

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Daywan has spent her whole life knowing she was going to be a Second. It was rare, but they happened sometimes, a Second soulmate after the first died, or if something fundamental changed about a person. (The Glaive had a lot of Second Words.) What else could her Words indicate? "Thank you for taking care of my son, but why didn't you say he was here?" She'd fought against those Words for years, they'd been the center of her teen angst. Daywan had avoided children and childcare like the plague.1

Anonymous said: 2 And then came the Nifs came. They'd been in a little town, straddling the border of Lucis and Tenebrae, neutral for centuries, but the Empire hadn't cared. She'd snatched a baby out of a dying woman's arms and never looked back. As she'd begun the terrifying march that would ultimately take her to Insomnia, she'd collected children and dragged them with her. She'd bitterly regretted her adamant ignorance of childcare, but she could no more leave them to die than she could stop walking.

Anonymous said: 3 "Thank you" was waiting for her. Somehow, arguing with the guards at the gates of Insomnia with her gaggle of children clinging to her legs, climbing her back to tug on her hair, (trying to put braids in with stubborn tenacity) it didn't seem so bad now, to be Second. Not after what she'd seen. She had someone who was waiting for her, maybe he'd be the father of one of her kids. It just made sense when she found a job as a childcare worker, a little less when it turned out to be in the Citadel

Anonymous said: 4 And then there was the sweetest little boy in the daycare, probably a smuggled in relative. She got more then most, given her willingness to look the other way. And then the King came into her room, as the last straggler of the day, the new boy helping her wipe the table down as she talked about some fun foods she'd eaten (trekking cross country with demons and Nifs hunting you cut down on your food prejudices) and then, "Thank you for looking after my son, but what is he doing here?”

Anonymous said: 5 Daywan isn't even sure what she stutters in response. The warmth in her Words let her know exactly who the King was to her. Hopefully something suitably innocuous, she needed to get home and have a breakdown as she dealt with this revelation.

Anonymous said: Actually, let me change my suggested name for the daycare worker to Daywren. It flows better I think, Daywren Silverblade.

Me: This is SO stupidly adorable I love it. Gonna expand on this backstory but I really like this idea (especially of her being non-Galahdian but totally adopted because of all the kiddos she kept rescuing). Ummmm, don’t think that name will work? FFXV has it’s Naming Theme and all. Think I’m gonna call her .... Lucina. The kiddos just call her Nina because it’s easier to say.

And just-

Lucina has always been an odd child, avoiding childcare and kids like the plague after learning what the swooping scrawl on her forearm MEANT, always more willing to learn to fight and hunt and fish than most little girls her age. Always more stealthy than she should be, always more precise in action than she needed to be. The other townsfolk nod sagely to themselves and say that she’ll be sent off to the city academy once she’s old enough, become a career woman for sure. Possibly even a military woman. Lucina doesn’t mind the thought of it. Can’t get much farther from childcare than being a soldier.

But then Niflheim comes. Niflheim comes and there is a child screaming in the arms of the woman who just got shot at least a dozen times and there is no saving the woman, but she holds out her child with crazed eyes as Lucina runs by and she takes without thinking. And then she is alone in the wilderness. With a baby.

Oh no.

She picks up more of them as she goes on, other children of various ages, some small, some less small, all of them lost and scared and in need of someone to care. She steals or trades for milk to feed the littlest ones, thanks the one bit of forethought she had in taking her bow and arrows with her when she ran as she hunts down food for the ones that are too old for milk.

She isn’t quite sure HOW she makes it to Lucis without losing any of the five children she picked up, just that she did.

And then she learns of Galahd’s sudden, dramatic fall. Finds out when she stumbles on a tight-knit trio of children with ratty braids in their hair and wild eyes and she can’t help but take them too.

She picks up a Galahdian pre-teen somewhere in between the toddlers and adolescents she keeps stumbling on and she could cry from relief in having help minding, caring, and feeding.

By the time she makes it to the gates of Insomnia at age 25, exhausted and underweight and triumphant, she has fifty whole kids and three pre-teens straggling along behind her. She is NOT in the mood for the gate guard’s pomp and circumstance, and the gate guard is not prepared for Lucina’s near feral protective instincts of the kids clinging to her legs and crawling on her back adding braids to her hair (she has so many Clan braids without knowing what they are it isn’t even funny). She gets let in and Little Galahd hears about her somehow so by the time she’s finally in the gates, there’s a hoard of excited, tearful Galahdians ready to reclaim their kiddos and then claim the new kiddos AND their keeper because this woman just returned like- 40+ of their missing kids. There are literal brawls (later and in private) to determine who gets to formally adopt her into their Clan.

Lucina is too tired for the first two weeks to care. Barely bats an eye when a man approaches and introduces himself as Sonitus and asks if he can take out all but one of the braids in her hair. She tells him that if he’s willing to face the screaming hoard of kiddos that will descend upon his soul, then by all means.

It’s only later someone thinks to sit her down and explain Galahdian adoption, but she has no family now so ... being the adopted sister of a Bellum is alright she guesses. Better than being alone and homeless.

Lucina ends up getting a job in childcare. Despite never having wanted to do things with children before and not having any professional schooling in the caring of kids, apparently everyone has heard of her fifty kid entourage and assumed she was some kind of childcare person who lost her papers. Since nothing is as terrifying as keeping fifty kids (several of whom are infants) alive in the wilderness, when she is offered a daycare job by one of the Galahdians who Knows Somebody With An Opening, she takes it.

She did not expect the Knows Somebody would actually be “the guy who hires Citadel people owes me a major favor” and the Opening to be the CITADEL DAYCARE.

Okay fine whatever. Better than being jobless and at least the kids in there are healthy, well fed little scamps and food is just a microwave or oven away rather than a mile into the wilderness and ready to run if it catches her scent.

For all Lucina claims to not have a way with kids, she is Good With Kids. She had no idea why kids seem magnetically attracted to her but they are and the other workers quickly learn to yeet the problem children her way.

Which is why when she finds a newcomer smuggled in on the day she is alone in her shift (the other worker meant to work the shift with her called in sick) she doesn’t bat an eyelash and is just grateful he’s such a sweetheart. He calls her Nina without hesitation (the nickname the other daycare kiddos gave her, apparently Lucina is hard to pronounce for tiny tongues) and trundles after her in all his five year old glory, trying dutifully to help her with things so she doesn’t force him to go interact with the other kids (she does not force him, what’s the point of forcing a shy child into a situation where they don’t feel safe? It will only end in tears, let him get used to watching the others before encouraging interaction).

She doesn’t notice the Citadel’s slow descent into madness or the way two of the five Crownsguard that lurk on the outskirts of the daycare are repurposed for some other task. Well. She does notice. It’s just that she doesn’t care. As long as nothing tries to enter the daycare unauthorized it’s not her problem (and if something DOES, well, she’s got about five freshly sharpened knives hidden on her person where kiddos can’t reach and adults can’t see and the long looped cord holding back her ponytail has a steel center just GREAT for strangling someone who tries something. These kids are in her care, she’s not going to just leave it up to Crownsguard to protect them if someone so much as lays a finger on them with ill intent).

The servants and the spouses of the Crownsguard, who are apparently all working overtime today for some reason, come to pick up their kids and Lucina herds everyone into neat lines for retrieval while keeping an eye out for imposter adults or strangers (it’s happened before, she ruined her favorite top putting a stop to it before a Crownsguard managed to take care of the issue). One of the maids who works on the royal levels spots Lucina’s tiny shadow (he calls himself Noct, it’s clearly short for something but Lucina thinks it’s cute) and her eyes grow to the size of plates, “That’s-!”

Lucina blinks and idly pets the boy’s hair when he hides behind her leg, “Oh, you know him? He says his dad works upstairs. I know something is going on today but can you call his dad down here? The daycare is closing in an hour.”

The woman nods dumbly, looking shocked for reasons Lucina doesn’t get and wanders off with her own child, who is the last one other than Noct to be picked up. Lucina and Noct hang out for the next ten minutes or so as the father steadily does not come by, and Lucina is hiding her worry well over what to do with Noct as the boy busily helps her clean off the table and put away the last of the toys when the doors to the daycare slam open.

Lucina puts herself in front of Noct on instinct, hands dropping to the knife sheathed in the small of her back and ready to fight before she registers.

The Shield of the King is standing in the daycare.

The King of Lucis is standing in the daycare.

“Dad!” Chirps Noct as he buzzes past her and flings himself into the arms of the monarchy who has that distinctly crazed, frazzled look that only comes from being worried sick over one’s child.

Oh.

Oh dear.

Noct’s dad “works upstairs”.

Noct. Noctis

Oh dear.

Lucina tries to discreetly lower her hands away from the (still sheathed thank goodness) knife but is pretty sure the Shield knows exactly what she was doing. The king is still busy fussing over his son, half-lecturing until Noct starts going on about “Nina” and how much fun he had with her down here.

The King looks up, “Thank you,” he rumbles, “for looking after my son. But why did you not tell anyone he was here?”

The words on her forearm, hidden under a soulmate sleeve, burn like liquid fire and her heart stops.

She thinks- she thinks she says something in return, but her mind is screaming because-

This is her soulmate.

28 years old and she has finally met her soulmate.

And it’s REGIS LUCIS CAELUM. KING OF LUCIS.

From the shocked expression on the king’s face and the way one hand suddenly clamps on his right ribcage, she’s pretty sure he just realized it too.

#SE asks #anon asks #Secret Engima Rambles #Didn't Know He Was the Prince verse #soulmate au

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mst3kproject · 5 years

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802: The Leech Woman – Part III

I’ve devoted a review to the terrible characters in The Leech Woman and another to its nasty misogynistic ‘message’, what’s left? As it turns out, plenty. The next layer down in our Leech Woman Tira Misu of badness has several ingredients that just wouldn’t fit with the themes of either of the previous installments.

The script frequently feels a need to explain what’s happening on screen, which is sometimes helpful but equally often kind of insulting, since characters are telling us things we can clearly see for ourselves. A Nando dude has his face pushed into a pot of misty stuff and is then dragged stumbling over to the sacrificial block, and David declares “he’s drugged!” as if we wouldn’t be able to tell. Moments later, the man’s pineal gland is carved out – this does require some narration, since the visuals aren’t self-explanatory, but the “he’s adding the pineal hormone to the Naipi” a moment later really doesn’t need to be there.

The intense use of stock footage is also a form of this. We know that the characters are going to Africa, and we see them hiring a guide and tramping through a jungly-looking set, only to also be shown reams of animal stock footage that has basically nothing to do with the story. The only time it has any bearing on the plot is with the leopard that supposedly follows June. The rest is padding, there to emphasize (as Crow observes) that we are definitely in Africa, as if the audience couldn’t already tell.

A few bits in this part of the movie are shot outside, pretty clearly in California rather than anywhere near Africa. Others are obviously in ‘jungle’ studio sets, and you can really feel how closed-in and artificial these spaces are, especially when contrasted with the wide-open savannahs and broad skies in the stock footage. I guess I can say in the movie’s favour that it looks more jungle-ish than Jungle Moon Men did, but there are places in Canada that look more jungle-ish than that, so it’s not really saying very much.

The most egregious use of stock footage in The Leech Woman is in the Nando village, where we see some shots of people dancing in Real Africa before cutting back to extras in Hollywood Africa. The two sets of footage look nothing alike. The people in the documentary shots are dancing in a practiced, purposeful fashion. The ones in the stuff filmed for The Leech Woman are just kind of flailing and bouncing. The juxtaposition is kind of like splicing shots of trained ballroom dancers in with video of the junior prom and pretending it was all part of the same scene. This extends to the costumes, with the ‘real’ dancers wearing elaborate ceremonial beadwork and the actors in crummy kilts and geographically inappropriate tiger skins. The latter still look nothing like the shower curtain Malla’s wearing when she reappears. The only costume that had effort put into it is that ridiculous tusk headdress the high priest wears.

The Nando themselves are a plot device, rather than a people. They are Privy To Wisdom the White Man Hath Forgotten, but they’re also very much superstitious savages, with their regular human sacrifices and habit of killing anybody who tries to talk to them. None of them have lines and except for Malla and the high priest they are basically indistinguishable from each other – this keeps us from feeling sorry for them when their village gets blown up. The only ones we see up very close are Malla, whom we will soon learn is planning to kill the heroes, and the priest, whose face is hidden. They are dehumanized and, with their job of introducing June to the Cure for Old done, they are dismissed.

That would be pretty standard for a fifties jungle movie, but there’s one rather out-of-place bit that seems to be there just as gratuitous racism. When David goes back for the dynamite, under the pretense of giving Malla a necklace, one of his guards takes a moment to steal some of June’s other jewelry from the luggage. Why? What value does it have to these people who live in the middle of nowhere and don’t appear to trade with the outside world? The event never has any impact on the plot, even though June later uses jewelry to entice her victims… come to think of it, why did she have that stuff with her on a safari anyway? If this isn’t just a throwaway moment of lol, black people are thieves, it seems to just be a little reminder that the Nando cannot be trusted and that we shouldn’t worry about David blowing them up. Doesn’t quite work when he also steals their stuff on the way out, does it?

And of course, the ending sucks. Rather than facing any sort of consequences for her crimes, June simply throws herself out the window, leaving Sally dead in the closet and Neil and the police wondering what the hell just happened. The withered corpse we see under the window is obviously a mannequin, and doesn’t even look like June. And as with far too many movies of this vintage, there is no denouement. We don’t know if Neil ever understands that June and ‘Terri’ were the same person, or why Sally was killed. We don’t see him realize what he’s lost by allowing himself to be dragged around by the dick. The movie just ends. They couldn’t have spent two minutes on that instead of on random animal footage?

After going through all the many ways in which The Leech Woman is a terrible and frequently offensive movie, how it hates men, women, black people, white people, and anybody stupid enough to watch it, I guess it needs to be asked: why do I enjoy it so much? I think partly it is because it’s so non-denominationally misanthropic – it hates everybody, and while it saves special venom for unattractive women, nobody else comes off well, either. Another, as previously mentioned, is how it doesn’t bother to have any ‘good’ characters. The protagonist of the movie, as in the person through whose eyes we watch it and whose arc we follow, is June – and she’s an insane, selfish murderess!

I do tend to like movies that focus on a villain’s journey. There’s Lady Frankenstein, for example, in which Tanya Frankenstein carries the whole movie despite the fact that she’s evil to the core, and in the end is destroyed by her own creature as he realizes that he, like everything else around her, is just a tool she’s using to further her own sense of self-importance. There’s the similarly-titled Countess Dracula, which is what you might get if you imagine a version of The Leech Woman that actually tries to convince you Neil is the hero but still doesn’t have him actually do anything. And there are Hammer’s Frankenstein movies, which are all about Peter Cushing’s Victor Frankenstein with the inconsequential ‘heroes’ simply revolving around him.

Why are these characters so much more interesting than the heroes who are trying to defeat them? I think it has to do with the fact that these villains are proactive – they are taking steps to go out and get what they want. Victor Frankenstein wants to prove his latest theory, June wants to watch men fall at her feet when she smiles at them, and they both believe the means justify the ends. The ‘good guys’ of the movie, on the other hand, are merely reacting to the evil plot they’ve discovered. In light of that, it’s also interesting to ask why it’s so often women who take center stage in this kind of movie: as well as June, I’ve mentioned two examples in the previous paragraph, with Tanya Frankenstein and Countess Elizabeth. This is probably because women in movies of this era are not supposed to be proactive in getting what they want, or even to have wants at all besides to kiss the guy at the end.

This type of movie also suggests that evil, being intrinsically selfish, will ultimately destroy itself. The good characters, where they exist, are victims or completely irrelevant – the closest things The Leech Woman has to ‘good guys’ are Neil and the detective, the former being helplessly in June’s thrall and the latter not even showing up until the movie’s almost over and then having his job done for him by her suicide. Since these characters don’t try to do anything about their situations (Neil doesn’t even realize he’s in one), they’re not at all interesting, and the villains command the movie all the more. This would lead one to think that the ‘message’ of the movie is the same as the one I pulled out of Outlaw, that bad things will just go away if you wait long enough.

In some cases that’s probably true (it’s going to work for the Earth – us humans will kill ourselves off soon and the rest of the biosphere can get back to business), but The Leech Woman also serves to emphasize that letting evil destroy itself will cause far more damage than if somebody tackled the problem before it got that far. If Neil had actually cared that ‘Terri’ was destroying his relationship with Sally and tried to leave her, he might have saved himself a lot of trouble. In fact, what would have happened then? Would June have gone off to find another victim, or would she have become more aggressive in her pursuit of him in particular? Would he have maybe cottoned on to what was happening and come back to save her next boyfriend from suffering a terrible fate? Oh, hey, look – I just wrote a better movie in three sentences, again.

I think that’s about as much Leech Woman as I can take. See you next week – I don’t actually have that many more of these to do, do I? Thank you all for hanging in there with me. We’re on the home stretch now!

#mst3k #reviews #the leech woman #tw: suicide #boy are we in africa!#60s

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hcpefulmarshmallow · 5 years

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I wanted to take some time out of our irregularly scheduled content to talk about something near and dear to my heart: Komaeda’s voice. Specifically, two of his character songs which I have been more eager to dissect than you know.

A couple of points before we begin:

These songs were not written by the same people who designed, scripted or even localised Komaeda, but rather his Japanese VA, Megumi Ogata. It has, however, been sanctioned as canon material, even released under the Danganronpa brand. Therefore, I will treat it with the same consideration that I do explicitly canon material.

The songs are, of course, in Japanese. I do not speak this language, so I’ll be going off the translations available on the DR wiki. If you do speak Japanese and you realise I’ve missed or misinterpreted something due to the language barrier, please let me know. Otherwise, as an English speaker, I’ll do my best with what I have.

My goal here is to reconcile his musical characterisation with his canon characterisation, as well as extrapolate whatever new things we can learn from these songs about our beloved boy. And if you’re reading this crazy long post and thinking, “wow, she’s reading way too into this,” ... yeah. That’s sort of the fun of it. My goal isn’t to challenge anybody, or shame anyone’s headcanons. This is just a weird niche hobby of mine.

Apologies for the lack of a cut. This much text, I felt, might be a little hard on some peoples’ eyes on my theme. It is tagged though.

Okay, onto the good stuff.

Zettai Kibou Birthday is, according to Megumi, a song about how Nagito feels on the “outside”. It contains a literal narrative and a metanarrative which is a word I like to use to sound smart, but in this case, just refers to an overarching interpretation that isn’t necessarily verbatim, but rather is represented, or is provided a structure, or is given meaning by the actual text.

In this case, the literal narrative is this: Nagito meets somebody on campus he was “born to meet”, and they have some sort of steamy rendezvous, and in amongst all the smooshing, there are several references to absolute hope. However, the song isn’t supposed to be a literal recount of events, but rather an expression of Nagito’s feelings; about hope, love, intimacy and connection. This is the metanarrative. The plot, if you will, is simply a presentation of that message.

While the song functions on a conceptual level and not a physical one, it interests me that sex is the medium through which he allegorises hope, intimacy and interpersonal connection. I think it’s also interesting that hope and intimacy are grouped together, as if to find one is to find the other. To quote Nagito himself, “Now that I’m on the verge of death, I’ve finally realised what I wanted all along: somebody’s love.”

Again, the song isn’t literal. It captures a feeling, likening that exhilaration and comfort of making a deep and impossible connection to the feeling of finding Ultimate Hope. And for someone who has been so lonely for so long, it makes sense he would find that hope in another person. Someone who isn’t afraid to be close to him in every possible sense of the word.

Now let me get it out there - I don’t expect a song like this to have explicit depictions of sex or anything. There is a fine line to walk when using the topic in media lest you be branded with a hard “lewd” rating, but there’s still no shortage of ways to use it without being explicit. Take, for instance, Carla Gugino & Oscar Isaac’s cover of Love Is The Drug. (Why the cover and not the original? Because I actually liked Sucker Punch, fight me.)

Late that night I park my car / Stake my place in the singles' bar / Face to face, toe to toe / Heart to heart as we hit the floor Lumber up, limbo down / The locked embrace, the stumble round / I say go, (and I say yes) / Dim the lights, you can guess the rest

The words describe literally what is going on, while still invoking the right mood and the emotions the characters in the song were feeling. It’s very well-balanced lyrically, especially with what Oscar and Carla’s performance brings to it. Contrast, if you will, with:

So lock up, mix up, cut up… key up, sex up, wrap up / I'll let you mess me up and indulge That's it, break up, use up, end up… hook up—because we're connected / The omen of hope after the worst disaster

If you look close, you can definitely see what’s happening in the actual narrative of the song. However, the details are more or less obfuscated under this layer of words that don’t really mean anything on their own. It’s more like a flurry of different sensations rather than one, tangible experience. These feelings he’s having during these experience are, in the next breath, directly correlated with connection, and then hope.

Nagito is a guy who works on the conceptual and the philosophical more than the literal. Even in canon, he’s heavily into symbolism. He likes to carry around Go stones because of what the colours represent to him. So this use of intimacy and word play to describe a significant bond between two people is remarkably fitting. What’s literally happening isn’t half as important as what is going on beneath the surface, and the way it makes him feel.

Like I said, it’s interesting that, of all the ways he could express hope and connection, this is the one he went with. I do believe that this also expresses an underlying attitude towards intimacy; that it’s something he only wishes to share with someone truly special. In many fan circles he is portrayed as a highly sexualised character, even though in the canon media, he is quite chaste, never taking any sexual interest in a situation that isn’t sexual; for instance, any of the many times Mikan falls over herself and winds up in a suggestive pose. (And nor should he, let me stress.)

And I can already foresee the counterargument that Nagito is gay, so of course he won’t enjoy seeing a girl’s underwear; and to that, I have two points. One is that, personally, I disagree. This doesn’t have to matter, but I headcanon him as bi or pan, possibly even demi. Either way, I don’t believe gender plays a major role in who he is attracted to. There’s no canon evidence to say who is “right” here (as right as anyone can be regarding fiction), but I don’t judge. If that’s your interpretation, you do you. The second is that, even towards the characters he is shown to be attracted to (namely, Hajime) his expressions of interest tend to be pure, for lack of a better word. Yes, there’s the joke about stripping naked on the beach, but I’m pretty sure that’s just a joke. He does tend to play a lot, after all.

And let me be clear -- there is nothing wrong with being a sexual person, or expressing one’s desire’s healthily. And certainly, Nagito has that side to him. He absolutely has sexual interest, urges and whatnot. It’s just not a highly key component to his characterisation. The point I want to make is: this song was a really good method to explore his feelings towards intimacy in a natural way, as well as provide more depth and context to attitudes he expressed in canon but couldn’t be explored to their fullest because, you know, it’s a story about murder, not Nagito’s feelings. The way he groups hope, love and sex as this euphoric thing, a singular whirlwind of emotions rather than separate happenings, is telling toward this desire he has for these things, the way he sees them as interconnected, and, with the way the song is so upbeat and uplifting, his hope that he can achieve it.

Nagito is someone who strongly believes in the idea that people are born a certain way, either hopeful or hopeless, talented or untalented. In short, destiny. And in this song, he speaks directly to the person he believes he’s destined for.

In the school campus at midnight, my heart throbs as I continue waiting "I was born for the sake of meeting you" I’II think at the moment

This song puts a tangible goal on this “Absolute Hope”, rather than the vague “overcoming Despair” thing he talks about all the time. Nagito really, truly wants to believe - and seems to believe - that his soulmate is out there, and it isn’t too late to make a deep and meaningful connection with somebody; someone who will be just as eager to reciprocate. Someone he can be unafraid with, captivated with, and with whom, he can experience that Ultimate Hope. It’s even in the title - the moment he meets such a person, is the moment true Hope itself is born. Something far stronger than what already exists in the world.

Zansakura, the companion piece to ZKB, is worlds apart in many ways.

It is, according to Megumi, how Nagito feels on the “inside”, the other side of the proverbial coin to ZKB being how he feels on the “outside”. Likely, this means that part deep within him he doesn’t let others see. This is present in the overall tone alone. While ZKB embodied in it that uplifting way which Nagito talks about Ultimate Hope, Zansakura is much more somber. ZKB echoes the Nagito we see through Hajime’s eyes; while Zansakura is more congruent with those fleeting moments we experience the game from his perspective, wherein he is even more down on himself. As we play through the Final Dead Room with him, we see that the excessive way which he berates himself out loud is nothing compared to the second-guessing and self-debasement that goes through his mind. It truly is a dark and melancholy place, which shows through in the slow, sad melody of Zansakura.

This one takes the imagery to a whole other level, relying primarily on the cultural and symbolic relevancy of cherry blossoms. I’ve written about all this before, so for the sake of those who have been around this blog a while, I’ll try to summarise as best as I can.

In Japan, Cherry Blossoms are symbolic of the ephemeral nature of life -- in other words, the fleetingness and impermanence of it all. In no small degree, the connection between the symbolism of Cherry Blossoms and life and death comes from the influence of Buddhist culture, and is embodied specifically in the concept of mono no aware. This can be translated a number of ways that all pretty much come back to the same idea of existing for only a short period of time. It’s used to describe the awareness of impermanence, the transience of things, and a sadness or wistfulness as their passing; and a deeper sadness about this being the reality of things. I know this seems boring and irrelevant, but please keep especially this last bit in mind, as it’s very important to the meaning behind this song.

The most popular variety of Cherry Blossom in Japan are the Somei Yoshino, which are almost pure white and tinged with pale pink near the stem. Although this song was written after the fact, I have to wonder if this was always intended to be part of the character’s aesthetic, because these colours are reflected in Nagito’s character design - specifically, his hair. Anyway, the Somei Yoshino typically bloom and fall within a week. Winter Sakura or Fuyuzakura begin blooming in autumn and continue sporadically throughout winter alone.

Though Cherry Blossoms are an important, and even iconic image for the country, most people are surprised to learn they don’t last for very long. For Nagito to compare himself to these flowers is to admit that he, too, is here to bloom for a short period of time. It’s also worth noting that Cherry Blossoms are considered their most beautiful, not as they bloom, but rather as they wither and fall. And all of a sudden, I’m reminded of all the times Nagito talks about attaining hope through despair, and how his life has only found meaning as he inches closer to death.

Yeah, I don’t like remembering this detail because it’s profoundly sad, but our marshmallow boy doesn’t exactly have long to live. He was given a year, at most, before starting at Hope’s Peak - and, at the end of the series, is presumably in his early-to-mid 20s. He’s beaten his own life expectancy, but not his illnesses.

The song starts in the most typical Nagito way I can think of:

“We can see again tomorrow", I laughed, short-lived cherry blossoms within my heart

As he always does, he laughs and is cheerful with others, even though deep down, he’s tremendously sad.

The song then takes us through this most beautiful and haunting imagery, of cherry blossoms in bloom after surviving a storm*, preparing to wither and fall; until at last they do, and as the flowers are carried away by the wind and water, a lonely, broken branch is left behind, wanting to bloom again.

(*The actual word used is ‘struggle’, however further down, the survival of a storm is mentioned, along with the flowers (aka hope) which will bloom after. The whole thing is a metaphor for his hope/luck cycle, is what I’m saying.)

He talks about this imagery as someone observing it (The storm of flowers, the sudden wind / I halt and open my eyes); again, with this idea of a metanarrative lurking beneath a literal one. He does, however, break the narrative to address (presumably) that same elusive “you” from Zettai Kibou Birthday:

To live an ordinary life, and die together with you / Oh, if that could come true

This seems so disconnected from the Nagito we know, who seems to have no interest in ‘ordinary’ things, and chases only hope. But as we’ve established, the place he most desires to seek hope is in another person. As he spends more time with Hajime during Island Mode, we know already that he admits to seeing hope in himself, and that he doesn’t necessarily take it as good news. But this line, right here, I feel embodies what this song is about, and what Nagito is all about.

Nagito is a very lonely person, desperate by his own admission for love and understanding. He knows he has little time left, and his prospects are...dim. Everyone he’s ever loved has either died or suffered at the hands of his luck, a force far beyond his control. And those who remain - namely, his classmates - either don’t like or don’t understand him. In ZKB - again, how Nagito feels on the “outside” - he expresses a hopefulness that there’s still someone he can love, who can love him, who he can experience that Absolute Hope with. But Zansakura has far more pessimistic expectations.

By breaking the metaphor to be straightforward and honest for a line, we get Nagito’s most core desire: to live a life with somebody; to love and be loved. Which, yeah, he’s already admitted to. For someone who’s been through so much, that probably seems like the most unattainable thing. Every time he gets comfortable, something invariably rips all that out from under him. And of that, he is painfully aware. Oh, if only that could come true - in other words, he knows it won’t.

Once again, do recall the concept of mono no aware. It’s not just an awareness of transience and impermanence, but also an intense, wistful sadness in the face of it. He knows he’s dying, and he knows he’s dying alone. But he’s not frustrated or angry, or even defiant. He’s not trying to fight it. As much as Nagito wants to hope for the best, deep down, he just can’t. He knows this is the reality, and he doesn’t have it in him to fight back. He’s just completely, deeply, helplessly sad.

In this song, Nagito’s life is represented as the petals that bloom for a short time, then fall; while he is the broken branch left behind; forgotten, wounded and unappealing; yearning for more time. Deep down, this is how he feels about himself. He is boring and unextraordinary, and yet (perhaps selfishly) he wishes that brief taste he has of being alive would last if only a little longer. He’s not quite ready to die yet, not until “the day this ordinary life is devoted”.

#meta;#( holy damn this went on #but i have been meaning to do this forever )#zansakura #zettai kibou birthday #long post/#( 2775 WORDS YO )

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thewillowbends · 5 years

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Thoughts on Lucifer (TV) Season 4

So I've spot-rewatched parts of season 4, and I've more or less got a sense for what did and did not work for me. Lucifer is the kind of trash television I reluctantly love because I enjoy the characters so much, even as they are stuck in a painful mishmash of bad writing with the occasional moment of brilliance carried along by dedicated and talented actors.

SEASON 4 SPOILERS AHEAD OBVS

Let's get what I didn't like out of the way first -

Stuff That Makes Me Cringe

1.) Up first is my completely shallow dislike for the new devil makeup. The wings were really well done, but the face/body is kind of meh to me. It's not badly designed, per se, but it's definitely narm territory in some places. (While I do like the whole "king of hell" scene at the end and what it portends in terms of Lucifer's final decision, it is hilariously campy, too.) In my opinion, season two and three still feature the best up-close devil look, particularly in the reveal scene to Linda. It's disturbing in an uncanny valley sort of way that gets lost with the heavier makeup, and also...the wet blood is a really nice, creepy touch that I'm sad got dumped after the first try!

Also shallow opinion - Tom Ellis is fine as hell, don't get me wrong, and I appreciate that he worked out like crazy for this season, but I actually kind of miss his slightly less muscular look from the earlier seasons. I feel like he's a guy who looks better with shoulders that are a tad less broadly defined, yeah? It felt like it made more sense for Lucifer to be well built but not hyper muscular, since he wasn't a warrior in the way, say, Amenadiel or Michael were. Samael was the tempter - he's built for beauty and desire, with kind of a sly appeal to him.

2.) Eve. I really like Eve as a character over all, but I do wish her motivations were explored more explicitly. I do really like the vaguely feminist undertones of her story, that she's a woman whose entire life has been dictated to her by God and husband, and her decision to leave Heaven is a rebellion against that, a desire to pursue what she wants for herself even as she struggles to break free of old patterns. While the story does seem to suggest this is her true motivation, I do wish it was given a little more individual reflection. The thing I find the most poorly handled about her character is the punishment fascination. I get that it's part of her tendency to try and mold herself into what she thinks the men in her life want, good or bad, but I would've liked more clarity on whether it held any personal appeal to her - i.e. she discusses her son, Cain, but there's little attention given to what it must have been like for her to watch him walk the Earth cursed, much less losing her son Abel to Hell. Does she resent God? Is she angry that human life is so short yet the recompense for a life well or poorly lived is so permanent? Does she feel like her life was stolen for her in a way that other human's choices weren't?

She's already a foil for Lucifer in that she's daring to go against God's plan to explore her own freedom of choice, with the major caveat being that she left Heaven willingly in contrast to his exile. So while I do feel she was a relatively well rounded character (as far as she could be with what they wanted to do with her), a little more exploration of those motivations was in order, but I absolutely would love for her to come back in a potential season five. She has a lot of opportunities for growth and a lot of directions they could take her.

3.) Mazikeen. I'm actually not completely unhappy with the direction of her story. It feels like a natural continuation of her struggles in season 3, learning how to "human" and find her place in the world, but the problem is she isn't being given much to do outside of that. I like that her relationship with Linda is emotionally complicated (it's honestly one of the best female friendships on the show) with elements of platonic, erotic, and maternal love woven into it, but that the story is making it clear she still needs to learn how to develop herself independently. In season 2, Lucifer states that Maze is like a "baby bird that imprints on anything near." Now that we know demons are naturally inclined to want leadership and direction, that actually provides a literal context for why she's clinging to Linda for purpose afterwards. We just need to move that into a more strongly defined character arc. Since we know have the Lilim introduced as a legitimate threat, I feel like that's a no-brainer for what should happen if season five occurs with her. Let's see a storyline with Maze dealing with her family history (the Lilith), having to confront the fact that Hell is no longer her home, while grappling with a life on Earth minus the companion she's had for nearly all of her existence (Lucifer). Let her evolve into a fully fleshed out character.

4.) Cain. I'm not sad to see him go out with a whimper since they clearly had no idea what to do with his character in season 3, but the fallout gets completely brushed over way too easily. There's no way a federally investigated criminal revealed to be chief of the LA police wouldn't lead to absolute chaos in the precinct for quite a bit afterwards, and God knows, Chloe certainly would've been under the microscope for her role in what went down. It would've made more sense to have a throwaway line about how she was suspended for a month and kept away LA proper for a few weeks until they made certain the danger was clear and the drama had settled down media-wise.

5.) Chloe. I'll be up front that I actually don't mind her more dramatic response to Lucifer's face. For how easy it is to want to imagine she would handle it better, we've seen pretty much everybody freak the hell out when they see it, so she really shouldn't have been different. The context also matters significantly here - she encountered it at a violent crime scene shortly after he killed a person. HUGE difference from how a lot of the other characters were introduced to the truth. So I don't find her characterization completely OOC there, but what I wouldn't give for just one more episode this season exploring her feelings during that period, what drove her to Europe, what destabilized her sense of who and what Lucifer is. What I do like is that we got to see her make mistakes and have to answer for them - up until this point, it's been about Lucifer improving who he was to be somebody worth pursuing, but here we finally get to see Chloe's flaws, her struggles to be the better person she wants to be, to get told 'you f*cked up' and have to accept that she's possibly missed her chance. I felt like her relationship with Eve was well done, that they didn't go the easy route of them being catty with each other all season, but that each provided a different but ultimately legitimate perspective on Lucifer's complicated character. She could easily be set up as a primary protagonist of season five now with all the changes she's going through.

6.) The Father Kinley plot. I actually have no real problem with it for the most part - it provides a central antagonist that is far more threatening than Cain ever was, but I do wish they'd rethought the story of his introduction to Chloe. It seems to me it would've made more sense for him to seek her out in America. As a writer, I would've kept Chloe relatively local and had her confessing her fears and secrets to a local church pastor - who could have contacted the Vatican and brought Kinely to her in L.A. That would've conveyed a sense of Kinley's operation being part of a vast network of religious authorities "in the know" and provided a possible set up for later conflicts if there were others out there like him. Kinley actively seeking her out would've also reinforced her sense of how dangerous Lucifer is knowing that authorities had been tracking him for years, which could have undermined her own beliefs about who he is.

7.) The Caleb plot. I get what they were trying to do, and I appreciate that the show attempted to go there even as it is didn't fully succeed in treating the subject matter as well as it should have. I get that it's meant to show us that life can be unfair, and that embracing the right to free will comes with the potential cost of suffering, that we must accept the risks of loving and caring for each other. However, at the end of the day, you have a male POC killed off for a plot that ultimately leads nowhere, and that's...not great. I mean, I'd rather them try and stumble then completely ignore such things, but it's definitely not the season's shining moment.

8.) Other thing this season didn't shine on - the pacing. I get why it happened, since these writers are used to having more leeway to work with time-wise, and ten episodes is not a whole lot to pack in all of the emotional and story conflicts, but the first four episodes in particularly really feel strained. Even the humor feels slightly off kilter, like they were struggling to find the right tone. It's better than season three's tendency to sacrifice pathos for humor, but to date, season two remains their best work in terms of the over all pacing and tone.

9.) Dan. His backsliding and self-destructive behavior makes sense in light of his depression and sense of powerlessness, but it does feel redundant in light of Lucifer's own backsliding in season 3 and even here. Frankly, Dan has a legitimate point about how their tendency to write off Lucifer's worse behavior doesn't help him in the long run, but he's, y'know, one to talk. I honestly think the best direction for his character in season five is to leave the police force. In particular, I would not be unhappy to see him team up with Mazikeen to fight some supernatural demon crime, actually. I feel like their relationship has a lot of potential.

10.) Dan/Ella. I don't hate it, per se, but I'm just very neutral on it. The age difference is a little off-putting (he's fortyish, divorced with a kid, yo, and she's clearly a twenty-something), but I don't mind it being a hook up that occurred when they were both in a low place. I'm uncertain if I want to see it go beyond that.

11.) Remiel is a lot of fun, but I vacillate over whether her presence is particularly significant in light of Amenadiel's ultimate decision to stay on Earth. I highly suspect she's being introduced now as a placeholder for further events down the road if the show gets renewed. She's clearly there to generate conflict in Amenadiel rather than be the conflict itself, but I wonder if they plan on making Charlie's existence more of an issue if the series progresses.

12.) As always, I appreciate that the series' maintains an unflagging dedication to diversity. They cast an Israeli Jewish women as Eve. All of Lucifer's siblings have been POC. The show has probably MORE bisexual members in the cast than any other mainstream series that I've seen. It's not perfectly handled, it it definitely has its stumbles where race and LGBT+ content is concerned, but it's trying. That's more than I can say for most series.

The Stuff That Gives Me Life:

1.) Tom Ellis acting the shit out of that script, no matter how ridiculous the scenes they gave him were. I really appreciate that he's so gung-ho for giving his all to the character even when the material fails to rise to the occasion. Respect, too, for what I assume was basically him living in a gym for the past year. If Leslie Ann Brandt had to squeeze herself into leather pants two months after giving birth, I appreciate that he rose to the occasion for getting naked all over the place and providing an ass tight enough to bounce a quarter off it.

2.) Lucifer's character development was on point for me across the entire season. I feel like everything we saw building up from previous seasons - the anger, the grief, the self-inflicted wounds he refused to let heal - finally came together here. That moment at the end of episode eight is the perfect culmination of his character development, the painful realization he has about who really is responsible for everything that's happened to him. And now he can start making the real journey to being a better person. What happens at the end of the season is exactly what was bound to happen, no matter what story came before, because he needed to recognize the importance of punishment as a LESSON about the consequences of our actions. Responsibility sometimes means sacrificing what we want to protect what we care about. That's actually a rather clever nod to the comic version of the character who ultimately had to give up his individual existence to achieve total freedom - this version chooses submission out of recognition that to love and be loved, to be good is to be fettered to our responsibility to others.

(Which makes me really wonder if they are going to eventually push a story where Lucifer becomes a true king of Hell - not only a tyrant who deals punishment and controls the demonic masses but one who begins to show mercy and help some of those souls find release and forgiveness. Ah well, don't worry friends, if they don't write it in show, I'm already writing it in a fanfic.)

3.) Deckerstar 4 lyfe. I didn't expect them to wind up together because they weren't there yet, but it ended on such a pitch perfect note. Something this show has done remarkably well is avoid the idea of Chloe as the sole source of motivation for Lucifer to improve himself. It's emphasized over and over again that he has to want it, that he's the one who had to desire the good in himself. The worthiness comes with the recognition that you want to be worthy of love - and that you are. Lucifer had to come much farther than she did, but it was nice to see the dynamic switched up a bit with Chloe having to grow, mature, and reconcile herself to her mistakes.

4.) Eve was MUCH better as a character than I'd thought. I'm a little smug about predicting so much about her, but that's not an entirely terrible thing. While her storyline isn't perfect, I did like that it's a deconstruction of an idea of the "perfect woman/partner." Eve is in love with the idea of Lucifer and the idea of who she can be with him, not so much the reality of who they are. It makes me a little sad because I do think if they'd met at a point where she was further along in her character development, or he wasn't already in love with Chloe and so far ahead of her in growth, they could have actually worked and fallen in love with each other. And that's fine! Part of the point it's making with her character is how important our individual journeys are. At the end, Eve recognizes she needs to figure out who she is outside of God's plan or what she THINKS is what she wants. That honesty toward the end, that she really left Heaven for *herself* and not for Lucifer, is a huge revelatory character point that can go a lot of places next season.

5.) The demons. Just...everything with Dromos is gold to me. From his initial excitement at seeing Lucifer to his frustrated attempts to reason with him...to being much craftier and scarier than anybody possibly expected. Regardless of how we look at it, he played the endgame to the benefit of his stated purpose - loyalty to the infernal throne. Hell has a king again, one way or another. And now we have an established threat to keep Lucifer in line over the next couple of seasons, as well as tying up the arc that was begun all the way back in season 1.

6.) Pulling in the Vatican and a secret society of "in the know" sects was wise. While I wish the introduction had been slightly different, it leaves open opportunities for later.

7.) MY GIRL LINDA. Rachel Harris is such an underrated part on the show. She has such great chemistry with Ellis in the therapy scenes, and her becoming a mother feels like a natural extension of the underlying maternal element she provides the show. I like that we get to see her outside of the office now, engaging in a story of her own, which allows her to stay in the cast without losing significance of no longer being Lucifer's therapist.

8.) AMENADIEL. He's probably had the strongest and most well directed character development out of any secondary cast member on the show. Having him forfeit his power to stay on Earth with the humans he loved is such a nice touch, but I like that it was a decision he had to wrestle with. The idea of human life necessarily being complicated, messy, even unfair and unkind fits well with the theme of responsibility for our choices. If he stays on Earth, he has to accept that his son will not have a perfectly Heavenly life, that to be human is to accept all that comes with it. DB Woodside has great chemistry with the cast, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they'll do with him in future seasons.

9.) Lucifer holding baby Charlie for two seconds, awkwardly cooing at him, then immediately passing him off like a hot potato. That's real character development, guys.

10.) Amenadiel saying goodbye forever to Lucifer in the baby ward, for what is ultimately and tragically not the reason he expects it to be the last time he gets to say it. Woodside and Ellis have such great chemistry.

11.) Ella's loss of faith is handled pretty well. I appreciate that she had to reclaim it herself and not because she got to see the divine is real. Fits nicely with the theme that we have to actualize our own beliefs and realities.

12.) LGBT+ representation was better this season. It's too late for Lucifer's pansexuality to have any real meaning at this point, but I appreciate him stroking the guy's face while using his eye voodoo in episode 1. Little touches like that make the "Bi the way" aspect of his character seem less tacked on. Mazikeen, on the other hand, is where things got much better - she's actually seen dating both men and women, having difficulty parsing her complex emotional relationship with Linda, being openly attracted to and pursuing Eve (also openly bisexual). Please don't disrupt this improvement next season by giving her a male love interest, Netflix, I'm begging you. Give us at least SOMETHING here. She's got the most open-ended story for a relationship, and her development is clearly suggesting she wants family to call hers outside of what she has with the rest of the cast. (I know I was saying I low key ship her with Dan, BUT I TAKE IT BACK.)

13.) The dragon wings are admittedly very cool looking. I prefer the more streamlined devil makeup otherwise from seasons 2 and 3, but the wings can stay. I imagine the amount of fic tagged "wing kink" on Ao3 is going to increase several fold now. (Yes, that is an actual thing.)

14.) Lauren German showing up to play this season! She finally gets to do more than just be the straight man. All of her dramatic moments with Ellis were well done. No complaints. I have way more faith now seeing her move into a primary protagonist role in season 5 if we get it.

15.) LESLIE ANN BRANDT CAN SING!!! What a sweet moment and what it says about Mazikeen's development as a character (even if it is ruined by Eve's obtuse logic afterwards). How much do we want to bet that Lucifer's reaction to that is what made him decide to leave her behind on Earth?

16.) AJKLSJD;FLSAFDAS THANK YOU FOR FINALLY BRINGING IN MORE SUPERNATURAL STUFF. We finally get to see the throne!!! There are prophecies!!! WINGS!!! (How cool are Remiel's??) Demons can possess people canonically! The Lilim are a well established thing! Lucifer is back in Hell! So many place this can go now.

Anyway, I have good feelings for the most part. It’s still a heavily flawed series, but it’s not so bad that I’m going to dive out of it ala Hemlock Grove, which I’m fairly certain gave me brain damage by mid-season 2.

#lucifer #lucifer tv show #lucifer spoilers

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cainromainelettuce · 5 years

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( non-binary ) haven’t seen CAIN ROMANOV around in a while. the BILL SKARSGARD lookalike has been known to be (+) RIGHTEOUS & (+) AMBITIOUS, but HE/THEY can also be (-) EVASIVE & (-) UNTRUSTING. The 24 year old is a SENIOR majoring in BUSINESS. I believe they’re living in EMERITUS, but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( snot goblin. 20. EST. she/they. )

surprise !! i am the snot goblin ! (aka james aka saige aka amos aka aleta) !! i very much apologize for this intro being late !! and also for possibly being pretty long.

EDIT: i forgot to mention but 1. like this if u’d like to plot w/ him !! obv !! and then 2. if discord is easier for any of u, my thing is emo stan #3644 uwu

TW: CULT LIFE, HEROIN USAGE / ADDICTION, DRUG ADDICTION / USE / ABUSE, EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION, ABUSE, MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES ( PTSD, ANXIETY ). if i forgot anything PLEASE tell me !!

a e s t h e t i c s

dangling limbs from tree branches, yellowed book pages, opened bottles of vintage wine, oversized sweaters and deep under eyes, bleached denim, worn leather gloves, cat hair against black cloth, fields of wheat, broken windows, descending staircases, tight-lipped smiles during public appearances, golden skies, light spilling from windows, stumbling over one's own words, wire-framed beds, linens, wool scarves, making the wrong decisions; running, from others and yourself.

general information !!

full name: cain alexei romanov

nickname(s): cock and ball torture, N/A

b.o.d. - feb 19th, fuckin pisces

label(s): the fallen, the phoenix, the crestfallen, etc. etc.

height: 6′4″ jfc

hometown: rochester, ny babey !!

sexuality: bi...? bi. yes. bi.

stats

biography !!

cain, like all of my other children, was born into a life of privilege. his father’s a senator of new york and his mother’s a philanthropist; both pretty prominent figures. cain is the eldest of five.

he was raised in mind of keeping a good public reputation, taught to be the perfect citizen. essentially, he was a golden child who could really do no wrong. as a child, he’d always aim to please his parents in any way he could.

this included joining several clubs during school, such as model UN, debate, DECA, etc. etc. as well as a few sports (soccer, track, basketball, lacrosse -- all throughout the years, not at once). pretty sure he’s been a class president once or twice, and has been in the lead for valedictorian.

his whole thing was that he was supposed to be perfect. volunteered on the weekends at homeless shelters and food banks and like...he just did The Most. the absolute most

this pleased his parents, and he never had a problem with them. life was good. they attended church on sundays, sometimes wednesdays, always did things as a Family. like, we’re talking family dinners and christmas photoshoots and new year eve parties.

probably lived in a gated community tbh

he went into college strong, started off as a double major in political science and business, lookin’ to take after both his parents. he’d Always been fairly close to tatiana, being around the same age as her. nothing freaky ever happened among them, and i wouldn’t have really called them...friends, if that makes sense? they were confidantes, they vented to each other for whatever reasons at the time.

however this whole ~do no wrong~ bearing was a charade. in the community and his families’ eye, cain was just this precious, hardworking citizen who gave back when possible.

those who actually, genuinely knew him knew he was just a dick lmfao

arrogant, harrowing, and an outright bully who tore down others when he felt like it -- often unprovoked. he was the senator’s son and a rich one at that, and ever since middle school he was just...mean !

because of his father and his family’s general position in the community, tattlers were the ones getting in trouble rather than cain, who’d often go without punishment for his attitude.

like...was That Bitch who’d actually, genuinely look down at somebody if they had less than him. just an absolute narcissistic dickhead who only cared about like, maybe two or three people outside of his family.

his only redeeming quality was probably his protectiveness over his siblings tbh -- even if he wasn’t ... the best person, nobody was rly allowed to fuck w/ his family.

this carried into college, he probably joined one of the frats too, y’know. known for keeping his composition even when others resorted to violence, ‘cos he never liked to get physical. it would’ve been bad for press, y’know ??

sometime during college, two important things happened.

the first one is that he became a sort of...middleman? broker? he wasn’t the one creating/growing what he was selling, but he wasn’t the one dealing them. y’know, he was the middleman. took drugs and sold them to dealers to sell, for profit, for funsies. very hush-hush for the obvious reasons.

the second is that he met earl and may meyers. they were fellow volunteers at a thanksgiving food drive, and the older couple were immediately drawn to cain -- and him to them, essentially. to this day he can’t tell you what about them had been so appealing. just, the air around them was something else entirely. some would probably call it unhinged. they were kind folks, very down to earth, very religious and warmhearted. they liked his name being cain a whole lot; told him that he reminded him of their late son.

i’d say the beginning of this was late junior year for cain. the couple volunteered more and more at the same places as cain, as often as he did -- which, in retrospect was odd -- but cain hadn’t really known better. being the Good Samaritan he acted as, he kept talking to them. it became a genuine friendship. a few months into it, they had started talking about like...the sin of wealth and what it does to your soul, god choosing only a select few to be saved when he eventually cleanses the earth, etc. etc. they claimed that cain was special, one of those to be selected, they could see it in his aura, etc. etc.

it was...oddly appealing to him? like hmm..maybe i am being constrained by capitalism and disappointing god!

but like...this was mostly because of a lot of emotional manipulation for a duration of months -- and he had never once suspected anything like that to be happening. cain had always been so sure of himself, that he’d never imagined one day being manipulated, even if he was manipulative himself.

earl and may told him that they were going to leave rochester, that there were so many more who had the same ideals as them -- it was time to join them, to be saved. cain held off from this, as a senior in college by now.

after all, he had his perfect lil family and a good side-business going on, and he had a long term girlfriend who put up with his shenanigans. cain was still an absolute asshole to others but he had at least found his crowd to all be collectively awful and full of themselves, y’know?

over winter break, however, cain had a change of heart pretty suddenly.

for the third important thing had happened.

it had started off as a pretty average, normal day. christmas had gone and passed -- it was one of the days between christmas and new years eve, y’know? a period of days where time nor place is real. like walmart at midnight, or an empty 7/11 parking lot. during a seemingly normal conversation about his ancestry with his mother, she had suddenly broken down in sobs.

it was during this discussion that she revealed, to cain only -- that he was not his father’s son.

the beginning of vaughn and adelaide’s marriage had a pretty...rocky start, to say the least, and in a night of petty anger, adelaide had cheated on vaughn. this resulted in the pregnancy that wound up with cain.

the news rocked cain’s world in a very bad way, the sort of way that breaks a person. his entire life he looked up to his parents, did everything they ever asked of him, molded himself into perfection for the hope of being a sliver of a man his father was. and to learn that his father was not, actually, his father?

within the week he’d gotten into several altercations, both sober and drunk, and had landed in county jail overnight. nobody knows where cain went on new years eve, but he hadn’t skipped town until the third -- according to tatiana, who had received one last gift from him on the 2nd (her birthday).

then, he was gone. it wasn’t a missings person ordeal -- cain had made it very known that he was leaving rochester and that he had skipped town. hadn’t even broken up with his girlfriend before doing so. hell -- hadn’t even told the people he worked for.

BEGINNING OF CULT / DRUG / MOST OF THE TRIGGER WARNINGS

only earl and may knew where cain went. because he went with them to the place they had told him so much about. this was the fourth most important thing to happen to him, because it changed his life.

cain didn’t know what a cult looked like, but it felt pretty accurate to hollywood’s interpretations. they lived separate from society in rural new york -- not nearly as far away as cain would’ve liked, but thank god in the long run for that. the people wore white, linens and cotton. there was no technology, just prayer and daily chores. money meant nothing, there.

i want to keep this part relatively short, so i’ll try my hardest. cain was only in the cult for three-ish months before he escaped. the beginning was grand -- it was peaceful, it was mind-clearing. he was treated as something special, his name being some sort of ... message, a sign that he’d been a gift for the group. that he’d be, ultimately, an eventual leader for them. however -- the longer he stayed with them, the more apparent it became that he wasn’t the messager they had long waited for.

he began slipping up. they became displeased with him. punishments occurred. sometimes once a week, sometimes multiple. he remembers hundreds of hands, pulling and tugging and gripping and begging -- asking him to repent, please, repent, and submergence on more than one occasion. these were not the worst.

they were convinced that he couldn’t truly be cleansed of his sins unless he forgot his past life.

fun fact: heroin in small doses, daily, can lead to memory loss.

though it’d only been around three months of this -- it really felt longer to cain. time wasn’t a concept. there was only the ground they walked on, and god, and that was that.

drugged and weakened but still kickin’, he had gotten into a particularly violent, brutal fight with earl. this was the last straw. cain had attempted to murder his ‘brother’. this led to his next punishment.

in a particularly twisted reenactment / retelling, cain had been branded with the cult’s interpretation of the mark of cain (they were going to be accurate and place it upon his forehead, but after a lot of resistance [he bit somebody] it was, begrudgingly, placed atop his heart instead) and left for dead in the middle of nowhere.

by all means, he probably should’ve died. by miracle, though cain was no longer a believer -- he was found by a farmer.

END OF CULT / DRUG / MOST OF THE TRIGGER WARNINGS. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. STILL MENTIONS OF TRAUMA / MENTAL HEALTH / RECOVERY BEYOND THIS POINT.

by early april he’d been reunited with his family. things went very fast, suddenly, for him. recovering from his forced addiction, and the trauma he’d been put in within only a small amount of months -- and his father’s reputation -- his mother’s inability to look him in the eye -- cain took matters into his own hands and, rather than return to lockwood, put in his transfer to hendrix.

because he’s a grown man who, while recovering from being in a cult, can still make his own decisions even if they’re irrational. he should’ve taken a year off, really, and recover. but he couldn’t imagine staying in his house, either, and generally ?? his mind was just a very messy place.

he went to hendrix a s a p, before his term in the summer even began. he wound up at hendrix a few weeks (like...three?) before the lockwood kids and was very dismayed to find out that oh, coincidence, there’s an abroad semester attending !!

so that’s sort of where he’s at rn.

personality !!

okay so...douchebag cain is No More. they’re retired.

to the hendrix students they’ve familiarized themself with, they’re a pretty quiet person. well-meaning, kind enough if not a little sarcastic. sort of distant, not much for parties. smokes weed and like, drinks occasionally, but not much else. definitely doesn’t do anything harder.

they’ve got four cats. that’s their entire personality. four cats. they got them all after transferring to hendrix and like ... no regrets ?

i imagine their parents still pay for their schooling ‘cos it’s not like their father Knows that cain’s not his child. if anything, vaughn just thinks that cain suffered a mental breakdown and needed a break.

anyways. they love their cats a lot. like, probably has photos of them in their wallet.

as mentioned above, their memory is pretty...fucked up right now. they don’t forget anything major, but there are days where it takes them a while to remember faces or names and sometimes they wake up and won’t know where they are.

not that they really...sleep a lot? they have night terrors, which fuck with their sleep schedule. they sleep only for a few hours each night because the nightmares are too bad.

cain suffers from severe touch aversion. skin-to-skin contact of any sort is enough to send them into a pretty bad panic attack. they wear leather gloves more often than not, because it helps without hindering them too much. they’re not the biggest fan of body contact in general, even with clothes, but it won’t send them into a panic like bare skin will. they make sure their few friends know that they don’t really like physical contact at all.

they’re dealing with PTSD, attends therapy every week. keeps an entire journal where they write b/c it helps them cope. it’s like, everything to them.

they’re...sort of like...blunt? they won’t go out of their way to be like ‘hey i joined a cult and it fucked me up pretty badly’ but they won’t lie about it either if the topic somehow comes to that. they don’t like delusions, but they don’t like drawing unnecessary attention to them either.

lockwood students being at hendrix makes them pretty anxious, just because they were looking to sort of ... rebuild themself into a better person, and like pretty much most students at lockwood knows how much of a massive tool they used to be. not to mention like, their plugs and customers they screwed over by leaving, and their ex girlfriend who they’re still probably in love with ?? but it’s just complicated now.

smokes weed to soothe them rather than just get high. is probably stoned often.

doesn’t really like cars! or swimming! or crowds. doesn’t like to feel trapped.

whenever they’re overwhelmed and needs to be away from everything, they’ve developed a habit of climbing into trees. they won’t suddenly go jump in a tree during a conversation, but more so at night or when they need to think.

probably trying to redeem themself in some sort of way. because while they want to avoid the lockwood students as much as possible, that’s not right. they want to fix the shit they’ve done and be a better person, because the whole...situation they’ve been in has opened their eyes.

uuuhh...there are days where they forget that tatiana’s dead. so that’s sad.

i wouldn’t be surprised if people from lockwood were suspicious of cain, considering they left rochester only a week or so before tatiana went missing, and just so happened to come to hendrix around the same time eva went missing ??

oh !! cain developed a stutter, and their voice is a little damaged from...screaming. a lot. in general they look a little gaunt, a little unhealthy.

they can still definitely hold a conversation, and like i said they’re pretty...lowkey. soft, sort of. generally a quiet person and while they’re not the most social, they won’t be a direct asshole or anything. likes people! just...has low energy.

goes by he/they, doesn’t really care which one as he alternates pretty frequently.

dropped the political science part of his major and like...unfortunately is very much unhappy with being a business major atm. he might just go through another four years of college in a diff major or fuck off all together.

EDIT: i forgot to mention that he’s sort of really into the investigation of the cult he was part of b/c they’re still like...out there. also fascinated by the watershed app and shit, ‘cos they fucking...hate this shit with a passion. probably willing to stick their nose into places they shouldn’t

wanted connections !!

so first and foremost, cain would’ve been known around lockwood. connections relating to that would be v much appreciated !!

mostly enemies or people they’ve wronged, tbh, ‘cos he was a massive dick.

exes they’ve dumped, hook ups, ex-friends, people he’s gotten into arguments or fights with.

his ex gf would be gr8 . if anybody would like some angst.

uuhhh i’d imagine he’d know a few of the other prominent families from rochester, especially. not to say that they would’ve all gotten along.

hendrix pals !! give me some solid friendships based on mutual respect.

people cain used to receive drugs from and people he used to send those drugs to.

ex-party pals ??

people suspicious of them b/c cain was/is a very suspicious person. people still angry at them.

let them RECONNECT and FIX FRIENDSHIPS

people he’d bully or fuck with or whatever.

wholesome shit. angst shit. slowburns, anyone ?!? enemies to friends. friends to enemies. enemies to bigger enemies.

i’m not taking hook-ups for....obvious reasons.

but sexual tension is welcomed. maybe a sexting thing ??

ppl they DON’T even know that well but hATE his dAD because FUCK POLITICIANS y’know ?!?

old pals from lockwood, if i didnt mention that.

i imagine a lot of conversations w/ lockwood kids begin like ‘this is where u fucked off to, huh?’ b/c like....they told everybody they were ditching rochester. it wasn’t a secret or a shock. but it’s still like huh. u bastard.

people who are soft for them ??

people who are hard on him ??

make his life difficult but also uuuhh uwu him

#water:intro #drug abuse tw #abuse tw #cult tw #mental illness tw #ptsd tw #sorry this is so late folks !!

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leadkiss · 6 years

Text

disenchantment prompts: season one

[+] — feel free to adjust wording, pronouns, etc.

1x01: “A PRINCESS, AN ELF AND A DEMON WALK INTO A BAR”

“I’m actually hoping for death. Thanks, though!" "I thought that I’d get married for true love or because I was wasted." "First off, not a ghost. Ghosts are losers that got murdered. I’m a demon." "Your whining really turns me on." "I wanna taste something other than sweetness." "I’d rather die a big death than live a small life." "You know that little voice in your head that tells you to do the right thing? I’m the guy yelling over it." "I never said I’m your friend." "Well, I like war, but I wouldn’t say I love it." "Times when you really shouldn’t are exactly when you really should." "I was raised by a pack of drinking buddies and I came out perfect." "I’m not here to answer cat questions." "I’ve never had a nightmare. Is this one?" "Cool night air, sky full of stars. This sucks. How much further?" "Hey, he’s making fun of my dreams! That’s what friends do!" "You can sleep down by my feet. I call it the friend zone." "Pardon my language, but destiny is baloney!”

1x02: “FOR WHOM THE PIG OINKS”

“You don’t scare me. I was born scared!” “Your cruddy life is worth living! And so is mine, if you live.” “I know. It felt weird when I said it.” “I don’t see anyone else storming your castle, princess.” “Uh, you know what? I’m just not comfortable with murder.” “Selfish? Maybe. But cruel? Eh, also maybe.” “I must admit, the quantity blood exceeded my expectations.” “That’s not fair! You’re playing to your strengths and not mine!”

1x03: “THE PRINCESS OF DARKNESS”

“What a naughty night we had.” “May I interest you in a joy ride?” “Get ready. Next week, we’re going to try arson.” “You know they prey on the weak in prison? At least, I intend to.” “I’m kinda scared to try this. Will you peer pressure me?” “That is the most fun I’ve ever had without remembering a single moment of it.” “Trust me! I haven’t led you astray in minutes.” “I guess I’m gonna do this, unless someone talks me out of it.” “If I spend any more time with my family they’re going to start asking me why I’m not married.” “This is not good for my hangover.” “Great, you’re gonna make me be the good guy? Ugh, I hate that.” “Like I said on our first date, nothing could be worse than this.”

1x04: “CASTLE PARTY MASSACRE”

“You doing anything weird in here I said “no” about?” “Just making murder plans with my cat.” “If I find so much as a misplaced hair when I come back, I’ll cut off your arm.” “Dude. Decide what you want, drink ‘til you have the nerve to go for it, then keep drinking so the inevitable rejection doesn’t hurt so bad.” “I didn’t know you were interesting.” “Let’s make this night so legendary they caution children about it.” “I’m gonna march up and say something I’ll have figured out by the time I get there.” “Nice! She drank her way out of depression like a pro.”

1x05: “FASTER, PRINCESS! KILL! KILL!”

“You have got to learn to read the room.” “How dare you bring logic into God’s house?” “You know, I would have left willingly!” “Sorry. I’m done threatening you.” “This ain’t about my impulse control.” “You’re a good-for-nothing, and you’re good at nothing.” “Just remember, this job is easier than it looks.” “Every time I turn my head away, something bad happens.” “I would not kiss me right now.” “If you’re gonna crawl back, can I ride you like a horse?” “Are you crazy or under a curse?” “I’m not sure I can do this. I’ve never killed anyone before. (Who wasn’t trying to kill me first. Or bother me. Or marry me.)” “This is a goddamn solemn occasion so shut the hell up, all right?” “What is wrong with you? It’s like you WANT me to cut your head off.” “Every time that girl gets a little responsibility somebody winds up alive.” “I suck. The only thing I’m good at is sitting on this rock and crying.” “I’m confused. Does he want to die?” “I like this, but as a friend.” “All right, the creepy laughter has to stop before we can have a real conversation.” “You did it. You finally killed someone intentionally. I’m so proud of you.”

1x06: “SWAMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE”

“It’s drunk and I’m late. We better sneak in quietly.” “Oh floor, you’re always there for me. So supportive. Not like walls and staircases, always getting in my way.” “I’d like to have a role to play in your life. I’m tired of feeling useless.” “You’re a great writer! I read your diary.” “I’ll bring you what you deserve.” “Hey, I’m an enabler. There’s a big difference.” “Just once can we go on a family vacation without having to run away screaming?” “I hope you can sense my sarcasm through your drunken haze.” “See, this is why I always tell you not to try things.”

1x07: “LOVE’S TENDER RAMPAGE”

“If you could be any mythical creature, what would it be?” “We should go home before we pass out in the street. Again.” “I haven’t lived long enough to give up on my dreams yet.” “I can’t believe he stuck to his story no matter how hard I laughed.” “Why would I do you any favors?” “Don’t try to be my friend.” “What are you coming to me for? We don’t got that kind of relationship.” “Make room on the dance floor, cause I’m full of shrimp and I need to lay down.” “What can I say? I’m attracted to people who are good at their job.” “None of this would’ve happened if you’d just told the truth!” “I lied because I was too insecure to admit I tried to kiss you.”

1x08: “THE LIMITS OF IMMORTALITY”

"Entertainment is just a tool that pacifies the masses and leads to the decay and ultimate collapse of civilization. Let's clap along!" "I prefer to stay safe the old fashioned way: running like a coward." "I'd rather die than listen to this." "Immortality is a curse. When life is endless, so is everything else." "What part of "no thanks" do you not understand?" "I didn't save you so much as you fell on me." "Unlike other villains, I shan't be telling you my plan. Good day." "I am all about the easy way." "Eh, I've beheld better." "Now the only pain is humiliation." "Forty-five years of necromancing have led me to this moment." "See you in hell, weirdo!" "You know, I'm profoundly lonely, but I think you should leave."

1x09: “TO THINE OWN ELF BE TRUE”

"Where is the monster I married?" "I'm not a god. I'm not even a healthy man." "We lost him, but cured his headache." "How can you keep messing up a recipe with two ingredients?" "Lying to me in any other way but flattery is a mortal crime!" "You know, I just realized something: You're the reason I have a drinking problem." "Nice typical reaction, Mr. Predictable." "I wish you the best of luck embarrassing some other kingdom." "I found him! Wait a minute. It's just three quarters of a dead raccoon." "You do realize you're still hitting me?" "Hey, hey, hey. Slow down, champ. Oh, god I'm turning into my bartender." "You're never gonna be whole until you figure out who you really are, and there's only one way to find the answer." "I can't go home! It'll wreck my image as a total badass." "I smell cocoa, caramel and conformity." "I owe you an apology. Relatively speaking, you're a badass." "It's times like this I wish I had 3,000 fists." "I'll be watching. And judging. And generalizing." "I've been meaning to—but the thing is, I—so you see—well, I'm glad we had this talk. How about you talk now?" "I'm down to my second to last emergency flask, so let's have a toast." "I was waiting to tell you until after I was dead, so I wouldn't have to tell you." "Hey! Nobody calls me [name] except my best friends, and my worst enemies." "Ah, screw team spirit." "It's okay. I always wanted to go out when I was still young and hot." "Oh, man. If this is sadness, I don't like it one bit." "Nothing you can do can fix this!" "I don't even think it's real. It’s just some myth in a book." "You lied to me and betrayed me! Get out!" "Well, hey, good thing is, I swiped the only thing he cares about." "That's gotta make you feel a little better, right?" "Sorry, it's just... you have snot, like, all over your face." "Just close your eyes and don't think too much."

1x10: “DREAMLAND FALLS”

"I had to choose you." "Thank you for your kind gasps." "They taught me the fine art of stabbing." "It's just too painful seeing the truth all the time." "I blame myself, cause I didn't even notice." "I'm much more embarrassed than I am aroused." "Ha! I foresee trouble in someone's future." "What a horrific day you've had. Let's have too much wine and forget about it all." "I can't believe I'm reduced to talking to you." "It's gonna be another long, lonely night." "How did you get like this?" "Pour a drink, light a cigar, and hand 'em both to me." "This is where I come to clear my head. Or to sleep it off." "It's almost like you were never away." "Can you steer my stumbles in the direction of the bed?" "I have to take action. I hate action!" "My clothes are really heavy. Can we have this conversation sitting down?" "I used to spend many nights up here, watching the stars, the moon, the neighbors." "The truth has been right under your nose the whole time." "You know, we could've just gone to marriage counseling." "I do know how to pick 'em, don't I?" "I should be the one killing everyone. I should be the one creeping everyone out." "It was the only way to get you to stop talking." "I guess the only bright side is, now I got nothing left to lose."

#rp memes #rp meme #rp prompts #rp prompt #i dunnit #bean memes.#&. that sounds like a gamble to me. ( memes )#&. prompts.#long post //#disenchantment prompts

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erlenmeyertrash · 6 years

Text

Doorways, Part Three

yikes get prepared to do some reading y’all i’m surprised at myself lmao

hope you like it!!

tagged: @countessmissyshort

(word count: 2714 | pairings: none | cw: self-deprecation)

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR

Virgil slowly shut his door until it latched- don’t slam it, don’t upset Patton any more than you just did, you idiot- and sighed deeply, leaning against it for a moment before heading over to his bed and tiredly clambering in. Thomas’ emotional state was significantly better- dark mood beaten out for now- but Virgil’s was spiraling downward pretty quickly. The realization that he had a bad mood- that he was the one of the four that harbored most bad moods- only made it worse.

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, eyes glassing over. In his own mind, he felt like he was digging through a treacherous landscape, batting away at the thickening fog he could feel rather than see and ripping his feet from the sticky swamp below. Icy tendrils tried to wrap around his wrists and ankles, but he sluggishly worked his way through the dreary dampness, feebly trying to evade his-

-...evade his purpose.

Virgil had told Thomas he hated working hard, and he meant it. Dealing with all that negativity all the time was exhausting. He had to do it whether he wanted to or not- whether he could or not. It wasn’t like any of the others could ever do it, though- Patton could handle some of the emotion, but would eventually revert back to his much better happy-go-lucky self. Roman could, maybe, but he’d tire out too quickly and race back to his own realm of wonder and adventure. Virgil wouldn’t have blamed them, either. Who wouldn’t leave this mess if they had the change? Who would possibly want to-

Stop that. He shook his head quickly, attempting to dispel those thoughts, internally ripping himself away and stumbling backward. He just needed to calm down and not let Thomas feel any of this. He just needed to beat this down and hope it would eventually grow tired and leave on its own accord, successfully suppressed.

It wouldn’t happen, though- he knew that. It was pervasive, and insistent, and exhausting, and-

A knock at the door shook him from his thoughts and he peered at it, puzzled. A glance at the clock (the one on his desk that told him the actual time- not the one spinning wildly on the wall) told him quite a bit of time had passed since breakfast.

“...Come in?” he called, sitting up slightly. The handle turned and in came Logan, peering around momentarily before stepping in. Virgil frowned.

“Logan?” It wasn’t like the logical side to come to his room- or, well, anybody’s.

“Hello, Virgil. I wanted to talk with you.”

Virgil swallowed. “Listen, if this is about breakfast, I’m sorry- I just-”

Logan shook his head and moved to sit in the desk chair. “It is about breakfast, but I’m not necessarily here requesting an apology.”

Virgil leaned against his pillows, glancing away. “...Oh.” And then- “...So what are you here for?”

“I’m mainly here to ask about you. Are you alright?”

Virgil sighed. “I’m fine, Logan. I just- a bad mood was settling in. It was kind of a lot to handle. I’m getting the hang of it now.”

“That is good to hear.”

Virgil stared blankly across his room as it was quiet for a moment. He found himself staring at his other door. Plain. White. No decoration to speak of.

“...but not good to hear if it’s not actually the whole truth,” Logan added quietly. Virgil turned to him for a moment before looking away, unable to hold his gaze.

“...It’s just-” Virgil scrambled for the words- “-just- why me?”

“Why you what?”

“Why am I anxiety?” Virgil asked, misery evident in his voice. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be created. Thomas just wanted an antagonist, but people liked me, so I stick around. I never wanted-”

He broke off, forcing the lump in his throat back down, and gestured helplessly to his dark, cobweb-covered room.

“...We never asked to be ourselves either, Virgil.”

“Well, yeah, but-” Virgil shook his head. “It’s not the same. It’s fun to be you. I’m- I’m a burden.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean- look at you guys! You wear a necktie and glasses and- you’re so brilliant and witty and sassy. Roman is- is dressed as a Disney prince, for crying out loud, he’s the ultimate hero. And Patton’s so- just so- cheery and bubbly and happy and wears the silly adorable polo and- and the cardigan, and just- and here I am, with black eyeshadow and an oversized hoodie and sloppy hair, and if I could ever conjure up anything it would- probably be storm clouds and embarrassing photos and exam papers with failing grades on the top. My point is- why would any of you three ever not want to be yourselves and want to be somebody else?... What could ever be wrong with being one of you?”

Logan was silent. Virgil glanced back over at his closet door, falling onto his pillows in defeat. A heavy, dejected silence hung in the air. The shadows on the ceiling above Virgil’s head slowly began to spin.

“...Roman is dangerous.”

“...Huh?” Virgil whipped his head around to stare at Logan, who was looking at his hands in his lap. The shadows even seemed confused- those over the bed slowly dissipated. What?

“Thomas has said it himself,” Logan continued. “If he only listened to his most wonderful, romantic, fanciful thoughts, he would be setting himself up for heartbreak. Imagine if Roman had more unbridled influence- if he were left unchecked by you, or me, or even Patton. Thomas would have these huge, mountainous, ridiculous dreams dashed all the time by reality. …Do you remember the phone call?”

Virgil shuddered. How could he forget? The phone ringing, Thomas’ face of horror, Roman wailing for him to pick it up, his own terrifying voice- Get rid of it, get rid of the phone now!

“...Yeah. I remember.”

“Roman doesn’t know when to hold back. You helped Thomas through that one.”

“That was a moment of sheer desperation. And you were gone. Well- not gone gone, like you said, whatever,” he corrected as Logan opened his mouth to interrupt. “You weren’t there to stop the first call from happening in the first place. And besides- Roman was just doing what Thomas wanted.”

“Which is rewarding, yes. But sometimes, what Thomas might want isn’t what he needs… which brings me to Patton.”

“Patton?”

“Yes, Patton. Where Roman can be dangerous, Patton is- unpredictable. If Thomas only listened to Patton all the time, or even listened to him much more, he would exhaust himself being happy to everyone all the time and doing what everybody else wanted from him. His own necessary productivity and ambition would come to a screeching halt. Patton is actually constantly being suppressed or morphed or has to watch Thomas lie about his feelings while he’s struggling through them. And when he does take the time to work them out- well. Filming those Moving On videos hurt Patton deeply, as you saw. That took a lot out of him because Patton kind of- well-” Logan took a breath. “He prefers to cherry-pick his way through Thomas’ life, bounding from one positive emotion to another, no matter how fleeting. You know how he is conversationally- always saying whatever comes to his mind, interjecting randomly with things that don’t always make logical sense- it shows Patton is subject to whims and fancy. He is totally ungrounded. You and I convince Thomas he needs to work through more difficult feelings in order to better understand himself. You and I- rather ironically- both know repressing emotions isn’t good for him.”

Virgil mulled over this a second, taken back by Logan’s brutal criticism of the fatherly side. “...But Patton just tries to keep Thomas happy.”

“Exactly. He tries to keep him happy all the time. As wonderful as happiness is, it shouldn’t be a constant. It is unwise to make joy your baseline. But I-” Logan stopped.

Virgil glanced over at him again. The logical side seemed to sag slightly in the desk chair.

“...you…?”

“I…” Logan sighed, glancing at Virgil’s desk. “I used to, but- if Thomas listened to me all the time now… he would most likely almost never be happy.”

Virgil blinked. “Woah. What?”

“The other two bring the sunshine- not just a whole lot of it. Sure, I helped Thomas through his education quite a bit in the past- guided him towards his ambitions and goals, but- his goals are changed now. They certainly aren’t as academic as they once were. Which is fine! Absolutely fine. But.” Logan gave a short laugh. “Imagine if Thomas had never tried making videos, stuck to a chemical engineering career, and watched his Broadway dreams fade away. We all know how miserable that would make him… and because of that, I… well, at times I feel as though I am not much use anymore.” He exhaled slowly, a defeated smile on his face. Virgil frowned deeply.

“I used to be much more in control, as you know. I had to learn to give the reins over to Roman- to ignore Thomas’ education, everything he worked towards for so long, as Thomas shifted his chemical engineering career to the backburner and went full-throttle on the extracurricular I used to quite honestly hope was fanciful and fleeting. And that transition… As unemotional as I may be, Virgil, that was- that was terrifying. That was heartbreaking. But it made Thomas so happy.”

Virgil froze. What is going on?

“...Didn’t that make you wonder?” He blurted out suddenly. “If Roman being in charge- if you weren’t there- if that would have made Thomas happier all that time?”

Logan shook his head. “I used to. But I was wrong.” He glanced up at Virgil, smiling as he did.

“...But- but how? You just said-”

“I said the transition was difficult. I said it made Thomas happy. And sure, Thomas had hard times growing up. But did I keep him from being happy back then? No, of course not. Quite the contrary. I realized, then, that Thomas utilizing my strengths had made him happy- capitalizing on that love for the rainforest and transforming it into a potential lifelong career. Using Roman’s interest and guiding it into this plan helped Thomas in the long run. His discipline in his education helped him in other areas- and Virgil, that’s how you help him, too. You’re not always at the forefront- you rarely ever are. You do your best work helping Thomas quietly in the background.”

Virgil’s brain was spinning. He was quiet for a long moment.

“...how do I help him?”

“When you shoot down one of Roman’s wild ideas, it’s because you’re thinking long-term. To use a very Roman-esque metaphor, you see the chinks in the armor before he rides into battle. Roman only complains when you do so because his ego prevents him from seeing the issues himself. You’re there to protect him and Thomas both.

“And when you make Thomas practice his lines over and over, when you give him the butterflies in his stomach backstage, when you fear failure- it’s not because you want him to mess up. It’s because you want things to go perfectly, for Thomas to do his very best, for his fears not to come to fruition. And that is important to note.

“Virgil, when you’re afraid of a breakup, of losing friends and family- it’s because you don’t want Thomas to get too attached to something that might not always be there. You are attempting to be a cautionary tale before it’s ever written. You work against Patton and Roman simultaneously- you carry that weight- because you don’t want them to get hurt by their own ambitions.”

“Jesus, you’ve put a lot of thought into this, Logan.”

Logan grinned broadly. “That is what I do best. Just- think of us all like- say, a bike. Roman and Patton are the handlebars- they can pull Thomas in certain directions and guide him where he wants to go. You and I are the training wheels- making sure the turns aren’t too tight, that he doesn’t lose his balance. When Thomas is aware of us, when he also takes us into consideration, he makes sure he doesn’t take a road too bumpy or uneven.”

“But if we’re training wheels, doesn’t that mean Thomas- at some point- won’t need us anymore?” He winced once he realized what he had said. “...Sorry. That was probably a bit too close to what you mentioned earlier.”

But Logan simply shook his head again. “You’re forgetting a few things- first, that some people can ride bikes without using the handlebars, too. Second, Thomas is a child at heart- a toddler using training wheels isn’t too far of a metaphor stretch. Third- Thomas still doesn’t know how to ride a bike. The man made a vine about parkour and nearly shattered his wrist falling on purpose. Do you really think he’s going to ever hop on a bike without a little extra support?”

Virgil couldn’t help the loud laugh that burst out of his mouth before covering it quickly. Logan looked immensely proud of himself.

“And I thought you said the other two brought the sunshine,” Virgil teased. Logan blinked, caught off-guard by Virgil’s statement, before smiling softly- then his face turned more serious.

“...There is another thing I wanted to discuss.”

Virgil swallowed. Patton’s dad lectures were one thing. But a Logan lecture? He’d never heard of one, and it scared him a little bit.

“Roman tells us those stories because he knows we can’t experience them.”

“...Yeah. I know.” A bitter taste was back in Virgil’s mouth. He looked down again.

“No- you misunderstand. He is not boasting. He is sharing.”

Virgil glanced up sharply. “...What? What’s the difference?”

“None of us could truly follow on one of his adventures, and Roman knows that. He has the imagination and the bravery, the ego, the voice of narration, the knowledge of how to follow a plot steadily. We would either fail the quest, create plot holes, or never write the story because we wouldn’t know which direction to take it. Roman tells us these stories of grandeur so we can also experience them. Just like how Patton loves us all so much because he knows how hard it can be for us to love ourselves, fundamentally. Just as I am here for you, right now, being the voice of logic and reason. Just how you question our decisions for us, point out faults before they bring about our demise, and worry so we don’t have to. Personifying worry and anxiety- and to a degree, self-preservation- is not an easy task, Virgil. It is a steep order. It takes a lot out of you- but you are strong enough to handle it. You were made to handle it. Just as I was made to handle challenges of intellect. Just as Roman was made to handle creative block and self-doubt. Just as Patton was made to handle heartbreak. Thomas made you because he couldn’t function without you- and you have a two-video story arc to prove that, Virgil. Remember that.”

Virgil blinked hard to clear the fog from his eyes. He silently fiddled with his jacket zipper, Logan’s words bearing down on him in the quiet. He glanced up at the other side.

“...Thank you, Logan.”

Logan straightened his tie and glasses, sitting up in the chair. He nodded at Virgil.

“No, really. I- I had never thought about it... that way. You did, though- and you didn’t have to share that with me, but you did, and I… I… I really appreciate it.”

“You have helped me before, Virgil. I was simply returning a long-overdue favor.” He stood up from the chair and moved to exit, but not before turning back.

“...Oh. And Patton told me to tell you that you should apologize to Roman. I believe he said something akin to, ‘You can’t really wound Roman’s ego, but if you could, that would have.’”

Virgil smiled. “Of course Patton would say that… and he’s right. I’ll go. Thanks again, Logan.”

Logan smiled back. “Glad to be of assistance.”

A/N: ...in my defense, Logan's a bit of a chatterbox... goodness i love him for it tho

(this was partially my own ridiculous mind-dump headcanon on how Virgil is seen as so necessary- it’s not just that he’s also good, it’s that too much of the other’s isn’t the best, either. sorry if the train of thought derails quite a bit in there. writing logan’s dialogue is a major brain stretch in that I have to take my own words i want him to say, make the sentences long and rambling, and spice them up intellectually, which is so fun!- but can get messy)

comments and critiques are always appreciated :) and if you want me to tag you let me know!

#sanders sides #doorways #virgil #logan #roman #patton #mine #an extremely talkative logan #and a very grateful virgil #...i may edit this in the future #it's a /lot/ for logan to be saying on his own #we shall see

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preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

Text

Across the Face of the Bored

by Dan H

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Dan feels like he's kicking a puppy.~

Ferretbrain regulars should already know about my sordid love affair with Trudi Canavan, an Australian novelist whose work I am guiltily fond of (I'm anxiously looking forward to the paperback release of the Black Magician prequels). Trudi writes wonderful, pacey books about spunky heroines with magic powers which are amazing fun and never get boring (well, Last of the Wilds sagged a bit if I'm honest). It was on her recommendation (well, her blurb, which isn't quite the same thing) that I picked up Russell Kirkpatrick's Across the Face of the World.

I'll admit, I was also attracted to the sheer old-school nature of it. It's called “Across the Face of the World” for a start, and the cover depicts five people on horses riding in front of a gigantic moon. There are no fewer than five maps at the front, and at the back is a glossary which is only two pages shorter than the first chapter. It's the product of “fifteen years of careful worldbuilding” and when I say “worldbuilding” I mean “this guy is a professor of geography and boy does it show.”

So I kind of knew what I was getting into when I started it. But it came with the Trudi Canavan seal of approval, so I figured it would be slightly cheesy but good fun.

It was not good fun.

Oh, spoilers, FYI.

The story concerns a boy called Leith who lives in a remote village where he isn't terribly popular because he's slightly smaller and weaker than the other children. He has a crush on a girl called Stella (yes, Stella) but she is betrothed to another boy called ... Druin? I think? Not really sure. He is miraculously cast opposite her in the Midwinter play, and gets to do flirty improv theatre with her, before getting dragged away by his mysteriously-returned father, who has brought Terrible Danger with him.

So Leith's father and mother get kidnapped by the Lords of Fear (I kind of feel that I should have bolded that. I mean dudes: Lords of Fear) and Leith, his crippled brother Hal, the village “Haufuth” (think elder or headman) and a Simple Farmer Who Is More Than He Seems named Kurr set off to find them, and to warn the people of Faltha that they are about to be invaded by Bhrudwo.

Finding the names confusing yet? Just wait.

Stella stumbles upon the council of war, and since Leith and Hal are supposed to be dead, and they can't have anybody spreading rumours about their plan, they decide to take her with them (why no, she doesn't get any say in this, why do you ask?) when they head out to do their mission.

They pursue the Bhrudwans across the face of the ... well you get the picture. They do this very, very slowly. Very, very, very slowly.

Kirkpatrick has mapped out his world in exhaustive detail, and he leads you through every inch of it. Down every glaciated valley, past every erratic boulder, up every fold mountain and over every waterfall into every plunge pool. The single biggest impression you get from the text is “gosh, this person knows a lot about geography.” The second biggest impression you get from the text is “gosh, this dialogue is terrible and stilted and these characters are wooden and poorly realised.”

Sorry, that was bitchy of me, and I feel genuinely bad about saying it, because Russell Kirkpatrick comes across as a lovely man who has a genuine enthusiasm for his world and his story. The flyleaf informs us that:

“Russell Kirkpatrick's love of literature and a chance encounter with fantasy novels as a teenager opened up a vast number of possibilities to him. The idea that he could marry storytelling and mapmaking (his other passion) into one project grabbed him and wouldn't let go.”

How sweet is that? Unfortunately while Kirkpatrick's love of mapmaking has translated into an ability to draw pretty good maps, his love of storytelling has failed to yield similar results.

Where to begin.

Destiny Is Not A Virtue God Damn It

Throughout Across the Face of the World there is talk of “The Right Hand of God” (not to be confused with the Left Hand of God, which is Hugh Jackman). This is a dude who is totally destined to rise up and unite the disparate kingdoms of Faltha and fight off the evil Bhrudwans and defeat the Destroyer and generally be Awesomeness Personified.

The Right Hand is pretty clearly Leith. There are gigantic hints about this, almost to the extent of people coming up to him and saying “Leith Mahnumsen, You Are The Right Hand of God”.

It does not, in fact, bother me that nobody works out this extremely obvious fact. It does not bother me that Leith remains totally oblivious to the idea that he might be the Right Hand, despite meeting (a) a seer who says “you have a great destiny and will become a great leader of men” and (b) a bard who says “Hi, I'm looking for the Right Hand, who is destined to be a great leader of men, I think he might come from your home town.”

What bothers me is the fact that I am expected to give a crap.

I really hate destiny in fantasy. It's so often used to avoid explaining how a character was actually capable of achieving something. I don't mind the young orphan boy being able to pull the sword from the stone. I do mind him being able to use the damned thing without any training.

Leith has nothing to recommend him as a character. He's mopey, miserable, self-pitying and indecisive. He doesn't have hidden leadership qualities (or if he does they are fantastically wellhidden) he doesn't even have tremendous compassion (his adoptive brother Hal does, but he's clearly an angel which is kinda cheating) or unusual courage. Hell, he doesn't even get described as possessing any of these quantities. All he does is mope about the fact that Stella seems to fancy somebody else and display a vague determination to get his parents back.

I wouldn't object to this if I thought it was deliberate, if I thought somebody was going to sit Leith down and say “seriously dude, stop being such a douche” and he was going to realise that dag nammit he had a kingdom to save I'd be okay with that, but it seems very unlikely at this stage.

The thing is I do understand why you get so many fantasy heroes like this. He's an everyman or, more precisely an everygeek. He's the speccy outsider who isn't very good at sports and is no good with girls, but who is secretly special because of some innate quality which is never really explained, and which he never has to demonstrate. The recognition and validation of your individual special-unique-snowflake-ness is basically every geeks ultimate fantasy (hell it's why I write these articles, I fully expect to be given a column in the Times any day now) and like Leith we expect this validation to come not as a result of anything we have done but in recognition of who we are. It's the slightly tragic result of being picked on at school.

Where was I? Oh yes: Leith is boring, self-pitying and has the leadership potential of a pillow with an anxiety disorder. He's going to wind up saving the world and I really don't care.

Stella By Starlight

Across the Face of the World almost avoids making it onto the Fantasy Rape Watch list, but not quite. I'm not going to talk about that quite yet, though. Instead I'm going to talk about Stella.

Since pretty much forever, there's been a strong tradition in literature (particularly heroic literature – including fantasy novels and action movies) of female characters whose sole function is to act as a reward for the hero. The fact that I'm not particularly squicked out by the fact that our society sees “getting the girl” as a natural consequence of “killing the baddies” (rather than anything the “girl” has – y'know – a choice about) is one of those things which makes me rather ashamed of my own internalised prejudices. It's a trope that comes up time and again in pretty much every book you've ever read and every film you've ever seen. It should bother me more than it does, frankly, and for some reason it really bothers me here.

Maybe it's because I really didn't like Leith, but the idea that this girl had been created purely so that, at the end of the series, she could complete the protagonist's wish-fulfilment fantasy by winding up with him had me beating my head against the wall. I wouldn't mind but he isn't even particularly nice to her. He shows no actual interest in her as a person, they don't have a relationship, he sees her as a trophy just as much as Druin, the boy she's betrothed to and terrified of.

Oh yes, about that.

Stella starts the story being abducted by the company because they want to keep her quiet. This is, itself, all kinds of fucked up. I mean, I get that it's better that nobody in the village know where you're going (they say it's for the safety of the village, but seriously, when has ignorance protected anybody from anything – if Dark Lord Psychopathus thinks you know something, he'll torture you to death, period) but seriously, you guys were the ones who had a secret meeting in a public building with no locks on the doors. The fact that they won't trust her not to tell anybody (because her mother's a gossip, apparently) is also a bit iffy, it's got slight overtones of “women need to learn to keep their mouths shut” - sorry, I'm Minority Warrioring again – so, yes, abduction.

Stella does not get a choice about joining the company on their quest, but she goes along with it in the end because the alternative is to marry Druin, and be subjected to a lifetime of socially sanctioned marital rape. Being the courageous, self-actualising fantasy heroine that she is, Stella sees her abduction by the company as an opportunity to throw herself at somebody else, so she can be subjected to a lifetime of socially sanctioned marital rape by somebody less horrible.

It doesn't occur to her that she could – y'know – make a life for herself in the enormous cosmopolitan city they're going to. I know she's a girl from a small village and was probably raised with a very narrow view of her future, but I think once you've broadened your prospects to include “saving the world” I really don't think “living without a man” is too much of a stretch.

Ethnic Jokes Are So Uncouth

So the basic plot of AtFotW is that the proud lands of Faltha are home to the First Men, the chosen of God who screwed up n-thousand years ago but who are destined to reclaim their rightful place as the Chosen of the Most High and redeem the world and stuff.

Anybody want to guess what their defining racial characteristics are? I'll give you a clue, it isn't dark hair and brown eyes.

The enemy of the First Men is the evil empire of Bhrudwo. Now I'll admit here that I've not seen much actual description of Bhrudwan ethnic characteristics but they do seem to live in a desert, is all I'm saying.

Now I know making allegations of racism about a fantasy novel is, as a great man once put it, about as difficult as putting on a hat. But when your novel has as its premise that some races of people are better than other races of people, you need to be really careful before making your chosen people look quite that much like Nazi poster children.

This again probably wouldn't bother me as much as it does, but Kirkpatrick seems to have actually noticed the problem and sort-of-not-quite tried to address it. There's quite a lot of evil races in his world (the Bhrudwans, the Widuz), but Kirkpatrick keeps making embarrassingly perfunctory efforts to pretend that they are not, in fact, totally evil. Mahnum (the protagonist's father) explains at great and patronising length how the common people of Bhrudwo are really excellent people no different from you or me, before explaining how he was captured by them, tortured by them, then rescued by one of them who, when said rescuer discovered that he was not as rich as he had pretended, betrayed him to the Lords of Fear. Similarly, when the Companions encounter the Widuz, we are told carefully that they have been cruelly treated by the other people of their land, and driven ever further into the most inhospitable parts of Faltha, only to be subjected to a sequence in which the Widuz line up dozens of naked, drugged captives and throw them into a dormant volcano to appease a hungry god. And lest we forget, there is only one God that canonically exists in the setting, so while they're ill-treated they're also violent, barbaric and wrong.

Now I admit, I've only read the first book, and it's possible that it will defy all my expectations and preconceptions. It's possible that Leith will grow the hell up and show some kind of leadership qualities. It's possible that Stella will learn that she doesn't actually need to get married, and will reject Leith on the grounds that she doesn't fancy him. But I'm unlikely to find out because I'm unlikely to want to wade through another twelve hundred pages of tedious geography for the privilege.

And finally:

Fantasy Rape Watch

Approximate Number of Named Characters Who Travel with the Company: 12

Of Which Female: 3

Of Whom Have Dialogue: 2

Of Whom Motivated by Past Sexual Abuse: 1

Of Whom Motivated by Fear of Future Sexual Abuse: 1

Of Whom Die: 1

Total Deaths Among Company: 2

Number of Women Abducted by Villains: 1

Number of Women Abducted by Heroes: 1

Number of Societies Encountered in Which Women Are Treated Literally As Property: 1

Number of Male Characters Who Object To This: 0

Number of Female Characters Who Object To This: 0

Reaction of Party Member On Being Told That His Wife Is Now The Property Of Another Man: “Oh good, he'll look after her until I get back”Themes:

Fantasy Rape Watch

Books

Sci-fi / Fantasy

Judging Books By Their Covers

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~Comments (

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http://serenoli.livejournal.com/

at 12:00 on 2009-04-15Lol the last line. Like, seriously?

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Rami

at 13:52 on 2009-04-15I was mostly struck by the resemblance of the cover to

a Wheel Of Time book

, when I first saw it...

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Arthur B

at 13:57 on 2009-04-15Hey, I remember that cover - it was on the only

Wheel of Time

book I ever attempted to read.

I got halfway through the prologue before I gave up.

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Rami

at 14:26 on 2009-04-15Don't worry, you won't have to miss out entirely -- it's allegedly coming to the big screen in 2011!

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Wardog

at 16:00 on 2009-04-15They're making a movie from The Wheel of Time? Wtf?! It isn't even finished... and it's really boring...

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Arthur B

at 16:07 on 2009-04-15The long and boring nature of the Wheel of Time is actually helpful there: if they film everything then they'll still be on schedule even if the final book isn't published until 2050...

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Rami

at 16:14 on 2009-04-15You never know, they could do something miraculous and tighten it up a lot (like the LOTR films, for instance, were tightened up) into a reasonable story...

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Shim

at 16:19 on 2009-04-15I can see that. I mean, if you cut out most of the characters and all the sitting around angsting, it would be manageable.

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Guy

at 16:22 on 2009-04-15I understand that, since Jordan is now writing generic fantasy for the angels, they have found someone else to finish the Wheel for him. Who was intending to write one book, but, haha, said that there was far too much stuff to wrap up in just one book so he is going to write a concluding *trilogy*.

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Dan H

at 20:16 on 2009-04-15

Lol the last line. Like, seriously?

Seriously, but deliberately taken out of context for maximum d'oh value. Said character is, in fact, a member of the treats-women-as-property community (albeit an adopted one) so it's not like his wife was just snatched away from him by people they met on the road, and he does know the guy she's given to personally so it's not completely psychotic. So the line is more "I know X will take good care of her". It's still kind of messed up though.

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Dan H

at 20:38 on 2009-04-15

there was far too much stuff to wrap up in just one book so he is going to write a concluding *trilogy*

You know what's going to happen, don't you?

He's going to write books one and two, and then die horrifically, at which point somebody else will get brought in to finish the trilogy, and decide that actually they'll need to divide the final volume into two parts, finish the first part and then they'll die as well at which point somebody else...

It'll become this terrifying horror story about the fantasy series that kills anybody who touches it.

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Guy

at 03:56 on 2009-04-16I thought you were going to say, he's going to write books one and two, then realise that one book just really isn't *quite* enough to wrap up everything that needs to be wrapped up, so he'll extend the series by just a few more books... &c... but I like your version too. :)

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http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/

at 11:51 on 2009-04-16I just wanted to say that Leith is the name of where I live. I don't know if that's a coincidence or further evidence of Kirkpatrick's deep love of geography, but it made the review rather confusing for me to read.

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http://sistermagpie.livejournal.com/

at 21:02 on 2009-04-21Awww. It really is kind of a textbook fantasy book. I find myself liking the author even while cringing at the thought of reading the book.

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Rami

at 10:54 on 2009-04-22

liking the author even while cringing

Yeah, me too. If he spends that long lovingly building a fantasy world I get the feeling it'd be really fun to be sitting there exploring it with him, just riffing on ideas like what the people in the desert kingdom to the south wear.

On the other hand, that has very little to do with actually writing a good book :-(

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Dan H

at 13:31 on 2009-04-22There's a rather cute bit on his website where he says that writing his books takes roughly 500 hours to write, with a further *thousand* hours of worldbuilding...

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Wardog

at 14:38 on 2009-04-22Sigh. I'm pretty damn sure it should be the other way round ...

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 18:23 on 2012-04-03

Kind of, as far as Leith goes. Instead of displaying any fantastic qualities book 3 becomes a rather hilarious deconstruction/parody of the idea of the Chosen One, as he leads his followers from one epic fail to the next before God and Hal save the day at the last possible second.

Stella on the other hand is treated rather savagely; by the end of the trilogy she's been seduced by the Dark Lord's trusted lieutenant (whom she does, in fairness, cause to be killed by the Dark Lord), then prematurely aged and palsied down one side by the Dark Lord during his enslavement of her, develops kind-of Stockholm syndrome before being rescued by God, and still marries Leith at the end.

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Dan H

at 18:11 on 2012-04-04

Instead of displaying any fantastic qualities book 3 becomes a rather hilarious deconstruction/parody of the idea of the Chosen One, as he leads his followers from one epic fail to the next before God and Hal save the day at the last possible second.

Obviously I've not read the book, but based on this very loose description, I'm not sure that constitutes a parody or deconstruction, so much as a fairly straight implementation of the trope. Sometimes it's authorial fiat, rather than a literal divine intervention, but the way the Chosen One narrative usually works (in my experience) is that they fuck up continuously for most of the story, then have everything come out alright at the last possible minute.

c.f. John Sheridan, Harry Potter, later Buffy, and so on.

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James D

at 20:10 on 2012-04-04Yes, a better deconstruction of the trope would have the "Chosen One" be actually worthy of the title, but simply lose because the enemy is better at fighting and it was stupid to expect to win or even try to fight. The bad guys end up being magnanimous in defeat and things go back to the way they were, which wasn't so bad anyway, minus a bunch of warmongering rebels. The End. Maybe throw in a dash of how the former Confederate US is with its "The South Will Rise Agin!" mantra, playing up big gubmint being evil, states' rights being good, and conveniently lionizing the rebels while whitewashing the whole slavery issue. I guess the protagonist could be some sort of impressionable youth who buys the whole story.

There are probably already a hundred authors who've deconstructed the trope at length, to the point where its deconstruction is itself a trope. Such is modern fantasy. To be perfectly honest though, it just doesn't seem like a particularly interesting trope to deconstruct, because once examined at all it becomes so transparently stupid that hardly any deconstruction is required to lay that inherent stupidity bare. As mentioned in the review, the concept of a "Chosen One" is just more bald-faced adolescent wish-fulfillment fantasy.

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 17:45 on 2012-04-05

I think the difference is one of textual support. You can read the later Harry Potter books as the story of someone bumbling from one disaster to another, but that is not supported by the text which insists that Harry is a Hero with capital H to the point that even after his apparent defeat and death people remain loyal to his memory.

On the other hand, when Leith is loudly called out for every mistake he makes, called out for sulking about getting called out, and by the end of the war is getting pissed on by the common soldiery for his suckage (even Charlie Brown thinks he's a loser by this point) it's hard to argue that 'Leith is Useless' is not what the text expects you to take away.

It's also possible to interpret that Hal, who bears his brother's accusations of treason without complaint, dies in Leith's place and then comes back to life temporarily in time to save the day, was the real Right Hand of God all along, but then Leith was the one hearing God's voice in book 2 so that would be strange.

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Tamara

at 23:08 on 2014-01-28How geekily-particular is it that what bothers me about this review is the implication that geographers make for tedious worldbuilding? I'm not-so-many credits away from a geography degree and love it to pieces, and it's totally obvious to me that the use of a solid foundation in geography in fantasy worldbuilding should be one of experimentation and exploration of spaces and landscapes that can't exist in reality, not the fussy construction of super-accurate worlds. The City and The City or The Half Made World is my idea of a great geography porn genre book, not something with really nicely mapped drainage basins. Just needed to say that, oh very old article about a series long since off the radar.

#Ferretbrain #Across the Face of the World #Russel Kirkpatrick #Dan H #Fantasy #Fantasy Rape Watch

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dorothyparkerwascool · 7 years

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‘Defying description’: Man, what a thoughtful WaPo interview with ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons on Prince’s ‘sensational’ guitar playing & it includes a captivating Prince story.

Prince’s guitar-slinging skills were no secret. Whether at the Super Bowl, stealing a Rock Hall all-star jam or on his records, he could play it all. But to hear ZZ Top’s legendary frontman Billy Gibbons tell it, Prince wasn’t just a great guitar player. He was downright otherworldly. Gibbons spoke to The Post Friday about the guitar player who could stump even him.

So much has been said about Prince but I do think it’s important to remember that his guitar playing was, I don’t know, just sensational. Tell me how you’d describe it.

Well, to borrow your word, sensational is about as close a description of Prince’s guitar playing as words might allow. I believe that the feeling one was left with, if afforded the luxury of actually seeing Prince perform … we’d be looking for other superlatives. Because it’s almost got to the point of defying description.

You had an interesting encounter with Prince.

It was following the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary celebration [in 2009]. They had a two night grand hurrah at Madison Square Garden and I was invited to perform with Jeff Beck. And following that appearance, I found myself back at the hotel and I wandered off in search of some late-night grub and my favorite 24-hour joint was shut down for unknown reasons. I tiptoed across the street to the Tiger Bar. I was just standing at the front and I was approached by a rather large gentleman and he said, ‘You’re wanted at the corner table.’ And there was Prince sitting all by his lonesome. And I gave him a brief tip of the hat and sat down and said, ‘Hey man, it’s so good to see you.’ He said, ‘It’s so good to see you. Let’s talk about guitar playing.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ And in the next two hours we really dove into the depth of his intent, interest and focus toward technique and tone. I left that evening even more mesmerized than I’d previously been, just knowing the sincerity that Prince kept toward his playing, his performing and his all-around showmanship.

You’re a little bit older, you come from Texas and I’d imagine you first learned about Prince in the early ’80s, when you were both MTV stars.

As you may remember, he began bubbling up without a lot of advance fanfare. There was just this vague knowledge of this new guy on the scene called Prince. And then, of course, we all got our world rocked when “Purple Rain” showed up at the theaters. Even today, I’m struggling to try and emulate that guitar introduction to “When Doves Cry.” It’s just a testament to his extraordinary technique.

Wait. When you say emulate — you mean you try to play it and you can’t?

I continually come back to attempting to piece together each and every one of those segments. And it’s very short. It’s not an extended solo by any means. But the way it is delivered. There’s certainly no way to write it. You’ve just got to dive in and feel it to see if you could come close. This might be a little off the subject, but just this morning, Andy Langer sent me a link to Prince on YouTube performing “Honky Tonk Woman.” I had never seen it. I don’t know if there’s a fixed date that could be attached to it. I would encourage you to check it out. Here, within the four minute time span, you really get a sense of urgency that was behind his dedication to playing.

Technique. You’ve said that a few times. That’s a very particular word. Prince is somebody we always thought of as flash, beautiful, almost touched by something otherworldly. But when I hear the word technique, I think of practice, intellect, study.

Yes, and we can only surmise that there were a great number of hours in private where he was developing ways to approach the guitar that ultimately led to his prowess over the instrument. I bring this up over the years. My friendship with Prince was made known. There was hardly a day that went by if Prince’s name came up in the conversation, little did they give credit to his guitar playing. It was more about the flash. The showiness. There are a few repeatable examples that were fortunately caught on film or record that will settle the score once and for all. When I sat down with Prince that fateful evening in Manhattan, he was really touched by the fact that I knew quite a bit of his guitar playing … It was so funny because there was a legion of Brazilian carnival dancers that had invaded the club and they had taken over the bar. They were dancing on the bar … this was all going on in the background. Prince was unfettered. He just wanted to talk about playing.

I wonder if because he had so much style, whether he ever felt that his playing was overshadowed.

Oh yeah. In fact, that entered the conversation. He asked me, ‘Does your beard get in the way like some of my costumes?’ And I was stunned momentarily and I thought about it and said, ‘You know, perhaps so.’ But then he grabbed my arm and said, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with it.’

Last thing. That night, two hours of guitar talk. Is there anything specifically you remember telling him or him telling you about basically how to play?

I don’t know about anything that specific. I was quite flattered that he knew specific song titles that had a specific guitar sound. He said, I’ve really enjoyed some of the work that showed up on that monster hit of yours, “Eliminator,” the sound of “Gimme All Your Lovin’” He went on to cite a number of titles. I said, ‘Okay, I could give you some amplifier settings, I could give you some guitar strings.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you tell me about ‘When Doves Cry’? He just smiled. ‘That one gets me too.’

I didn’t know how to take that. Was he was suggesting he stumbled upon it by accident or he didn’t have words to describe it? I’m just happy to know that he took it as a compliment.

Interviewer: Jeff Edgers.

#prince #guitar god #billy gibbons #zz top #wapo #when doves cry #prince guitar

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greenplanetplumbing · 5 years

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Most important Stumbling blocks of Studying the second Expressions Penning Strategy

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Most important Stumbling blocks of Studying the second Expressions Penning Strategy

Secondary terminology units like Arabic, Eastern, Korean, Thai, Japanese, Ancient greek and European all have various kinds of alphabets. Being taught the alphabet is the first task in mastering to study and generate within these spoken languages.

Almost like gaining knowledge of a different expressions weren’t extremely tough sufficiently, the procedure is built more difficult by means of to find out a completely new authoring body above it. Now are among the principle conflicts of learning a completely new alphabet unit:

Information phonetics

Certainly, there can be an inclination to aim to make factors seem like the foreign language you’re most accustomed to. Nevertheless in so many alphabets, the appears you’ll be experiencing shall be completely different from The english language seems. Do you know the ‘th’ seem is different on the way to The english language terminology and overwhelming for anyone comprehension The english language to pronounce? In the same way, so many tones in other spoken languages will most likely be troublesome so you might knowledge at the beginning. Don’t be aggravated if you decide to can’t obtain a reliable directly on your first have a shot at. Intonation and feature take the time to develop. Have at it and you’ll improve.

Learning the common sense

The The english language alphabet, aka the Roman alphabet, is centered on looks, not about representations. The words are foundations to have a concept and in most cases do not have message unto his or her self. However is not all producing technologies have similar common sense. The truth is, for some other terms techniques, the characters for this alphabet are icons that represent anything independently. By exploring the alphabet like a phonetic foundation, you fail to see the common sense for the other expressions which would be to use icons to make that means.

In Chinese language, the industry vernacular influenced by representations, you can’t pronounce anything if you decide to don’t recognize its indicating. In English language, never the less, you could possibly strong anything out in line with the characters with out any hint what are the term implies. Don’t begin to utilise the common sense through the Roman alphabet to an alternative writing articles machine. Be trained its reason in order to really recognize the words.

Picking out multiple typefaces

Similar to in Language, you’ll must learn how to pinpoint creating in a variety of typefaces and designs. Handwriting varies from published wording and you will find alternatives of reproduced txt on top of that. Look at cursive crafting, capitalization additionally, the several thousand many different personalised typefaces that any British audience can certainly establish. But the truth is, a little boy or girl having only just experienced to produce the alphabet wouldn’t be ready to find a message designed in cursive.

Other spoken languages offer this equivalent difficulty. Plus, some spoken languages have many different publishing technologies. Japanese, such as, has a few authoring platforms that can be all clear from the other. The optimal way to understand these a variety of penning versions and typefaces requires you to open you to ultimately the many various kinds of generating which exist within a terminology guaranteeing that you’re not mixed up when dealing with another type of fashion.

Finding out how to come up with

Looking through is something. Creating can also be a. Many people recalls that cycle as soon as they happen to be finding out how to post the alphabet. The way it has been a painstaking procedure that was significantly more similar to painting the words rather than posting them. With time, it started to be natural. Now, you’re on a point at which you’re grasping not merely what is the characters using the new alphabet appear to be, but crafting them. Some spoken languages, like Hebrew and Arabic are posted from directly to rendered. If you attempt to publish these dialects from kept to most desirable, it may not really be legible.

Contemplate if somebody made an effort to come up with a phrase in British by creating all written text in reverse. It is going to image weird and difficult. All different languages possess special route to prepare their personalities and characters. Understand the buy for the pencil-cerebral vascular accidents as well as focus professionally so the handwriting will custom essay help likely to be easily readable.

Outlook is anything

The main reason some individuals neglect to discover how is because they let go of at the same time with ease. It’s not too the tongue is simply too very difficult or way too nearly impossible or much too assorted. Most people can perform getting to know a single thing if they commit his or her self on it. Survive through the slower uncomfortable step, comprehend that it’s diverse from immediately after you were definitely learning how to checked out British to be a toddler and concentrate on limited triumphs. You could could appreciate anything printed in distinctive typefaces or else you could take a look at a complete phrase out boisterous with no pausing. Remember these milestones whilst doing business at it.

No-one was given birth to a freelance writer. All authors enjoyed to endure the entire process of ‘becoming a writer’ and, if you’ve find out any amount of writer’s biographies after i have, you’ll understandthat it wasn’t an effortless way for people.

Might be you would like to seek out assistance from your competent author but you’re concerned they won’t answer. It’s a sensible presumption the fact that they won’t. Aside from the undeniable fact that if they is beginning, a lot of today’s impressive authors suffered from advisors who had been professional and organized.

It’s not nearly impossible to receive a article author to answer a frosty email address seeking their useful information. Yet it is a fragile effort and something that needs some finesse. Below are some tips teaching how to influence a article writer to publish you once again:

Discovered their effort

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Do track record examine

Look over some interview and biographical knowledge about them. Use their webpage, Myspace Webpage or Facebook profile whether they have an individual. Learn what sorts of concepts they have got about posting, the way that they found their embark on, what they’re presently perfecting. Working with a sense of these records will enable you to art a bit more own notice. It will help you do not tread to their feet accidentally. One example is, whether your picked contributor is undoubtedly an adamantly in opposition to e-textbooks, you may not can consist of the advantage that you’re taking a look at creating your job as a possible e-reserve.

Develop your issue sections

As with most composing, when considering titles, head lines and web mail issue product lines, it’s information on getting their treatment. It’s really worth the time you place into mastering your matter sections pitch. Often, although you may created the spectacular message, you take the possible risk of them in no way even starting it.

Explore mailing snail send

It’s not difficult to discount a message. Seldom somebody will get precise postal mail this afternoon. There’s things relating to the labor you have to pass through to handwrite a message, add a stamp over it and send out it well from your mail box. That distinguishes you somebody who photograph out 100 e-mails to a variety of renowned creators. It’s the greatest solution to customize a note. If you submit a message by snail snail mail, be sure you incorporate your web mail involved in the message. Don’t imagine them to take a seat and create you with a notice in respond. Allow it to simple for authors you will need to get in touch with out.

What makes you generating to these people?

Will you articulate why its that you’re authoring to the next experts particularly? Can it be simply because you adore their do the trick or you’re article writing an ebook for a corresponding content among their ebooks? Might it be as a result of anything they talked about inside an employment interview that grabbed your attraction? Why do you reckon their suggestions could possibly be important to you? Describing this towards authors might help them bring your ask for many more actually.

Keep it uncomplicated

You’re possibly aware reliable authors are rather busy some individuals. Questioning it to devote some time far from their own unique developments to help you out with the one you have is regarded as a vulnerable problem, so do them a big favor by permitting to the stage rapidly. Professional people will treasure you attempting to keep your text quick. You could possibly even wish to recognize you are aware of they’re very busy and now you value them spending them time for it to look at and answer to your communication.

What exactly your expertise?

Persons like to help individuals who they believe will thrive. If you’ve posted other is working, you must useful resource them. If you’ve received any honours or come with an MFA or previously worked as the associate to somewhat of a recognized screenwriter or article author, or been employed in croping and editing or posting, then it might be exceptional to note those activities. Just about anything expertise it is possible to (lightly) supply you with can help them get a solid idea of whom you are and why hanging out checking out your job wouldn’t be considered waste matter.

Inquire further a thing very specific

Be sure to make sure you ask penning industry experts an issue very specific rather than just a little something conventional. One example is, don’t you can ask: How to get printed? That’s too overall as well as maddening challenge to the majority of writers. How to begin? In fact question a given topic. Help it become a specific thing that’s strongly related their career or their undergo that you just feel that they may be able to provde the easiest option about. It’s easier for somebody to response towards exact problem rather than respond toward a request ‘advice’ generally speaking.

Have you got something to give you them?

When you have something great to present that you really think about they could delight in, go on and supply you with it. If for example the article author everyday life within a very same zone when you, just supply to get these to meal or purchase them a tea. Could be their upcoming hire is scheduled in Brazil which means you resided there for 3 a long time. Will offer you to share with you many of your ordeals that may be useful to them.

Permit it to be trouble-free to enable them to approach you

Give editors a number of alternatives for attaining you. All people have their favorite mode of correspondence, so allow them to have your contact number, e mail, and Skype consideration. Make sure they know when you’re designed for speak and ensure you’re provided whether they try and call you.

Give thanks to them should they generate to return

If you undertake be capable of grab their undivided attention plus they establish to answer your sales message, ensure you appreciate them. It is really a huge price that popular freelance writers spent the time to response in your life, to be sure the the bare minimum you should do is understand their efforts by permitting them recognize how a good deal you value it. It will make it simpler so they can react to you need to you get in touch with them repeatedly.

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imapplied · 5 years

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The Ultimate Guide to Amazon Keyword Research

Earlier this month, we said that you can think about optimizing for the Amazon buy box in the same way you think about optimizing content for the organic search results. Both situations involve algorithms designed to deliver shoppers (or searchers) the best experiences possible.

The crossover between ecommerce and organic search doesn’t stop there. When it comes to Amazon keyword strategy, you can once again think along the lines of SEO.

This isn’t surprising once you take a step back and recognize that—wait a minute—Amazon is a search engine. True, with a relatively low number of ranking signals, its algorithm is simpler than those of Google and Bing. Nonetheless, Amazon indexes information and uses an array of factors to determine who lands where in the product search results. Sounds like a search engine to me, pal.

In this guide, we’ll explain why keywords are important for your success as an Amazon seller. Then we’ll share four tips you can use to conduct better Amazon keyword research.

Let’s. Get. It.

What’s the deal with Amazon’s search algorithm?

First of all—rude. It has a name, you guys: A9.

Secondly, I think I got a little too excited in the intro. Yes, it’s super helpful to think of Amazon as a search engine. At the same time, though, it’s crucial to remember that Amazon is an online marketplace. It’s a place to sell stuff.

Amazon really, really wants to sell stuff.

I share this obvious information because it’s the driving factor behind A9. Amazon organizes the product search results in order to sell as much stuff as possible.

Given that, it comes as no surprise that the most relevant, high-converting products are the ones that win the top spots. A high-converting product, as you know, is one that actually convinces prospects to buy after they’ve clicked through to the product details page.

A spooky example of an Amazon product details page.

For the purposes of this blog post, we’re mostly concerned with the first adjective: relevant.

Relevant to the search query, that is. There are reasons Amazon doesn’t show you nineteenth-century porcelain dolls when you search for dog food: one, dolls are vessels for demonic spirits; two, dolls have nothing to do with dog food. Nobody wants to use a search engine that populates the results with irrelevant products.

Amazon knows this, and A9 operates accordingly.

How are Amazon keywords related to product relevance?

Uh, how are s’mores Pop-Tarts related to human health?

Exactly. Amazon keywords, like s’mores Pop-Tarts, are foundational. They’re essential. Without strong keyword practices, the products you sell on Amazon are irrelevant.

When you optimize a blog post, you optimize for a keyword. If it’s a list of 2018 holiday shopping statistics, you better make sure “holiday shopping statistics 2018” shows up in your URL, your page title, your meta description, and the like.

You do this to ensure that your blog post is considered relevant when somebody searches for information regarding holiday shopping statistics.

Optimizing an Amazon product listing is no different.

Amazon keywords and your product title

As you may have already intuited, the title of your product is pretty important to its success in the Amazon search results.

In fact, from a keyword perspective, it’s probably the most important part of your listing.

Think about your behavior as an Amazon consumer for a moment. When you search for a product, do you click on each result and carefully inspect the ins and outs of each product details page?

If you do, please be a responsible citizen and turn yourself in to the police.

Normal people look for shortcuts all the time. When shopping on Amazon, that means scanning product titles—often only the first part of product titles—in search of the one most relevant to the consumer’s needs.

Would you read the entire title?

Say it with me, folks: put your most important keywords in your product title, and put your very most important keywords at the beginning of your product title.

Brand name. Product type. Key Features. Size. Color. Quantity.

These are what consumers scan for. Make their lives easy.

Of course, you’re trying to appease the algorithm, too. Regardless of how you look at it, Amazon keywords are essential to your product titles.

One last thing: keep screen size in mind. Your product titles are going to look different depending on the device your prospect is using to browse Amazon. This is yet another reason to put your most crucial keywords first.

Amazon keywords and your product details

The product details page is your opportunity to outline all the best features and benefits of your product in a series of concise bullet points.

It’s also the place to use the keywords you couldn’t fit in the product title.

Product details optimization is important for a couple reasons. Primarily, this is a great chance to nudge the prospect closer to clicking “Add to Cart.” Your outstanding product title brought her here, and now your highly informative bullet points will secure the conversion.

Remember that product conversion rate has a huge influence on the order of Amazon search results. If you slack on your product details page, your bounce rate will go through the roof, and you’ll fall down the search results into ecommerce oblivion.

Why does your prospect need to buy your product right now? Why shouldn’t she get it from another seller? What makes your product unique? These are the questions you need to answer on the product details page.

You also need to optimize your product details page because A9 will index your keywords and use them to inform the ordering of the search results. The logic here is no different from the logic behind your product title—you’re using keywords that make your product relevant to the queries prospective customers are searching.

Amazon keywords and your seller account

Perhaps you’ve heard of “hidden keywords.” Maybe you’ve stumbled across something called “search terms.” Each is a reference to the keywords you’re permitted to enter at the backend of your Amazon seller account.

Via Seller Lift.

Basically, hidden keywords are your opportunity to give Amazon more information about your product—information that consumers won’t see. To draw a parallel to content creation, alt text allows you to give Google more information about an image to help with indexation.

A hidden keyword is a lot like alt text—but for a product rather than an image.

Let’s say you’re selling homemade bumper stickers that advocate for Sen. Bernie Sanders. Through your keyword research, you find that a good number of Amazon users search the query “bumper stickers for liberals.” You’ve dedicated your product title to your brand name, the materials you use, the dimensions of the stickers, and the quantity. You’d like to cash in on the searches for left-leaning automobile accessories, but you don’t have the space.

So, now what?

You enter the keyword “bumper stickers for liberals” into the backend of your seller account!

Keep in mind that—as of August 2018—you only have 250 characters for backend keywords per product. Avoid repeating information conveyed in your product title and bullet points, as doing so will only waste this highly valuable real estate.

To that same end: don’t use commas, semicolons, or any other punctuation to separate your backend keywords. This, like repeated information, is an unnecessary waste of characters.

Unnecessary punctuation makes this an example of bad practices. Via AMZDataStudio.

By reducing the character limit to 250, Amazon has indicated that it’s taking backend keywords more seriously. The company doesn’t want sellers stuffing the character fields with irrelevant information and competitors’ brand names. As such, if you master your backend keywords across your product catalogue, you can expect a considerable boost in the search rankings!

How do I conduct Amazon keyword research?

If the increasingly awesome Mission Impossible film series has taught us anything, it’s that going rogue pays off. If Ethan Hunt breaks protocol to save the world, it follows that you should break protocol to dominate Amazon, right?

Wrong. Ethan Hunt is a fictional action hero and under no circumstances should you emulate him in your pursuit of ecommerce success.

If you want to succeed on Amazon, you need to play by the book. And that means conducting keyword research.

The goal? To compile a comprehensive list of keywords for each product, thus maximizing the number of search queries that trigger your product listings and making your inventory as visible as possible in the Amazon search results.

Here’s how.

1. Target products that complement your product.

As you may have learned in an introductory economics course, complements are products that consumers frequently buy together.

To put it in Amazon terms: everything you see under “Frequently bought together” is a complement to the product displayed on the details page.

By targeting complements to your product—in the bullet points, in the product description, or in the hidden keywords—you make your product visible to people who aren’t directly looking for it and whose search behavior indicates that they may be interested.

In some cases, complements are intuitive. If you sell peanut butter, for example, you’re well aware that your prospects are also in the market for jelly, marshmallow fluff, and bread.

In other cases, however, you’ll have to do some research. Head to your competitors’ product details pages and see what customers are buying in tandem. That should give you a good idea of the complements you want to target.

2. Type into the Amazon search bar and look at the keyword suggestions.

When you begin to enter a search query, Amazon suggests products other consumers frequently search for.

This is a great tactic because it gives you a quick, free snapshot of how your prospects actually use Amazon. Yes, there are keyword research tools that give you tons of valuable, in-depth data—and we’ll get to those—but a lot of ‘em ain’t free.

After meticulously combing through the suggested queries (i.e., entering the type of product you sell followed by different letters of the alphabet), you’ll have yourself a strong list of initial keywords to build on.

3. Look at what you’re ranking for on Google.

If you sell on a website of your own in addition to Amazon, this one is unique to you.

Consumers are more likely to begin product searches on Amazon than on Google. To be precise, whereas 47 percent of online shoppers begin on Amazon, 35 percent begin on Google.

Often, you’ll hear this statistic with the implication that Google is the place where ecommerce businesses go to die. But, hold the phone…

35 percent! That’s millions of online shoppers. Millions of online shoppers are actively looking for products—including yours—on Google. When you think of it that way, incorporating Google into your keyword research strategy sounds like a no-brainer. And it is.

Use Search Console or a tool like SEMrush to see if your website is scoring page one results for any high-volume search queries. Then, target those queries as keywords across your Amazon product listings and seller account!

SEMrush’s organic search position data for nike.com.

This is a doubly effective strategy because it allows you to build brand (or product) awareness with the prospects who take a little longer to convert. Imagine this: a shopper begins on Google, lands on your website, and pokes around a bit. Then, a few days later, when he’s ready to make a purchase, he sees your product in the top Amazon results. Immediately recognizing it from that awesome site he browsed earlier in the week, he clicks on your product and converts!

Google and Amazon can work together to your advantage. Make it happen!

4. Use a keyword research tool.

As much as we like those homegrown strategies, it would be foolish to not incorporate some kind of keyword research tool into your approach.

Here at WordStream, we offer a rather handy keyword tool—completely free of charge. Use it to get an idea of how consumers search for a product like yours, how often they’re conducting these searches, and how much of a challenge it will be to stand out amongst your competitors. It’s a safe bet that keywords with high volume (and high value) on Google will be worthwhile to target on Amazon.

Google’s Keyword Planner is free to anyone with a Google Ads account. If you open your account and navigate to the tools drop-down menu, you’ll see Keyword Planner as an option. From there, you can search as many keywords as you please and see how frequently they’re searched on a monthly basis—as well as the intensity of the competition.

If you’d like to conduct research that’s specific to Amazon, Keyword Tool has an Amazon keyword planner. This keyword planner uses data from the Amazon autocomplete or search suggestion feature and generates a list of long-tail keywords to consider. Sellics also offers a free Amazon-specific tool called Sonar. With it, you can access a keyword’s monthly Amazon search volume as well as the related keywords and the relevant products. Thanks to the latter feature, Sonar is a not only a research tool, but a competitive research tool.

Go forth and succeed!

With the right Amazon keyword research strategy, you’ll make your products visible to more relevant, high-value prospects than ever before. Plus, thanks to well-optimized product titles and product details pages, you’ll turn that boosted visibility into clicks and conversions at an impressive rate.

And it’s a positive feedback loop, too. A good keyword research ethic yields higher visibility. Higher visibility and excellent product titles yield more clicks. More clicks and outstanding product details pages yield more conversions. More conversions yield higher search rankings, and on and on we go.

What are you waiting for? Get that magical loop of ecommerce success going today!

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