#id understand confusion if its VAGUE but it was very clearly a bit of a personal thing i. ughhh feels invasive | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

flightsoffandom · 4 years

Text

The Disappearing Weeks

Pairs: Gender-Neutral Reader. Left Vague, Interpret the writing however you’d like. Lestrade and Sherlock are featured alongside the Reader.

Words: 1467

Summary: Waking up in the middle of a park in London with no memory of the past two weeks calls for a Detective with special talents.

Notes: Left completely gender-neutral. Honestly, I could see this leading somewhere and me continuing it later, we shall see. I did already use this prompt for a Supernatural One-Shot, but I am wanting to challenge myself by using the same prompt with different fandoms and try to make it as unique as possible.

One-Shot based on @coffin-prompts

“Are those your pajamas?”

“Is that an insult to my style? How dare you!”

The last thing you remembered was getting off your plane at an airport in London After that, it was all blank. So waking up in the middle of a park in London was extremely jarring. You sat upright as someone was about to come up to talk to you. The man crouches down to look at you, "I'm Inspector Lestrade. Can you tell me where you're at right now?" You rub your head and look around, "Somewhere in London?" Lestrade looks at you a bit worried, "Can you tell me your name?" You nod, searching your pockets for an ID of some kind. "I'm [Your name]. I came here for a vacation." You frown when you find your pockets empty. Lestrade stands up and offers you a hand. You take it and stand up on wobbly legs. You feel dizzy right away, holding your head again. The Inspector is kind enough to help steady you. Lestrade starts questioning you again, "How did you get here?" You think hard, your brain's a bit foggy. You speak with shaky confidence, "The last thing I remember is getting off my plane… on the 3rd, I think?" You can see the visual shock on the Inspectors. Lestrade speaks growing more concerned, "That was two weeks ago. You don't recall anything else?" Lestrade starts walking you to a police car parked right outside the park. You shake your head, “No.. nothing at all.” Lestrade sits you in the back and makes you take a breathalyzer just to be sure. When it comes up clear the Inspector starts pondering something. Lestrade looks at you, “Okay… I’m going to take you to someone who should be able to help.”

For the whole car ride, you just held your head and tried to figure out what was going on. Not a whole lot was making sense. You had no identification on you. You didn’t even know where all the bags from the plane went. The car was completely silent until Lestrade parked in front of a townhouse. He stops, almost like he is preparing himself. When the Inspector steps out of the car you follow as well. Lestrade knocks on the door. A sweet-looking older woman answers the door. Lestrade greets her, “Good day, Mrs. Hudson.” She looks between you and Lestrade, “He is in a mood today I’m afraid… You’re free to try but don’t expect much from him.” Lestrade nods, understanding. You stare at Mrs. Hudson with confusion clear on your face. Mrs. Husdon motions up the stairs, “You poor dear… You look dreadful. Let me make you some tea and something to eat.” You almost protest but you realize how hungry you are and have no idea when the last time you ate was. You nod, “Thank you very much, ma’am.” Mrs. Hudson dismisses your thanks before disappearing into her flat. Lestrade leads you up the stairs. Before even reaching the door you can hear shouting, and things being thrown about. Lestrade knocks on the door and all the ruckus stops. After a long pause, Lestrade just opens the door and you follow him in. You’re greeted with the sight of a tall slender man in a suit with dark curly hair. His back is turned to you but he looks disheveled. The state of the room mirrors the noises you heard just a moment ago of things being thrown about. Furniture was overturned with papers and other miscellaneous objects scattered about. The man speaks without looking back at either of you, “What do you want?”

Lestrade speaks up, “Well I need your help.” The man turns around looking annoyed, “When don’t you? Cant, you figure this out on your own?” The man looks at you, “Drunkard… Solved… Your welcome.” You sniff your clothes trying to figure out why he would assume that about you. The man turns back around, focusing on something else. Lestrade clears his throat, “I already ran that test, they are clear. Sherlock please.” Sherlock turns around and growls, “Fine. If it will get you to shut up.” Sherlock walks right up to you, studying you. You flinch away from him a bit, unsure of what is going on. Sherlock finally speaks up, “Are those your pajamas?” You step back somewhat offended, “Is that an insult to my style? How dare you?” Sherlock narrows his eyes at you, speaking to himself. “And here I was starting to think you were mute.” Sherlock speaks to you, “No. You have been in those clothes much longer than you normally would be.” Sherlock starts pointing out things about you. “Your clothes are wrinkled. But in such a way that they wrinkled while you were wearing them for an extended period of time. You smell of grass and dirt, meaning you have just spent a long time outside probably in a park of some kind.” Sherlock looks like he has more to say but stops, “What’s the case you found so important as to interrupt up during a crucial experiment?” While Sherlock was addressing Lestrade ignoring you. You had gained enough of your bearings to stand up for yourself. “The last thing I remember was two weeks ago, getting off my plane.” You pause and look around the room, pointing to the mess. “By experiment do you mean a temper tantrum?” Sherlock makes a face that you can’t quite read. Sherlock pauses for a moment staring at you. Before turning around and flipping back over the furniture meant for sitting. Sherlock addresses Lestrade again, “Clearly they are capable of answering all my questions themselves... I have no need for you. Leave.” Lestrade shakes his head but goes to leave. The Inspector stops and hands you a card, “He can be particular but he will get you the answers you need. Contact me if you need any more help.” You nod taking the card and then Lestrade exits the room. Leaving you alone with Sherlock.

Instead of cleaning up Sherlock just pushes stuff to the side in order to make a path to the seats. Sherlock looks at you, “Don’t touch anything.” You laugh, “Now you’re making it sound like a challenge.” Sherlock narrows his eyes at you once again, like he is trying to make up his mind about you. You just sit down in one of the newly cleaned off chairs and grin at him. Right then Mrs. Hudson comes in and delivers a tray of tea and food to the table beside you, “Here you are, dear.” Sherlock assumes they are for him and reaches for it but Mrs. Hudson smacks his hand away. She glares at Sherlock, “These are for your guest. I just delivered you some tea and its not my fault you found the need to throw it across the flat instead.” Sherlock backs off but acts almost childish about it. Sherlock sits down across from you, “Client.” He corrects Mrs. Hudson without saying anything else. Mrs. Hudson looks down at you, “Just shout if you need anything.” She turns to Sherlock shaking her head, “Such a mess. And to have guests see it like this. Uncivilized.” You chuckle as Mrs. Hudson leaves the room. Once she is gone you split the food in half. Keeping one half for yourself and giving the other half to him. Sherlock seems a bit wary of the gesture but takes it anyway. You look at the food in front of you, lost in thought as you speak. “You said client but… I don’t have any money. I don’t know where any of my things went. I came to London to visit so I don’t have a place to stay or even know anyone.” You sigh and pass the tea tray off to Sherlock, not interested in it a the moment. When you hand it to him, Sherlock freezes. He stares intensely at your arm even as he takes the tray. You get a bit worried yourself so you roll up your sleeve and look at your arm. On it in ink is scribbled a bunch of what appears to you to be nonsense. Sherlock puts the tray down and grabs your hand. Sherlock slowly rotates your arm so he can see all of it. Sherlock speaks, “Don’t worry about payment...” Sherlock lets himself trail off getting distracted by examining you. He continues, “I’ll call John. Have him look you over. You'll have to stay here until he makes sure your not dying or poisoned.” A nervous ball forms in your stomach and you’re not sure what to make of anything that has happened to you. Sherlock did seem a bit eccentric, but he did seem incredibly intelligent. Also, your instincts were telling you that you could trust this very odd man. So with only a nod, you agreed to stay.

#bbc sherlock #gender netural reader #fanfiction #reader insert #sherlock holmes #sherlock #fanfic #gender neutral #short one shot #one-shot #sherlock fanfic #sherlock fanfiction

4 notes · View notes

per-ineptia-ad-astra · 6 years

Text

Episode 1.1: The Man Trap

AKA: AHHHH SALT MONSTER AHHHH

The Man Trap was the first episode of Star Trek ever aired, but it's not the pilot in the traditional sense of being made to sell the show to a network (we'll get to the actual pilots in time). Nor is it the first episode shot, which accounts for some inconsistencies that show up in episodes shot earlier but aired later, in which they hadn't figured everything out yet. Not that that accounts for all the inconsistencies. Frankly, it took them a pretty long time to figure everything out with this show. Actually I'm not sure if they ever did.

It's also not a pilot in the sense of going out of its way to set up the show and the characters and everything. Apparently, Where No Man Has Gone Before, one of the actual pilots, was considered 'too expository' to be aired first, so they dealt with that by not having any exposition at all. Just jumped right on into things. In fact, The Man Trap being the first episode was pretty much arbitrary. It won out over the other episodes they had ready to go basically because they all had some kind of strike against them, and this one didn't, and it was a pretty solid story with a cool space monster, so hey.

And it's not a bad intro. We see most of the main characters and we get a feel for their personalities and the way they bounce off one another, and while it is a monster story, it's one that gives a considerable amount of thought to the nature of the monster. But I've always thought the title of this episode was kind of odd. It's so vague. You could apply it to practically any TOS episode and it would work just as well.

Our episode begins with a captain's log telling us that the Enterprise is currently orbiting planet M-113, which you know has to be pretty far down on the list of cool planets considering it didn't even get a name. It was once home to an ancient civilization, who apparently also didn't have a name. Kirk explains that he and McCoy are beaming down, which is a bit odd considering that even as he says this we're clearly shown three people beaming down. Guess the third guy also doesn't have a name.

Kirk goes on to explain that they're here to do a routine medical examination of an archaeologist and his wife who evidently are the only people on the planet. You know, just one guy studying an entire civilization by himself, as you do. Kirk also mentions that the wife, Nancy Crater, was “that one woman in Dr. McCoy's past” which is definitely a detail that needs to be brought up in his official log.

As the three of them make their way over to the only building in the area, Kirk teases McCoy by suggesting he pick some flowers for his old girlfriend. Or, well, there's not really any flowers around, but maybe he could make do with some dead grass. McCoy fires right back.

[ID: A shot of McCoy and Kirk standing in front of a stone wall. Kirk is holding a sheaf of grass in one hand and grinning. McCoy is saying, “Is that how you get girls to like you, by bribing them?”]

They head on into the building, which is one of the old ruins that has been re-purposed as a house for the Craters, a normal archaeologist thing to do (preserving the site, what's that?). No one's around yet, so Kirk and McCoy keep chatting about Nancy for a minute. McCoy explains that he last saw Nancy ten years ago and doesn't even know if she'll remember him. Come to think of it, it's a remarkable coincidence that in all the vastness of space the two of them have managed to run into each other again like this. It's a small Federation, I guess.

Nancy enters, singing and carrying a hunk of rock, and not only does she remember McCoy, she's delighted to see him. She looks like a dark-haired young woman and McCoy remarks that she hasn't aged a day, yet when she turns to look at Kirk, he sees an older woman, or at least a woman with graying hair. McCoy finally gets around to introducing the superfluous third guy, who does have a name, it turns out (Darnell), and when Darnell looks at Nancy he sees an entirely different woman, who is not only young but blonde. Kirk asks why Darnell is staring like a deer in the headlights, and Darnell explains that Nancy looks just like someone he “left behind on Wrigley's Pleasure Planet.” Wow, open mouth, insert foot, Darnell. You could have just said, “You look like someone I know,” that would have been a perfectly acceptable thing to say to someone you just met, but no, you had to keep going, didn't you.

McCoy tells Darnell off and Kirk shoos him outside. Nancy heads off to go get Professor Crater, in the process revealing that she used to call McCoy 'Plum', which Kirk is quite clearly not going to forget anytime soon. On her way outside, she sashays past Darnell and, like the responsible crewman he is, he follows her away from the building. Uh-oh. Cut to black.

After the opening credits, we get another captain's log entry. This one is unusual in that's in the past tense, something that, despite making more sense than them being given while events are still unfolding, is not going to become the pattern. At any rate all this one does is reiterate that each of the landing party members were seeing a different woman without realizing it.

Kirk and McCoy are busy poking around Crater's things when he walks in and immediately establishes himself as a pleasant individual by grumpily telling them to go back where they came from. He also mentions that they need more salt, not in a very subtle way either. “GO AWAY WE DON'T WANT YOU HERE but leave us some salt while you're at it NOW GO AWAY.” McCoy insists that he's required to check them out anyway and Crater makes a crack about his 'arcane machinery' so surprisingly Spock isn't the first one to get that particular dig in.

Kirk tells Crater that regulations insist that all personnel on alien planets are required to have their health certified once a year by a starship surgeon, and since one of the biggest and best ships in the fleet doesn't have anything better to do than do checkups two at a time on remote planets, they're here to do that and they're not leaving until they do. Crater calms down enough to sit and let McCoy start scanning him, and is surprised to hear that they've already met Nancy. He explains this surprise by saying that he's glad she got to have some social interaction with an old friend, since while he enjoys solitude, “for a woman, you understand, of course.” Indeed, as we all know, women never enjoy solitude.

McCoy goes on to reiterate that Nancy hasn't aged a day, and Kirk gently replies that she's not quite the girl of twenty-five McCoy insists she looks like. Crater comments that McCoy is seeing Nancy through nostalgia-tinted glasses and that when he sees her again she'll be “of a more believable age” which is not a suspicious thing to say at all. Anyway, now that we've got this awkward bit of extended conversation about a woman's age out of the way, McCoy pulls out a tongue depressor and tells Crater to open up, he wants to see his tonsils.

[ID: Crater, a middle-aged white man with curly brown hair wearing a brown smock-like garment, sitting inside a rough stone dwelling as McCoy stands in front of him with a tongue depressor in his hand. The subtitles read [Screaming].

“No, I said ‘say ah,’ not ‘say AAAAHHHHHHHHH.’”

Everyone runs outside to find Nancy standing and screaming over the body of Darnell, who's laying on a rock with some weird ring-shaped markings on his mouth. Kirk immediately reaches into Darnell's mouth and pulls out a wad of plant material that Crater insists is what killed Darnell. Which Kirk has now handled with his bare hands. Nice.

Under questioning, a distraught Nancy explains that she was coming back from looking for Crater when she encountered Darnell and noticed he had a borgia plant in his hand, but before she could tell him not to be an idiot he'd already started eating it. McCoy stares at her the whole time, presumably because he's noticed that she looks considerably older now and that's pretty weird.

Kirk puts off the Craters' examinations until the next day and the landing party beams up, although not before Nancy gets over her emotional trauma by asking rather harshly if Crater requested more salt tablets. On that ominous note, we cut to the bridge of the Enterprise, where Uhura is pestering Spock. Spock responds to her flirting with total confusion (which I can emphasize with), and when asked what Vulcan looks like “on a lazy evening when the moon is full” he responds that Vulcan has no moon, a minor throwaway line that's going to result in a fair bit of continuity trouble down the road, but never mind that. All this is interrupted by the transporter room calling in to report that the landing party is coming back with one fatality. Uhura reacts to this with the surprise anyone might upon hearing that the landing party managed to get someone killed while doing a physical.

[ID: Spock and Uhura on the bridge, Spock in the command chair, Uhura paused partway through stepping up to her communications console. The intercom is saying, “They report one death.” Uhura is looking up in some surprise.

Of course, 'anyone' doesn't include Spock, who doesn't react at all, much to Uhura's consternation. She points out that for all Spock knows it could've been Kirk who died, although one would think the transporter room would have brought that up, considering he's the captain and all.

Anyway, now that we've established that Spock doesn't emote, we cut back to Sickbay (or 'Dispensary' as it's known in this episode), where McCoy is expressing confusion over this so-called 'borgia plant'. Spock calls in to report that the borgia plant is a known alkaloid poison, but there's no reference to the weird facial markings being a symptom of it. McCoy therefore insists that Darnell wasn't poisoned since there's no evidence of alkaloid poisoning in his body, and that Nancy must have been mistaken. I'd say that's backed up by the fact that, aside from the dead-looking grass everywhere, there were no plants visible anywhere near Darnell or anywhere on the surface at all, actually.

McCoy goes on to explain that he actually can't find anything wrong with Darnell at all, presumably excluding the fact that he's dead. He rambles a bit about how maybe his eyes are tricking him because Nancy looked a lot younger then he first saw her, but the potential of this being an important clue is cut off by Kirk snapping that now is not the time to be talking about McCoy's ex-girlfriend. On the one hand he's right that they've got a guy on the slab over there so this might not be the most apropos time to be mooning over your lost love, but on the other hand if someone manages to age a good twenty years in the five minutes since you last saw them it's probably worth pointing that out.

After the break, Spock is assuring Kirk that there's no mistake in their tapes about the borgia plant's properties, and that there's nothing particularly suspicious about the Craters, aside from, you know, their entire behavior. Apparently they arrived five years ago and have been making shipments of artifacts since then, except during the last year when that fell off quite a bit. McCoy interrupts by calling Kirk to Sickbay—uh, Dispensary—where he reveals that they found something during the tests—Darnell has no salt in him whatsoever, and you kind of need that to live so that's a problem. Interestingly, we get a shot of Darnell's diagnostic panel, where for some reason one of the readings is up high unlike the others.

[ID: A Sickbay diagnostic panel with all but one arrow at the bottom.]

Maybe that's the reading that measures how dead someone is.

Kirk makes the connection that here's a crewman with no salt, and both Craters made a point of mentioning how much they needed salt, and hmm, that's a bit odd isn't it. He forms a landing party with McCoy and some guys named Green and Sturgeon to go back down to pester Crater some more. Crater insists that they “can't just beam down here and bully us and interfere with our work” not realizing that that's the Enterprise's entire modus operandi. Kirk sends Green to go find Nancy and Sturgeon to go find a borgia plant for analysis, and badgers Crater about the strange salt scenario. Crater insists that they just have a normal need for salt on a hot planet, but of course it's pretty odd that he focuses on the salt so much and doesn't mention anything else they might need, like, I dunno, food, water filters, sunblock, uh...air conditioning units? I don't really know, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and presume you need more than just salt tablets to survive in a desert.

Crater shows them a ginormous chest that was once filled with salt tablets but now only has the dregs of one bottle left. Apparently they started with twenty-five pounds of the stuff, which, holy moly. That's a lot of salt. Even I think that's a lot of salt, and I am genetically predisposed for maximum saltiness.

Kirk insists that the Craters stay on the ship until they get this thing figured out. Crater protests, because of course he does. While Kirk is distracted talking to Spock, though, Crater exits through the back door, and we see him discovering Sturgeon, dead with the same rings on his face. He calls to Nancy, who is crouched over the body of Green, beckoning her with salt tablets. “Heeeeeere, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy...”

While looking for Crater, Kirk and McCoy run across Sturgeon's body. They decide they need to locate Green, which they do by just yelling for him, since apparently he didn't bring a communicator with him. We see Nancy assume Green's form before going off to meet Kirk and McCoy, leaving the real Green dead in the dirt. Since this by now clearly isn't Nancy at all, we need another name to avoid confusion. I propose Salty. Salty's going to be referred to as a shapeshifter throughout the episode (and the Netflix summary) but it's a bit unclear to me whether they actually physically change shape or just create an illusion that makes them appear to have done so. The latter seems more likely, but the distinction never really becomes relevant.

Salty-Green tells them that they (I have no idea what gender Salty is so I'm going neutral) found Sturgeon dead and were looking around to try and find what caused this. Kirk decides that they'd better head back to the Enterprise and use their scanning equipment to find the Craters. McCoy objects to leaving Nancy behind. Kirk tells him to stop thinking with his glands.

[ID: McCoy standing with a hand on Kirk's arm and an angry look on his face. Kirk is saying, “You could learn something from Mr. Spock, Doctor.”]

HOW DARE YOU

Kirk, McCoy and Salty-Green beam back up—apparently the transporter just locks onto things without making any assessment of what they actually are, because no one notices that one of these crewmen is not like the others. Kirk tells McCoy that he could use some sleep, which is a bit odd since there's no indication that it's nighttime or the end of a shift or anything, but McCoy goes to do that, Kirk goes to the bridge, and Salty-Green goes to wander creepily around the corridors.

Salty-Green soon encounters Yeoman Rand, waiting by a turbolift with a tray of food. The tray includes celery, weird space food cubes that look like Starbursts, and a salt shaker. None of that looks like it would go very well with salt, but the shaker attracts Salty's attention. They go to badger Rand, jumping in the turbolift with her as she leaves.

On the bridge, Spock is saying that their scanners are only picking up one person on the planet's surface, presumably Crater. Meanwhile, Salty-Green continues to stalk Rand, who tells them to piss off, although the creepiness of their behavior is somewhat undermined by the fact that some passing totally normal crewmen are equally creepy.

[ID: Two male crewmen, a redshirt and a blueshirt, standing in a corridor while Salty-Green looks on from the background. One of the crewmen is saying,“Yeah, how'd you like to have her as your own personal yeoman?”]

It turns out Rand is heading for the botany department, where she's bringing Sulu the tray. Why Sulu gets his own yeoman delivery service is beyond me, but whatever. He tells her “may the Great Bird of the Galaxy bless your planet” which is a weirdass way to say, “thanks for bringing me lunch” and the two have a brief bit of chatter about one of the plants in the room, an animate specimen named either Beauregard or Gertrude, depending on who you ask; I propose splitting the difference and naming it Beauregertrude. Salty-Green comes into the room and looms ominously and mutely over Sulu, apparently having left all their ability to interact with people down on M-113. Before they can make a grab for that good good sodium chloride, though, Beauregard/Gertrude starts squawking up a storm, apparently having some kind of plant sense that tells it that Salty-Green is not the real deal. Salty-Green hastily leaves the room, and Rand wonders if Green's going 'space happy', which is like regular happy but in space.

Deprived of their salt, Salty-Green goes back to wandering the corridors, until they spot Uhura coming out of a turbolift. They change shape again and go up to her, telling her that she was just thinking of someone like them, a surefire way to get a woman to trust you. Uhura is understandably skeptical about this, but warms up when the mysterious crewman starts speaking Swahili...and then promptly cools back down when he starts approaching her in a pretty intimidating way. Salty-RandomGuy backs her up against the wall and raises their hands, but thankfully Rand and Sulu come out of the room at that moment and Uhura seizes the distraction to make a break for the turbolift with them.

Meanwhile, McCoy's attempting to follow Kirk's suggestion and get some sleep, but isn't being successful, possibly because he's laying flat back against the mattress in what looks like a pretty uncomfortable position. He's also wearing a tight black t-shirt, which I think we can all appreciate. Unable to get any shut-eye, he calls up the bridge, where Kirk tells him they haven't found Nancy yet and recommends McCoy take “one of those red pills you gave me last week.” Apparently McCoy just keeps those pills in his room right next to the computer console, because he immediately picks them up and tosses the bottle around contemplatively. And bloody hell, that's a big bottle. You could get arrested for trying to buy that many pills at once.

[ID: McCoy standing inside his dimly-lit quarters, wearing a black uniform undershirt with the overshirt off, looking down at the pill bottle in his hand, which is filled with very large red pills.]

Back in the corridor, Salty has evidently given up on the subtle approach and just starts stalking a random guy. On the bridge, Spock is saying that their equipment insists there's only one person on the planet within a hundred mile radius. Kirk decides that what the hell, if there's only one person they'll go get that person, and he and Spock head off back to the planet.

Meanwhile, Salty is still wandering around when they happen across McCoy's room. They turn back to Nancy just in time for a surprised McCoy to open the door (apparently Salty can read English?). He ushers them inside, wondering why he wasn't told that Nancy was found but not questioning it too much for some reason. Salty-Nancy tells him that they like him because he has strong memories of Nancy, and when McCoy shows visible discomfort at a married woman sensually embracing him, they say that they like his feelings better than Crater's. Salty-Nancy then convinces McCoy to take some sleeping pills, since evidently he doesn't see anything weird about a woman appearing out of nowhere and encouraging him to drug himself.

Rand and Sulu are coming back from wherever they went when they stumble upon the crewman the creature was stalking earlier, now dead with the telltale rings on his face. Sulu calls for a medical team and then helpfully puts his hands all over the guy's face.

McCoy hears the alert in his room after the ad break, but Salty-Nancy convinces him that nothing's wrong and lures him off to sleep, stroking his face all the while, which is creepy. Then they go to lick their fingers, which is just gross. With the real McCoy (ha ha) now thoroughly passed out, Salty assumes his form and reports to the bridge.

Meanwhile, Kirk makes a captain's log entry stating that “armed and able-bodied crewmen are not attacked and slaughtered this easily.” Enterprise crewmen aren't killed easily? Keep telling yourself that, Kirk. He speculates that the creature has some power that lets it hypnotize people to get close to it. Salty does seem to have some kind of telepathic thrall that they use on people, but I'm not sure how far it goes—did Salty use this on McCoy to get him to take the pills, or is it nothing more than paralyzing victims long enough for Salty to get in close? Or does Salty just creep people out so much that they're stunned into submission?

At any rate, Kirk and Spock beam down to the planet to flush out Crater (why they can't just beam him up, since they've got a sensor lock on him, is not explained). They find him hiding behind a rock, still yelling about how much he doesn't want them around, only this time he has a phaser to accentuate his point. Undeterred, Kirk keeps approaching him, but is interrupted by Sulu comming in to report the death of the guy he and Rand found in the corridor. He also says the guy had the same symptoms, even though there's no reason at all for Sulu to know what symptoms the other guys had. I mean, he's been in the botany lab for most of the episode.

Spock breaks into the conversation, having found the body of the real Green. He calls Kirk over to have a look, ominously confirming that 'something' beamed up instead of Green. Kirk calls in a security alert to the ship, warning them that they have an intruder aboard, and we get a few shots of people rushing around the corridors to show how seriously everyone is taking this. Thanks to some sloppy use of stock footage, a few of them are wearing the wrong uniforms.

[ID: A shot from Where No Man Has Gone Before, showing two Enterprise crewmembers, one in a beige shirt and one in a blue shirt, walking down a corridor while the intercom says, “General quarters three, intruder alert.” Both the corridor set and the heavier turtleneck-style shirts the crewmembers are wearing are clearly from the pilot rather than the designs used in the main show.]

GET BACK IN THE PILOT

On the planet, Kirk refuses any assistance from the ship with the armed hostile and goes back to closing in on Crater. Crater blasts a nearby archway support into chunks of polystyrene to show how serious he is. Kirk tells Spock to approach with his phaser on stun, ascertaining that Crater is trying to frighten them away rather than kill them, although if that archway had been made of actual rock it probably would have killed Kirk when it came down.

We get a shot of McCoy sleeping in his chambers just to remind us that he is, then Salty-McCoy shows up on the bridge, where Rand, Uhura and Sulu are talking about Fake Green and the Fake Unnamed Crewman. Salty-McCoy nearly gives themselves away by calling the creature a creature, since no one actually knows that there is one yet, but backpedals quickly and everyone lets it go.

On the planet, Kirk and Spock are moving in on Crater. Fortunately for them, the ancient civilization really liked stacking blocks on top of other blocks, so they have plenty of cover.

[ID: A desert landscape under a reddish-brown sky with yellow grass dotting the sandy ground and a haphazard pile of crumbling stone blocks standing in the middle of the shot, with Kirk peering out from behind one of the blocks.]

Spock distracts Crater, allowing Kirk to nail him with a light stun, and they run up and take his phaser away. Kirk demands to know where Nancy is, and being stunned has apparently made Crater finally lose some of his belligerence, as he starts rambling about her being the last of her kind—or as he corrects himself, the last of its kind. He starts talking about buffalo, how there were once millions of them but now they're all gone. (This probably made more sense as a future assumption in the '60s, when bison numbers were a lot smaller than they are today—although they're still considered Near Threatened, so it's still a possibility. Never underestimate the human ability to wipe out entire species!) Crater compares the buffalo to the salt-eating creatures, of which there were apparently also once millions (how does he know that?) but now there's only one left. He confesses that the creature killed the real Nancy some time ago and has been taking her place ever since. As Kirk realizes this means the creature can definitely take on any shape, Crater keeps going, insisting that the creature has the right to survive, and that there's no difference between Salty and the extinct buffalo.

Well, there's a few, I'd say. Bison aren't telepathic, for example (as far as I know), and they don't generally murder people. They do kill people, sure—more often than you'd expect, actually; tread carefully around bison!--but unlike Salty, they don't murder. And I make that distinction because here's the thing: it's clear Salty is sapient. They're able to act like a human beyond the bounds of what could be considered simple mimicry. If they're capable of forming plans as complex as faking the method of Darnell's death, hiding Green's body, or drugging McCoy to assume his place, they're surely capable of just asking for salt. But they don't. They choose to kill people instead, and their telepathy and ability to understand memories and feelings makes it pretty darn unlikely that they don't grasp the concept of other thinking and feeling life besides themselves. So it's really hard to believe Crater's assertion that the creature is just an animal doing what they have to to survive. But then, he's not a very unbiased source.

Anyway, Kirk points out that unlike buffalo, Salty is actively attacking his crew, and he's not having that. He takes Crater back up to the ship and holds a meeting. Uhura confirms that she's looked at every crewman on the ship and the one she saw was not any of them, which is a heck of a lineup parade considering that's over four hundred people. Spock says that they've set out salt as bait all around the ship, but it's yet to attract either the creature or any nearby space deer. Salty, still masquerading as McCoy, suggests they offer the creature salt without tricks (subtle) and claims the creature is just trying to survive and has no need to attack anyone. Crater backs this up by saying the creature is not dangerous when fed. But we've seen them completely drain four people over the course of what seems to be about a day and still lurk around thirsty for more. How frikkin often do they need to be fed? No wonder these guys all went extinct.

Crater goes on to talk about how Salty's ability to shapeshift (or glamour themselves, whatever) is probably “retained...from its primitive state” but now unused, like our incisors, which were once fangs. Which, okay...one, human incisors might have changed over time, but we still use them, they don't just sit in our mouths for no reason (that's what wisdom teeth are for). And two, more to the point, it's pretty dang hard to argue that these are all primitive, vestigial abilities when the creature is actively and effectively using them to hunt prey. That's like saying that a bear's claws and teeth are retained from its primitive state. It might technically be true, but they were clearly retained for a good reason.

And honestly, this just undermines Crater's own point. He's simultaneously trying to argue that the creature is simply trying to survive, but also that those abilities are no longer necessary for them to survive. Which is it, Crater? Either the creature's a simple predator, in which case their predatory abilities are clearly not vestigial, or they've evolved past needing those abilities, in which case why are they still using them? He claims that we likewise would use our chasing muscles and teeth to survive if we had to, but that's like arguing that a modern human biting peoples' throats out and then eating them is excusable because they're just trying to survive. It's not a matter of basic survival if you have other options.

Salty-McCoy chimes in to claim that they're “an intelligent animal” but nobody's buying it. Sulu calls and reports that all the halls are clear and that they've secured all weapons on the ship, which must have taken a while. Kirk doubles down on Crater, demanding he tell them where Salty is. Crater goes off on a spiel about how much he loved Nancy, and how the creature imitates Nancy for him (creepy). He claims that they're not just an animal but an “intelligent beast” which, again, is undermining his own point (if they're intelligent why are they killing everyone). He also claims that they need love as much as they need salt, but doesn't elaborate on whatever that means. Salty clearly has some psychic abilities, and what they said to McCoy earlier implies that they're some sort of televore (yes I did just make that word up), but it's not really gone into in any depth. If they do feed on emotions as well as salt that seems like a really backwards evolutionary step, since they'd be required to kill the source of something they need to survive. Hey, maybe that's why they went extinct. Jeez, they're worse than koalas.

Kirk questions whether Crater is really just advocating for Salty because they're the last of their kind, or if he just enjoys having someone around who can imitate anyone he asks them to. Crater doesn't have much of an argument for that one. He says that he can recognize the creature in whatever shape they take, but refuses to help the crew find them. Spock chimes in to suggest they use truth serum, because apparently we've taken a hard left into Harry Potter here. Salty-McCoy leaves with Crater, ostensibly to take him to the lab to get truth'd up, with Spock accompanying them.

They don't get very far, though, because immediately afterward we see Kirk running to Sickbay—Dispensary—where Spock is being examined for a nasty cut on his forehead. He explains that he had his suspicions about Salty-McCoy, and in retrospect they indeed should have guessed it wasn't him when he got through a whole meeting without even raising his voice. At any rate, Salty-McCoy hit Spock and Crater grabbed his phaser, but Spock's okay because his blood is not human and wasn't appetizing to the creature. How fortunate that Salty evolved to be able to feed on one completely alien lifeform but not another completely alien lifeform.

Crater wasn't so lucky, though; Salty killed him (just barely off screen, and for some reason no one noticed until now) and has now scarpered off. Salty goes back to McCoy's room, where they change back into Nancy and wake him up, begging him to help them. McCoy is understandably confused to be woken up like this, but things don't get any simpler, as Kirk then enters the room with a phaser and tells McCoy that Nancy isn't Nancy, but the creature, which kills people. Keep in mind that McCoy sacked out before anyone knew there was a creature, let alone one that could change shape, so he's pretty baffled by all this.

McCoy refuses to move away from Salty-Nancy, so Kirk tries to lure Salty-Nancy out with salt tablets. This escalates into a tussle which ends with Kirk being cornered by Salty-Nancy and McCoy against the wall with Kirk's phaser. Salty-Nancy advances on Kirk and grabs him by the face, but McCoy still can't shoot, even when Spock bursts into the room (complete with glittery space bandage) and yells at him that Salty's killing the captain. But to be fair to McCoy, he just woke up. I take long enough to get out of bed even when all conditions are normal. If someone burst into my room telling me to shoot someone else I'd probably just roll over and go back to sleep.

McCoy won't give up the phaser, so Spock reverts to a classic method of sussing out shapeshifters: punching them in the face. Surprisingly, McCoy isn't convinced by Spock beating up his ex-girlfriend, but he's a bit more swayed when Salty-Nancy backhands Spock across the room. Salty goes back to advancing on Kirk, and we finally get to see their true form.

[ID: A gray-furred, gray-maned alien with a wrinkly face, heavily lidded staring eyes, and a protruding circular mouth lined with sharp teeth, standing against the gray walls of McCoy’s quarters and looking directly at the camera.]

This haunted my dreams as a child, and I have no idea how because I didn't even watch Star Trek as a child. Somewhere I must've gotten a glimpse of it, and boy howdy did it stick in my memory. McCoy evidently has a similar reaction, because he finally shoots Salty. They stumble into the corner and change back into Nancy, pleading with McCoy to stop. So McCoy has to kill what looks and sounds exactly like a woman he loves. Fun times! At least Salty goes back to their original form when they're dead, so McCoy doesn't have the corpse of his ex-girlfriend laying on his floor.

Back on the bridge, once everything's calmed down, Kirk is deep in thought. At Spock's inquiry, he says he was thinking about the buffalo. We'll get a lot of lighthearted ends to episodes over the series, but this isn't one of them. It's not too grim, but it's obvious that, whatever anyone thought about the salt monster, no one wanted it to end this way.

Kirk tells Sulu to take them out, and they leave the planet behind, presumably leaving it to get studied by someone else who's hopefully less of a jerk. For some reason, we see the Enterprise's backup camera while this is happening.

[ID: A shot of the bridge seen from just behind the two helmsmen sitting at their stations, showing the bridge viewscreen as it displays a rear view of the Enterprise nacelles as the ship pulls away from the planet.]

And so our first adventure ends. And I'm sure extinct animals will never come up in this series again.

[ID: A crude drawing of a cylindrical probe similar to the one seen in Star Trek IV, only this one has a brown mane and buffalo horns, approaching Earth and saying, “MOOOOOOOOOOO” while Earth is saying, “oh goddammit not this again” and the probe replies with another “MOOOOOOOOOOOOO.” ]

TREK TROPE TALLY: We have four crew deaths in this episode: two blueshirts (Darnell and Sturgeon), one goldshirt (Green), and one unspecified (Barnhart), all dead of salt depletion after an encounter with Salty. We also have one instance of a Doppelganger Effect, with Salty impersonating McCoy, Green, and various other people via shapeshifting or illusions or something.

I'll leave you on that note. Next time we'll be looking at a tale of unusually troubled adolescence with Charlie X.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek TOS season one #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.1. The Man Trap #1.1 The Man Trap Recap

22 notes · View notes

the-desolated-quill · 5 years

Text

Luther 5x01 - Luther blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Can you remember the last time I’ve written about this show? 24th December 2015. Feeling old yet? Back then I was lucky if my reviews got two notes. Now I can get as many as thirty. Goodness me, I’ve gone up in the world XD

If you would like to read my reviews of the previous episodes... well... I’d rather you didn’t if I’m honest because they’re not very good. I was still finding my feet as an amateur critic/blogger/moaning old fart at the time and only had a vague idea of what I was talking about. I can give you a quick summary of my views on the show. I love it for the most part. In recent years it’s become almost trendy to take the piss out of it due to its over the top villains and gratuitous violence, but that’s always been part of its charm for me. But above all, what puts Luther head and shoulders above most other crime shows for me is the title character. Writer Neil Cross has created one of the most compelling and morally complex characters I’ve ever seen and Idris Elba brings him to life expertly. As horrific and ludicrous as the crimes and plots usually are, it’s DCI John Luther that keeps me coming back for more.

Luther has always been more of a horror show than a crime drama and the first episode of Series 5 is no different. A masked killer with LED lights on his hood to confuse CCTV cameras, (which makes him look a lot like that ghost astronaut from Scooby Doo), is roaming around London, sneaking up on unsuspecting strangers and hammering nails into their bodies because that’s the only way he can achieve an orgasm. Oh yeah, and he also has a jar of eyeballs in his sex dungeon because of course he does. The villains in this show can be many things, but subtle isn’t usually one of them. At one point newcomer DS Haliday asks Luther if this kind of depravity is normal for him, which made me laugh. Any Luther fan could tell you that this is just an average Tuesday for him.

No other show can get away with this kind of grotesqueness, but in Luther it just works. It revels in how insane and weird it is. It’s not a question of whether or not it’s believable (because let’s face it, it bloody isn’t). It’s a question of whether or not it’s scary and it absolutely is. Jamie Payne’s direction really helps to up the creep factor and the concept itself is just inherently icky. By far the most terrifying scene was the killer creeping up on that woman on the top deck of the the night bus, almost panther-like. What made it scarier for me is that the scene was actually filmed near the Olympic Park in Stratford, which is close to where I live. Seeing a psycho wandering around areas you’re familiar with is disconcerting to say the least.

The episode also does a good job of piquing the audience’s interest and building intrigue. Hermione Norris is captivating to watch in her role as Dr. Vivien Lake, who claims to know who the killer is, but there’s clearly more to her than we think. Luther notices straight away this isn’t a normal patient/doctor relationship and we the viewer know from the outset there’s something not quite right about her. It goes beyond her empathising with the killer. She seems to have a degree of control over him, which makes you question whether she is playing a part in these murders, perhaps for her own sexual gratification. Even the reveal at the end that the patient was just a patsy and that her husband is the real killer doesn’t give away everything. I feel there’s a lot more to unpack here with this relationship and this character, and I can’t wait to see how it unfolds in the next three episodes.

The main cast are pretty good. Idris Elba is predictably brilliant, stepping back into the tweed coat and red tie with little effort. Dermot Crowley and Michael Smiley return as DSU Martin Schenk and Benny respectively and both are great fun to watch. Benny in particular plays a more active role this time, no longer being just the stereotypical computer guy and instead taking part in the action, helping Luther to remove a bomb collar from a hostage, which was cool. The weak link is probably DS Catherine Haliday, played by Wunmi Mosaku. She’s set up as the newcomer, being fast tracked to the Serious and Serial Crimes Unit from the public sector, but she doesn’t really have that much of a part to play. Luther barely even acknowledges her existence most of the time. There’s none of the Batman and Robin-esque camaraderie that Luther and Justin Ripley had in the first three series and she’s not as interesting as Emma Lane was in the previous series. She just... exists. Hopefully she’ll get more to do as the series go on.

Another actor who’s wasted in this episode is Patrick Malahide, returning from Series 4 as ‘old school’ gangster George Cornelius. Actually this is something of a recurring problem for Luther. The first series I remember fondly because Neil Cross kept everything simple for the most part. Each episode was about a different serial killer and how Luther was going to catch him. But from Series 2 onward, everything started to get needlessly complicated with B plots and C plots and side stories and so on. I can understand why they’re doing this. Idris Elba and Neil Cross aren’t as readily available as they used to be so when they do find the time to make more Luther episodes, they want to cram in as much material as they can to make up for the long wait by fans. I get it completely, but it comes at the cost of the narrative as a whole. Vivien and her sexually deranged husband is an interesting plot in and of itself, but we keep getting yanked away from it in order to deal with an entirely separate plot about George trying to find his kidnapped son. George isn’t a bad character, don’t get me wrong. Malahide does a great job in the role, but you can’t help but feel all of this is a bit pointless. Why should I care about this guy? He’s a cockney arsehole who tried to assassinate Alice Morgan (the most popular character in the show) for a bunch of diamonds last series. Fuck him. At least now that Alice is back, we can hopefully see her exact her revenge on him.

On the whole, a solid start to the new series with a lot of potential going forward.

#luther 5x01 #luther #idris elba #neil cross #bbc #review #spoilers

4 notes · View notes

archer3-13 · 3 years

Text

Gundam Seed Destiny Watch Notes

episode 1

- strong opening sequence both in terms of tension and emotional weight. it works because it pulls the audience away from the rather nonsensical and incoherent battle of orb into shinns immediate perspective.

- to sort of summarize its emotional impact, i feel more for shinn in that 3.5 minutes then i ever felt for kira or athrun as characters during all of seed.

- that’s hyperbole, but to get more specific consider how each character is introduced to us the audience [in the original broadcasts]:

-in gundam seed destiny, were thrust into the chaos and confusion of a battle. For those familiar with seed they’ll recognize this as the battle for orb, for those not however it’s a good immersion tool to connect us with the emotions of our focus character for the flashback shinn. Things are confusing, panicked, theres an attempt at evacuation but its clearly last minute and disorganized, battles raging and orbs on the backfoot. Shinn and his family are evacuating, civilian cloths, and well shinns the most obviously important one by value of his face hes dressed in mundane enough clothing to blend in with the earflap beanie being ridiculous enough to make him look more mundane [in my opinion]. His sister loses her retro cutting edge flip phone, and childishly refuses to go forward without it. Shes scared, shes young, everyone’s scared, and shinn in the heat of the moment runs to get it. And by shear coincidence and chance, that gets him out of the blast zone, the camera cuts leaving it ambiguous as to who fired the killing shot. It's impact is clear though, shinns beanie is thrown off his head as he struggles both in physical and emotional pain to take in the sight of his dead family and its not a pretty sight lingering long enough to atleast convey the sense of the images burning themselves in shinns head and definitely long enough to leave people uncomfortable. Shinns dad is crushed by a tree, his moms been seemingly torn apart likely by debris, shinns sister likewise has been shredded, her cut off hand having lured shinn to the gruesome sight to begin with. The battling mobile suits catch his attention, sorrow turns to rage and is swallowed by grief, and shinn torn between despair and newfound hatred simply gives up and wails in agony.

- in gundam seed we are introduced to athrun and kira through the opening theme animation in a still shot. The next time we see them in that animation athruns posing in a military powerpoint following his squad, and kiras cosmic naked with lacus on some ethereal plain. Ahtrun follows up with a confrontational still with cagalli backed by fire. Kira gets a group shot at the front of the archangel crew. Kira later still gets some random ass slightly sexual shot of a mobile suit exploding with a naked holographic lacus convulsing like shes having an orgasm as he looks on stoically, and later finally ends with a shot of kira looking up stoically as the strike goes through its launch animation.

- now, I suppose the immediate counter argument to that would be “hey, asshole, isn’t comparing an anime opening animation to a full on flashback sequence an unfair comparison? We all know anime ops are notoriously style over substance”. and my own answer to that would be “no, its not an unfair comparison because ops still tell us things through visual communication and most other anime these days and shows in general [of any quality anyways] are smart enough to lay down character groundwork before smash cutting to the theme song”.

- to go for a more grounded comparison that illustrates what I mean, lets go back to the original gundam in 79. The original gundam opened right out the gate with the theme song and op animation, no canned narration no nothing just bam, title song. Gundam seed opens with an admittedly effective shot of ginns descending down to earth as the zaft pilots steel themselves for war against the earth, which smoothly transitions into seeds canned narration about the war and how its supposedly speedy conclusion has been dragged out for 11 months. Then seed hits us with the op animation. And yet I would argue 79 has the more effective first foot by smashing immediately to the opening. Why?

- Aside from the 79 theme song itself being [arguably] superior to seeds first op song in every conceivable way, id say its communication. 79’s op is uncomplicated, simple and direct. Whats the gimmick? Giant robots, whos the hero guy? This kid whos shooting a gun and giving a thumbs up in the aircraft thing man he looks brave, supporting cast we should know? These idiots and some other robots look at em go, whats the conflict? These green guys with a prominent lead red guy they look mean, whats the heroes relation to his supporting cast? The supporting light and center of things good to know, heres a closing shot of the gundam look at it go, I hope that you got that its name is gundam. Its arguably deceptively optimistic for the shows actual content, but it works in forming an immediate emotional connection to amuro as the guy were suppose to root for which is good considering how he is in early episodes [an understandably frustrated teen, but hes very intentionally written to be aggravating at times so that immediate positive connection is good at keeping the audience grounded with him]. Its only then when we have our connection to the protagonist that we move into the brief canned narration. And certainly its not essential to introduce your protagonist first, star wars a new hope gets away with introducing luke like ten minutes into the thing. But it helps that lukes suppose to be something of a dark horse, the unexpected wrench from humble origins in the empires plan.

- by comparison we open seed with narration that takes twice as long to convey the same amount of information 0079 gets out in under a minute, and the opening itself is a lot more scattered and nonsensical, trying to convey a lot more then 0079s own opening. Whats the concept? Giant robots cool, whos the main character? Maybe these two guys, one of thems closer to the front then the other so I guess him, but also these people are probably important too? Whos are supporting cast then, this gaggle of clowns I guess but aside from the jerseys who tf knows what their relation is to maybe protagonist man? Whos the enemy? The guys in the different coloured jerseys presumably, they keep trying to blow up main protagonist man atleast so probably them? Whats the protagonists relation to the supporting cast? No fucking idea outside of being the main one of them, but hey atleast we know pink haired lady and main guy are going to probably fuck. That’s not to say no information is conveyed, athrun and kira are successfully established as a pair that parallel each other, muru and raru [the antagonist of seed] are established in a similar manner or atleast connected, as are natarale and that lady who commands the archangel ship whos name I never remember. We know who correlates with which gundam of athruns crew as they pose for mens magazine, and who pilots what in general. We know flay’s sad. But again, the problem is that its seeds first foot forward and for the most part it’s a confusing if flashy mess with only some vague generalities on the setting being conveyed through canned narration and the most important info from the opening seemingly being that kira and lacus are gonna fuck considering how much time they spend hovering around it. And even that turns out to not be the case.

- which brings me back to seed destiny and why it did the overall better job with its first foot. It brings us into shinns character first and foremost and it establishes both a lot of directions shinn could go as a character well introducing us to him at a very vulnerable moment emotionally. At the very least it conveys to us that survivors guilt and anger are going to be two big things shinn grapples with as a character, all well using pretty much only visual cues, sound cues, and minimal dialogue which better sells the intimacy of the vulnerability.

- but, I might still hear you say, its not a fair comparison anyways because your comparing apples to oranges, ops to private moments of grief. And no I say, im still being fair considering kiras ‘proper’ introduction as it were is only just… okay. We get the info that hes a computer wiz of some sorts considering the speed hes typing, its reinforced through casual mention in dialogue, we get the impression that hes worried about the war in some manner, a flashback to athrun and his friendship as kids reinforcing their status as a narrative pair, and then some suggestion of being a bit socially awkward and scatterbrained as hes pulled out of the flashback by a friend. In total all we really learn is his primary skillset as it were, a connection between the war and his friendship with athrun which is suggested by his concerns over it and the previously established narrative paring of the two, and that hes easily distracted. Its not nothing, but its certainly less narrative meat and potential then what were given with shinn if nothing else, and again its not the actual first impression we get of kira. The op is even if only sublimely.

- anyways, this was suppose to be about seed destiny. Seeds first op is alright, I privately refer to it as ‘seeds first op but better’ which it basically his. Similar pacing, similar visuals, but just cut together a bit better with a better song overlaying it [if your into that kinda rock anyways]. We get pilots and their associated machines, we get connections drawn often between trios this time such as masked man number 2, the blond guy on the Minerva and durendel. What I do rather like is that instead of just giving us a still shot however they kinda approach establishing the pilot trio of the Minerva a little more gracefully by having them in essence wave/salute in succession as they launch. More importantly for my money though is the tidbits related to shinn they throw in, shinn being pushed into the background of a similar shot from seeds op starring athrun and kira looking on the two with anger/resentment. Shinn also gets his own naked spirit scene with a girl, a blond one this time whos name I also forget but it also feels more like hes trying to comfort her instead of kiras similar scene from seeds op so I like it a little bit more then the more sexualized one kira got. Kira and shinn are also firmly set up to fight at some point with a brief clash in the op so some more interesting narrative meat especially since it hovers long enough to drive that point home then seeds more frantic cuts. Some teasing of kira and lacus, some parallel shots starring athrun, cagalli, luna and more, lacus and another more provocatively dressed lacus acting in opposite to each other… all around definitely not revolutionary but serviceable and better then seeds 1stop atleast.

- this does bring up the concern however of destiny relying on seed imagery which sets a bad precedence but I feel theres at least enough intentional subversion to serve as the narrative parallel as it were. Whether to destiny’s benefit or not is a different matter.

- canned narration time! Mercifully short thankfully and voiced by the lady who commanded the archangel I think. Uneasy peace has been established and we further tease that kira will have a role in this story somehow with him and lacus ambiguously walking on a beach under a sort of duskish sunset palette, well kira continues to look like a wet cloth and lacus continues to smile kinda creepily. Through no fault of the animators im sure.

- title and episode one is called “angry eyes”. Hopefully that will be appropriate wink wing. I never got why the plants look the way they do on a related not, like surely that’s more of a waste of space then it is economical. Its unique ill give em that much. Also cagallis here and what looks to be a passenger class jumbo space jet. Riding economy class from the looks of it for some reason.

- seriously, why doesn’t she have a private craft? Peace time and orb pacifism and all that sure, but shes an important dignitary and head of government, surely something with speed if nothing else would be better to use for political expediency? Or atleast somewhere timmy wont overhear your political planning.

- cutting to a military base destiny manages to show off both some pretty decent writing and seeds continuing problems. Visually its conveyed that the military base is in a bit of disarray as people rush to organize things and messes pop up as they clean up to look presentable for whatever ceremonies scheduled to happen. Luna and her driver get some casual back and forth that establishes their friendship, the drivers a reckless ass in his driving and luna well exasperated by it doesn’t comment suggesting familiarity with his behaviour and at least tacit acceptance of risk and danger [being more so annoyed with everyone’s panicked straightening up even]. Destiny then goes out of its way to have the driver clarify through dialogue that everyone’s cleaning up for an important visit and establish through dialogue that most of everyone is green behind the ears. Something that we already know visually for the most part and something we could have established visually as well respectively. Its not the dealbreaker by a country mile, just disappointing is all and indicative of seeds tell don’t show problem. Despite its visual language often being its best part when they actually put in the effort and have the budget for it.

- space helicopter! And the visual language continues to show its strength by having… rey [that’s his name right] not outright state his relation to durendel, but imply it visually. Rey notices the space helicopter [why do they have that in the plants?] smiles very happily, rushes over to where its landing and stands at attention in the back but in a place durandel can clearly see him. Durandel pauses in his talking about state matters to offer rey a similarly warm and affectionate smile in return. Its speaks volumes of their relation without having to say anything, and its even helped by the dialogue around it being about other things.

- speaking of, the dialogue in this instance also highlights the problem of the previous car scene a bit better. This feels more naturalistic despite essentially being exposition of a similar nature. It reminds us of blue cosmos existence, that their poking their head around and causing trouble, and in a context that makes sense and flows more naturally because its durandel talking matters of state with an advisor.

- incidentally, to kinda track durandel as a means of highlighting his ‘sudden heel turn’ into an inexplicable villain at seeds end and why it makes no sense and doesn’t gell with whats previously been established [or not if im wrong], im going to be noting durandel in particular. And in this particular instance he notes blue cosmos as ‘more of an idea then a true organization’ asking for clarification on the matter from a subordinate, well noting that well they can work on stricter enforcement of ‘the treaty’ it wont ‘eliminate terrorists’ presumably like the other party making a request of him to enforce the treaty more strictly hopes. Largely this snippet of discussion seems to be in reference to an as of yet heard request from another party incidentally, but considering cagallis presence in the jumbo jet… its almost definitely her. Putting that aside, durandels words and reactions in these few snippits so far paint the picture of a ‘pleasant sceptic’. Hes willing to try the other way but he clearly holds doubts about its success in essence.

- first shot of cagalli with background athrun! She looks sad and or constipated [hopefully that wont be a trend]. Meanwhile athruns rocking quattro four vaginas sunglasses but in a dark red.

- durandels advisor notes her as ‘orb hime’ or orbs princess as its translated in the subs. Durandels response is a brief narrowing of eyes, followed by a smile and a remark about her being an ‘awfully busy person’. Its not the most flattering opinion to hold about her obviously since the remark seems to be mostly made in jest, but its ambiguous in that moment as to why he feels irritation towards her even if its just in the ‘what a hassal/shes childish’ kind of manner the tone, remark and smile would imply. Said tone, remark and smile I would also like to note do come across as somewhat fond as well though, so its arguably not ‘I dislike you because you’re a child’ irritation but more so ‘im being patient because you’re a child’ kind of irritation.

- cagalli and athrun. Athrun makes things weird remarking about cagalli needing a dress, but he does follow it up with some decent advice about ‘not being what you aren’t’ but also how its important ‘to be take seriously’ in matters which cagalli presumably is trying to attend to. Cagalli is reluctant/begrudging about it, kinda leaning into durandels earlier implication about her being childish. Like its weird to bring up and make it about a dress but its not a bad point in general really. Also its an unofficial visit, hence the passenger ship.

- careless remarks about ‘those damn naturals’, but its used to drum up how everyones still very uneasy about the political situation and tease the Minerva. Also, random hot topic crew that athrun notes with athrun specifically noting the blond girl of the bunch.

- apparently the Minerva is going to be ‘the first warship’ to launch since the peace treaty. Cagalli notes it with some obvious frustration as well as frustrated hesitation as to why durandels proposing the meeting here. Athrun points out that cagalli was the one who wanted a low profile continuing the be the more insightful of the two.

- beauty shot and the plants colonies are way bigger then I always think they are. Which just infuriates me more because that is in essence double the profile for at best the same amount of space as a regular gundam colony.

- cagalli and durandel greet. Not much to note about the dialogue itself as its pretty box standard but durandel notably sounds more flowery and enthusiastic about it then cagalli. Also some guy in a suit is with cagalli, whos he I wonder? Durandel makes note of athrun and clearly sees right through the clark kent guise but doesn’t comment yet.

- hot topic trio strut and a shadowed shinn in an alleyway tease us as cagalli and durandel begin talking. Durandel congratulates her on her success noting his ‘envy’ of her rapid success though clearly in a facetious manner. Its not mocking, just clearly said because hes expected to be polite. Also third guy in suit, who are these people? Outside of extras destined to die and clearly identical twins. Also cagalli plays down her accomplishments as needing more to be done and durandel jumps on that to question her motives for the meeting. Noting it as a complicated issue she apparently wanted to discuss.

- cagalli doesn’t think its complicated, notes that durandels been unresponsive and vague on his end, and directly insists that durandel and zaft, and im quoting here, “stop putting to military use the technology and human resources that have come your way since the war with orb.” Athrun puts on his shocked face and durandel just smiles in response clearly being ready for this.

- now, im going for a direct quote there because I wanna put a pin on this because its so… weird in the context of cagalli herself. Narratively this is obviously suppose to sound ominous on our end, and not to mention this is very obviously suppose to be an easy statement for durandel to shoot down. But when ya get down to it, what the fuck does cagalli think shes asking here? What thought process and series of events led her to ask this question, because as shes wording it the overall implication its providing is ‘I believe your holding orb citizens hostage and forcing them to build weapons with stolen orb technology’. Cause like, if that’s what she believes and is trying to get across that’s an insane accusation to just throw out there in a private under the radar meeting like this. But if its not and shes just poorly wording her apprehensions from seed about orb building weapons then it’s a weird way to word that apprehension, and it’s a weird implication to hold that orb citizens are always under orbs jurisdiction regardless of if they decide to become citizens of another nation or not which implies they’re orbs property in a way. Is it a combination of the two, and shes worried orb citizens are building weapons based on stolen orb secrets? Whatever the case, its an odd look for her, and doesn’t help with the impression of naivety on her end.

- hot topic gang, girl [stellar that’s her name right?] admires herself in the mirror and blue hair boy asks wtf shes doing to green haired leader. Leader boy responds ‘being a happy fool’ and suggests blue boy try being a fool sometimes. It’s a quick scene but good at establishing a dynamic for the group, the pecking order as it were, and some camaraderie banter between them. Quick cut to cagalli demanding an answer, and cut back to stellar twirling and giggling like a school child lost in her own world. Cue accidental bump into shinn and accidental boob grab.

- stellar storms off upset and in a hurry, and shinns black tagalong yolant comments on shinn ‘groping her’ much to shinns flustered embarrassment. Apparently they’ve been out shopping for whatever reason. Not the best scene to ‘reintroduce’ shinn on what with the groping, but I appreciate that we get to see him in a more casual setting and cloths first. Fashion choices remain as weird as ever in ce, but again I appreciate that we see shinn acting flustered and his rapport with yolant whos more cool and casual, teasing shinn because he knows shinns gonna be flustered and uptight about it. Also shinns established to still be carrying his sisters phone alluding to ‘lingering hang ups’ to say the least.

- commercial break animation cut. These are always kinda fun in shows, but honestly im more weirded out then anything. Why is lacus in a weird translucent sexy ballgown getup all in one colour? Why a haro orchestra? Why have the commercial cut be kira and lacus when they aren’t even around for the first 8 episodes? It feels desperate to reassure the audience that kira and lacus will be returning is all.

- durandel time! Nothing too specific stands out, he praises cagallis bravery and participation in battle, praises cagallis fathers refusal to buckle under pressure, and uses that as weight for his rhetorical question about how the political situation of the world is. Actual admiration? I feel so. Athrun gets to have the shocked face upon seeing zafts newest frontline suit, the zaku warrior. On the zaku warrior note, I don’t actually hate the design itself but it does kinda feel desperate on the showrunners part to copy paste with minor alterations the zakus design for their own show. It atleast was redesigned to look like an advancement on the ginn.

- more durandel talk time intercut with hot topic infiltration time. The hot topic gangs infiltration stuff is pretty standard faire as we see they both have men on the inside already, and advance combat skills to take on armed zaft personal with just the three of them and the one other guy who kind of disappears after this. More importantly durandel and cagalli talk, or more so durandel talks at cagalli. In essence well he displays sympathy towards cagallis give peace a chance stance he correctly identifies the essential problem that such a stance of not picking fights or allowing others to pick on you requires strong force of arms or some force of political power to back up otherwise you’re a sitting duck with no bite to your bark. You know the same problem/question gundam wing obsessed over and then cleverly side stepped by having relena become queen of the earth and abolish all weapons forever. Other things to note, durandel specifically uses hime when in essence talking down to cagalli after she expresses discomfort with the title. durandel also identifies that cagalli might in truth be more so worried that the north Atlantic federation is going to use zafts use of orb personnel as excuse to call foul on the peace treaty, which he then turns around as justification for why zaft needs to build and maintain military power [also, he notes that hes not forcing orb refugees to build this stuff, their simply using their own skills to make a living for themselves]. In essence durandels position is that zaft needs to maintain military power so that they aren’t caught off guard and on the backfoot by the Atlantic federation if things do go south. A bit warhawkish of a position, but honestly a fairly reasonable one considering the north Atlantic federation has consistently expressed a desire to genocide the fuck out of the coordinators/zaft in the past. Also, cagallis only response during this is “to much power will lead to more conflict”, which is a ‘pretty sentiment’ as it were but also doesn’t entirely make sense. In the sense of, the greater military build up there is the more that conflict will arise, its an understandable sentiment but also not one that entirely plays out in reality. Durandels response is ‘there will always be conflict hence why power is necessary’ fits with the sort of sceptical side hes been highlighted as having but isn’t even the only answer you can give in that situation. Like, if you look at our modern world you could arguably say that the build up of military power to the levels its currently at has actually decreased the amount of conflict around overall, atleast in regards to war [because as war becomes more and more expensive to wage the less willing people actually are to pull that trigger and commit, the same principle behind mutually assured destruction in a way]. Or hell, WWI was horrific because of the advancement and buildup of technology sure, but its causes were more so rooted in ultranationalism and imperial gamesmanship coming to a head and causing a political breakdown of alliances and deals. Point being, cagalli has a pretty sentiment, but it doesn’t necessarily hold up to reality as it were.

- anyways, gundam jacking time by hot topic crew. We get names as well, sting for green hair, auel for blue hair, they jack the gundams [love the theme here by the way, its really good faux orchestrate violin kinda stuff with well integrated techno elements] technobabble, stellar displays kira levels of computer typing so I guess shes a computer genius now as well or maybe they all are? Whatever the case, hot topics epic gundam jack is altered by the usual dying guard pushes big red alarm button routine.

- confusion, panic, athrun jumps ontop of cagalli throwing her to the ground in a matter meant to protect her but just leaves me thinking that probably hurt, well durandels guards take the opposite approach and don’t exactly grope him but it looks a little silly how their best method to protect him in that moment is a group hug? Anyways, jacked gundams step out, we get names though no specific attachments just some guy saying “chaos, abyss, gaia?” and sting formulates the combat strategy in an effective manner directing the team to target the as yet launched suits first. Also blond girl is given a name and its stella, as auel mentions it dividing up the workload between him and her, and they proceed to star blowing shit up.

- durandel! His shocked face is weirdly adorable as he reacts in fearful surprise to information that the gundams from ‘hanger six’ have been stolen. Cagalli and athrun meanwhile look on in slack jawed shock at seeing more gundams. Speaking off, during the destruction we see some gundam gimmicks in action to wet the appetite with stellas [gaia I think] transforming into a doggo which is a ma form I love and wish we saw more often in gundam as a whole, auels [abyss I think] gundam shows off some weird wing cannon things and a fuck of chest laser, and stings [chaos I think] boring and shoots a gun but also shows off some missile compartments in his own wing things.

- luna, though I don’t think weve actually gotten her name yet, and rey though I know we haven’t gotten his name yet, make a break for some uniquely coloured zaku warriors probably intent on helping but get knocked down by the force of a blast which also impedes the zaku warriors by covering them in debris. Which shocks the both of them and clearly irritates rey.

- durandel wastes no time in taking charge the situation, calling in for backup from the Minerva and getting cagalli to be escorted to a safehouse. What is weird however is that when cagalli athrun and their escort take a wrong turn and get caught up near some of the fighting athrun pulls cagalli one way well letting the poor schmuk guard wander slowly off the other way to get caught in a blast. Only to have them take another wrong turn and have to duck and cover again. Its tense sure but a bit repetitive.

- cagalli wallows about the situation, athrun reassures her in a surprisingly tender couple of seconds, and a dinn gets cut in half and coincidentally explodes… ontop of a zaku warrior in such a way that it falls down perfectly intact in front of cagalli and athrun? Whatever the case, the invisible hand of the author practically screams at them to get in the fucking robot already through this act and its legit comical in a way. Whatever the case the two take in the destruction raging about, and athrun makes the command decision to drag cagalli off presumably to the zaku warrior.

- but before that, long launch sequence of the ‘impulse’ gundam with its yet revealed pilot. Its actually a kinda fun sequence both in animation and music, and its good for highlighting the gimmick of the impulse. Which is ripping off the victory gundams gimmick of being multiple parts that can operate independently but combine into one suit. A very toylike gimmick used by a tomino who did not give a shit, but its what were stuck with I suppose.

- cagalli continues to be three steps behind everyone as shes surprised when athrun tells her to get into the zaku warrior but im willing to cut her some slack for now and given the situation. It is annoying to have athruns impulses consistently being action, ‘I cant let you die like this’ and all that, well cagallis is frequently inaction though. What is odd is how however is how the zaku warrior opens and closes here, the hatch is clearly on the abdomen area but a protrusion on the suits chest extends out for some reason and then the protrusion retracts first before the suits hatch actually closes. It doesn’t make much sense.

- the zaku warriors up and running and stella alludes to the pilot being more so the danger then the suit itself. Regardless with the zaku warrior athruns able to put up a decent struggle, apparently the shield beam resistant, but sting interferes to very briefly put pressure on athrun before shinn interferes. That’s right, shinns very obviously the impulse pilot and we get a needlessly long assembly sequence to some cheesy heroic music as everyone watches in surprise. The suit assembles and the end credits song begins playing in the background as shinn, presumably privately, questions what the hottopic trio are doing and if they ‘want another war!’ before rushing to engage them with the ‘sword impulse’ a nice red variation of the suit with a huge double bladed sword with small beam edge in the usual seed style. Seriously it looks like the sword strikers sword doubled and were scotch tapped together its kinda funny looking. Anyways durandel gets a shot of looking on pleased at the impulses presence from a command center, as his earlier words about conflict being inevitable echo again and athrun and cagalli look on in shock. Smash to credits.

- nothing to really note about the credits, it’s a long extended shot of destroyed equipment as everyone poses dramatically. Of special note though is that it transitions from night to sunrise, with kira and lacus being the last characters in the shot looking like a married couple gazing distractedly towards the sunrise. ‘oh Charles is it not beautiful? Why yes it is emily’ they seem to say as everyone else is miserable around them. Truly the worst honeymooners, but its… definitely biased as it were thematically speaking. Also destroyed freedom gundam is I think technically the last actual thing seen in the credits.

- preview, and its some random gibberish trying to sound poetic that basically boils down to ‘we did have peace but was it only temporary because of human nature?’. Title for the next episode is ‘those who call for war’ and things end with an image of a blue impulse and the words “from the new path before you, fly, impulse!”.

#gundam #gundam seed #gundam seed destiny

0 notes

dragonasheswrites-blog · 6 years

Text

The Heaven We Didn’t Choose, Chapter 23: In Which Traumas Are Addressed

...And Sans is in A Mood.

First: Chapter 1: In Which a Child Makes a Friend

Previous: Chapter 22: In Which a Queen Babysits

Next: Chapter 24

Click here for the story overview.

The shortcut to the Monster Embassy was everything he’d feared it would be and worse. The spot he’d picked to teleport to - a small supply closet he’d hid out in a few times when tagging along with Boss - was more crowded than he remembered, and he knocked over several brooms and a bucket as he tried to find his footing. He was lucky he hadn’t broken something.

He was also lucky that the embassy was too well-trafficked to make a barrier a possibility. Trying to teleport into a barrier wasn’t something he’d ever tried, but...

...Wait.

He patted his pockets. His empty pockets, devoid of a phone. Oh, stars. He’d just gotten himself stuck outside, hadn’t he. He buried the thought deep and carefully opened the supply closet door. The hallway beyond was busier than he remembered, but no one questioned him when he slouched over to where he vaguely remembered the offices being.

It was uncomfortable being in the embassy, and not just because every bone in his body was screaming at him. It was so bright. The walls were light shades of green and blue and orange, and the ceilings were white. There was plenty of lighting, but it was already an uncommonly sunny winter day; why did they need the lights on?? The simple benches in the hallway and a common area beyond gave the area a sleek and minimalistic feel.

It was the antithesis of what the Underground had been, with its darkness and grime and entire cities built from trash. He didn’t know how to feel about that.

The office space in the embassy was a large room decorated in soft browns and greens and more potted plants than he’d ever seen in his life. Doors along the walls had names and silly decorations, leading - he guessed - to offices for the senior staff. Several rows of cubicles on the edges of the room served as desk space for humans and monsters running to and from conference rooms and copy machines. The open are in the center was like the eye of a storm: small groups had settled on the couches or were hovering near the tall bar tables, chatting in low voices or eating an early lunch.

He almost walked straight past Frisk’s office. The room he’d thought was her office - a large and ostentatious space - turned out to be a conference room; hopefully, no one noticed him poking his head in. In his embarrassment, he nearly didn’t notice a small, humble name plaque on a nearby door that read:

Frisk Dreemurr Ambassador for Monsters

That was it. No fanfare, no mention of any of the other roles and titles she held. Someone had stuck a stylized little paper angel near the doorknob, and there was a Delta Rune etched into the frosted glass, but it was surprisingly simple.

He hesitated, one hand raised to knock on the door. What if she was mad at him? Boss was always angry when Sans showed up somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. Frisk wasn’t Boss, and had gone well out of her way to help him, but he couldn’t shake the comparison.

The door opened before he made up his mind.

“Sans? Is...are you okay? How did you get up here?” She stepped aside and gestured him in, closing the door quickly behind him.

“You left your lunch.” He held out the offending package. “Your mom asked if I’d bring it to ya.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She set it on her desk, then moved it to the side so she could fiddle with some papers. Her free hand was drumming a frantic beat on the desktop. “Do you have - no, you won’t be able to teleport back to the house with the barrier up. Shoot. Shoot.”

“Everythin’ okay?”

“Yes, fine, I just have a very important meeting in a few minutes.”

The half-lie was so smooth he barely caught it.

He opened his mouth, about to say he could just go home, then realized his error. He didn’t have a home anymore. “If I can borrow your phone, I can call someone at the house-”

“You're sure you can’t teleport home?”

“Too low on magic.” Just the idea of teleporting again made him feel tired.

A ding! made her flinch and pull out her cell phone. Whatever message she’d received made the crease between her eyebrows deepen. “Sans, come with me.”

“Uh…”

“You’re dressed...fine. Okay; this’ll work. Stay with me and do exactly what I say, please. Oh; here.” She handed him a notepad and pencil. “Take notes or something; it’ll keep people from looking at you strangely.”

He wanted to protest, he really did. Being ordered around had always grated on him, even after living so long under Boss’s rule. But this was Frisk, who had saved his life and offered him sanctuary, and he couldn’t say no to her when she looked so shaken. If taking control of the situation in this little way helped her regain her equilibrium, well, he'd survive. He’d been through worse.

The pair left the office area and went down a long hallway lined with windows. Below them in the courtyard snow fell softly on the garden and the statues of a young boss monster and seven human children. The walkways and flowerbeds were barely visible, little more than lumps and dips in the thick blanket of white.

Around a corner and down another hallway was a large conference room. Frisk settled herself at the table with a motley group of other humans and monsters, gesturing Sans into one of the seats along the wall behind her. He let himself be guided, a bit confused. Sure, some of the people looked pretty strange and were wearing funny clothes, but he saw nothing that could have caused Frisk to use her powers over time itself.

On the far wall, a logo of some kind was slowly appearing on a large projector screen. A short human woman perched on a stepladder was tinkering with the setup, adjusting wires and pushing buttons on a remote she held. After a few minutes the image suddenly changed and a second conference room, this one full of human men and women in dark business suits, appeared on the screen. The remote was handed over to Frisk with a smile and a “call me if it starts making that sound again” as she was led out by one of the guards stationed at the door.

The guards were a combination of human security, easily identifiable by their uniforms, and the Royal Guards. Sans was a little disturbed to realize that he didn’t recognize any of them. Either they’d been Hotland guards or they were new recruits. Where was Undyne? Sure, she had other duties, but she tended to stick close to Frisk.

Maybe he was being paranoid.

The meeting itself was incredibly boring, at least from Sans’s perspective. The most interesting part was when Frisk started speaking a rather musical foreign language, which was pretty neat, but it also meant he couldn’t understand what was going on. Ten minutes in, and he was writing down macabre jokes in an attempt to stay awake and not embarrass her after she’d been so nice to him. The chair was supremely uncomfortable; he regretted ever worrying about the kiddo and agreeing to take her lunch to her. Time ticked on slowly like he was sinking into swamp water. There was no reason for him to be there. There was nothing-

Actually, that human across from Frisk looked suspicious. Sans tried to place him and failed completely, but something about him seemed strangely familiar. He was wearing a picture ID badge - all the visiting dignitaries were - but it was too far away for Sans to read. What he could see was the way the man was looking at Frisk. It seemed...well. There was something there he couldn’t quite trace, something a little guilty and a little possessive and a little of something else that put him on edge.

The really strange thing was that Frisk never appeared to even glance the man’s way. It was hard to tell from looking at the back of her head, but she certainly never spoke directly to him. It was a large enough group that it was excusable, and he never spoke directly to her either, but the way she tensed every time he shifted made Sans wary.

A scuffle at the door made the guards tense, but a moment later Undyne shoved her way into the room. Sans watched as she canvassed the room, did a double-take at seeing him, and softly stepped over to Frisk. She whispered something in Frisk’s ear before joining Sans in the seats along the wall.

Sitting next to a live, sparking wire would have been less stressful. She didn’t glance at him, didn’t ask why he was there or what he was doing, but he knew with absolute certainty that she was aware and curious. Undyne didn’t seem like the type to be professional about such things, but she never did conform to what was expected of her. She just sat there, arms crossed, watching Frisk with a very intense expression.

Sans wondered if she remembered the anomaly as well. Maybe she had a better idea of what was going on.

A sudden shuffling of papers marked either the end of the meeting or a break; he knew how long those things could get but hadn’t been paying attention. Frisk stood abruptly and strode towards the door, followed by a rush of aides and politicians. Undyne turned to glare at him.

“...What?” he muttered.

The glare intensified.

More from a desire to get away from the crazy fish lady than anything, he followed Frisk out the door.

If she noticed him jogging along behind her, she didn’t react. She just walked as quickly as she could towards her office without actually running. Her office door smacked him in the face but she caught it at the last moment, letting him through before closing it quietly.

For all her composure and apparent easy confidence, Sans could clearly see her hands shaking.

“You...uh, you okay?”

“Yes. Fine.”

“C’mon, give me some credit. ‘M not that out of it.”

“Everything is alright. I didn’t take you for a worrier, Sans.”

For the first time, he could see that she was deliberately baiting him. How many times had she done that, used his fickle temper against him to avoid talking about something uncomfortable? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

He swallowed his temper and gave her a lazy grin. “Wonders never cease. Was it that guy?”

“What guy?” The way she stiffened said that she knew exactly what he meant, and she was too distraught to cover her reactions properly. “There were plenty of-”

“Cut the crap. The one who sat down almost right across from you. Tall, brown hair, dark blue suit and grey tie? Ringing any bells, kiddo?”

“I...I don’t…”

There was a strange feeling of guilt as he watched her composure fail. She didn’t wail or shriek or curse, just...sat there quietly, behind her desk, her face in her hands and her shoulders slumped. Tears leaked out from between her fingers.

“Look, seriously, what’s up? Are y’in trouble? I dunno how much good it’ll do, but ‘m sure Undyne ‘n I can take ‘im out if it’s important to ya…”

Her hiccupping laugh had an edge of hysteria to it. “You don’t know how much that means to me, but...it’s a bit late now. Stars, I wish I hadn’t been so stupid.”

“Psh. ‘Ts never too late for a good bit of revenge.”

“No, no, I’d just feel guilty if I unleashed you and Undyne on him now. No matter what he...what happened. Can you hand me a Kleenex? That box right there on the edge of my desk.”

Sans found the bright cardboard box full of soft pieces of paper - Kleenexes? - and handed it over.

“Thanks.” She blew her nose and cleaned up her eyes a bit. They still looked red and puffy.

“So’s the meeting done?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. I have a bit of paperwork and some phone calls, but Undyne offered to take you back to the house. There’s no need to wait with me.”

He didn’t budge. Not only did he not know where Undyne was, he also didn’t want to relive the day yet again. He couldn’t see a clock, and he didn’t have his phone, so he couldn’t tell if this attempt had lasted longer than the previous one. Had he made a difference after all?

“Sans…”

“Dunno where Undyne is.”

“You’re being...really difficult right now.”

“I’m a difficult guy.”

“Aren’t you also a recovering guy? Didn’t your brother just try to dust you?”

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t. “I’m resting here just fine.”

“I see the way you’re holding yourself. Your legs and your ribs be killing you right now. Just go home with Undyne, get some food and take a nap.”

“There’s something weird going on here.”

“I can take care of myself!”

“You were crying.” He winced internally; it sounded like an accusation.

Instead of the anger he expected, Frisk just stared at her hands. “Why do you care?”

“I owe you. No, let me finish. You ‘n Undyne saved my life. You think I’m just gonna forget that? And...well, we haven’t always gotten along, but I’d like to think that changed a little. That we have some common ground somewhere.”

“You mean...Attie.”

“Well. Uh. Sure. I mean, you’re not half bad either when you’re not sending big boxes of peanuts to my house.”

She snorted, actually snorted, and he felt a reluctant grin tug at his mouth. Okay, in hindsight, the peanut incident had been kinda funny.

“Whatever happened to them?”

“Gave most of ‘em to Grillbz. He put them out at the bar. ‘Course Boss m-” He felt himself choke on his words for a moment and cursed himself. “Boss had me eat them breakfast, lunch ‘n dinner ‘till I proved they were ‘gone;’ he didn’t want good food to go to waste.” His grin felt strained.

“Oh. I’m sorry-”

“Pft. Don’t apologize; that ruins it. I did send you that box of live spiders first, remember? It was good ‘n proper revenge.”

She smiled a little, but it looked reluctant. “I guess it was. Those poor spiders were very unhappy after going through the postal system, I’ll have you know. We got most of them back to Muffet, but I suspect we still have one or two who decided to hang out here in the Embassy instead. Hah. Hard to believe...we didn’t get along for so long, and here we are. Funny how that works, hmm?”

“Y-yeah.”

Of course they hadn’t gotten along, he reminded himself yet again.

He’d killed her in cold blood. Many times.

He kept forgetting that with this new camaraderie.

That was the reason he couldn’t flat-out ask Frisk what had happened before she moved time back. If she didn’t remember doing it, he’d look crazy. If she did remember doing it, then that meant that she remembered how he’d tossed her around until her skull and ribs cracked, blasted her to ash, stabbed at her soft belly and delicate hands and sensitive eyes-

“Sans? Everything okay?”

Everything was not okay. He nodded anyways.

“You looked a little lost there for a minute. What happened?”

“Just...remembering. Something bad. Sorry.”

“Oh, don’t apologize. I’m...well, you saw. I’m hardly one to judge.” She took a deep breath, folding and unfolding the Kleenex in her hands with steady movements. “I knew that man. The one who sat across from me. He...he hurt me, very badly, and due to the circumstances he was never brought to justice. I didn’t realize he’d been invited to a meeting with the Japanese ambassador, of all people. I usually have warnings about these things, but today…” She shrugged.

Sans didn’t know what to say. Why was she telling him this? Was this supposed to make him feel better?

“But...yeah, that’s why I rushed out of there. I told them that I had a conference call. I may have lied a little. In Japanese. So you didn’t find out.”

He stared at her for a moment, then burst into helpless laughter. “Y’didn’t want me to find out? Who the hell would I tell? I don’t know those big-ass politician types!”

“I didn’t want you to call me out on it, okay? Tact hasn’t...always been something you’re great at. I mean-”

“Heh. You’re right.” It was weird, watching her try to justify her criticisms. He knew very well that he wasn’t tactful. He had no reason to be. He could dance around subjects that made him uncomfortable, but he didn’t care much about how it affected others. It was something he’d probably have to work on, now. “So. You gonna tell me who that guy was?”

She eyed him warily. “Why? What are you going to do?”

“Invite him out for tea and cookies.”

“Hah. Nope. There’s no way in hell I’m going to sic you on him.”

“Alright, then, just tell me who he is.”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“Because you’d go after him on your own, and probably rope Undyne into it. And it would be a huge international incident and I’d have weeks of paperwork just to keep you from being tried in the human court system.”

“And Undyne wouldn’t be?”

Frisk shrugged. “She’s Captain of the Royal Guard. Leaders of the Guard still have immunity from prosecution when executing their duties, just like they did Underground. Of course, it would still look bad, so don’t get any ideas.”

“Drat.” The immunity thing was one reason why the Guard had been so distrusted Underground: they were a law unto themselves, as long as they didn’t cross Asgore. Of course, when Undyne had killed the former captain and assumed command of the Guard, she’d put that loophole to good use cleaning up both their ranks and the Underground in general. It helped that she had trained under Asgore himself for a time; vindictive as the king was, he had enough of a soft spot for her that he didn’t give into the cries for vengeance from his people. He didn’t protect her from assassination attempts, but he didn’t hand her over to the crowds, either. “This guy is important, then? If it would cause a big incident?”

“Yes.”

“And...he’s Japanese? He didn’t look like the other Japanese people. Actually, he looked familiar...”

“No. Fine. He’s a lobbyist.”

Sans vaguely remembered the term from when he was sitting in on meetings early on in their negotiations, when they were trying to find an arrangement that would let them out of the Underground, but the definition escaped him. “That’s...too bad?”

She smiled. “It means he works for a group of people who all want the same thing...at least in theory. Workers’ unions have powerful lobbies, for example: teachers, policemen, firefighters, actors, railroad workers, airline pilots: they all have large memberships and can carry some serious political weight. There are also lobbyists for companies, like pharmaceutical companies and banks and telecommunications providers, and special interest groups like members of a certain race or religion or people who want something in particular. Part of what makes these groups so powerful is that they’re hired, not elected; politicians change, but lobbyists stick around.

“That man was working for a civil rights lobby when I...met him. You probably saw him, too, in the meetings you sat in on when we were first trying to gain citizenship. He wasn’t terribly outspoken, but he wielded a lot of power. He was here on behalf of a group of energy companies today. I’m not sure who invited him, but he speaks enough Japanese that I couldn’t reasonably call his presence into question.”

“That’s...wait. “Civil rights;” that’s what humans call the whole issue of treating certain people in certain ways, right?”

“Well...that’s not quite how they’d put it, but I guess that's a fair enough assessment.”

“Then he was fighting against monsters having rights?”

Frisk sunk down in her chair a little. “No, Sans. He was fighting for monster rights. He was on our side.”

“Oh.” Even on the surface, things were so awfully messy. “I guess that’s what you meant by “circumstances,” then.”

“Partly. If I’d said something, he could have turned it on us and made us look bad. There were civil rights groups on both sides, you know; some saw us as an infringement on their “turf,” as it were. Everything in the civil rights world is comparative: the biggest victims win. A lot of them helped make changes for the better when they started out - and many still do - but the political side is a competition for eyes and ears and money. And how do you beat being buried under a mountain and left to rot for millennia? There were many powerful people who didn’t want us up here. It was partly thanks to this man’s intervention that we won, despite...well.”

“Despite what?”

“Please...don’t ask.” She looked like she was almost about to cry again. “I just...I can’t do this today. There’s a reason I haven’t told people. Please, just let it go.”

Naturally, this made every bone in Sans’s body want to dig deeper, but he nodded instead. He could find out in other ways.

Once he was feeling better, maybe. He shifted and winced; he'd been able to ignore it in the heat of the moment, but he was still very, very sore.

“Alright, that's enough. Let’s go find Undyne and get you home.”

“Yyyyup, okay.”

Undyne’s grin was sharp when she was told that Sans would be taking her up on her offer. She looked vindictive. The driving wasn’t nearly as smooth as it had been the last time he rode with her; he was pretty sure he had some new bruises on his ribs in the shape of the car door handle.

“What’s eating you?” he asked when they were stopped at a red light. “Didn’t get your coffee?”

“No,” she growled. “I mean...that’s not it. You saw that asshole, right?”

“I’m pretty sure I saw no butts-”

“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!”

A soccer mom in the van next to them glanced over, worried.

“Heh, fine. Which asshole?”

“The one sitting across from Frisk at the meeting, in the blue suit.”

“Yeah.”

“Whaddaya know about him?”

Well that was a pickle. Had Frisk meant her explanation to be private? Undyne was, famously, her bestie; did Undyne know? “Frisk...said he was a lobbyist. Something to do with energy.”

“Hmph. Just like her to leave out the important bits so she doesn’t worry anyone.” The light turned and she looked back at the road, nimbly navigating around the soccer mom. “Listen up, punk. The only reason I’m telling you this is because Frisk likes you now, and you haven’t gone after her. If that changes I’m gonna have to dust you, but I’m not gonna spit in an ally’s face.

“So if you’re gonna be part of this friendship group thing, this is what you need to know. That guy hurt her. Bad. Don’t know why or how, but I have my guesses.” Another red light allowed her to look over at him with an intense eye. “Don’t you ever allow her to be alone with him, do you hear me?”

“‘Kay.”

“Stars-damnit, Sans, this is serious-”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Don’t let her be alone with the asshole.”

“Good. Do you remember what he looks like?”

“Uuuuhh…”

“Tch. Here.” She unlocked her phone one-handed, pulled up a picture, and tossed it to him. “Memorize that face. When your weak ass is healed up I’ll get you back in close quarters with him so you can get a good feel for him, too.”

It amused him that she was treating his ability to detect differences in magic like the dogs’ ability to pick up a scent trail. He didn’t say so - she’d probably get mad and crash the car - but it was still funny.

“What’re you grinning for?”

“I’m a skeleton. I can’t not grin.”

“You know what I mean!!”

“Car.”

“What-oh. Don’t tell me how to drive, asshole!” She swerved around the slow car all the same, barely missing its rear bumper. “You’re in a mood today, aren’t you. Bastard.”

He hummed in agreement. “I’ll keep an eye out for this guy, though.”

“Good. You followed Frisk to her office, right?”

“...Yeah?”

Undyne took a deep breath. “Don’t be a fishstick about this, but...did she cry?”

He considered giving her a hard time for a brief moment, then relented. “Yeah. Yeah, she did.”

“Hah. No wonder you’re so on-board; you never could put up with tears for long.”

“Hey!”

“It’s true. So many little shits from Snowdin owe you their lives. Any proper sentry would’ve dusted them for breaking the law, but no, not you; they bawled their eyes out about how much their home life sucks, and you just growled something nasty and patted them on the head and sent them to Grillby’s. And he would make them wash dishes and give them food.”

“They were kids, Undyne.”

“They were teenagers and plenty old enough to know not to paint obscene messages on the town bulletin board. At the very least, a night cooling their heels in lockup would’ve done a few of them some good.”

“Hey, I stopped them when I saw them.”

“Yeah, and how often was that? Once a month? I swear, you spent more time sleeping on that job than you did actually working. At least you’re better at keeping an eye on things now, right?”

“Uh, right.”

“Sans…”

“I caught those kids going up the mountain a few weeks back, didn’t I?”

She sighed. “Yeah, I guess you did. But that doesn’t give you an excuse to start slacking off again! When you’re back in business, of course.”

He relaxed against the back of the seat as they pulled in the driveway. Undyne reached over and put two fingers on his skull to bring him through the wards, then cackled when he brushed her hand away. “How long’ll it be ‘till I’m back in business, then, doc? It’s not like injuries stopped us from working before. It’s all sitting, mostly.”

“Yeah, but we don’t want your dear baby brother finding you at work; anything he’d do would be “on duty” technically, and he is your - ugh! - "boss." Nope, you’re staying here with Frisk until your emancipation goes through, then we’re finding you another place.”

There were worse things, he decided. Even if the couch was a bit lumpy.

#Dragonashes writes #Undertale #Underfell #The Heaven We Didn't Choose #Sans #Frisk #Undyne #Blue Suit Man #Bonding over trauma #Implied past trauma #Sans really needs to sit down and recover #All this teleporting around can't be good for him #Frisk has had unhappy things happen in the past #She is also a cynical little pumpkin regarding politics #Dealing with politicians on a regular basis would do that to anyone #Bestie Undyne is best Undyne #She protec #But also threaten new friend with attac

6 notes · View notes

mirajens · 7 years

Text

man with the elsa bag

paring: jellal/erza (feat. wendy, mirajane and natsu) rating: t chapter 6 of the rockabye series part one of CHRONICLES OF THAT HOT DAD WHO DRIVES A JEEP AND WEARS GLITTERY BACKPACKS for @erzadragonborn found on ff.n

There were cars that looked irresponsible on first sight. Erza didn't know a lot about cars, but she knew how she felt about the look of this one. A big, black Jeep didn't look like it should be strolling up to the driveway of her school where its tall and wide bumper could very well run over some defenseless kids brimming with nervous energy—the kind of energy that made them think it was a good idea to just step in front of moving vehicles, if her seven year experience in an educational environment taught her anything.

But that was probably just her. The Jeep was probably okay. Probably. She drove a Ford Focus, which was about as dangerous as throwing a box of tampons down the freeway. She didn't know about dangerous cars.

She was in the faculty room, catching up with her teacher friends after the summer break. Still ill at rest, Erza continued to spy at the car from the conveniently placed window overlooking the front most entrance of the school. She watched the car park, watched the lights blink a couple of times, then foolishly waited on baited breath to see the face of someone who would bring a monster like that to a place crawling with susceptible hit and run victims.

She felt even more foolish for having her breath taken away by the man who jumped down from the driver's seat and sprint to the right rear door. Erza didn't like to overreact but he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. Weird-looking, but a sexy kind of weird.

"Mira, come here," Erza hissed out to her friend, the maths teacher, Mirajane Strauss. Mira liked to stick her nose where it didn't belong and Erza might loathe it on normal days but times like this, times when she needed another person to objectify someone with to feel validated, were when Mira was truly irreplaceable as a friend.

Mirajane ducked so she could see out of the window Erza looked from, her hair swinging over Erza's shoulder.

"Oh, my…" Mirajane said.

Erza grinned. She felt the exact same way. "Dibs."

"Fuck," Mirajane rolled her eyes. "You can't dibs on a dad. He might be married."

"Then, viewing dibs."

"All Dibs expire if you don't jump on that by the end of the year, though. Then, it's fair game."

"You're married." Erza felt the need to remind Mirajane.

"Right. Nothing in my vows prevents me from window shopping."

They fell silent, religiously watching the man grab an Elsa backpack and swing it over his shoulder before swiftly unbuckling the pastel yellow child seat and scooping up a small girl with shoulder-length blue hair that matched his shade.

Mirajane whistled lowly. "Man, oh, man. I get my rocks off watching men who know how to work a car seat. Laxus has sausage fingers and takes a while to get it together."

Erza hummed. She wished Mirajane wouldn't speak. It kind of ruined the whole cinematic experience.

"What's going on here?" Natsu, the guidance counselor, joined the window gallery.

"There is a beautiful man holding his beautiful child and we're treating him like a piece of meat. And Principal Scarlet wants to take him home and make a snack out of him." Mirajane answered.

Erza didn't answer because she didn't like lying or incriminating herself.

Curious now, Natsu bent to see what they were looking at.

Now the three of them watched the man place his daughter on his shoulders, smiling when she laughed in delight as they climbed the steep stairs leading to the entrance of Pre-K, just next door. Just shy of the door, the girl tugged on her father's hair and started wailing.

First day jitters, Erza thought, and felt her heart bleed for it.

"Shit. Poor kid. Now I'm invested." Natsu grabbed Mirajane's swivel chair and sat.

They watched the man put his daughter on his lap and talk to her in a calming manner. Around them, other parents and children buzzed about, some dealing with their excitement gracefully, the others facing similar breakdowns.

"That is the cutest thing I've ever seen," Mira remarked. "Why are normal events better when someone involved is hot?"

"Poor kid," Natsu reiterated. "I remember making my dad chase me two blocks because I tried to run home on my first day."

"Hey, both of you, shut up. I'm trying to enjoy this." Erza shoved at Natsu without taking her eyes off the father and child. "Go away. Get ready for the opening ceremony."

Natsu rose, leaving her area to loiter around Lucy's desk instead.

Mirajane stood. "How about you go find out if it's just viewing dibs or dibs dibs." When Erza only looked confused, Mirajane rolled her eyes. "Find out if he's married or if you can indeed make a snack out of him."

Right, Erza thought. She didn't plan on waiting long. She checked her wrist piece and saw she had a couple of hours until the opening ceremony, which was after the children met their class advisers. Like one of the foolish children she governed, she sprinted to the Pre-K area.

She saw the man with his daughter, and as she approached, checked to see if her ID was clipped to her breast pocket like it always was.

Up close, she could see the girl was red in the face and near choking on her sobs. "I wanna go home!" she kept saying over her father's careful reassurances.

"Hi there!" Erza chirped in her teacher chirp as she crouched down to be eye level with the girl. "I'm Ms. Scarlet. I like your bag."

The girl clutched the bag on her lap, trembling slightly and visibly exhausted from her tantrum. When she didn't speak, her father took her small hand and waved it. "Hey, what do you do when someone introduces themselves to you?"

The little girl looked up at her father. "Run and find the police?"

The man blinked, his eyes so beautiful it sent a pang through Erza's heart. He had a tattoo on the side of his face and it was just perfect to go along with everything else perfect about him.

He laughed, so clear and infectious that Erza joined in.

"No, silly, you introduce yourself, too."

"I'm the principal here," Erza volunteered. "You can trust me."

The man nudged his daughter again.

"My name is Wendy Fernandes. I have a card in my bag because I can't spell my last name yet or remember daddy's cellphone number. I give it to adults when I'm lost."

The man grinned proudly and laid a hand on top of his daughter's head. "It's her first day. She's never been away from me."

Erza nodded. "We understand. We allow parents to stay around and get a feel of the environment their children will be staying at."

"Oh, it's just me." He gestured with a ring-less left hand. Erza had a brief moment to think, SCORE. Then, felt bad for thinking so.

She looked at Wendy and gave her a dimpled smile. "Your dad can stay with you for a while, but you know, I'm sure that as soon as you get inside, you're going to make friends and play lots. We have a very cool playground and lots of toys inside."

"See? That sounds fun, right?" The man asked his daughter. Wendy frowned and clutched at his tear-stained shirt.

He shrugged at Erza.

"It's totally understandable. If you guys like, you can go inside and have a look around. The Early Education wing encourages exploration as long as she's in her class room before assembly with their teachers."

He began to stand, carrying Wendy and her backpack with ease. He was delightfully tall. Erza hoped she wasn't salivating. "Cool. I think we'll do just that, won't we, Wendy?"

The little girl pressed her face into her dad's collar. He grinned in a what can you do way. He extended his hand and Erza shook it automatically. "Jellal Fernandes. Thanks for seeing us, Ms Scarlet. We're gonna go have a look around now."

"No problem. Please call my office any time you have concerns. I have an open door policy." To Wendy, she said, "I hope to see you in the opening ceremony, Wendy. Bye, for now."

She waved as the Fernandeses entered Pre-K.

Just barely inside the main building, Mirajane accosted Erza.

"So?"

Erza grinned. "It's a dibs dibs. And he has a facial tattoo. It was sexy."

"I can't believe you actually ran to him to check, and in three inch heels." Mirajane smirked, clearly having seen the whole thing from her strategically placed desk. "You thirsty bitch. You're my hero. Did you get his number?"

Erza rolled her eyes and pushed past Mirajane. "In front of his crying daughter? No, it didn't come up."

"You're hopeless! Not my hero, after all."

"I told him to call if he needed anything," Erza said.

"Really? What exactly did you say?" Mirajane knew that Erza had a very vague way to her when she was faced with someone she liked. Her thoughts never translated to a clear message. It was always too subtle to mean anything.

"I said, "call my office if you have any concerns." And that I had an open door policy. Parents love hearing that."

Mira shook her head. "Hopeless. You should have said, "Call me." Period. And then, "I have an open legs policy just for you." Come on, Erza. You suck at this so bad."

Erza blushed. Mirajane had such a mouth on her sometimes. She wondered if that was how she got the infamous Laxus Dreyar, master of sleeping around, to settle down with her. "I'm the PRINCIPAL. I can't say stuff like that."

"If you wanna be the principal with a sex life, you gotta step it up." Mirajane shrugged. "First bell's in ten. Wear that burgundy lipstick for the opening ceremony, okay?"

Erza watched Mirajane walk away, half irritated, half amused. She was still a bit mortified by Mirajane's words. Thank God none of the children were loitering this part of the building.

Shaking her head, she walked back to her office, intent to change her lipstick.

#jerza #Jellal Fernandes #erza scarlet #wendy marvell #Mirajane Strauss #natsu dragneel #single parent au #rockabye series #cothdwdajawgb

22 notes · View notes

forlawfirmsonlymarketing · 4 years

Text

The Ultimate Guide for an SEO-Friendly URL Structure via @clarkboyd

First impressions count. And when it comes to your website, your URLs are often the first thing Google and customers will see. URLs are also the building blocks of an effective site hierarchy, passing equity through your domain and directing users to their desired destinations. They can be tricky to correct if you don’t plan ahead, as you can end up with endless redirect loops. Neither Google nor your site visitors will appreciate those. So they are worth getting right. But getting URL structure right involves a complex blend of usability and accessibility factors, along with some good old-fashioned SEO. Although there is no one-size-fits-all approach, there are some rules we can all follow to get the most out of our URLs and set our sites up for future SEO success.

1. Use Your Keywords

Every time you launch a page on your domain, it should have a purpose. Whether transactional, informational, or administrative, its reason for existence should be clear at the outset. You’ll want this page to be discovered by the right people (and crawlers), so you will incorporate some keyword research and include the relevant terms. The most descriptive of these — the term that gets to the nub of what this page is about — should be included in the URL, close to the root domain. We’ll deal with multiple pages that broadly tackle the same topic later, but for now, let’s assume the simple example of a page that clearly handles one topic. Let’s go for whiskey. Generic example: https://example.com/topic Whiskey-based example: https://example.com/whiskey Even this isn’t quite as simple as it seems, though. Should we use “whiskey” or “whisky” as our standard spelling? Both are valid, with the former being an Irish spelling and the latter Scottish. The Irish spelling has been adopted in the U.S., but we’ll need more proof before proceeding with that as our chosen variation. The Moz Keyword Explorer is great for this sort of predicament, as it groups keywords together to give an estimate of the search volume for particular topics. In this era of vague keyword-level search volumes, it provides a nice solution. The search volume is with “whiskey” and our site is based in the U.S., so let’s run with that.

2. Build a Sound Structure for the Future

Perhaps the biggest challenge we all face when defining a sitewide URL hierarchy is ensuring that it will still fit our purpose for years to come. It is for this reason that some websites end up as a patchwork quilt of sub-domains and conflicting paths to arrive at similar products. This is poor from a user’s perspective, but it also sends confusing signals to Google about how you categorize your product offering. An example of this would be: https://example.com/whiskey/irish-whiskey/jameson https://example.com/bushmills The first URL flows logically from domain to category to sub-category to product. The second URL goes from domain to product. Hierarchically, both products should sit at the same level in the site and the Jameson example is better for SEO and users. We encounter this a lot, though. Why? It can be a simple lack of communication, with a product team launching a new item straight onto the site without consulting other parties. It can also be down to a failure of future planning. Either way, it’s essential to lay out your structure in advance. Work together with different teams to understand the future direction of the business, then add your SEO knowledge to shape the site architecture. It will rarely be perfect, but the more you plan, the fewer errors you will have to undo down the line.

3. Avoid Superfluous Words & Characters

As a rule of thumb, make sure a user can understand what your page is about by looking at the URL. That means you don’t need to include every single preposition or conjunction. Words like “and” or “the” are just distractions and can be stripped out of the URL altogether. Just as users can understand what a topic is about without these short words, Google will derive all the meaning it requires too. You should also avoid keyword repetition within URLs. Adding the same keyword multiple times in the hope of increasing your ranking chances will only lead to a spammy URL structure. An example of this unnecessary repetition would be: https://domain.com/whiskey/irish-whiskey/jameson-irish-whiskey/jameson-irish-whiskey-history The first two uses of the main keyword make sense, but the third and fourth are overkill. A few additional points to bear in mind on this topic:

Case Sensitivity: It is surprisingly common to find multiple versions of the same URL, with one all in lower case and the others using occasional capital letters. Use canonical tags to mark the lower-case URL as the preferred version or, if possible, use permanent redirects.

Hashes: These can be useful to send users to a specific section of a page, but restrict their use in other circumstances if possible. If the content users are sent to after the # symbol is unique, make it available via a simple URL instead.

Word Delimiters: Stick with hyphens to separate words within your URL strings. Underscores will serve to join two words together, so be wary of using these.

URL Length: After 512 pixels, Google will truncate your URL in search results pages. A good rule of thumb is to keep y0ur URLs as short as you can, without losing their general meaning.

4. Minimize Dynamic URL Strings

This one can be harder than it sounds, depending on the content management system you use. Some e-commerce platforms will automatically spit out character strings that leave you with URLs like: https://domain.com/cat/?cid=7078. These are a bit unsightly and they also go against the rules we’ve been outlining above. We want static URLs that include a logical folder structure and descriptive keywords. Although search engines have no problem crawling or indexing either variant, for SEO-based reasons it’s better to use static URLs rather than dynamic ones. The thing is, static URLs contain your keywords and are more user-friendly since one can figure out what the page is about just by looking at the static URL’s name. So how do we get around this? You can use rewrite rules if your web server runs Apache, and some tools like this one from Generate It are helpful. There are different fixes for different platforms (some more complex than others). Some web developers make use of relative URLs, too. The problem with relative URLs for SEO is that they are dependent on the context in which they occur. Once the context changes, the URL may not work. For SEO, it’s better to use absolute URLs instead of relative ones, since the former are what search engines prefer. Now, sometimes different parameters can be added to the URL for analytics tracking or other reasons (such as sid, utm, etc.) To make sure that these parameters don’t make the number of URLs with duplicate content grow over the top, you can do either of the following:

Ask Google to disregard certain URL parameters in Google Search Console in Configuration > URL Parameters.

See if your content management system allows you to solidify URLs with additional parameters with their shorter counterparts.

5. Consolidate the Different Versions of Your Site

As a rule, there are two major versions of your domain indexed in search engines: the www and the non-www version of it. We can add to this the complexity of having a secure (https) and non-secure (HTTP) version too, with Google giving preference to the former. Most SEOs use the 301 redirect to point one version of their site to the other (or vice versa). This tells search engines that a particular URL has moved permanently to another destination. Alternatively (for instance, when you can’t do a redirect), you can specify your preferred version in Google Search Console in Configuration > Settings > Preferred Domain. However, this has certain drawbacks:

This takes care of Google only.

This option is restricted to root domains only. If you have an example.wordpress.com site, this method is not for you.

But why worry about the www vs non-www issue in the first place? The thing is, some of your backlinks may be pointing to your www version, while some could be going to the non-www version. To ensure all versions’ SEO value is consolidated, it’s better to explicitly establish this link between them. You can do this via the 301 redirect, in Google Search Console, or by using a canonical tag, the latter of which we will look at in more detail below.

6. Make Correct Use of Canonical Tags

So, canonical tags. These are a very helpful piece of code when you have multiple versions of what is essentially the same page. By adding a canonical tag, you can tell Google which one is your preferred version. Note: The canonical tag should be applied only with the purpose of helping search engines decide on your canonical URL. For redirection of site pages, use redirects. And, for paginated content, it makes sense to employ rel=”next” and rel=”prev” tags in most cases. Canonical tags are useful for just about any website, but they are particularly powerful for online retailers. For example, on Macy’s website, I can go to the Quilts & Bedspreads page directly by using the URL (https://www.macys.com/shop/bed-bath/quilts-bedspreads), or I can take different routes from the homepage:

I can go to Homepage >> Bed& Bath >> Quilts & Bedspreads. The following URL with my path recorded is generated:

https://www.macys.com/shop/bed-bath/quilts-bedspreads?id=22748&edge=hybrid

Or I can go to Homepage >> For the Home >> Bed & Bath >> Bedding >> Quilts & Bedspreads. The following URL is generated:

https://www.macys.com/shop/bed-bath/quilts-bedspreads?id=22748&cm_sp=us_hdr-_-bed-%26-bath-_-22748_quilts-%26-bedspreads_COL1 Now, all three URLs lead to the same content. And if you look into the code of each page, you’ll see the following tag in the head element: As you see, for each of these URLs, a canonical URL is specified, which is the cleanest version of all the URLs in the group: https://www.macys.com/shop/bed-bath/quilts-bedspreads?id=22748 What this does is, it funnels down the SEO value each of these three URLs might have to one single URL that should be displayed in the search results (the canonical URL). Normally search engines do a pretty good job identifying canonical URLs themselves, but, as Susan Moskwa once wrote at Google Webmaster Central:

“If we aren’t able to detect all the duplicates of a particular page, we won’t be able to consolidate all of their properties. This may dilute the strength of that content’s ranking signals by splitting them across multiple URLs.”

7. Incorporate Topical Authority

In Google’s own Search Quality Evaluators Guidelines (a must-read document for all SEOs!), there are clear references to both main content and supplementary content. Main content will be your lead page in each section that really sets out what your category is all about. It will set out your stall as a relevant source for a topic. Supplementary content provides, as the name suggests, additional information that helps users navigate the topic and reach informed decisions. URL structure is an essential component of getting this right. So, let’s go back to our whiskey example to see how we might tackle this. Our site is e-commerce focused and we want to sell the product, of course. However, going for the jugular and only pushing out product pages is tantamount to SEO tunnel vision. Our initial research from Moz Keyword Explorer is a great resource as we make these plans. Below, I have exported the keyword list and reduced it to the highest-volume topics. From here, we can start to decide what might qualify as a topic for a main content or supplementary content page. This is a simplified example and just a first step, of course. However, it is worth noting that this approach goes further than just category > sub-category > product. By thinking in terms of main content and supplementary content, a product is just as likely to qualify as main content as a category is. The question is more about which topics consumers want us to elaborate on to help them make choices. From here, we can dig into some of these topics and start to flesh out what each hub might look like. Some clear opportunities already stand out to create content and rank via rich snippets. People want to know how whiskey is made, what different varieties exist, and of course, whether it’s spelled ‘whiskey’ or ‘whisky’. This could be the beginning of a business case to create a whiskey tasting guide or a ‘history of whiskey’ content hub on the site. Combined with ranking difficulty metrics, business priorities, and content production capabilities, this approach will soon take shape as a site hierarchy and opportunity analysis. For our whiskey example, it might start to comprise the following structure: https://domain.com/whiskey/whiskey-tasting-guide https://domain.com/whiskey/whiskey-tasting-guide/how-to-taste-whiskey https://domain.com/whiskey/whiskey-tasting-guide/how-is-whiskey-made https://domain.com/whiskey/whiskey-tasting-guide/barley-whiskey Again, there are decisions to make. In the last URL, one could argue that the tasting guide page for barley whiskey should sit under the barley whiskey sub-category page in the site hierarchy. Barley whiskey has been earmarked as ‘main content’ in my spreadsheet, after all. The choice here comes down to where we want to consolidate value; dispersing that value would reduce our chances of ranking for any ‘tasting guide’ terms. These are exactly the kinds of decisions that can lead to a confused structure if a consistent logic is not followed. All of this will contribute to your topical authority and increase site visibility. This type of content often already exists on site, too. I am not claiming anything revolutionary by saying a website should have lots of useful information, after all. However, the structure of this content and how entities are semantically linked to each other makes the difference between success and failure. This can be used as a ‘quick win’ tactic and it tends to be received well by all parties. Updating and moving existing content will always be an easier sell than asking for an all-new content hub.

8. Create an XML Sitemap

Once you’ve ticked off all of the above, you’ll want to make sure search engines know what’s going on with your website. That’s where sitemaps come in handy — particularly XML sitemaps. An XML Sitemap is not to be confused with the HTML sitemap. The former is for the search engines, while the latter is mostly designed for human users (although it has other uses t00). So what is an XML Sitemap? In plain words, it’s a list of your site’s URLs that you submit to the search engines. This serves two purposes:

This helps search engines find your site’s pages more easily.

Search engines can use the sitemap as a reference when choosing canonical URLs on your site.

Picking a preferred (canonical) URL becomes necessary when search engines see duplicate pages on your site, as we saw above. So, as they don’t want any duplicates in the search results, search engines use a special algorithm to identify duplicate pages and pick just one URL to represent the group in the search results. Other web pages just get filtered out. Now, back to sitemaps. One of the criteria search engines may use to pick a canonical URL for the group of web pages is whether this URL is mentioned in the website’s sitemap. So, what web pages should be included in your sitemap? For purely SEO reasons, it’s recommended to include only the web pages you’d like to show up in search. You should include a more comprehensive account of your site’s URLs within the HTML sitemap.

Summary

An SEO-friendly URL structure is the following things:

Easy to read: Users and search engines should be able to understand what is on each page just by looking at the URL.

Keyword-rich: Keywords still matter and your target queries should be within URLs. Just be wary of overkill; extending URLs just to include more keywords is a bad idea.

Consistent: There are multiple ways to create an SEO-friendly URL structure on any site. It’s essential that, whatever logic you choose to follow, it is applied consistently across the site.

Static: Dynamic parameters are rarely an SEO’s best friend, but they are quite common. Where possible, find a solution that allows your site to render static URLs instead.

Future-proof: Think ahead when planning your site structure. You should minimize the number of redirects on your domain, and it’s easier to do this if you don’t require wholesale changes to URLs.

Comprehensive: Use the concepts of main content and supplementary content to ensure you have adequate coverage for all relevant topics. This will maximize your site’s visibility.

Supported by data: It normally requires buy-in from a lot of stakeholders to launch or update a particular site structure. Numbers talk, so make use of search and analytics data to support your case.

Submitted to search engines: Finally, create an XML sitemap containing all of the URLs that you want to rank via SEO and submit it to search engines. That will ensure all your hard work gets the reward it deserves.

How to Boost Your Search Visibility with SEO-Friendly WordPress URLs offers additional guidance on optimizing URL structure for WordPress websites and blogs.

Image Credits Featured Image: Paulo Bobita All screenshots taken by author

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/the-ultimate-guide-for-an-seo-friendly-url-structure-via-clarkboyd/

#googlesearchranking #localseo #onlinemarketing #dailydoseofmarketing

0 notes