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strechanadi · 5 years

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Swan Lake Wolfgang/Siegfried overthinking no. I-refuse-to-count-how-many-times-this-stupid-ballet-and-this-even-more-stupid-characters-did-not-let-me-sleep!

Dear @spinmelikeyoumeanit ... this is yet again yours and yours fault only.

(And yes, once I start I physically cannot stop myself, which leads to... err. THIS!)

(I sincerely apologize. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Truly.)

Well, I promised, didn’t I? And it literally took me just about a lifetime! (On the other hand – academic life happened. Don’t do postgrad, kids, it’s just not worth it…) (Or maybe just dont try to write a dissertation in a MONTH! FFS!)

One would think I would be over it. That after so many Swan Lakes nothing would have the ability to shake me. That after so many sleepless nights spent thinking over every little think here and there, I would know almost everything, therefore would be prepared for anything thrown at me. And yet here we are! Once again, blown away by Swan Lake of all ballets. I mean… could there be anything more cliché?

However, I already made peace with one thing (and you should probably too, saves lives and all that) and that’s the genius of Nureyev, of his Swan Lake and of the duality of Wolfgang/Rothbart.

As many of you remember, I’m sure (and slightly horrified), even recording of Nureyev’s SL is more than able to put me out of service, to prevent me from living what even the tiniest group of people would call a normal life. Or something. So, what the hell was I thinking when buying the ticket to see the ballet in question live, I have literally no idea. (Well. I have, actually. He may even have a name…) But yes, I did saw Swan Lake with POB live on stage. From the first fucking row, because that’s how extra I have to be. (Yes, my diet consists solely of bread and water since… seems like forever now.) I saw it, I died and that’s about it. However, my being dead is not something anyone would be particularly interested in, so let’s just move to the only thing you (the whole lot of exactly one person) are here for.

I did write a review on said performance. And usually I’m trying to translate them (even though I’m not exactly sure why, because it causes me almost physical pain and at the end I feel endlessly stupid, since I have to search every second word in dictionary, which is slightly pathetic, also I love my Czech sentences too much and with my pitiful knowledge of English I simply cannot make them justice, so they look utterly weird in the end and they deserve better than that), however unlike with my first POB SL review 3 years back this time I’ve decided to just don’t give a shit and dive into the story head first consequences be damned, so I think with writing this thing here I would have everything important covered (i.e. no need for the actual review) (the first half was basically just me showing off my endless knowledge on SL music score, which is plain boring, let’s be real, plus I wrote all that in my first review).

/AN - This is actually longer than the review itself. I think I feel a little bit sick…/

So. Right. Swan Lake.

I’m not gonna pretend there’s anyone else in whom I am more interested than Siegfried. And it’s not just because Nureyev made him a main character of the story. It’s because it makes sense. Who is on stage from start to finish? Through whose eyes we are watching the whole story? We should be able to sympathize with Siegfried, we should be able to see his point, to understand him, to get what he’s doing and why – sort of at least. And that’s probably why I am so annoyed with traditional SLs where it mostly looks like the choreographers/dancers/ballet masters/whoever don’t even try and go with some bland hero, because whatever, we are all waiting for the 2nd act and the Swan anyway.

So, it’s clear I love Nureyev’s story with passion (you wouldn’t tell, would you!) and the moment the curtain raises I’m drawn to Siegfried no matter who’s the dancer. And, OK, if it’s Mathieu Ganio, I’m kind of helpless, I admit (it would be cute, I guess, were I not be way over 13 yo).

I will try to stay as reasonable as I could and not to embarrass myself. Too much. So I would not write about the stupid little things that nobody in their right mind would (or could!) notice (or at least not at the first sight), because, dear god, literally no one gives a damn about the way his fingers twitched during his Prologue‘s nightmare in perfect synchrony with the music and action on stage… Can I get to the point?! Preferably on this day!

Normal person would be probably unable to talk about Siegfried without Odette/Odile. But I think we have already established I’m by no means a normal person. So, I am not able to talk about Siegfried without Wolfgang. (Yes, we are finally getting somewhere!)

I love their relationship in any shape and form and I would gladly watch every single cast and every possible combination of dancers in those two roles as I’m sure each time I would get something new (you cannot stop my brain, believe me, I tried). There was the oddly depending, blurred, yet intense José/Karl take. The terrifyingly creepy, what-the-fuck-happened-or-is-still-happening-behind-the-close-doors Mathieu/Francois one (that still makes my hair stand whenever I think about it, because… holy shit, that one moment between 1st and 2nd act!). The clueless puppy/slightly perverted, obsessed mastermind vibes from Germain/Francois. So what about Mathieu/Jérémy this time, hm?

/AN – I’m gonna probably end up mixing dancers‘ names with their characters‘, so… Yeah. I have no excuses, it’s just going to happen anyway, no matter how hard I would try to prevent it./

It was clear from the very first moment, Siegfried was much more mature this time, much more the young adult than barely 18yo adolescent. He looked reasonably confident, sure of himself, a true aristocrat, a crown prince ready to be a king (almost to the point where I was thinking – oh, where’s my lost, Asperger’s child? I want my lost, Asperger’s child! Spoiler alert – I got my lost, Asperger’s child eventually, do not worry. Just wait for it). However, watching him during the opening dance scene it was becoming more and more clear everything’s not so smooth as it may seem. He grew impatient, the whole situation slowly but surely becoming unbearable, and he was fighting against it with all he had, trying to stay calm, trying to play the role he was expecting to, his nervous, involuntary fingers tapping against his throne the only thing out of place. But there was always Wolfgang for him in those moments. Wolfgang, who was the constant, never-changing presence. Wolfgang, who could be standing on the other side of the room and the connection between him and his prince almost palpable, magnetic, electrifying. Always there. Always sure.

They look like best friends, no matter their different social status. Wolfgang casually showing Siegfried one girl or another (funny how he didn’t need to bring Siegfried’s attention to men, since he was happily watching them on his own accord), whispering something to his ear (A court rumour? An inside joke? A reassurance to keep Siegfried in his right mind?), hand casually on his shoulder. When they were walking together, Wolfgang was positively hugging Siegfried with his arm around prince’s shoulders. And then you saw him standing side stage, watching Siegfried being crowned, watching him dance, watching his inner struggle started by queen’s mention of marriage, watching him trying to act all casual and „oh, it’s nothing, I’m all right“ while knowing his autism and insecurities and all the good stuff is kicking, trying to break free and took over his mind and soul again. Because Siegfried may be more in charge now, but once autistic, always autistic… The mental issues were there. Waiting. As well as Wolfgang. Watching, waiting, calculating, manipulating without anybody knowing, using the Machiavellianism to the point.

And I wanted to scream, because hell, Siegfried, you look like a reasonable, mature human being. You are not the lost child with puppy eyes, you have to know something’s off! Tell me, what do you know! But then they were together and it was painfully clear he simply believed they were at the same page, he had no reason not to think so, they were in this together. Take the moment at the end of the „dance lesson.“ José himself leant towards Karl, believing him implicitly, automatically, without question and on top of that he actually looked him in the eye, and there was the brilliant moment where Karl looked away like – “oh no, stop, this is too much, that’s not right” and also “I’m not affected by this at all.” Francois just grabbed Mathieu’s arm and pulled. The gesture strong, harsh, leaving no doubts and literally no space between the two of them, because “oh no no, my prince, you have no personal space, no free will, I am the one who will tell you what to do, I am the one in charge, don’t forget that, I certainly not let you forget, ever.” With Mathieu and Jérémy the movement towards each other was mutual. Mathieu leaned back, Jérémy went slightly forward whispering into his ear.

However just a few seconds earlier, during the actual dance lesson, was a moment that couldn’t be more out of the realm of things OK even if it tried. I remember someone did something similar in one of the older videos I saw through the years of my healthy social life, I, however, do not remember it being quite like this time. I’m talking about the moment nearly at the end with Siegfried kneeling on the floor with Wolfgang walking around him. Some Wolfgangs simply put their hand on prince’s shoulder and squeeze, some let their hand stay there for a bit (too) long, some doesn’t touch Siegfried at all for one reason or another. And then came Jérémy. He did touch Mathieu’s shoulder. Let his hand there. Heavy, grounding. And then, slowly, intentionally, almost proprietary traced his chest from one collar bone to the other. Touching the bare skin. Not in some delicate, subtle, almost-not-there motion with fingertips barely touching. This was open. Possessive. Claiming. I inhaled so sharply people on the balcony must have heard it. I almost gave myself a brain concussion. Or got high on oxygen overdose. Or something. Being at home alone (or maybe even with my family around) I would be screaming myself hoarse and/or swearing profusely. But since I was sitting in a theatre with 2,5 thousands other people completely clueless of my inner battle, I had to… just keep breathing and acting cool. Not that I was particularly successful or anything.

How the 1st Act was going, it was more and more clear Siegfried depended on Wolfgang. And what was even more painful, it was his own decision. Surely, he was manipulated into it to some extent and at some point, but with this prince I believe if one asked him, he would say he believes Wolfgang. “Because he’s a friend. Because he’s helping. He’s good. Stop asking stupid questions, I’m not an idiot!” You had to admit this Wolfgang did a fucking good job without actually showing it (and showing off, looking at you, Francois). Because at the end of Act 1 all he had to do to stop Siegfried from following the running boys was turn his head. He didn’t step to stay in his way, he didn’t cross his arms or shake his head disapprovingly. He just stood there, then looked slightly over his shoulder and Siegfried stopped. Like that. And then, just before he was about to start his andante sostenuto variation (during which I most definitely died, because there was simply no other option, since this monster of a man, while doing his manege of jetés entrelacé, decided to turn the palm of his front arm up to make the landing pose in arabesque a cry, with his arm desperately reaching towards something, to fill every fucking detail of his movement with intention and meaning and who the hell asked this from you?! I can scarcely cope even while you are just dancing and feeling the music in ways that are too close to mine, could you please tell me, why you had to even do THIS to me?! Am I not dead enough?), he looked back at Wolfgang. Like if I could forget about their connection…!

But what was between the two of them exactly? I don’t have a clue. I know what I see in José/Karl interpretation. I know how I understand Mathieu/Francois relationship (because I am a bad person, my mind is poisoned and my brain is sick!). But Mathieu/Jérémy? There’s so much going on but I for the love of all that is holy cannot put a finger on it. (And that’s probably one of the reasons I almost went to the stage door to tell them I love them. I didn’t. I am an adult. I do not fangirl. I just go home and deal with all the feelings like the emotionally repressed person I am. I would make an excellent posh Englishman.) Let’s just say it was for the first time that Wolfgang was taller than Siegfried. Significantly taller. So whenever Siegfried wanted to looked him in the eyes, he had to look UP. And this stupid, tiny, little detail made me feel so many things, it’s not even funny anymore (which falsely indicated it WAS funny once, which most definitely was NOT). But just imagine the Siegfried/Wolfgang duet between act 1 and 2 with Siegfried coming to Wolfgang, to looking up to his eyes, and try not to see the vulnerability in it. Try not to see all the cards changing. Because it should have been Siegfried over Wolfgang because of their social status. During act one they were at the same level – because Siegfried wanted so. And now, suddenly, it was Wolfgang over Siegfried. And when he put the prince on the ground in the end, Siegfried looked yet again completely lost, devastated and abused… You just didn’t know how exactly this time. Or you did, but it was still just a wild guess, you couldn’t be completely, absolutely, 100% sure.

What was sure – Siegfried was broken. He took the offered crossbow as if not knowing what he is doing, as if not knowing it’s his hands that is holding it. And then he stood up, turned and wanted to go to Wolfgang, because obviously. He made two steps, and Wolfgang was just standing there, centre stage, looking (not with the arms dismissively crossed as Francois, mind you) and Siegfried stopped, tripped over his feet, looked and promptly turned back. And there was something so unbelievably hurt in him. Because he knew what the crossbow means, figuratively. And that’s what hurt him most. Seeing Wolfgang with it. Seeing Wolfgang pushing him towards the edge, knowing he’s helpless, knowing that it would be him who would jump, he himself, nobody would actually push him, just bring him so near the edge, there would be no other choice. It was like an accusation. Because “I believed you. I trusted you. I thought we were friends. I thought you would help me. And you pushed me back towards my illness, pushed me into those dreams that we both know will be the end of me.” You could almost touch the moment, the last flicker of consciousness, the hurt creeping from the deep of Siegfried’s soul but it was too late already. It was late the moment he took the crossbow. And you were watching him losing the somewhat sane part of his mind, the part that knows, and falling to his dreams, to his forbidden world. Because giving the poor Asperger’s little prince a bit of schizophrenia is a way to go. Hello, this is me, nice to meet you.

Yes, partly this whole mess of a situation was the Queen’s fault. Her mentioning marriage and crowning and you know, the adult stuff, made Siegfried quiver in his so painfully hard-won stable mental state of sorts, that seemed more stable than in other SLs, but was still too fragile. But Wolfgang was the one who made it happened, who was the vital help, who was the final cause. Because who else could have been more successful? Who would have been better for such job? Who could have managed such thing if not him…?

I’ll give you a break and am gonna talk about 3rd act for a bit. Because Mathieu Ganio’s Siegfried in act 3 is a fucking piece of art and someone give the man an award for it!

There was an achingly apparent difference between Act 1 Siegfried and Act 3 Siegfried. While during the 1st Act he was able to hold himself together to the point one would not tell he had any mental issues, in 3rd Act he was loosing his contact with reality from the start. And of course he was, with no Wolfgang behind his back whispering to his ear, keeping him in check, distracting him while things become too tedious and tiring, calming him by his mere presence. So his standing up and leaving the stage during character dances made so much sense. He refused the princesses with pleasure and right then he threw everything, his control, his mind, his consciousness out of window, and just jumped, leaving his illness in charge and Odile with Rothbart appeared. And if Odette and the lake was a dream, this was much more a fantasy. I’m going to repeat myself, but I stop when there would be more than one Siegfried like this in 3rd Act. Because this Siegfried was not dragged across stage by Odile, he was not simply following her with heart eyes, smiling and thinking rather stupidly she’s Odette, the pure, fragile girl from the lake even though she’s acting almost completely different. This Siegfried was confident, self-assured, constantly trying to convince Odile of his power and to prove himself. He grew impatient with her constant escaping, there was anger and sharpness in some of his movements. We all know the moment when Siegfried is standing behind Odile and she’s taking his arms to hug herself, right? So Mathieu Ganio leaned in and kissed. Her. On. The. Neck.

(I let that information sink.) (And while it would be sinking, I take a little walk to ease some of the tension and calm my inner voice that is screaming profanities, cause HOLYFUCKINGSHIT, can you imagine the dreamy, pure, innocent prince from previous act to do such thing?!)

I would also like to mention the black adagio. You know, the one where Siegfried is supposed to be fascinated by Odile who is seducing him? The one, during which this time was not quite clear if the prince was watching the enchanting black swan or Rothbart with the same intent, with the same intensity in his eyes and tension between the two of them…? Yeah.

(Also – Jérémy before his Rothbart variation, sitting on Siegfried’s throne like it belongs to him. Good grief!)

The end of act 3 wasn’t as much of a mad scene as it was in 2016. However Siegfried fell down on the floor completely unceremoniously, lying on his back and while the curtain opened and we were in the 4th Act he lied there in the exact same position and it looked almost like he’s in his bed. Like he completely lost it during the ball (and lost it he did) and was escorted to his chambers, put to his bed and now his poor, tortured mind sent him yet again to the woods, to the lake side.

Odette in act 2 was a complete figment of Siegfried’s imagination, appearing suddenly from nowhere, made from thin air, sharing Siegfried’s pain and deep grief. (Yes, even in act 2, because this time there were no heartfelt love confessions, no big romance, no sunny smiles and promises of happily ever after. But there was a bond. Strong and deeply felt.) In 4th Act she was resigned. She knew she’s about to die and there’s nothing she could do about it. Because Odette is Siegfried. In this performance and interpretation more than ever. She was his innocence that was somehow betrayed and violated by the act 3 fantasy. She was his integral part, she was his childhood, she was his hope, she was the last piece of his sanity, she was him. And Siegfried came to her guiltily, ashamed of himself, afraid to look herself in the eyes and see what became of him. Because he was dying. And he knew it.

And then Rothbart appeared and took Odette from Siegfried. Took his hope, his mind, his soul - like the mental illnesses, Siegfried’s ultimate bane and his final doom. And then came the last moment. When Siegfried turned around and there, in the middle of the mists stood someone. With arm held forward, palm up as in an invitation. And then… magnificent, ethereal Wolfgang spread his arms wide. Opened them for his prince, to let him jump into. And Siegfried run and jumped with his last breath and last desperate cry of arched back to the arms of death. That is nor evil, nor kind. That simply is.

And it makes you wonder – what if this was in the end the best option for Siegfried after all? What if Wolfgang was doing what he was doing having his prince’s good in mind? Was it something he himself believed in? That he was helping? Or was it just something he would say, if anybody asked? And was he ever even real?

Hello. This is Nureyev’s Swan Lake for you. Causes many questions. Answers none. Gives you bunch of other instead.

Please, do feel free to tell me I should find a professional help.

#ballet #swan lake #le lac des cygnes #this is just me #not being able to shut up #and get over wolfgang and siegfried #for nearly 4000 words #it's not healthy #but whatever #wolfgang #siegfried #rothbart #overthinking #like a pro #make it an olympic sport #thank you #LOOK IT'S ALMOST 4 IN THE MORNING!

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cyberkevvideo · 4 years

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Throne of Night Theory Builds Part 24: The Deep Dragon Queen of Book 3

Tonight’s entry is definitely a different one. Namely, I was going to make this dead last. Literally as absolutely last as possible. Mostly because I don’t have a proper picture for this one. Just a stock photo, and a picture that technically goes along with it.

But, beggars can’t be choosers, and this entry is entirely based around opportunity knocking/circumstances being what they are. I’ll get into that though in the next half.

As always, for space reasons, I’ll be cropping the encounter build.

All images shared here were done by the forever fantastic and amazingly talented Michael D. Clarke, aka SpiralMagus

Because it got brought up, I do not have a Patreon or a Kickstarter, but I do have a Ko-Fi page (linked) for those who are looking to support me. No pressure though. The economy isn’t the greatest at the moment, so some belts are being tightened more than usual.

Finally, before get to it, I hope everyone’s staying safe right now.

So tonight I came across old, old notes that gave a synopsis of Book 3, and it’s actually different/more detailed than the last update I’d read that gave you the rundown of Books 3-6. This is information I absolutely needed to know back when I did the undead dwarf king. Needless to say that this update is actually completely different than what I had originally intended because I had wanted my readers to know that the Golem Wielder entry had been given a massive update. Had to completely remove a bunch of feats in exchange of others, and revise the magic items, land speed, AC, etc. At least it wasn’t a complete re-write, which was what I was originally afraid I was going to have to do.

But that’s really about it. A dwarf doesn’t want to die, it uses dark pacts and forbidden magic, and it meets up with a deep dragon that can help with all of that. On top of that, this same dragon has the ability to corrupt and help give people their grandest desires. There is a lot to unpack here.

I’m now going to explain how I came up with this specific build. 1) It had to be a dragon. Namely, a deep dragon. Thankfully there’s a template for that. 2) It specifically had to be dragon that could shape change. Okay. Less options, but maybe there’s a way around it. 3) It has to be able to corrupt and grant the desires of others. Hmm. Again, difficult, but not impossible. Thankfully there’s a template for that too. 4) This dragon may or not be the reason why the “dark fire/black fire” existed and wiped out so many of the dwarves, causing ghosts to come up their graves and curse the mountain to be inescapable. Hellfire likely works for this one. Again, a lot to unpack. I will say that my build is likely very wrong as Book 3 of Throne of Night was supposed to come out in 2015, and Pathfinder Bestiary 6 came out in 2017. That said, this works way better than I had hoped. And with only adding a single hit die, it’s most definitely a CR 15 encounter. So glad I didn’t have to make it Young and add 2 class levels. I was so afraid I’d have to.

Not gonna lie. After talking to a lot of different users on the Kickstarter comments and the Paizo forums, the conclusion a few of us came to was the black flame was a result of either the prestige class that’s absolutely not OGL or radiation. If that was the case, I was leaning towards a solar dragon, but that doesn’t get channel radiation until way, way later, and there’s no way something that powerful would be in Book 3. Even if you added the Young template numerous times, that wouldn’t help, and would just get stupid. So this is where we stand.

Of course the real question is “how does an undead have progeny?” Well, when wishes are involved, you make sure to word it in just the right way. There were spells and items back in D&D 3.5e that helped with such things. There’s no reason a work-around couldn’t be in here too. I mean, dhampirs exist and it’s not all because a pregnant woman was bitten.

Also, anyone wondering, the shape change ability would default to looking like a female dwarf. When things go down, she’ll revert to her true form. And it’s preferable to not have her fight alongside her undead partner and the cannon golem. That might end up being an epic encounter for a 13th level party. Adding it all up together, it’s not quite an EL 18 encounter, but it’s definitely more than EL 17. The graveknight’s tactics are for it being paired with the cannon golem, but there’s no reason it can’t fight them separately, and the graveknight fight alongside his dragon queen.

As for the progeny and them having dark fire access too, Gary already released aid regarding that. “Way of the Wicked” Book 6 has the hellfire spell. It’s available to the magus, sorcerer/wizard, summoner, and witch. That’s still enough for the half-dragon children who are likely eldritch scion draconic bloodline and sorcerer draconic bloodline. Depending on the campaign, access to certain feats, wishes, etc, there might be other ways to get that or other variants of the spell. There’s definitely a 3rd party hellfire weapon property. Lots of possible options available.

And just before we get to it, the pronunciation for her name is, sin-dra-xy-ohs. Also, the dragon art is directly from Paizo’s Bestiary 6. This is what it looks like normally, but picture it without wings. Deep dragons lose their ability to fly and have a burrow speed instead.

DRAGON QUEEN CIDRAXIOS (CR 15; 51,200 XP) Female unique corruptor young infernal deep dragon LE Large dragon (evil, extraplanar, lawful) Init +6; Senses dragon senses; Perception +21 DEFENSE AC 32, touch 13, flat-footed 30 (+2 armor, +2 deflection, +2 Dex, +17 natural, –1 size) hp 217 (15d12+120) Fort +19, Ref +13, Will +16; +3 vs. divination Defensive Abilities false mind, fiery acid blood (R-DC 25, 3d6), inscrutable +3; DR 15/adamantine; Immune acid, fire, hellfire, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, sleep Weaknesses light blindness OFFENSE Speed 60 ft., burrow 30 ft., earth glide Melee bite +25 (2d6+14 plus 3d6 acid and fire/19–20), 2 claws +25 (2d6+10/19–20), tail slap +19 (1d8+14), 2 wings +19 (1d6+5) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with bite) Special Attacks breath weapon (80-ft. line, 7d10 hellfire damage, R-DC 25 half), deep gaze (W-DC 24), fiery acidic spittle, mark of vice (W-DC 24), oppressive heat, shredding stone Spell-like Abilities (CL 15th; concentration +22) At will—atonement (temptation only) 3/day—detect good, geas, helping hand, lesser geas, make whole, major creation, minor creation 1/day—sympathy (W-DC 25), wish (granted to a nonevil aligned mortal only) Oracle Spells Known (CL 1st; concentration +8) 1st (4/day)—bane (W-DC 18), command (W-DC 18) 0 (at will)—detect magic, guidance, read magic, spark (R-DC 17) STATISTICS Str 28, Dex 14, Con 27, Int 20, Wis 17, Cha 24 Base Atk +15; CMB +25; CMD 39 (43 vs. trip) Feats Blind-Fight, Combat Expertise, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (bite, claw) Skills Appraise +22, Bluff +27, Climb +20, Craft (all) +13, Diplomacy +35, Knowledge (arcana) +18, Knowledge (history, local, planes) +20, Linguistics +22, Perception +21, Sense Motive +28, Spellcraft +20, Use Magic Device +25; Racial Modifiers +8 Craft (all), +8 Diplomacy, +8 Sense Motive; +3 to all Charisma-based checks. Languages Abyssal, Common, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Infernal, Skis’raal, Undercommon plus any 8 others SQ change shape 3/day (any animal or humanoid), compression, corruptor’s boon, imbue with ability, serpentine reach, what do you covet Gear amulet of mighty fists +1, bracers of armor +2, cloak of resistance +2, headband of alluring charisma +2, ring of protection +2, tome of leadership and influence +1 (read), Mithral Crown of Leadership (acts as a circlet of persuasion), treasure horde (gems, gold and silver pieces, mithral bars, and carved art objects made from various types of stone; total worth of 5,500 gp) SPECIAL ABILITIES Corruptor’s Boon (Su) Once per day, a corruptor can grant a touched creature a +4 profane bonus to one ability score for 24 hours. When the duration ends, the creature suffers a –4 profane penalty to the same ability score for the next 24 hours. Another application not only negates the penalty, but also restores the full bonus. Deep Gaze (Su) Buried suggestion (see below) 30 ft., Will negates (special). As suggestion, except the target need not understand the deep dragon creature and the effect is permanent until discharged. The dragon telepathically implants the suggestion into the subject. The suggestion planted must not take place immediately. When it occurs it must be based on an event or an amount of time going by. At least three days must pass before the suggestion compels the subject. During the period while the suggestion is buried, neither divination spells nor Sense Motive will reveal that the subject is under the effect of an enchantment. The subject does not attempt his saving throw until the triggering event occurs. The death of the dragon does not end this effect. Dragon Senses (Ex) Dragons have darkvision 120 ft. and blindsense 60 ft. They see four times as well as a human in dim light and twice as well in normal light. Earth Glide (Su) A young or older deep true dragon creature glides through stone, dirt, or any sort of earth except metal as easily as a fish swims through water. Its burrowing leaves behind no tunnel or hole, nor does it create any ripple or other signs of its presence. Move earth cast on an area containing an earth gliding deep dragon creature flings the dragon back 30 ft., stunning the creature for 1 round unless it succeeds on a DC 15 Fortitude save. False Mind (Su) This ability offers the corruptor the benefits of a mind blank spell. When an attempt is made to detect his alignment or read his thoughts, the corruptor can cause the magic to reveal any alignment or thoughts the corruptor creature chooses, even if he is not initially aware of the attempt. Fiery Acidic Blood (Su) Any creature that damages a deep dragon with a piercing or slashing melee weapon must make a Reflex save or be subject to the damage equal to Deep dragon’s spittle (see below) as it is sprayed with blood. Melee weapons with reach don’t endanger their users in this way. Fiery Acidic Spittle (Su) All deep dragon creatures have a thick, gooey spittle that is hot enough and acidic enough to sear and corrode both flesh and rock. Normally, as they tunnel through the earth they secret this fluid to soften stone. In battle, the deep dragon adds this additional amount of damage to their natural attacks. Half the damage is acid the other half fire. Hellfire (Su) Half of the damage from hellfire is fire damage, and half is unholy energy that bypasses fire resistance and immunity. Hellproof (Ex) The infernal dragon is immune to fire, hellfire, and mind-affecting effects. Imbue with Ability (Su) Once per day as a standard action the corruptor creature can grant a creature it touches one of its spells, spell-like abilities, extraordinary abilities or even one of its supernatural abilities in a manner similar to imbue with spell ability (no save). It loses access to that ability during this time; it can dismiss this benefit as a free action regaining the use of one or more of its abilities. Inscrutable (Ex) An infernal dragon gains a bonus on saves against divination spells and effects equal to its age category number. Mark of Vice (Su) This ability works like a mark of justice (Will save negates) but it is only triggered if the creature attempts to find a redemption to its corruption (subject to GM adjudication). The mark is also invisible and is always placed over the victim’s heart. Oppressive Heat (Su) A creature that fails its save against an infernal dragon’s breath weapon can’t benefit from morale bonuses for 1 minute. If the creature fails another save against the breath weapon during this time, it is staggered for 1 round. Shredding Stone (Su) A Deep dragon creature gains a +4 bonus to confirm critical hits with its claws. What Do You Covet (Su) Once per day as a standard action a corruptor can grant a wish to a nonevil aligned mortal (cannot be an elemental, fey, outsider, or nonliving creature).

------------------------------------ Sources: Corruptor creature - http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/corruptor-creature Deep dragon creature - http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/deep-dragon-creature

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star-maiden-fufu · 7 years

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[Fanfic] The Binding Ritual

Summary: When Yoshiko had asked Riko to come to the club room during lunch break to help her with something, Riko assumed it was for homework or maybe even singing practise... Being tied up and placed in the centre of a pentagram, ready to be offered as a sacrifice to whatever god above or demon below never once crossed her mind. YohaRiko Oneshot

Rating: K+

Word count: 1,521 words

Characters: Tsushima Yoshiko, Sakurauchi Riko

Pairings: YohaRiko

Notes: Literally just a really quick thing I wrote up. Mostly humour rather than fluff (tho there is a lil bit of that), cos these two are massive dorks. Hope you enjoyed, concrit is welcome~

External Links: FFNet, Ao3

When Yoshiko had asked Riko to come to the club room during lunch break to help her with something, Riko assumed it was for homework or maybe even singing practise. Something she could manage.

Being tied up and placed in the centre of a pentagram, ready to be offered as a sacrifice to whatever god above or demon below never once crossed her mind. Even when she’d first walked in and saw the setup in the middle of the unlit room, she’d been prepared to tell Yoshiko that she couldn’t “help” her with that sort of thing, until she’d suddenly found herself being subdued and bound and then being forced to “help”.

“H-hey, Yocchan!” Riko began begging, struggling against the ties as the other girl flicked through a large leather tome in her hands. “S-surely you don’t have to do this. Or m-maybe somebody else could help you with… whatever this is?”

Yoshiko shook her head, to Riko’s dismay, without even looking away from the book. “I’m afraid not, Riri,” she said, reading fervently, “I have to do this, and it has to be you that assists me.” Riko whined with frustration as her struggles grew stronger, knocking over one of the “candles” - thankfully of the electric variety, most likely for safety reasons - in the process. The muffled bang of Yoshiko closing the book made Riko jump, tipping over another “candle”.

“Alright! I’m ready, let’s do this!”

“Let’s not!” Riko screamed. Yoshiko ignored her friend’s pleas as she quickly righted the fallen candles, then took her place directly in front of the girl. She began to pull the hood of her cloak over her head, smirking and saying, her voice lowering, “Close your eyes, Riri. I assure you all will be fine.”

Riko squeezed her eyes shut with a whimper, more to block out whatever awful thing Yoshiko was planning on doing with this weird ritual thing. She heard the other girl begin chanting below her breath, though she was couldn’t understand what she was saying.

Then it stopped, and there was silence in the room. Riko heard a shuffling sound, likely the ruffling of Yoshiko’s cloak, however nothing was said. Eventually, her curiosity began to override her panic, and she cracked an eye open.

Yoshiko was crouched directly in front of her, her face inches from Riko’s own. Surprised, Riko jumped, this time falling backwards, disturbing all of the candles. She bit back a yelp as she landed uncomfortably on her arms, then again as Yoshiko moved on top of her and pinned her, her hands on either side of Riko’s head as the 1st year straddled her waist.

The girl smirked. “Well, Riri,” she purred, “the contract should have been formed now, so I ask you; do you swear your eternal loyalty to me, and that you shall stay by my side evermore?”

Riko blinked, confused at the offer. “Huh?”

Yoshiko blinked, her confident smirk falling and confusion spreading on her own face. “Eh?”

“Yocchan,” Riko shuffled beneath the smaller girl, wincing again as she ground her arms into the floor, “can you tell me what all of this is about?” Yoshiko didn’t answer Riko’s question, her brow furrowing in further confusion.

“Yocchan?”

“Did it not work?” Yoshiko lifted herself off of Riko and disappeared behind the table in the club room where Riko couldn’t see her. Finally freed, Riko pushed herself back into a seated position.

“I don’t get it, it should’ve worked,” Yoshiko mumbled, as the sound of pages being turned could be heard.

“What didn’t work? What is going on here, Yocchan?” Riko cried, her frustration growing. “I’d like an answer now, Yoshiko!” There was a squeak at that, and a now sheepish looking Yoshiko crawled out from behind the table, book in hand. Once she was in front of Riko, she began shuffling through the book again, slowly, as though to stall for time. She eventually opened it fully to a page and turned it to face Riko, not that she could really understand what the book was talking about. Something about binding two people together…?

“It’s an ancient ritual designed to connect two souls together for all eternity,” Yoshiko said, her words muffled from behind the book.

“O-kay then?” Yoshiko closed the book again, but didn’t lower it from her face. Her eyes were the only thing not covered, though they were looking everywhere else in the room aside from at Riko.

“It’s supposed to be an everlasting contract, and the two involved would never be parted from one another. They shall be partners in all forms,” Yoshiko recited, though her voice trailed off near the end of the sentence. Despite the darkness of the room, Riko could faintly see Yoshiko’s face growing red. And then it clicked.

“Wait,” Riko shook her head to clear it, as the idea crossed her mind and she could already feel her own face growing warm at the thought, “was all of this -- calling me here and typing me up and terrifying me half to death -- all just some super convoluted way for you to say you liked me?”

Yoshiko’s eyes continued darting around the room, her face definitely growing red, before she raised the book to cover her face entirely, then mumbled, “Maybe.”

...

“You could’ve just asked!” Riko shouted.

“Well how was I supposed to know if you’d feel the same?!” Yoshiko shouted back, slamming the book onto the floor, “That was like, part of the point of the ritual, to ensure mutual feelings, as well as the binding process!”

“Okay, first, while I can see you had...some good intentions about it, the whole ritual idea sounds kinda like brainwashing, which is pretty creepy--” at that, Yoshiko flinched, yet Riko continued-- “and second, I repeat, YOU COULD’VE JUST ASKED FIRST!”

“WELL FINE, I’LL ASK NOW!” Yoshiko then jumped to her feet, taking up her “fallen angel” persona pose, though she still looked and sounded like a frantic 1st year as she asked, “Little demon Riri, this great mistress Yohane looks fondly on you, and seeks to forge a bond with you. Would you agree to forming a covenant with me?”

“Yes, Yocchan, I would,” Riko answered without hesitation, looking directly at Yoshiko as she did. A pregnant pause grew between the two, before Yoshiko asked, “Really?”

“Yes! Now can you untie me?”

“Wait! We need to plan a date!”

“We can go to the sweets shop together after school, now please!” With a smile now spread across her still red face, Yoshiko nodded and set to work on the ties around Riko’s ankles. Then as she moved to untie Riko’s wrists, the older girl said, “You really could’ve just asked me out on a date without having to do all of this. I was kinda planning on doing it myself sometime soon.”

“Really?” Yoshiko said, pausing as she turned her attention to Riko.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “I’ve kind of admired you for a while; your confidence mostly, and your dedication to everything; to Aqours and Guilty Kiss, and even your whole fallen angel thing. But you’re a good girl at heart.” She twisted around and gave Yoshiko an earnest smile. “I suppose things just grew from there.”

Yoshiko shifted on the spot, her face growing warm again. “Well, I always appreciated how patient you were, constantly dealing with everyone at their rowdiest--” another shuffle-- “and especially me at my worst.”

“Don’t say it like that, Yocchan,” Riko said, frowning.

“But I know what I’m like sometimes. I do go a little overboard at times,” Yoshiko said, motioning to the room around them to emphasise her point, “But I suppose everyone in the group says that’s part of my charm. At least it works in Guilty Kiss. Which I’m glad that you’re there with me. You keep us right, Mari and me.”

“Well, I try. But I suppose it wouldn’t be Guilty Kiss without some wild times. You’re both there to pull me along into everything we do. And I’ll admit, I don’t hate everything we get up to,” Riko giggled. Yoshiko smiled back.

Yet as she moved to continue removing Riko’s binds, both of them still wearing soft smiles from the moment they’d just had, the door to the club room opened, and the light suddenly turned on, making both girls flinch at the sudden brightness.

“Uhm, what’s going on in here?” As their eyes readjusted, both Yoshiko and Riko found themselves growing pale as they saw the rest of Aqours peeking into the room, confusion on their faces - though Mari looked more amused at the sight than anything.

“Uh…” Yoshiko gulped.

“We can totally explain this,” Riko said.

“Or we can just leave you two to whatever this is and we’ll meet up here after school for a club meeting,” You said, reaching for the door and pulling it shut, ignoring the room occupants’ frantic screams for them to wait as they both lunged for the door - despite Riko still not being full freed from her ties.

Though the sound of the door being run into did earn some giggles from some of the girls.

#fufu's fanfic #love live #love live sunshine #yohariko #tsushima yoshiko #tsushima yohane #yohane #sakurauchi riko

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furederiko · 7 years

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1st post for the month of August 2017! And it's the 'Clash of the Reds'. Yes, a belated write up for Kyuranger episode 24!!!

NOTE: This recap-view is for the episode that aired on Sunday, August 6th, 2017 07:30 JST. It was initially meant to be published last week, just a few days after it was broadcasted (precisely on August 8th). Unfortunately, the plan got sort of derailed. Long story short... the social media detox that was only planned to last for a week, got unexpectedly extended for another because I was bedridden afterwards. So yeah, hence the long delay. But not to worry, recap-view for episode 25 will arrive very soon to make up for that!

- Assuming the show will be 48-49 episodes in total, that means it's officially around its halfway point. Yes, eventhough things are already feeling so heavy and serious, we still have HALF a season to go from here! NOTE: If it's 48 episodes in total, that means this episode marks the end of the first half. If it's 49, then the next one (episode 25) serves that purpose. - We should know by now that Kyuranger isn't the type of show that likes to drag plot points. This episode is just another solid proof of that. Just three episodes in, and Tsurugi's facade of bravado has been peeled away, revealing a more sentimental true personality. Interestingly, we also get to see him struggling with memories of the past. I wonder if it's in a way, implying that Tsurugi is suffering from a... war PTSD? O_O. In order to get to the bottom of this, he needs to know 'the truth'. Thus, he sends out Spada and Raptor on an important mission. Which of course, also serves as the show's usual excuse for characters to be absent from the episode. Not that I'm complaining... - But the two aren't the only ones who need to be... benched out. This episode is clearly a double focus for the Reds, as they try... or rather, 'forced' to work out their differences. Hence... it doesn't even take long for everyone else (sans Commander Xiao, who stayed on the Rebellion) to get literally swallowed by our MotW, Malistrate Gabbler! IMHO, this right hand of Tecchu is a scary MotW that should really have had higher rank in the Shogunate. Why? With his ability alone, he actually succeeds in taking down SEVEN Kyurangers all at once! WOW, right? - Anyways, eventhough he doesn't approve Tsurugi as Kyuranger at first, Lucky begins to... sense there's something 'wrong' with Tsurugi. Commander Xiao wisely helps him realize, that the 'legendary hero' tends to act the complete opposite to his words. Proof? Tsurugi's boasting about immortality, eventhough he had already lost that ability before his cold-sleep. And hearing a holographic projection of Don Armage making fun of his fallen comrades, causes him to lose his composure. Symbolizing that inspite of his words that dismissed them as 'expendables', he actually CARED for them. Also, he's telling the Kyurangers to be his shield, yet he's the one who does that to protect Lucky! Oh the irony... - Speaking of being a 'shield', the show introduces a new character in this episode: Kuervo (VA: Daisuke Namikawa, who previously voiced Engine Speedor in Go-Onger). He's one of Legendary 88 Warriors that represented the Corvus Constellation System, their strategic advisor, and also a personal close friend to Tsurugi. He was the one whom Tsurugi refered to as 'sacrificed his life for him', during the battle against Don Armage in the past. Thus obviously, he's the one responsible for leaving behind a deep 'scar of friendship' in Tsurugi's heart. Fun Trivia: The word 'Cuervo' is actually the Spanish word for 'Raven/Crow'. And yes, in case you're unaware, Corvus is the Crow Constellation! So as always, TOEI isn't even trying to be subtle when it comes to names. LOL. - Intriguingly, assuming Kuervo's truly dead, then that means there's only one sole candidate who might end up becoming the new Don Armage: Olion (whom you can see using a sword and a mostly white outfit in the flashback scene). Remember my theory that proposes Olion as the Darth Vader of the show? This reveal just adds that notion. Then again, we never really witness Kuervo's body (just like Scorpio) as well, so anything's still possible here. Beside, we also know how that much-hated Jedi eventually became Vader? Meaning we can't rule out anyone yet, because the rule of death is pretty much flexible in science-fiction. - Lucky challenges Tsurugi to share his story (get it? his-story? XD), even if just to put them both on the same page. Instead, that makes him understand the reason behind his stand-off-ish demeanor: Tsurugi simply doesn't want to sacrifice any more comrades in battle. Aaaaaw... T_T. That's why he wants to deal with Gabbler and Tecchu alone. So yeah, someone's definitely having a lone survivor syndrome! Tsurugi even proves that point, by taking Lucky's Leo Kyu Globe as hostage, to prevent him from joining the fight. Fun fact: I just realized. True to his 'Soldier' namesake, Tsurugi is acting like a drill-sergeant. Showing all tough and mighty bravado on the front, but secretly tries to protect his comrades. He even has his share of warfare PTSD. That's a really good angle right there. - Due to the duration, of course said twist doesn't last long. Tsurugi gets into a fickle due to his previous wounds, and Xiao and Lucky arrive to save the day. The younger Red then proposes a new 'system' to Tsurugi's face: "If the current saviors... and the old savior work together... We... can create a new legend!". So yeah, ignoring the fact that it might have arrived a tad too quickly (I WAS expecting more resistance and stubborness)... the 'Rivalry of the Reds' has been resolved. It shouldn't come off as too surprising though, as Draco Commander says it best... "Say what they will, these two get along pretty well.". Indeed, they ARE actually two of a kind. Probably the reason why they're both Red, right? LOL. - While Draco Commander distracts Tecchu, the duo works together to free the other Kyurangers. Good timing, because they are all (including the mechanical ones like Balance and Champ, the joke's on them) almost on the verge of having all their life energy drained! With none of them being fit enough to join the fight (thus preventing any of the mecha sans Gigant Phoenix to be used), it's up to the Reds to handle the giant battle as well. Taking down Gabbler is easy, but what can they do when Tecchu decides to tag along? That's when a miracle occurs. Or in the words of Tsurugi, "It's about to be truly legendary!". - Yes, the other 10 Change Kyu Globes (including those of Spada's and Raptor's... who are busy tinkering around with a lever-like contraption) join the battle in their own free will! They boost the power of Leo Voyager and Phoenix Voyager, thus forming... the 12 Kyu Globes combination, Kyutamajin. Gotta admit, it's a rousing and exciting sequence. As for the robot itself, when I first saw the catalogue picture, I thought the new combo looked weird and odd. But now that I've known the concept and seen it in action, saying I've warmed up to it would be a huge understatement. Because I'm actually DIGGING this combination! Sure, some parts still looks a bit awkward (like the giant ball on top of the head), but this is a smart design, that unites all 12 heroes in one mecha without overdoing it. And this is coming from a guy who actually liked those messy-complicated clusterfuck formation in Go-Onger and last year's Zyuohger. LOL. In a way, it's a solid mecha. - The problem is, only the two Reds are using Kyutamajin! And knowing how the internet works, this has surely rubbed some fans in the wrong way. Of course, since this episode aired two weeks ago (once again, this recap-view is a week late), everyone should know by now that there's a logical reason to why only Leo Red and Phoenix Soldier are sharing the control of this mecha: because the others are being saved for episode 25! LOL. Then again, it's not like the Reds aren't hinting about it throughout this episode. I mean, they ARE repeatedly asking the tune of, "Can we really move it with just the two of us?". They're not even being subtle about it. I guess impatient fans wouldn't be able to see these hints past their complains, huh? LOL. NOTE: Kyutamajin isn't even using its ultimate finisher in this episode. "Kyutamajin! Meteor Booster!" is a just a secondary attack that only manages to take down Gabbler. Don't forget, Tecchu is still at large! - Tsurugi officially joins the team, as proven by his Kyuranger License. Yep, the one that Kotarou delivered for the team at the start of the episode. Something that even Xiao hasn't owned before (hence why he 'forgot' all about it, huh? LOL). It's nice to see all 12 onboard the same ship, right? Hold on, the question here is... what about Spada and Raptor? - Turns out, they are in Planet Tocky of the Horologium System, in search of the Horologium Kyu Globe. Why? Because Tsurugi wants to use it... to travel back in time, and see with his very own eyes, what really 'happened' to Don Armage. Yep, time travel is the show's next big arc! And this discussion comes at the right time, because Spada and Raptor pop up on the communication screen with a 'distress call'. Why? Because something is going on in the Planet that can't be handled by only the two of them... A few additional notes before I wrap this up: - Bandai Japan released a Special "Henshin Series" episode after this episode was aired. And it was.... hillarious as always! I thought the company was going to release one after every episode (they should, tbh), so it was a bit of a bummer when the series stopped four months ago in episode 6 (following Mr. Pega's short-lived debuted). The fact that the previous extra members (Xiao and Kotarou) haven't had their time in the spotlight yet, also added to the disappointment. So obviously, the arrival of this special episode was more than just a pleasant surprise. That's right, because all extra members get their chance to show off! Interestingly, this video didn't include Phoenix Soldier's henshin pose. Does this mean we'll be getting another one in the future? Especially with that rumored new transformation gadget? Here's hoping... - More movie scenes can be seen in the opening, as well as the new trailer that debuted after the episode. There were two standouts from them. First, Leo Red is using Herakles Kyu Globe in the movie, to somehow deal with the Kerberos one. Second, there are obvious scenes hinting that Commander Xiao is killed in the movie. Remember, this is Japan and their habit of spoiling things in advance. Eventhough the movie is doing really good! Then again, should we really believe that Xiao is dead? I seriously doubt it. Just look at what happened to the Kamen Rider Ghost's summer movie last year... LOL. - Haruka Tateishi (Amu of last year's Zyuohger) is giving an exclusive on-location tour for Kyuranger's G-Rosso action show. Go ahead and see it, it's all kinds of fun. Makes you eager to see her character returning to meet the Kyurangers in the upcoming Versus Movie, right?

Overall: Tsurugi's 4-part debut arc has come to a close. Thanks to the show's swift pacing, it didn't take long for the legendary soldier to get grounded and humbled down. Even his signature arrogance has already been taken down more than a notch, revealing a more painful and broken nature. I love how he and Lucky seems to exhibit contrasting personality from one another, while in actuality, they are still the same color. Yes, the conflict between them got resolved a little too quickly for my taste. Then again, it also proved my point that they are basically two of a kind. And in a way, Tsurugi was welcomed to the team in an organic manner, so I'm not complaining. Overall, a great albeit imperfect episode, with a stunning but equally imperfect debut for a new mecha combination. But that's because the next episode will be... something else! You'll see... Next week: Prepare for tissue, because Kotarou is giving us all the feels! PS: Expect the recap-view for Episode 25... in just a few hours from now! ;D

Episode 24 Score: 8 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: August 15th, 2017 - Version 2.10. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

#tokusatsu #SuperSentai #kyuranger #uchu sentai kyuranger #uchuu sentai kyuranger #review #melancholymoments #friendship

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thelmasirby32 · 4 years

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How to Read Google Algorithm Updates

Links = Rank

Old Google (pre-Panda) was to some degree largely the following: links = rank.

Once you had enough links to a site you could literally pour content into a site like water and have the domain's aggregate link authority help anything on that site rank well quickly.

As much as PageRank was hyped & important, having a diverse range of linking domains and keyword-focused anchor text were important.

Brand = Rank

After Vince then Panda a site's brand awareness (or, rather, ranking signals that might best simulate it) were folded into the ability to rank well.

Panda considered factors beyond links & when it first rolled out it would clip anything on a particular domain or subdomain. Some sites like HubPages shifted their content into subdomains by users. And some aggressive spammers would rotate their entire site onto different subdomains repeatedly each time a Panda update happened. That allowed those sites to immediately recover from the first couple Panda updates, but eventually Google closed off that loophole.

Any signal which gets relied on eventually gets abused intentionally or unintentionally. And over time it leads to a "sameness" of the result set unless other signals are used:

Google is absolute garbage for searching anything related to a product. If I'm trying to learn something invariably I am required to search another source like Reddit through Google. For example, I became introduced to the concept of weighted blankets and was intrigued. So I Google "why use a weighted blanket" and "weighted blanket benefits". Just by virtue of the word "weighted blanket" being in the search I got pages and pages of nothing but ads trying to sell them, and zero meaningful discourse on why I would use one

Getting More Granular

Over time as Google got more refined with Panda broad-based sites outside of the news vertical often fell on tough times unless they were dedicated to some specific media format or had a lot of user engagement metrics like a strong social network site. That is a big part of why the New York Times sold About.com for less than they paid for it & after IAC bought it they broke it down into a variety of sites like: Verywell (health), the Spruce (home decor), the Balance (personal finance), Lifewire (technology), Tripsavvy (travel) and ThoughtCo (education & self-improvement).

Penguin further clipped aggressive anchor text built on low quality links. When the Penguin update rolled out Google also rolled out an on-page spam classifier to further obfuscate the update. And the Penguin update was sandwiched by Panda updates on either side, making it hard for people to reverse engineer any signal out of weekly winners and losers lists from services that aggregate massive amounts of keyword rank tracking data.

So much of the link graph has been decimated that Google reversed their stance on nofollow to where in March 1st of this year they started treating it as a hint versus a directive for ranking purposes. Many mainstream media websites were overusing nofollow or not citing sources at all, so this additional layer of obfuscation on Google's part will allow them to find more signal in that noise.

March 4, 2020 Algo Update

On May 4th Google rolled out another major core update.

Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the May 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog post for more about that:https://t.co/e5ZQUAlt0G— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 4, 2020

I saw some sites which had their rankings suppressed for years see a big jump. But many things changed at once.

Wedge Issues

On some political search queries which were primarily classified as being news related Google is trying to limit political blowback by showing official sites and data scraped from official sites instead of putting news front & center.

"Google’s pretty much made it explicit that they’re not going to propagate news sites when it comes to election related queries and you scroll and you get a giant election widget in your phone and it shows you all the different data on the primary results and then you go down, you find Wikipedia, you find other like historical references, and before you even get to a single news article, it’s pretty crazy how Google’s changed the way that the SERP is intended."

That change reflects the permanent change to the news media ecosystem brought on by the web.

The Internet commoditized the distribution of facts. The "news" media responded by pivoting wholesale into opinions and entertainment.— Naval (@naval) May 26, 2016

YMYL

A blog post by Lily Ray from Path Interactive used Sistrix data to show many of the sites which saw high volatility were in the healthcare vertical & other your money, your life (YMYL) categories.

Aggressive Monetization

One of the more interesting pieces of feedback on the update was from Rank Ranger, where they looked at particular pages that jumped or fell hard on the update. They noticed sites that put ads or ad-like content front and center may have seen sharp falls on some of those big money pages which were aggressively monetized:

Seeing this all but cements the notion (in my mind at least) that Google did not want content unrelated to the main purpose of the page to appear above the fold to the exclusion of the page's main content! Now for the second wrinkle in my theory.... A lot of the pages being swapped out for new ones did not use the above-indicated format where a series of "navigation boxes" dominated the page above the fold.

The above shift had a big impact on some sites which are worth serious money. Intuit paid over $7 billion to acquire Credit Karma, but their credit card affiliate pages recently slid hard.

Credit Karma lost 40% traffic from May core update. That’s insane, they do major TV ads and likely pay millions in SEO expenses. Think about that folks. Your site isn’t safe. Google changes what they want radically with every update, while telling us nothing!— SEOwner (@tehseowner) May 14, 2020

The above sort of shift reflects Google getting more granular with their algorithms. Early Panda was all or nothing. Then it started to have different levels of impact throughout different portions of a site.

Brand was sort of a band aid or a rising tide that lifted all (branded) boats. Now we are seeing Google get more granular with their algorithms where a strong brand might not be enough if they view the monetization as being excessive. That same focus on page layout can have a more adverse impact on small niche websites.

One of my old legacy clients had a site which was primarily monetized by the Amazon affiliate program. About a month ago Amazon chopped affiliate commissions in half & then the aggressive ad placement caused search traffic to the site to get chopped in half when rankings slid on this update.

Their site has been trending down over the past couple years largely due to neglect as it was always a small side project. They recently improved some of the content about a month or so ago and that ended up leading to a bit of a boost, but then this update came. As long as that ad placement doesn't change the declines are likely to continue.

They just recently removed that ad unit, but that meant another drop in income as until there is another big algo update they're likely to stay at around half search traffic. So now they have a half of a half of a half. Good thing the site did not have any full time employees or they'd be among the millions of newly unemployed. That experience though really reflects how websites can be almost like debt levered companies in terms of going under virtually overnight. Who can have revenue slide around 88% and then take increase investment in the property using the remaining 12% while they wait for the site to be rescored for a quarter year or more?

"If you have been negatively impacted by a core update, you (mostly) cannot see recovery from that until another core update. In addition, you will only see recovery if you significantly improve the site over the long-term. If you haven’t done enough to improve the site overall, you might have to wait several updates to see an increase as you keep improving the site. And since core updates are typically separated by 3-4 months, that means you might need to wait a while."

Almost nobody can afford to do that unless the site is just a side project.

Google could choose to run major updates more frequently, allowing sites to recover more quickly, but they gain economic benefit in defunding SEO investments & adding opportunity cost to aggressive SEO strategies by ensuring ranking declines on major updates last a season or more.

Choosing a Strategy vs Letting Things Come at You

They probably should have lowered their ad density when they did those other upgrades. If they had they likely would have seen rankings at worst flat or likely up as some other competing sites fell. Instead they are rolling with a half of a half of a half on the revenue front. Glenn Gabe preaches the importance of fixing all the problems you can find rather than just fixing one or two things and hoping it is enough. If you have a site which is on the edge you sort of have to consider the trade offs between various approaches to monetization.

monetize it lightly and hope the site does well for many years

monetize it slightly aggressively while using the extra income to further improve the site elsewhere and ensure you have enough to get by any lean months

aggressively monetize the shortly after a major ranking update if it was previously lightly monetized & then hope to sell it off a month or two later before the next major algorithm update clips it again

Outcomes will depend partly on timing and luck, but consciously choosing a strategy is likely to yield better returns than doing a bit of mix-n-match while having your head buried in the sand.

Reading the Algo Updates

You can spend 50 or 100 hours reading blog posts about the update and learn precisely nothing in the process if you do not know which authors are bullshitting and which authors are writing about the correct signals.

But how do you know who knows what they are talking about?

It is more than a bit tricky as the people who know the most often do not have any economic advantage in writing specifics about the update. If you primarily monetize your own websites, then the ignorance of the broader market is a big part of your competitive advantage.

Making things even trickier, the less you know the more likely Google would be to trust you with sending official messaging through you. If you syndicate their messaging without questioning it, you get a treat - more exclusives. If you question their messaging in a way that undermines their goals, you'd quickly become persona non grata - something cNet learned many years ago when they published Eric Schmidt's address.

It would be unlikely you'd see the following sort of Tweet from say Blue Hat SEO or Fantomaster or such.

I asked Gary about E-A-T. He said it's largely based on links and mentions on authoritative sites. i.e. if the Washington post mentions you, that's good. He recommended reading the sections in the QRG on E-A-T as it outlines things well.@methode #Pubcon— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) February 21, 2018

To be able to read the algorithms well you have to have some market sectors and keyword groups you know well. Passively collecting an archive of historical data makes the big changes stand out quickly. Everyone who depends on SEO to make a living should subscribe to an online rank tracking service or run something like Serposcope locally to track at least a dozen or two dozen keywords. If you track rankings locally it makes sense to use a set of web proxies and run the queries slowly through each so you don't get blocked.

Once you see outliers most people miss that align with what you see in a data set, your level of confidence increases and you can spend more time trying to unravel what signals changed.

I've read influential industry writers mention that links were heavily discounted on this update. I have also read Tweets like this one which could potentially indicate the opposite.

Check out https://t.co/1GhD2U01ch . Up even more than Pinterest and ranking for some real freaky shit.— Paul Macnamara (@TheRealpmac) May 12, 2020

If I had little to no data, I wouldn't be able to get any signal out of that range of opinions. I'd sort of be stuck at "who knows."

By having my own data I track I can quickly figure out which message is more inline with what I saw in my subset of data & form a more solid hypothesis.

No Single Smoking Gun

As Glenn Gabe is fond of saying, sites that tank usually have multiple major issues.

Google rolls out major updates infrequently enough that they can sandwich a couple different aspects into major updates at the same time in order to make it harder to reverse engineer updates. So it does help to read widely with an open mind and imagine what signal shifts could cause the sorts of ranking shifts you are seeing.

Sometimes site level data is more than enough to figure out what changed, but as the above Credit Karma example showed sometimes you need to get far more granular and look at page-level data to form a solid hypothesis.

As the World Changes, the Web Also Changes

About 15 years ago online dating was seen as a weird niche for recluses who perhaps typically repulsed real people in person. Now there are all sorts of niche specialty dating sites including a variety of DTF type apps. What was once weird & absurd had over time become normal.

The COVID-19 scare is going to cause lasting shifts in consumer behavior that accelerate the movement of commerce online. A decade of change will happen in a year or two across many markets.

Telemedicine will grow quickly. Facebook is adding commerce featured directly onto their platform through partnering with Shopify. Spotify is spending big money to buy exclusives rights to distribute widely followed podcasters like Joe Rogan. Uber recently offered to acquire GrubHub. Google and Apple will continue adding financing features to their mobile devices. Movie theaters have lost much of their appeal.

Tons of offline "value" businesses ended up having no value after months of revenue disappearing while large outstanding debts accumulated interest. There is a belief that some of those brands will have strong latent brand value that carries over online, but if they were weak even when the offline stores acting like interactive billboards subsidized consumer awareness of their brands then as those stores close the consumer awareness & loyalty from in-person interactions will also dry up. A shell of a company rebuilt around the Toys R' Us brand is unlikely to beat out Amazon's parallel offering or a company which still runs stores offline.

Big box retailers like Target & Walmart are growing their online sales at hundreds of percent year over year.

There will be waves of bankruptcies, shifts in commercial real estate prices, more people working remotely (shifting residential real estate demand from the urban core back out into suburbs).

More and more activities will become normal online activities.

The University of California has about a half-million students & in the fall semester they are going to try to have most of those classes happen online. How much usage data does Google gain as thousands of institutions put more and more of their infrastructure and service online?

Colleges have to convince students for the next year that a remote education is worth every bit as much as an in-person one, and then pivot back before students actually start believing it. It’s like only being able to sell your competitor’s product for a year.— Naval (@naval) May 6, 2020

A lot of B & C level schools are going to go under as the like-vs-like comparison gets easier. Back when I ran a membership site here a college paid us to have students gain access to our membership area of the site. As online education gets normalized many unofficial trade-related sites will look more economically attractive on a relative basis.

Categories:

google

from Digital Marketing News http://www.seobook.com/reading-google-algorithm-updates

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sassypotatoe1 · 4 years

Text

Now that I'm thinking of malicious compliance.

(Malicious compliance is the behaviour of intentionally inflicting harm by strictly following the orders of a superior knowing that compliance with the orders will not have the intended result. The term usually implies the following of an order in such a way that ignores the order's intent but follows it to the letter.) for reference so I can be sure I'm using the term correctly.

When I was in primary school, in 1st grade I think, I was doing homework, and this bitch yelled at me for writing messy (like bitch I just learned how to write two months ago, I'm left handed, have ADHD and the way I'm holding my pen is the correct way for right handed people not lefties because I can't fucking see what I'm writing that way but I wasn't taught differently and I had no idea how to correct it and instead of patiently helping me write neater you're yelling at me two minutes after I started doing homework because my letters are slightly wobbly, fuck you) so I fucking took a ruler, and drew every single letter and number individually with a ruler so it looked perfect, but it was taking ages. I didn't have friends, preferred being inside and messing around with drawing and writing instruments, hyperfocused and I was fueled by spite and anger. I had a lot of energy and a lot of time, and if you want neat writing, you'll either have to teach me how to write neatly with my left hand, or wait for me until I wrote all 6 sentences and did all 20 sums using a ruler to make sure the strokes are straight. She yelled at me for wasting time so I told her "well do you want me to write neat or write fast?" And she told me to just do it at home and wrote a note to my parents in my book saying I was giving her attitude and refusing to do my homework. Get home, parents read note and ask me why I refuse to do homework. I tell them I was doing it but she yelled at me for not writing neat enough so I tried using a ruler to make it neater and then she yelled at me for not working fast enough and then told me to do it at home. They were understandably miffed, and told my Occupational therapist (who was treating me for some of my motor skills I was developing too slowly because ADHD) to look at my writing and try to work out a way for me to write so I can see what I'm writing. She tried teaching me the right way, but my second grade teacher finally told me how to hold my pen and to turn my book and to write smaller and that solved the problem. My writing is some of the neatest I have seen to date now.

When I was in 6th grade, I fell behind on homework because of a tour I took in the middle of a term, and trying to catch up fast enough to my teachers' taste gave me so much anxiety that I started to detest homework. From then on out, I memorized which teachers checked homework, what homework they check and how often, and what standards they have for homework and only did the homework that got checked, and only put any semblance of effort into the homework that had to demonstrate critical thinking and creativity. The rest I either didn't do, or copied from friends before class. As far as teachers were concerned, I was doing the homework well enough. They knew I wasn't actually trying, but since my homework was done, they couldn't really punish me, and in 12 years of school, only 3 teachers actually cared about why I don't do homework, but I have been lying to so many people about so many things in order to save my ass from punishment for things I genuinely struggled with that every attempt they made to help was met with me going "I don't know why I'm like this, I'll do better" and then never doing better.

In high school, the district athletics meet was a huge deal, and if you didn't do athletics (disgraceful), you had to at least support at the meet, because there was also a prize for the school with the most spirit and discipline. If you didn't do either, you were marked absent, even though it's not an actual school day since all of the schools in the district are spending the whole day at the meet, and treated like shit by teachers because you "didn't have any school pride or spirit and didn't participate in anything so you must be a lazy person that doesn't care about anything but yourself". I generally actually enjoyed supporting at those meets, and I was pumped every year to yell my lungs out so we can win the spirit cup, even though I'm a singer and yelling my lungs out is pretty taboo. In 9th grade, however, my grandpa died from cancer, and he was my idol, so it was really hard on me. I was planning on going to the meet so I spent every day at the practice period where we learned cheers and dances so we'll be in sinc on the bleachers. My grandpa died a week before the meet, and 4 days before I found out that his funeral was on the day of the meet. I went to the practice period because I still wanted to at least have fun and feel like I'm going. I'm halfway up the bleachers when the teacher running the whole thing says "anyone here not going to the meet, sit next to the bleachers for the rest of the period, and I hope you know how pathetic it is that you're not supporting your school". Now, right next to the bleachers, where she wanted us to sit, is in the sun, in the middle of summer, with 30° Celsius heat. Now you bet I'm already pissed at this bitch for calling us pathetic, and being a bitch about kids not going to the meet even though a lot of them want to but likely can't, like me, so I'm like fuck her. Ilsit next to the bleachers, but I'm going waay to the back and sitting in the shade of the trees. I'm doing what she said, just not the way she wanted me to. Sorry for you bitch, I'm only complying as much as is needed to not get me in trouble.

In my first year of university, I had to meet a required reading speed for a literature module that I HAD to take. Now the reading centre that tests reading speed and "trains" students to read faster functions independently from the university, but on campus, and they're paid commission based on how many students that don't meet reading requirements they help on top of their salaries. Therefore, their programs have been rigged to reduce the reading speed of some profiles from what it actually is, so that less students seem to reach the requirements and they therefore have to "help" more students and get more commission. I was one of these unlucky fuckers. Me. The fastest reader and writer on my grade all throughout school. The girl that read 6 full sized novels a week in sixth grade. 100 pages in 2 hours. I calculated my actual reading speed, shit was 70 words per minute more than the program said it was, and definitely met the requirements. I had to do the course though, or I'll fail the literature module, so I did. Sort of. I got in, memorized the article with the eye test (which showed you a sentence at a time according to your last recorded reading speed) by reading the sentence THREE TIMES in the time it's shown. Then I clicked through the speed reading article. Literally, I spent probably a second and a half on the actual article page, before answering the comprehension and memory test, which I always got 90-100% for btw. Still, it said I was reading too slow. I clicked through the page which means that I technically "read" 500-700 words in a second, but the bitch said I read 345 in a minute. The requirement is 450 a minute. And the attendants notice. Oh boy do they notice. So when I get there every appointment, you can FEEL their annoyance at seeing my face. Eventually I click through the article in 0.34 seconds and get 100% on the comprehension and the system says I have 446 words per minute. 4 words short. And the attendant that usually "assists" me says it's fine. You can go. I'll sign you out.

I have tons of stories like this, and I wish I could say I was chill enough through every situation to be considered cool and suave, but I was a seething, sarcastic mess every time, and baby, you know people could tell. I may not have the freedom to actively challenge the system, but you bet your ass I'm following the rules just well enough to piss people off without getting in trouble.

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dazzledbybooks · 5 years

Quote

After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners’ estates and bent the human race to their will. Now Ayla, a human servant rising in the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging her family’s death…by killing the sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. Crier was Made to be beautiful, flawless, and to carry on her father’s legacy. But that was before her betrothal to the enigmatic Scyre Kinok, before she discovered her father isn’t the benevolent king she once admired, and most importantly, before she met Ayla. Now, with growing human unrest across the land, pressures from a foreign queen, and an evil new leader on the rise, Crier and Ayla find there may be only one path to love: war. Crier's War (Crier's War #1) by Nina Varela Publisher: HarperTeen Release Date: October 1st 2019 Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, LGBT Links: Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41951626-crier-s-war Amazon: https://amzn.to/2SVjF57 B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/criers-war-nina-varela/1129558376#/ iTunes: https://books.apple.com/br/book/criers-war/id1448154886 Bookdepository (CD): https://www.bookdepository.com/Criers-War-Nina-Varela/9781094025483?ref=grid-view&qid=1564567702509&sr=1-1 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/hk/en/ebook/crier-s-war Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Crier_s_War.html?id=JuGBDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y Favorite Quotes: “Fever and fervor”, said Junn. “There is very little difference, in the end.” “Humanity is how you act, my lady,” said Jezen. “Now how you were Made.” "Like she was more than a human girl. Like she was a summer storm made of flesh." "Crier was beautiful. Created to be beautiful, but it was more than that. [...] It was the way her eyes lit up with interest, the way her fingers were always so careful, almost reverent, as she flipped the pages of a book." "A thought came to her: a story of its own, one that only just began writing itself in her mind: a story of two women, one human, one Made." "A drop of water gleamed on Ayla's lower lip. Strangely, it made Crier want to--drink." Excerpt: Original link/Excerpt extracted from: https://www.epicreads.com/blog/criers-war-sneak-peek/ Alternative links: https://aerbook.com/books/Criers_War-227827.html?social=1&retail=1&emailcap=0 Crier’s War FALL, Y E A R 47 A E Chapter 1 When she was newbuilt and still fragile, and her fresh-woven skin was soft and shiny from creation, Crier’s father told her, “Always check their eyes. That’s how you can tell if a creature is human. It’s in the eyes.” Crier thought her father, Sovereign Hesod, was speaking in metaphor, that he meant humans possessed a special sort of power. Love, a glowing lantern in their hearts; hunger, a liquid heat in their bellies; souls, dark wells in their eyes. Of course, she’d learned later that it was not a metaphor. When light hit an Automa’s eyes head-on, the irises flashed gold. A split second of reflection, refraction, like a cat’s eyes at night. A flicker of gold, and you knew those eyes did not belong to a human. Human eyes swallowed light whole. Crier counted four heartbeats: a doe and three kits. The woods seemed to bend around her, trees converging overhead, while near her feet there was a rabbit’s den, a warm little burrow hidden underground from wolves and foxes . . . but not from her. She stood impossibly still, listening to four tiny pulses radiating up through the dirt, beating so rapidly that they sounded like a hive of buzzing honeybees. Crier cocked her head, fascinated with the muffled hum of living organs. If she concentrated, she could hear the air moving through four sets of thumb-sized lungs. Like all Automae, she was Designed to pick up even the faintest, most faraway sounds. This deep into the woods, dawn had barely touched the forest floor—the perfect time for a hunt. Not that Crier enjoyed hunting. The Hunt was an old human ritual, so old that most humans did not use it anymore. But Hesod was a Traditionalist and historian at heart, and he fostered a unique appreciation for human traditions and mythology. When Crier was Made, he had anointed her forehead with wine and honey for good fortune. When she came of age at thirteen, he had gifted her a silver dress embroidered with the phases of the moon. When he decided that she would marry Kinok, a Scyre from the Western Mountains, he did not make arrangements for Crier to take part in the Automa tradition of traveling to a Maker’s workshop, designing and creating a symbolic gift for her future husband. He had planned for a Hunt. So Crier was not actually alone in these woods. Somewhere out there, hidden by the cover of shadows and trees, her fiancé, Kinok, was hunting as well. Kinok was considered a war hero of sorts. He’d been Made long after the War of Kinds, but there had been numerous rebellions, large and small, in the five decades since the War itself. One of the biggest, a series of coups called the Southern Up-risings, had been quelled almost single-handedly by Kinok and his ingenuity. On top of that, he was the founder and head of the Anti- Reliance Movement—a very new political group that sought to distance Automakind and humankind even further. Literally. Most of their agenda centered on building a new Automa capital to the Far North, in a territory that was uninhabitable to humans, instead of continuing to use the current capital, Yanna, which had once been a human city. It was, frankly, ridiculous. You didn’t have to be the sovereign’s daughter to know that building an entirely new city would require ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million kings’ coffers of gold, and why would such a vain effort ever be worth the time and cost? It was a fantasy. Before Kinok had begun the Anti-Reliance Movement, about three years ago now, he’d been a Watcher of the Iron Heart. It was a sacred task, protecting the mine that made heartstone, and he was the first Watcher to ever leave his post. Which, of course, had caused much speculation among Automakind. That he’d been discharged, banished for some serious offense. But Kinok claimed it had been a simple difference of philosophy regarding the fate of their Kind, and no one had uncovered any reason more sinister than that. The one time Crier had asked him about his past, he had been elusive. “Those were dark times,” he had said. “So few of us ever saw light.” She had no idea what that meant. Maybe she was overcomplicating it: he’d been living in a mine, after all. Still, the secrets he held—about the Iron Heart, how it ran, its exact coordinates within the western mountains—made him inherently powerful, and different. Many of her father’s councilmembers—the sovereign’s “Red Hands,” as they were called—seemed drawn to Kinok. Like Hesod, Kinok had a certain gravity to him, a certain pull, though where he was serious, Hesod was jovial. Where Kinok was controlled and quiet, Hesod was loud, quick-tempered, often brash. And determined to marry off his daughter to Kinok, despite all the whispers, the speculations. Or perhaps because of them. Months before Kinok’s arrival, Crier and her father had taken a walk along the sea cliffs. “Kinok’s followers are few and scattered, but he is gaining influence at a rate I hadn’t thought possible,” he’d explained. She had listened carefully, trying to understand his point. She had heard of Kinok’s rallies, if “rallies” was even the right word—they were essentially just intellectual gatherings, where small groups of Automae could share their ideals, talk politics and advancement. “Scyre Kinok is a philosopher, Father, not a politician,” Crier had said. “He poses no threat to your rule.” It had been late summer, the sky clear and delphinium blue. Crier used to treasure those long, slow walks with her father, hoarding moments like pieces of jewelry, pretty things to turn over and admire in the light. She looked forward to them every day. It was their time—away from the Red Council, away from her studies—when she could learn from him and him alone. “Yes, but his philosophy is gaining traction among the Made, the protection and rule of which are my—and your—responsibility. We must convince him to join a family structure. To bridge the divide.” Crier stopped short of the seaflowers that had just begun to bloom by the cliff’s edge. “But surely if he does not agree with the tenets of Traditionalism, he will not agree to the kind of union you propose.” She couldn’t bring herself to say marriage yet. “One might think so, but I have reason to believe he will accept the opportunity. To him, it will provide power and status. To us, it will provide stability and access. We will be able to track what the Anti-Reliance Movement is attempting to accomplish, and better rein it in.” “So you disagree with ARM,” Crier said. Hesod hedged. “Their views on humankind are too extreme for my taste. It is one thing to subjugate those who are inferior and another thing entirely to behave as if they don’t exist. We must build policy around the reality of where we came from. We were not created in a void, history-less. It is ignorant to think we cannot learn from humanity’s existing structures.” “You find ARM too extreme. . . . Would you consider its leader dangerous, then?” Crier asked. “No,” Hesod said coolly. Then he had added: “Not yet.” And so she had understood. Crier was the bandage to a wound—one that was minor, for now, but had the potential to fester over time. A hairline fracture in Hesod’s otherwise ironclad rule, his control over all of Zulla, everything from the eastern sea to the western mountains—except the separate territory of Varn. Varn was part of Zulla but still ruled by a separate Automa monarchy. Queen Junn, the Child Queen. The Mad Queen. The Bone Eater. Hesod didn’t need any more splintering. He wanted union. He wanted to keep the same thing Crier knew Kinok wanted: Power. Now: the branches above Crier’s head were half naked with approaching winter, but the trees were so densely packed that they blocked out almost all the weak gray sunlight, shrouding the forest floor in shadow. Overhead, the leaves were like copper etchings, a thousand waving hands in shades of red and orange and burnished gold; underfoot, they were the pale brown of dead things. Crier could smell wet earth and woodsmoke, the musk of animals, the sharp scent of pine and wood sap. It was so different from what she usually experienced, living on the icy shores of the Steorran Sea: the tang of sea air. The taste of salt on her tongue. The heavy smells of fish and rotting seaweed. It took half a day’s ride to reach these woods, and so Crier had been here only once before, nearly five years ago. Her father enjoyed hunting deer like the humans did. She remembered eating a few bites of hot, spiced venison that night, filling her belly with food she did not require. More ritual than meal. The core of her father’s Traditionalism: adopting human habits and customs into daily life. He said it created meaning, structure. Under most circumstances, Crier understood the merits of Hesod’s beliefs. It was why she called him “father” even though she’d never had a mother and had never been birthed. She had been commissioned, Made. Unlike humans, all Automae really needed was heartstone. Where human bodies depended on meat and grain, Automa bodies depended on heartstone: a special red mineral imbued with alchemical energy; raw stone mined from deep within the western mountains and then transmuted by alchemists into a powerful, magickal substance. It was how Thomas Wren, the greatest of the human alchemists, had created them almost one hundred years ago when he’d Designed Kiera—the first. Automae were modeled this way still. Crier crept through the underbrush, keeping to the darkest shadows. Her feet were silent even as she walked across twigs and dry leaves, a red carpet of pine needles. Nothing would be able to hear her coming. Not deer, not elk. Not even other Automae. She paused every few moments, listening to her surroundings: the sounds of small animals skittering through the brush, the whispers of wind, the back-and-forth calls of the noonbirds and the old crows. She was careful to keep her heart rate down. If it spiked too suddenly, the distress chime in the back of her neck would go off at a pithc only Automae could hear, and all her guards would come running. The ceremonial bow was heavy in her hand. It was carved from a single piece of dark mahogany, polished to a perfect sheen and inlaid with veins of gold, precious stones, animal bone. The three arrows sheathed at her back were equally beautiful. One tipped with iron, one with silver, and one with bone. Iron for strength and power. Silver for prosperity. Bone for two bodies bound as one. Snap. Crier whipped around, already nocking an arrow and ready to shoot—but instead coming face-to-face with Kinok himself. He was frozen midstep, partly hidden behind a massive oak, half his face obscured and the other half in watery sunlight. Every time she saw him, which was now about ten times per day since he had taken up residence in her father’s guest chambers, Crier was reminded of how handsome he was. Like all Automae, he was tall and strong, broad-shouldered, Designed to be more beautiful than the most beautiful human man. His face was a study in shadow and light: high cheekbones, knife-blade jawline, a thin, sharp nose. His skin was swarthy, a shade lighter than her own, his dark hair cropped close to his skull. His brown eyes were sharp and scrutinizing. The eyes of a scientist, a political leader. Her fiancé. Her fiancé, who was aiming his iron-tipped arrow straight at Crier’s forehead. There was a moment—so brief that when she thought about it later she was not sure it had actually happened—in which Crier lowered her bow and Kinok did not. A single moment in which they stared at each other and Crier felt the faintest edge of nerves. Then Kinok lowered his bow, smiling, and she scolded herself for being so silly. “Lady Crier,” he said, still smiling. “I do not think we’re supposed to interact with each other until the Hunt is over . . . but you’re a better conversationalist than the birds. Have you caught anything yet?” “No, not yet,” she said. “I am hoping for a deer.” His teeth flashed. “I’m hoping for a fox.” “Why is that?” “They’re quicker than deer, smaller than wolves, and cleverer than crows. I like the challenge.” “I see.” She shifted, catching the faraway scuffle of a rabbit in the underbrush. The shadows dappled Kinok’s face and shoulders like a horse’s coloring. He was still looking at her, the last remnants of that smile still playing at the corners of his flawless mouth. “I wish you luck with your fox, Scyre,” she said, preparing to track down the rabbit. “Aim well.” “Actually, I wanted to congratulate you, my lady,” he said suddenly. “While we are out here, away from—from the palace. I heard you convinced Sovereign Hesod to let you attend a meeting of the Red Council next week.” Crier bit her tongue, trying to hide her excitement. After years of near-begging, her father had agreed to let her attend a council meeting. After years of studying history, philosophy, political theory, reading and rereading a dozen libraries’ worth of books, writing essays and letters and sometimes feverish little manifestos, she would finally, finally be allowed to take a seat among the Red Hands. Maybe even to share her proposals for council reform. As daughter of the sovereign, the Red Council was her birthright; it was as much a part of her as her Pillars. She was Made for this. “I think you’re right, you know,” Kinok continued. “I read the open letter you sent to Councilmember Reyka. About your proposed redistribution of representation on the Red Council. You are correct that while there is a voice for every district in Zulla outside of Varn, there is not a voice for every system of value.” “You read that?” Crier said, eyes snapping up to his face. “Nobody read that. I doubt even Councilmember Reyka did.” She couldn’t help the note of bitterness in her voice. It was foolish, but she had thought Councilmember Reyka, of all people, would listen to her. Her argument had been that in places with higher-density human populations, the interests of those humans should be somehow accounted for in the Hands who sat on her father’s council. Though she had to wonder if when Kinok mentioned her phrase, “systems of value,” he was more interested in his own values—those he was attempting to spread through the land, via ARM—than those of the human citizens. Still, it flattered her that he’d read it. It meant her words had more power, greater reach, than she’d realized. She hoped Reyka had read it too, but with no reply, she’d been left to believe the worst. That Reyka thought her naive and foolish. Sometimes, Crier wondered if maybe her father thought that, too. He’d refused her for so long. But Reyka had always shown something of a soft spot for Crier. As the longest-serving member of the Red Council, Reyka had always been a fixture in Crier’s life. She’d visited the sovereign’s estate quite frequently. When Crier was younger, Reyka would bring her little gifts from her travels: vials of sweet-smelling hair oil, a music box the size of a thumbnail, the strange dark delicacy that was candied heartstone. Crier had come to think of her the way human children in storybooks thought of their godmothers. She couldn’t say that to Reyka, or to anyone. It was such a weak, soft-bellied idea. So she just thought it to herself, and it made her feel warm. “Well . . .” Kinok stepped forward a little, light sliding across his face. His footsteps were silent amid the blanket of dried leaves. “I read it twice. And I agree with it. The Red Hands shouldn’t be based on district alone; it leads to imbalance and bias. Have you mentioned this issue to your father?” “Yes,” Crier said quietly. “He was not incredibly receptive.” “We can work on that.” At her look of surprise, Kinok shrugged one shoulder. “We are bound to be married, are we not? I am on your side, Lady Crier, as you are on mine. Right?” “Right,” she found herself saying, staring at him in wonder. What new opportunities might come to her in this marriage? For months now she had thought of it as nothing more than a prolonged political maneuver, unpleasant but ultimately bearable, like the stench of rotting fish in the sea air. It had not occurred to her that she might be gaining an advocate, as well as a husband. “And if we are on the same side, there is something you should know,” said Kinok, lowering his voice even though they were entirely alone, no living things around but the rabbits and the birds. “There was a scandal in the capital recently. I know only because I was with Councilmember Reyka when she learned of it.” Crier almost questioned that—it was no secret that Council-member Reyka hated everything about the Anti-Reliance Movement, including Kinok himself. But another word caught her attention. “A scandal?” she asked. “What kind of scandal?” “Midwife sabotage.” Crier’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, sabotage?” she asked. Midwives were an integral part of the Making process. They were created to be assistants to the Makers themselves, a bridge between Maker and Designer. They helped newly Made Automae adjust to the world. “What did the Midwife do?” “Faked a set of Design blueprints for a nobleman’s child. It was a disaster. The child was Made wrong. More animal than Automa or even human. Their mind was wild, violent. They had to be disposed of for the safety of the nobleman’s family.” “That’s horrible,” Crier breathed. “Why would the Midwife do such a thing? Was it madness?” She knew the condition plagued some humans. “Nobody knows,” said Kinok. “But, Lady, there is something you should know.” There was something strange in his voice. Warning? Trepidation? “This was not her first Make,” Kinok continued, meeting Crier’s eyes. “She had been working with the nobles of Rabu for decades.” A pit seemed to open in Crier’s belly, but she was not sure why. “Who was she, Scyre?” she asked slowly. “The Midwife. What was her name?” “Torras. Her name was Torras.” Crier gripped her bow so tightly that the wood creaked in protest. Because she knew Midwife Torras. She knew it, because that was the Midwife who had helped Make her. As soon as the Hunt was complete—two rabbits and a fox ensnared—and their party had returned to the palace, Crier retired to her chambers, poring again over the Midwife’s Handbook, a thin, leather-bound booklet she’d come across in a bookseller’s stall in the market last year and bought with so much enthusiasm that the stall owner seemed a little alarmed. She reassured herself that an infraction of the kind Kinok had mentioned was nearly impossible. There was no way her own Design had been tampered with, of course. She was far too important. And besides, if there were something off, something Flawed, something different about her, she’d know it already . . . wouldn’t she? Chapter 2 Luna was killed in a white dress. A week had passed since her death, and the dress that had been stripped off her body and dangled from the tallest post was still fluttering in the faint breeze. It was some kind of symbol, or warning. By now the dress was soaked through with rot and rainwater, but there were still some parts white enough to catch the sunlight. Catch the eye. Ayla could not stop glancing over, and every time she did, she felt the gut-punch of what had happened to Luna all over again. And now, days later, the reminder rippled through the other humans like the dress itself rippled in the summer wind. No one even knew what Luna had done. Why the sovereign’s guards had killed her. Ayla continued on her way through the marketplace. She usually worked in the orchards at Sovereign Hesod’s palace, sowing seeds and collecting bushels of ripe apples, but one of the other servants was practically delirious with fever and Ayla had been ordered to fill in. For the past week she’d joined the group of exhausted servants who left their beds halfway through the night, just so they could make it to the closest village, Kalla-den—a good four leagues of treacherous, rocky shoreline from the manor—and set up their wares by dawn. It would’ve been miserable no matter what, but being greeted in the marketplace by Luna’s empty dress made it all the worse. It was like a ghost. Like a pale fish in dark water, flickering at the edges of Ayla’s vision. Ayla had worked in some capacity at the sovereign’s palace for the past four years. And it had been months since she’d finally made it out of the stables and into the orchard-tending rotation. Some days she was so close to the white stone walls of the palace that she could smell the burning hearth fires within, taste the smoke on her tongue. And yet . . . she still hadn’t managed to get inside. Nothing mattered until she got inside. And she’d vowed to do so to exact her revenge—even if it killed her. But now Ayla stared out at the marketplace, at the crowd of sleek, beautiful Automae—leeches—and tried to keep the hatred and disgust off her face. Nobody bought flowers from a girl who looked like she’d rather be selling poison. “Flowers!” she called out, trying to keep her voice light. It was almost sunset, almost time to give up for the day, but there were still far too many unsold garlands in her basket. “We’ve got seaflowers, apple blossoms, the prettiest salt lavender up and down the coast!” Not a single leech glanced in her direction. The Kalla-den Market was a kingdom’s worth of chaos stuffed into an area the size of a barn, and it was so noisy you could hear it from half a league away. The marketplace was vendors’ stalls shoved up against each other three deep, their carts and baskets overflowing with candied fruits, pastries, fresh-caught fish, oysters that smelled like death even under the weak autumn sun. It was leeches huddled around baskets of heartstone dust, dipping the tips of their fingers into the powdery red grains, bringing them to their lips to test the quality. It was whole chickens or goat legs rotating on spits, roasting slowly, smoke filling the air till Ayla’s eyes watered; it was wine and apple cider and piles of colorful spices; it was a crush of grimy, skeletal, desperate humans hawking their wares to an endless stream of Automae. And of course, the rows and rows of Hesod’s prized sun apples, gleaming like so many red jewels—nearly as crimson and bright as heartstone itself. But the majority of the Automae seemed to treat the market like one of those traveling menageries—Step right up, folks. Gawk for free. Look at the humans. Look at the flesh-and-bone animals. Point and stare, why don’t you. Watch ’em sweat and squeal like pigs. The only good thing about the market was Benjy. She looked over at him as she called out Flowers! again. He was the closest thing to a friend that Ayla would allow herself. She’d known him since she was twelve years old and haunted, hollowed by grief. In the thick of it, still. Unlike Ayla, Benjy was used to the madness of Kalla-den. He even seemed to thrive in it, his brown eyes bright and sparkling, the sun bringing out the freckles on his brown cheeks. The first day Ayla had joined him here in the market, he’d nearly taken some eyes out while pointing at all the exciting things he wanted Ayla to see—colorful glass baubles, mechanical insects with windup wings, twists of sugared bread shaped like animals. On the second day, Benjy showed Ayla the secret underbelly of the market: Made objects. These were forbidden items created by alchemists—Makers—and passed from hand to hand in the shadows, hidden by the dust and the crowd. Objects smaller than Ayla’s little finger but worth double her weight in gold. For humans, possessing a Made object was forbidden, as Made objects were the work of alchemy and considered dangerous, powerful. After all, Automae themselves were Made. Perhaps they didn’t like any reminder that they, too, were once treated like trinkets and playthings. Made objects were completely illegal, and therefore incredibly tempting. Ayla had no use for temptation—except in one single case. The locket she wore around her neck. The only remnant she had of her family—a reminder of the violence they’d suffered, and the revenge she planned to take. She didn’t even know how it worked, if it even did work, but she knew it was Made, and that it was forbidden, and that it was the one thing she could call hers. “Are you going to help me or not?” Ayla said now, prodding Benjy in the ribs. He yelped. “I’ve been yelling my head off for an hour; it’s your turn.” He looked down at her, squinting in the dying sun. “Take it from someone who’s done this a hundred times. The day is over. All anyone’s willing to buy right now is heartstone.” Ayla huffed. “You of all people know if we don’t sell every single one of these flowers, we won’t get dinner.” “Trust me, I’m aware. My belly’s been growling since midmorning.” “You got any food squirreled away back in the quarters?” “No,” he said mournfully. “I had some dried plums stowed away in the old gardener’s lean-to, but last time I checked they were gone. Guess someone else found them.” He tugged at his messy dark curls, wiped the sweat off his forehead, fiddled with one of the garlands they had yet to sell. That was Benjy—always in motion. It would make Ayla anxious if she weren’t so used to it. “The world is just full of thieves, ain’t it,” Ayla said with a hint of amusement. Benjy picked a petal off one of the seaflowers. “Like you’re not a thief yourself.” She grinned. When Ayla first met Benjy, he had looked more like a deer than a boy. Long-legged and awkward and perpetually wide-eyed, sweet and young and angry, but a soft kind of angry. A harmless, deathless kind of angry. His family hadn’t been killed by the sovereign’s men. He’d never known them at all—his mother had left him on the doorstep of an old temple, still wet from birth. If it were Ayla, she knew she’d be consumed by the need to track them down, to find her birth mother, to ask her a thousand questions that all began with why. But Benjy wasn’t like that. He’d survived under the care of the temple priests for nine years, then ran away. Three months later, Rowan took him in. Benjy’s anger was different now—he’d grown, learned more about this broken world, learned about the Revolution. Some bitterness had seeped into him; some passion. But he was still soft. Would always be. For years, that softness had annoyed the hell out of Ayla. Made her want to grab his shoulders and shake him till some fury came out. After all, it was fury that had kept Ayla alive all these years; fury that had lit a flame inside her chest and made her keep going out of sheer anger. When she had no hearth fire to keep her warm, she’d picture the look on Hesod’s face when his precious daughter lay in Ayla’s hands, broken beyond repair. On the days her belly seemed to crumple in on itself from lack of bread, she’d picture some older, stronger version of herself looking Hesod right in his soulless eyes and saying: This is for my family, you murderous leech. Ayla scanned the crowd, feeling horribly small and soft, a mouse surrounded by cats. Automae looked human the way statues looked human—you might be tricked from far away, but once you got up close you could see all the differences. Most leeches were around six feet tall, some even taller, and their bodies, no matter the shape or size, were graceful and corded with lean muscle. Their faces were angular, their features sharp. They were Designed in Automa Midwiferies, each one sculpted to be beautiful, but it was a chilling kind of beautiful. Some sick practice in vanity: How big can we make her eyes? How cutting her cheekbones? How perfectly symmetrical her features? There was also something odd about the look of a leech’s skin. It was flawless, sure—no pores, no peach fuzz, no freckles or sunburns or scars, just smooth, supple skin. But more than that, it was the way they looked carved from stone, indestructible. It was the way their skin stretched over their hand-designed muscles and bones. Like it could barely keep all the monster inside. The leeches had let themselves forget that they’d been created by the same humans they now treated worse than dogs. In the forty-eight years since their rise to power, they’d conveniently let themselves forget their past. Forget that they were once merely the pets and playthings of human nobility. Ayla did not let herself think about her own past, either—the fire, the fear, the way loss lived in the cavity of the chest, the way it chewed her up from the inside out. Thinking like that wasn’t how you survived. She and Benjy packed up the stall before sundown, aiming to be long gone by the time darkness fell over Kalla-den. As they took a shortcut through a damp alley, baskets of unsold sea-flowers strapped to their backs, someone fell into step behind them. Ayla glanced back and, despite herself, she almost smiled when she saw Rowan. Rowan was a seamstress who lived and worked in Kalla-den. At least, that’s what she was on the outside. To people like Ayla, she was something else entirely. A mentor. A trainer. A protector. A mother to the lost and the beaten and the hungry. She gave them refuge. And taught them to fight back. You wouldn’t know it from the looks of her. She had one of those faces where you couldn’t quite tell how old she was—the only signs of age were her silver hair and the slight crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes—and she was short, even shorter than Ayla. She looked rather like a plump little sparrow hopping around, ruffling her feathers. Sweet and harmless. Like so much else, it was a carefully constructed lie. Rowan was no sparrow. She was a bird of prey. Seven years ago, she’d saved Ayla’s life. She was so cold that it didn’t feel like cold anymore. It didn’t even burn. She barely noticed the winter air, the snow soaking through her threadbare boots, the ice crystals that whipped across her face and left her skin red and raw. She was cold from the inside out, the coldness pulsing through her with every weak flutter of her heart. Dimly, she knew this was how it felt right before you died. It was comforting. She was so cold, and so tired of being alone. So tired of hurting. The last thing she’d eaten was a scrap of half-rotted meat three days ago. Maybe four. Time kept blurring, rolling over itself, going belly-up like a dead animal. Ayla wasn’t hungry anymore. Her stomach had stopped making noises. Quietly, it was eating what little muscle she had left. There was a patch of darkness up ahead. Darkness, which meant something not covered in snow. Ayla stumbled forward, the ground tilting in strange ways beneath her feet. Her eyes kept falling shut against her will. She forced them open again, head pounding, vision reduced to a pinprick of light at the end of a long, long tunnel. The darkness—there. So close. Gray, a stone wall. The dark brown of cobblestones. It was a tiny gap between two buildings. A sloping roof caught the snow, protecting the ground beneath. Ayla dragged herself into the dark snowless space and her knees gave out. She hit the wall sideways and fell hard, skull cracking against the cobblestones. And there she lay. “Hey.” Her eyes were closed. “Hey! Wake up!” No. She was finally warm. “Wake up, you idiot!” A sound like striking an oyster shell against rock; a sharp, stinging pressure on Ayla’s cheek. Heat, for a moment. Someone was talking, maybe, but they were very far away, and Ayla couldn’t make out the words. The exhaustion closed over her head like water, and she let go. It was only later that she learned just how far Rowan had dragged her body to warmth and safety, before nursing her back to health. Back then, Rowan’s hair had still been brown, streaked silver only at the temples. But her eyes were the same. Deep and steady. “You were ready to die,” she had said. Ayla didn’t answer. “I don’t know what happened to you, exactly,” said Rowan. “But I know you’re alone. I know you’ve been cast aside, left to die in the snow like an animal.” She reached out and took Ayla’s hands, held them between her own. It felt like being cradled: like being held all over. “You’re not alone anymore. I can give you something to fight for, child. I can give you a purpose.” “A purpose?” Ayla had said. Her voice was weak, scraped out. “Justice,” said Rowan. And she squeezed Ayla’s hands. “The moon is full,” said Rowan now, looking straight ahead, in the hushed, coded tone Ayla had come to know so well. The three of them moved easily through the crowd of humans, used to dodging people and carts and stray dogs. The chaos of the Kalla-den streets was a strange kind of blessing: a thousand human voices all shouting at once meant it was the perfect place for conversations you didn’t want anyone to overhear. “Clear skies lately,” Ayla and Benjy said in unison. Nothing to report. It was Rowan, of course, who had taught them the language of rebellion. A sprig of rosemary passed between hands on a crowded street, garlands woven from flowers with symbolic meanings, coded messages hidden inside loaves of bread, faerie stories or old folk songs used like passwords to determine who you could trust. Rowan had taught them everything. She’d saved Ayla first, Benjy a few months later. Took them in. Clothed them. Taught them how to beg, and then how to find work. Fed them. But also gave them a new hunger: justice. Because they should never have needed to beg in the first place. “What news?” Benjy asked. “A comet is crossing to the southern skies,” Rowan said with a smile. “A week from now. It will be a beautiful night.” Benjy took Ayla’s hand and squeezed. She didn’t return it. She knew what the code meant: an uprising in the South. Another one. It filled her gut with suspicion and dread. They turned onto a wider street, the crowd thinning out a little. They spoke more softly now. “Crossing south,” Ayla repeated. Her heart sank. “And how many stars will be out in the southern skies?” Rowan didn’t pick up on her skepticism. “Oh, I’ve heard around two hundred.” “Two hundred,” Benjy repeated, eyes gleaming. Two hundred human rebels gathering in the South. “High time, loves.” Rowan was gone as swiftly as she had appeared, leaving only a crumpled flyer in Benjy’s hands—a religious pamphlet, something about the gods and believers. Ayla knew it would be riddled with code—code that only those in the Resistance could decipher. Part of Ayla worried that Rowan was still harboring hope for these uprisings, for what she called “justice,” because of her grief for Luna and Luna’s sister, Faye. After all, they’d been two of Rowan’s lost children, just like Ayla and Benjy. It was known within the village that any orphan kid could find food and comfort with Rowan. Ayla remembered when Faye and Luna had come to Rowan’s after their mother had died. Ayla had taken to Luna immediately, a girl with shy smiles and sweet questions. Faye had been pricklier, distrusting, far too much like Ayla for the two of them to get along. But still, they’d grown up around each other. And Ayla knew that Rowan’s soft heart grieved for the two sisters. Those two girls she’d tried to save. Two girls who, in her mind, she had failed. And in that grief, Rowan was willing to send more innocents off to find more of her “justice.” Over the years, they’d received word of a few uprisings here in Rabu, but each one had been bloody—and quelled quickly. The Sovereign State of Rabu was controlled by Sovereign Hesod. His rule had come to extend to all of Zulla except for the queendom of Varn. Though he claimed he did not hold all the power, as the Red Council—a group of Automa aristocrats—was supposed to share governance of Rabu, Ayla hardly believed that to be true. Hesod was enormously wealthy and influential. He was also power-hungry. It had been his father who led the Automa troops in the War of Kinds. It was he who first declared humans should be separated from their families. And it was on his personal land, the vast grounds of his seaside palace, that Ayla, Benjy, and four hundred other human servants lived and worked. The Red Council was cruel, merciless, and worst of all, creative. That was part of the reason the Revolution was so slow-going—people were just so damn terrified of the Council and its ever-tightening laws. Even Ayla had to admit their fears were well founded. Luna—and her disembodied dress—was proof of that. Benjy looked at Ayla as they hiked up the steeply sloping path toward the palace, his eyes full of hope and excitement. The message was clear: he wanted to join. Even after the disastrous uprisings of last year. She shook her head. No. He knew better. He knew she couldn’t leave now, tonight. Not when she was this close to the inside of the palace. And Crier. Benjy’s smile vanished. “Ayla.” “No,” she said. “I’m not going.” Did she want what he wanted? Did she want the leeches dead? Of course, but not like this. Not when it only meant a trail of human blood, not when it was doomed to futility. She was not ready to lose anyone else. The last time there had been an uprising in the South, it was quashed almost immediately—and that uprising had been massive, with nearly two thousand humans marching through the streets of the city Bram, armed with torches and saltpeter, aiming to take the heart of the city where the most powerful Automae lived. They had been defeated in a single night. The Automa who had led the counterattack—who had destroyed them—became a decorated war hero. A household name, a household monster. Kinok. Benjy fell silent, but Ayla could finally feel his anger—could tell that it was now directed at her. His strides grew long, determined, as they reached the narrow path that curved up toward the palace. She could see the peaked roofs of the palace towers now in the distance. She hurried to catch up with him, panting in the heat. By now they were farther from the crowd. She grabbed his shoulder, and he stopped walking so suddenly she nearly crashed into him. “I know what you’re going to say,” he said through gritted teeth. Ayla struggled to catch her breath. “You could always . . . watch the comet without me.” The words grated in her throat like she’d swallowed a mouthful of salt. His dark-brown eyes locked onto hers. The breeze danced in his messy hair. He’d grown taller than her, and broader too. She held his gaze. For a full minute, he said nothing. They just stood there, breathing hard, looking at each other. Thinking the same thing: it was too soon. Ayla wanted to say: Don’t leave me. Ayla should have said: Leave me. Because maybe it would be better that way. Benjy’s anger seemed to transmute into sadness, his lips parting. Finally, he said, “I won’t do that. I won’t go without you, and you know it.” She did. And that scared her more than anything. He wouldn’t leave her. It made her heart rage. Leave, she wanted to scream. Don’t stay for me. But then another part of her, buried so deep it had almost, almost, gone silent, knew she couldn’t do this—do any of it—without him. His lips were still slightly parted, as though there was more he wanted to say. She knew how badly he needed this. Revolution. Blood. Change. She waited for him to keep going, to try again to convince her. But he also knew how much she wanted what she wanted: Lady Crier’s blood on her hands. So in the end, Benjy just sighed. More and more servants began to pass them on their way up the narrow path, and Ayla put a few paces between herself and Benjy, kept her eyes on the rutted path as they marched the rest of the way back to their quarters in silence, the past piling into her thoughts like shovelfuls of dirt. After what Ayla had come to think of as that day, the day that changed everything, the splitting point in her mind, the thing that cracked her life into a before and after, the waking nightmare, the bloodstain, the splintered bone that would not heal, that day, Ayla had allowed herself one week to mourn. Even at nine years old, she’d known that it was all too easy to drown in grief—get pulled under and never come back up. One week, she told herself. One week. One week to mourn the deaths of her entire family. Mama. Papa. Her twin brother, Storme, who had loved Ayla more than anything else in the whole world. Who had been wrenched away from her, trying to protect her from Them. Storme, who, from the sounds of his screaming cut short, had met his end then and there, just beyond the walls of what had been their home. You couldn’t depend on much in this world, but you could depend on this: love brought nothing but death. Where love existed, death would follow, a wolf trailing after a wounded deer. Scenting blood in the air. Ayla had learned that the hard way. Now she was sixteen, and everything she wanted was just inches from her fingertips. When Rowan had first rescued her, Ayla only had her pain and her anger. But one day, about a month after being with Rowan, a group of nomadic humans had come into town. Rowan had given Ayla a choice. Leave with these traveling humans, leave all of her pain and her memories behind and start anew. Or stay under Rowan’s wing. Rowan would care for her until she could find work. And Ayla would learn to fight, learn to live, and plan for justice. Ayla had chosen the latter. And Rowan, keeping her promise, had found Ayla work as a servant of the palace. Hesod. The leech who’d ordered the raid of Ayla’s village. It was Hesod’s men who had broken into Ayla’s childhood home, who had murdered her family just because they could. Hesod prided himself on spreading Traditionalism throughout Rabu—the Automa belief in modeling their society after human behavior, as though humans were a long-lost civilization from which they could cherry-pick the best attributes to mimic. Family was important to Sovereign Hesod, or so he and his council preached. The irony was not lost on Ayla. And now she worked for him. It disgusted her, every second of it, but it was the only way she could get close to Hesod. She’d come so far. She was not going to throw it all away for some doomed dream of revolution. Rowan had always told her that justice was the answer. And for a long time, Ayla had believed her. She’d believed that revolution was possible, that if humans just kept rising up, refusing to submit, they could really change things. But Ayla knew better now. Over the years, she’d seen how hopeless Rowan’s dreams were. Every uprising had failed; every brilliant plan had been crushed; every new maneuver just resulted in more human death. Justice was a god, and Ayla didn’t believe in such childish things. She believed in blood. Review: Crier's War by Nina Varela is definitely a unique book. It makes me feel slightly torn because I don't think this book was for me. With that being said, it is not a bad book just not something that I loved. Crier's War is getting a ton of great five star reviews so don't let me discourage you because if this is a book you want to read, then I say go for it. I am going to go through the things I liked and disliked. Let's start with all the positive thoughts. Likes: The Concept: I though the concept of Crier's War was great. In a lot of ways it makes you wonder if our world would ever end up completely ran by machines. There is so much machine learning out there that it has you wondering. That is a tangent for another day. In Crier's War, the machines rule. Humans are trying to fight their way back to the top of course. Why would we want to be ruled by machines? This world is so interesting because the Humans used to be on top and now they aren't. The Humans: I really liked that the story didn't show the humans taking everything as a oh well this is our world but instead they were fighting to make things better for themselves. They wanted better. They didn't agree with the machines taking over the world. I think it was all the humans that kept me going. I wanted to know what would have to this society. Dislikes: The Plot: I didn't find myself invested in the plot. I didn't understand where it was going most of the time either. There was no surprises. I just felt like it was a let down. The Romance: I felt like this was all pretty forced. People are saying how much they love it but I just don't see it. The characters never really got together. I feel a big part of this is to satisfy a LGBTQ+ quota and I don't think it did a good job of it. It all fell really flat and boring. I just didn't get the connection. Crier: Her chapters were not the best. I felt she was super whiny and I just didn't want to commit to her. She was not a character I liked. All the angst she has is exhausting. The Pacing: This book was super slow. I felt like it was dragging on. Neither Like or Dislike: The Setting: I am putting this one in the neutral zone because I feel indifferent. I love when a world is described to me. I usually thing it is beautiful. I felt like the descriptions in Crier's War were really drug out. I love beautiful fast pace descriptions and I just didn't get that with this book. Most of the book was super slow to me. Overall: Crier's War is not a bad book. It just wasn't the book for me. I still encourage you to pick it up and try it for yourself because everyone is different when it comes to reading a book. You always have to try things that you may not like so that way you know what you like. You can always disagree with me. I encourage it actually. About the Author: Nina Varela is a nationally awarded writer of screenplays and short fiction. She was born in New Orleans and raised on a hippie commune in Durham, North Carolina, where she spent most of her childhood playing in the Eno River, building faerie houses from moss and bark, and running barefoot through the woods. These days, Nina lives in Los Angeles with her writing partner and their tiny, ill-behaved dog. She tends to write stories about hard-won love and young people toppling the monarchy/patriarchy/whatever-archy. On a related note, she’s queer. On a less related note, she has strong feelings about hushpuppies and loves a good jambalaya. CRIER’S WAR is her first novel. You can find Nina at any given coffee shop in the greater Los Angeles area, or at www.ninavarela.com. Links: Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18450258.Nina_Varela Website: https://www.ninavarela.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ninavarelas Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ninavarelas_/ Tour Schedule: October 1st The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club - Welcome Post October 2nd Kait Plus Books - Interview Luchia Houghton Blog - Review + Favourite Quotes It Starts at Midnight - Review Jrsbookreviews - Review Some Books & Ramblings - Review October 3rd NovelKnight - Guest Post Bluestocking Bookworm - Review + Playlist + Dream Cast Writing with Wolves - Review Unputdownable Books - Review BookCrushin - Promotional Post October 4th Damn Mysterious - Interview Utopia State of Mind - Review + Favourite Quotes Flipping Through the Pages - Review The Reading Corner for All - Review The Hermit Librarian - Review + Favourite Quotes October 5th Pooled Ink - Guest Post The Layaway Dragon - Review + Favourite Quotes Here's to Happy Endings - Review Morgan Vega - Review + Favourite Quotes everywhere and nowhere - Review October 6th Library of a Book Witch - Review Portrait of a Book - Review Moonlight Rendezvous - Review + Favourite Quotes Dazzled by Books - Review + Favourite Quotes Sometimes Leelynn Reads - Review + Dream Cast October 7th The Shelf Life Chronicles - Guest Post Jessica Writes - Review + Favourite Quotes The Clever Reader - Review Mahkjchi's Not-So-Secret Books - Review + Favourite Quotes JHeartLovesBooks - Review

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megamanxfanfics · 5 years

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Season V - Afterthoughts on the 2nd Arc

This is more about Ep. 11, 12 & 13, but I gave the 1st Arc the same amount of attention. I might as well do the same for the 2nd Arc.

-----------------------------Episode 7-----------------------------------------------

I’ve said pretty much everything I wanted to say about these first few episodes in the arc, so I’ll just leave a true afterthought:

I was really surprised how quickly we got back into the action again, and that X & Zero got all the way about to their boss fights before the episode came to a close. Moreover, I was really happy that I was able to further develop things from Dynamo’s perspective, who was still recovering from his fight with Zero.

------------------------------Episode 8----------------------------------------------

These were rock solid fights against Spiral Pegasus & Dark Necrobat. With the way things worked out, I like how Zero barely survived his fight, and actually needed to learn how to work with Alia in order to win. [In hind-sight, X being able to teleport his weapon chip to Zero is sort of a cop-out, but.. that’s Mega Science, baby. Alia’s a genius!!]

The rest of the episode was sort of a strange moving of the chess-pieces. X getting his Gaea Armor part, Zero flying home and everything in between.

But I still love how it ended, with Dynamo surprise attacking the base, once again and this time it was X’s turn to defend their home.

-------------------------------Episode 9---------------------------------------------

This one was pretty climactic. I really enjoyed X’s fight with Dynamo and exploring more of Dynamo’s sociopathic motivations.

After the fight, I feel like it suffered from some necessary moving of the chess-pieces, but in a way it gave me a chance to do something interesting with Lifesaver’s character. He doesn’t really trust X or Zero, seeing as they aren’t affected by the Virus in one way or another. And X’s lashing out against Zero was an unexpected addition, which added tension to their straining relationship. I both liked and disliked this, considering what I was setting up for later.

This one just sort of ended while X & Zero just started their next missions, but Zero got a really good Repliforce flashback out of the deal. It explained why he was so adamant about finishing them off, I hope. I wanted to make him seem like less of a loose cannon and more of a focussed warrior with a long-goal in mind.

------------------------------Episode 10----------------------------------------------

I was really happy once this one was over! Zero’s stage was way more exciting than X’s, but with his new ability of flight, I had to let X spread his wings. [I also, wanted to get to his fight with Rosered as soon as possible.]

Once the Rosered fight was over and X got to coalesce with Zero, things felt right again.

-------------------------------Episode 11-----------------------------------------------

This episode wrote itself, man! I had so much fun working on it.

The very first thing I did was take the all the Canon Dialogue to see what I was working with. I had everything laid out. The shuttle take-off set-up, and then every possible outcome. This is where things got very creative. I had to use colors.

I colored all of the good sequence dialogue in green. Then I colored all the bad sequence dialogue in red. Then I went even further and looked at the failed, time ran-out sequence and saw very usable dialogue that I wanted to take from there. I colored that in crimson.

As I wrote all of those conflicting sequences out, I added one transition moment in the stage directions which took us from the Good Scenario to the Bad Scenario. This stage direction was colored in amber. [That being a piece of debris knocking into Zero’s ship and throwing him off-course at the last minute.]

After playing with colors, I took a look at the Pre-mission set up, and saw what needed expanding in a 2nd session.

X, Zero & Signas reacting to Douglas’ bad news about Auto-pilot not working was very organic and easy to write. This continued into a hallway scene, where X practically begs Zero not to go, but I made sure for X not to volunteer himself either, because the canon dialogue already does that for us, once Zero is strapped in and ready for take-off.

The only other thing I had to set up was Zero going over to the Shuttle to settle in. I really liked this, because it’s the last time I get to write Zero acting heroic, before everything changes. More-over, I threw in some interesting continuity regarding all those Technicians he saved from Spiral Pegasus’ base. One of the new recruits introduces himself as Tack and thanks him for everything he’s done. {If you’re wondering where I pulled that name from, look no further than the X6 Rescued Reploid list. Yes... I am setting things up for X6. But I will not overload us with OCs, because that is not the point of that story.}

With that done, I looked everything over in my 3rd session and expanded upon the worst scenario stuff, in crimson. Life imitated Art here in an awesome way. I was writing this segment on my laptop late at night, before bed and my battery was almost dying. I shit you not, literally after writing the news segment, the computer shut down. Like, I hit period, Dropbox Autosaved, and then bam. It was toast! I could NOT get over that. I wasn’t very worried about losing stuff, because Dropbox Word Online is pretty good like that. I double-checked how the file looked on my phone, and sure as shit, everything I just wrote was there.

That was a great way to end Session 3.

In the next days I tackled a Session 4, where I think I opened up The Battle of Two Fates and compared notes. It was definitely in this awesome place, where I could work on both at once. One Chapter was showing things from X’s perspective and the other was showing things from Zero’s perspective. I truly loved what was happening. My original fan script was finally, truly connecting to the series. I was finally catching up to my Long-Goal.

--------------------------------Episode 12----------------------------------------------

Then, came the Flashback Sequence from Hell. [I might’ve used that term before, but this time it was real.]

The Battle of Two Fates, being my first fan script ever had a lot of exposition in it within the stage directions...

Since writing Season I, I always knew I’d come back to this and change that exposition into a cool flashback sequence. I even started with a long Vile flashback once Season I was done, but I got rid of it almost immediately since it didn’t flow with the rest of the one-shot at all.

By the time Season II was done, I had done so many different things with Zero that I probably thought it best to just tackle that Exposition/Flashback Sequence once everything was done.

This was a good move, but also very frustrating.

I didn’t know it yet, but this Flashback Sequence was easily going to become it’s own episode.

At first, I followed The Battle of Two Fates exposition to a T. I gave us the two moments where X & Zero fight Vile from X1.

Then, I was supposed to go where Zero saved X from the Black Clone Zero in X2, but guess what? Zero’s Maverickism in that Season was a cluster-fuck and rehashing all of that was it’s own chore of a task.

Already, the sequence was messed up. After that was supposed to be quick shots of their teamwork in X3 & X4, but due to Mega Missions & Xtreme 2... That Teamwork was now very layered, and complicated. Not so cut and dry, ‘lets stop the bad guys buddy’, like I had originally depicted from the one-shot.

So... I picked and chose the highlights of the entire series... I had to! [How I thought this would cram into the tail end of Ep. 11 is beyond me.]

To go into further detail about how I edited, re-edited, and even further condensed and compromised all of those flashbacks is a fool’s errand. But I will tell you that I had more fun with colors, opting for X’s narrations to be Blue and his Flashback dialogue to be normal black. It was also smart to throw his entire narration into it’s own file and see if the monologue made sense, by itself.

[This is definitely mostly the case.]

Once I had all the moments and scenes that I wanted, Episode 11 was like, 42 pages!!! Easily, split in half, but I didn’t want to do that. I tried cutting down the flashbacks as much as possible, and managed to make it 36 pages, maybe? Still no good.

So as stated before, I decided that two 18-pages chapters were way more digestible than one, 36 page chapter.

And there we had it, episode 12 was a giant flashback, aftershock chapter where X and we the audience come to terms with the fact that Zero, as we know and love him.. is no more...

--------------------------------Episode 13----------------------------------------------

This one was less about writing, and more about editing than anything else. It’s also the true beginning of the 3rd Arc, so technically it doesn’t belong in this entry. But since they pair so well together, here we go.

The Battle of Two Fates was written as a Christmas Gift in 2010.

The editing to this chapter took place technically as early as Season I, 2011. I had already stated putting in both full Vile fights, but that didn’t flow at all so it was taken out.

But the next technical edit was when I created this blog in 2015. I made a script formatted version, and it was really hard to keep all the dialogue and over-expositional stage directions in. But I did.

Flash forward to now, 2019 when I was really working on this. At the beginning of the 2nd Arc, I fiddled with the battle itself. I noticed that X used a lot of X3 weapons and the Storm Tornado from X1. All of that was edited to X5 & X4 weapons. I definitely beefed up the dialogue to this before truly tackling S.V - Ep 7. I added the Serges continuity from X2 into their hate-talk. X was way less of a pansy... :p [I still can’t believe I wrote that. I generally shocked myself from my past writing.]

So from the battle on, I was mostly covered.

I may have opened it, while working on Ep. 8 or 9, just because. The only thing that was done there was inserting slashes to some of the opening moments of the chapter. I didn’t want to delete anything yet, but I was sure that certain things weren’t gonna work, or needed big changes if they were going to be included.

This takes us back to the flashback sequence. Once I was unknowingly working on Episode 12, I slashed out all of that exposition stage direction nonsense, and deleted it.

The familiar Episode 11 sequences were thrown into the beginning to show Zero’s perspective on everything. Adding a “Moments Ago” caption was the perfect solution to my giant flashback episode. This unfortunately makes Chapter 12 very skippable for folks who just wanna get to the action, but I also don’t blame them.

So even before getting to Episode 13, all of this was kind of pre-done for me.

What really needed working on, mostly was cleaning up the stage directions at first. The tiny goal from session 1 was to just get to X teleporting to the area.

Once X was teleported and we were in the now, I really had to fix almost all of their interactions. This took a session or 3 in itself, but eventually everything that I liked, new and old was reworked, nicely. There was this giant build for one of them to finally throw the first punch, and I really liked how I handled that within their dialogue.

We get a dropkick with a block. Then a fist-clash, and finally the first charge shot.

The ensuing battle after that was mostly unchanged. The only thing left to work on was Alia & Signas’ random dialogue before they duke it out. It wasn’t fully necessary, but I wanted to give a small break in the action, and also keep with the continuity that Alia was going to give X his new armor. [Only this time, it was going to be the Gaea Armor, rather than the Falcon Armor.]

Those battle changes were already worked on from before, so once I got to this section, is was more logistical clean up than anything else.

My last challenge was to get X home once he gets the Gaea Armor. Originally, he got the Falcon Armor and was majorly overpowered by it. It’s what gave him the win against Zero (and ultimately kill him.) [That could not keep for 2 reasons. 1, X already had it. And 2... The Falcon Armor is actually pretty.. weak.] X5′s Armors were designed with checks and balances. The Falcon Armor was light-weight and new with that special flight ability and sweet charge shot, but you could forget charging weapons. X4′s Armor was standard, but you had the Plasma Shot and could charge weapons. And of course, the Gaea Armor was a specialty, meant for spikes and strong defense against enemies. And a sick Giga Attack. But other than that, you could forget about speed, air-dashing or using ANY special weapons. You can’t even equip parts to make him faster or anything.

[Because believe me, that was a plan I had in mind.]

So with that... This chapter didn’t fall as flat as I thought it would.

X gets his Gaea Armor/2nd chance at life. But Zero is long-gone.

Rather than have X pursue a 2nd battle, as he did in the original chapter, this was the perfect break in action to come home. It wasn’t too hard to shift what he and Alia say, in order for her to convince him to come home.

Remember that he hasn’t recovered from any of the fights against Rosered, Dino-Rex and now a fully Awakened Zero who wasn’t holding back.

So this was believable for me to have X get like.. a jump to his system in receiving the Gaea Armor, but that being it. Not a full power-up. Not a 2nd lease on life. Just... being alive at all, and needing to come home and sleep it off, finally.

The last line became Zero’s line. “It’s time to finish the mission...”

Which means that there is more on Zero’s agenda than just X, after all.

Is there hope for their friendship yet?

You’ll just have to wait and see.

As for right now, the 2nd Arc is over, and the 3rd Arc has opened up to a climactic start. I’m looking forward to figuring out these next steps, but for now, I’ve enjoyed reflecting on all of this.

What about you guys? What do you think? Was there a favorite moment you had from the 2nd Arc, or even the 1st? How about the start of the 3rd Arc?? Was it everything you were hoping for, or were you hoping things would go differently? Please feel free to leave feedback, and leave comments below.

Until then, later guys.

#Season V Diaries #Afterthoughts on the 2nd Arc #Ep. 7 #Ep. 8 #Ep. 9 #Ep. 10 #Ep. 11 #Ep. 12 #Ep. 13

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naomisusanisaacs-blog · 6 years

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• „And I'm still walking“ – Artist Naomi Isaacs' steps out into life Interviewed by Gaby dos Santos in 2017 Naomi Isaacs was sitting in the Wirtshaus Am Gehrenberg Beer garden one Sunday afternoon in 1984. According to Naomi, „I was sitting under the chestnut trees enjoying the pleasant atmosphere which reminded me of a pleasant summer day, complete with the chirping of birds and the sounds of children playing while their parents drank coffee. It was one of those rare, absolutely clear days, where one had a view of the entire Lake of Constance from the terrace.“ This grand view evoked a vision of unlimited possiblity in Naomi. „If I stood up right now and begin to walk, I would eventually get to the lake, cross it with the ferry, keep going and going, and who would be able to stop me? Right then and there a part of me stood up and began to walk, and this part has kept going ever since.“ Naomi had already begun to get restless a year earlier. It was on her fortieth birthday, the perfect time for reflecting and taking stock of her life. When she woke up that morning she wondered, "Yesterday was Tuesday, today is Wednesday. Do I feel different today?" She decided that she did indeed feel different. "I'm too old to let anyone tell me what to do and much too young to die." She and her then-husband had been meeting regularly with a group of friends for dinner. One evening Naomi realised that nothing on the menu appealed to her. „‚Steak would be nice, but requires too much chewing. Shrimp would be nice, but no, all that sauce and rice would be too much.' Nothing on the menu was the way I would prefer it. My inner voice told me that this was about more than just what food to order tonight. The truth was that, on several levels, I had simply lost my appetite. I felt: 'something is rearing its ugly head.' “ Who hasn't experienced this quiet uneasy feeling that accompanies one down the road of life, and quietly but again and again seems to ask, "Well, what happened to all the dreams and plans I made for my life? When did I lose the lightness of living in the present, without wasting a thought on whether or not the future is secure enough? Where is that youthful zest for life?" So much seems to be locked up, and one doesn’t even realize that one has done the locking up oneself. Naomi describes this process on the biography page of her website. "Gradually our interests changed and we stopped visiting the clubs. I had been working as a typist in a large company. Over the next fifteen years I worked for several different companies and worked my way up to department secretary.“ Back in 1984, when Naomi was sitting in the Gehrenberg beer garden and decided to follow her vision, she and her husband had already drifted apart and separated amicably. Back then Naomi's greatest fear was something she refers to as „the primary occupation of all single, middle aged women: having a cozy evening at home," accompanied by trivial questions such as, "'What shall I have for dinner tonight? Which tablecloth shall I use?' For me, that would be like dying a slow death." Evenings? Luckily there was still Gerry Hayes' Allotria jazz club on Türkenstrasse. Naomi was pleasantly surprised, „The faces were unfamiliar, but the atmosphere, the smell of beer and cigarettes, were exactly as I remembered them. And the sound of the music filled me again." The Allotria club would not be Naomi's only jazz hang-out. There was also the Unterfahrt, which is now one of the best-known jazz clubs worldwide. „It became my second living room. I helped out both in the kitchen and selling tickets at the door, and also joined in the jam sessions." Around that time jazz singer and actress Jenny Evans opened her music bar Jenny’s Place which stayed open till 3:00 a.m. In addition, Wolfi Kornemann's legendary Nachtcafé also catered to jazz-loving night owls, featuring live jazz, food and drink until 6:00 in the morning. In the mid 1980's, Munich's jazz scene became both a blessing and a curse for a dropout-to-be like Naomi. The nights were long, longer, even endless. „Shower quickly and then hurry off to work," summarised Naomi as she thought back to this special time. “At some point my boss admonished, 'Watch out Naomi, you'll soon have to decide between work and music.'" His world was so different to hers that he couldn't possible have imagined that Naomi had already said her goodbyes to normal, middle-class living; she had already acquired a taste for singing on Munich's stages. At the Liederbühne Robinson (then in Munich) Naomi reactivated her folk song repertoire from her youth, singing in duets with Gotte Gottschalk (guitar), „simply to see if I could still perform on stage." Not only could she, but she was so convincing, that she was invited by the head of David gegen Goliath (a local political party), Bernhard Fricke, to perform on stage for his founding celebration at the renowned Circus Krone. Naomi was in her office when Fricke called. When the politician explained how much effort he had put into finding her and asked her if she had time to sing that same evening at the Circus Krone, she thought he was a colleague playing a prank on her. But it wasn't a prank, and so that evening she went on stage together with guitarist Geoff Goodmann and Bass player Chris Lachotta as the closing act. "We came at the very end after Werner Schneider and Eisi Gulp and many other big names. I was supposed to sing a few American folk songs and get the audience to sing along with me.“ It was a smart move on Fricke’s part. I bet that by the end of the evening the mood was bombastic, since Naomi is capable of dealing with practically any audience. I too have gladly included Naomi in similar situations at jour fixe events. It is also typical of Naomi not to be intimidated by such a location. On the contrary, she reported that she felt the surroundings were "comfortable, a large audience but I felt close to everyone because the building is circular. There were no dark remote corners. And afterward the party continued at Jenny’s Place.“ This performance was motivating. It no longer seemed impossible to establish oneself on the music stage and it became clear to Naomi that, „I couldn't keep working in an office. There was nothing more for me to learn there, or rather, there was nothing more there that I wanted to learn. And I had become too independant to keep taking orders from my boss every day." It wasn't long before there was an incident. „We had all hung postcards, drawings and fabourite sayings on the office walls. I had hung up several funny cartoons from Mordillo. One day I entered my office and half of my cartoons were missing from the wall. As I was asking around about the missing cartoons, my boss came over‚ 'Have you seen my cartoons?' asked Naomi. 'Yes. I took them down because I couldn't stand looking at them any more.“ Naomi's response was appropriate but contrary to how one normally speaks to one's boss. “Werner, you're my boss, and if you tell me to take down the stuff I put up on the walls, I have to do it. But what you have done is stealing.” He turned white as a sheet, went into his office and returned with a few pictures he had thrown in his waste basket.“ Naomi submitted her long overdue resignation shortly thereafter. „I was driven by the fear of what would happen to me if I didn't move on," explained Naomi thinking back. „Another twenty years of this nonsense and at the end of it all just a bouquet of flowers and a handshake, a shallow retirement party and then I'm simply checked off the list?“ She asked herself what she really wanted to make out of the rest of her life, and realised, „Actually, I want to be a singer.“ „The thought of looking at myself in the mirror at 65 and having to say to myself, ‚and you didn't even try!‘ frightened me beyond words.“ The fear was stronger than Naomi's need for relative security, a fear which hinders many people from making a drastic change of course in the middle of their lives. Resigning from her office job on April 1st, 1986 marks the beginning of Naomi Susan Isaacs’ singing career at the age of 43. Looking back to that time, Naomi wrote on her website, "... I quit my secretarial job and allowed myself a sabbatical year to devote myself completely to music and to find out whether the music world wanted me." The music world didn't immediately welcome her with open arms; just the opposite. Newcomers, especially previously unknown "normal" people were generally shunned by the established music scene in keeping with the motto, „If we make it easy then everyone will want to join!“ And even today the music scene sometimes presents itself as a sort of "macho country ". And then this unknown forty-something-year-old just shows up out of nowhere, with little musical background to show for herself, but with a desperate desire to become part of the Munich jazz scene. Of all things! Also, there is a sort of "jazz police" which patrols our swinging city of Munich, which is of the opinion that they know how jazz should be presented and attempt to protect it as if it were somehow holy. Someone like Naomi didn't necessarily fit in. Furthermore, a surprise is waiting for those intending to live the bohemian lifestyle: Despite rumours to the contrary, there isn't much money in this way of life. Naomi has openly talked about there being times when she quite literally "ate from the dumpster." She describes it without self-pity, since there is no room for self-pity when one has been drawn to this way of life. Naomi didn't sit still but took action to reverse the downward trend. She looked for a lodger to help cover the rent, and began to give singing lessons. Naomi made a name for herself in the scene practically right out of the gate, and at the same time her singing career took off. She writes on her website biography: „By the end of the first year I had completed a short tour of Italy and had collected a small flock of singing pupils. Through them I discovered my passion for teaching. During the next several years, I constantly attended jazz workshops, both in Germany and abroad and in addition acquired skills through educational seminars in Kinesiology, Systemic Family Constellation work (as taught by Bert Hellinger) NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming), ESP and many others. In 1990 I founded New Vocal Center, a center for teaching and workshops 'with, for and about the voice'. In addition to my own teaching, I organised workshops and was privileged to host famous jazz and blues singers, including Mark Murphy, Jay Clayton, Theo Bleckmann, Angela Brown and many others who enriched the lively atmosphere of New Vocal Center. My travels eventually became so frequent, that in 1998 I had to close New Vocal Center in order to concentrate fully, for a while, on my own career.“ The sabbatical year that Naomi began in 1987 has continued until today. In the meantime, the Munich cultural scene has said "yes" to Naomi. The road has been quite rocky though, requiring persistence and an unconventional lifestyle which characterizes Naomi. On her homepage she writes, „Life as a musician can be lonely at times, and the traveling is not always as glamourous as it is reputed to be. I have slept on a cold, hard attic floor with no bathroom, miles away from a cup of coffee or a piece of bread. I've had to listen to comments like, 'musicians prefer simple accommodation, because they would feel out of place in a proper hotel'. I've slept in my car in public parking spots, and sought out hotel restrooms to wash myself in the morning. On the other hand, I've also been invited to stay in people's private homes and have experienced wonderful hospitality and generosity, and in the process made some friends for life.“ By the end of the nineties, Naomi had permanently established herself in the Munich music scene and had the same idea that I had, to establish a place for artists to meet. At the same time that I began with my Jour Fixe in the Nachtcafe, Naomi started her Kultursalon in the café of Theater Drehleier. Our two concepts were totally different. I presented small show blocks. Naomi hosted a talk show. Both events were well attended. My shows received more media coverage due to the widespread notoriety of the Nachtcafe. Naomi, however, definitely won points for herself, which was amply confirmed on the occasion of her one year anniversary gala, which was attended by the who's who of the cultural scene, first and foremost Helmut Ruge, the famed cabaretist. The then Bavarian cultural advisor (later Bavarian minister of culture), philosophy professo Dr. Dr. Julian Nida-Rümelin was spotted billing and cooing with his future wife, author Natalie Weidenfeld. At the piano sat none other than grand seigneur of jazz Piano, Joe Kienemann! This event developed into what I've always dreamed of, but which I never quite achieved in this magnitude, despite all my efforts or perhaps because of them: a glittering, glamourous bohemian celebration! A while later, I felt better about it, and I was able to feel good about what I was doing at the Nachtcafe, instead of begrudging the success of a colleague! I decided to return to being a Naomi fan rather than become bitter. That was a good decision, because over the years Naomi has become one the few people I really trust, and has recently become a neighbour of mine here in the Haidhausen quarter of Munich. I love to lose track of time chatting and philosophizing with her in her kitchen. In addition, for years now Naomi has belonged to the small, committed circle of members of the organization jourfixe-muenchen e. V. and frequently has stood by me with help and advice. Furthermore, in one of her seminars several years ago, she helped me to conquer my horrendous stage fright – permanently. oooo „I like to change horses in midstream,“ says Naomi even today, surprising us, her fans, friends and companions again and again. For example, on the occasion of her 70th birthday she gave us, "Postkarte aus Bali -- ein Kinderbuch für Erwachsene“ (English: Postcard from Bali -- a children's book for Grownups). How the book came into being is typical for Naomi. She gives projects space to develop and follows the development step by step. „I never intended to write a book. It came about 'chapter by chapter', based on my life and my experiences.“ Originally, she set out to develop a concept for a music project for children which she intended to realize with her colleague, trombonist Christopher Varner. On the inside cover text, we read that the original idea developed into, 'Twelve children, twelve encounters, twelve adventures – How to discover your strengths, learn to believe in yourself and find your way in life“, brought together in a captivating storybook illustrated by Samar Ertsey, which she presented at both the Frankfurt and Leipzig book fairs. Over thirty years have passed since Naomi's departure from her "9 to 5" life, during which she has never regretted her decision. She believes that „Life is an adventure. I am grateful for everything I have learned, experienced and have been allowed to share, to pass on." She has produced five CD's under her own name, has led workshops and given concerts worldwide, including the U.S. and the Far East. Behind this seemingly enviable lifestyle, however, are a lot of pragmatism and discipline. The famous "dumpsters" didn't only feed Naomi for several years, they also co-financed her retirement plan which gives her financial independence today, an accomplishment which doesn't in the least reduce Naomi's zest for action. On her birthday in 2018, she launched her newest project, the Institute of Charismology, of which she is the initiator and founding member. More about Naomi Susan Isaacs and her current offerings can be found on her websites: charismology.com and https://goo.gl/jsZqYp. R.HH.Biswurm, writing in the cultural magazine APPLAUS says „… No other singer who belongs to the so-called Munich Scene displays as much individuality as Naomi is able to.“ 00000 The Hannoversche Zeitung (English: Hannover Newspaper) writes: „(Naomi Isaacs is) a singer of disarming honesty and authenticity, who can cast a spell on her audience. Not just one mood permeates the evening, there are so many, that they could fill an entire life …“

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aesarctic · 7 years

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The Sun Is Also a Star, by Nicola Yoon

I finished this maybe a week ago, and it was good, but I’ve read better.

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★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

FOR THE SUPER NON-SPOILERY PEOPLE:

This is a contemporary. If you know me, you know that I'm definitely not one for romance--not even shipping. Why did I read this? It was getting such good reviews, and maybe, just maybe, the cover was too pretty. But I gave it three stars. Many of the elements of it were excellent, but seeing as it's contemporary, I docked two stars. If you like contemporary, I say go for it. If you don't but like a different twist in writing, I say consider it. I love different writing styles, and this one didn't disappoint. Too much, anyway. FOR THE NON-SPOILERY PEOPLE (hidden for the Super Non-Spoilery People): While having two main characters, Daniel and Natasha, we see from many more points of views, and while I was skeptical about it at first, it definitely added to the book plot-wise and showing that the world is bigger than two main characters. It also has amazing representation seeing as our two main characters are people of colour, and it tackles topics such as immigration, race, ethnicity, religion, and nationality. That may sound like I gave the book four or five stars. While I'm amazed at Nicola Yoon's writing and what she was able to tackle in 344 pages (hardback, 1st edition), as I mentioned, I'm not a romance person. That plays a factor into how much I genuinely liked the book. FOR THE SPOILERY PEOPLE:

I started this book in August--not quite a year after it came out, but definitely not when everyone was on the The Sun Is Also a Star bandwagon. However, I definitely had seen and heard the hype, and I happened to own the book due to an Uppercase Subscription Box, so I finally read it. The reason I mention this is because part of my disappointment may be caused by listening to too much of the hype and working myself up before reading the book. Starting the book, besides thinking of the hype, there wasn't much for me to comment on, though I didn't like the first Irene chapter. I had previously heard that characters that weren't a large part of the story shouldn't get a point of view. On top of that, Irene seemed to be too creepy for my liking. "He was riding his shiny new bike (red, ten-speed, awesome) with his shiny new friends (white, ten years old, awesome)." --Page 12 The start was somewhere between an okay and good, but writing like this is what I like, and it instantly got me more engaged, even if I knew there was a major love plot coming. I like that it's funny, but if you want to look at it from a "the way people think of race is an issue" perspective, you totally can. The Charles chapter was disappointing in the long run. It's short--half a page--but I was expecting so much out of it. On page 256, it says, "Still, though, he does a good thing for his brother: he gives [Natasha] the number." This was the thing. This was the one great, big, good, selfless act. Sure, without the scene, Natasha and Daniel's future may have been completely altered, but it wasn't what I was hoping for. One thing that I love in any book I read is what the sibling dynamic is. Charlie and Daniel don't get along, but with one last selfless deed, I got my hopes up. I'm such a sucker for sibling acts of love. This, however, with Charlie giving Natasha the number, is completely realistic, and I do have to appreciate and give credit to that. If you know me, I also love realistic characters. Like I said earlier, I'm a fan of sort of comedic writing. While it bothered me that this scene wasn't realistic, in my mind, anyway, on pages 44 and 45, we get this wacky train conductor who is just preaching into the intercoms. It was interesting and entertaining to read. Part of me praises the book for having more realism than many of the other books I read, but the characters, in my opinion, are halfway there. Natasha is a girl of reality. She relies on facts and science for the answers to life, not considering the idea of love and fate and dreams being real. Daniel, on the other hand, is the opposite. He believes in fate, love, and destiny. While these are more fleshed out that most characters I read, most humans have a bit of both sides to them. Yoon took one side of an argument and turned it into a character. Then she took the other side and made another character: the love interest. The characters are good--they have thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions that definitely seem more realistic that what I usually read, but it wasn't good enough, especially compared to other books I've read. Samuel Kingsley's Histories of Regrets. I don't have much to say about the first one, but the second one was a bit of a punch for me. I probably should have seen it coming, but I thought Samuel would regret how he treated his daughter and family. Instead, he regrets meeting his wife. I didn't think that was the turn it would take, but it did. It was a bit of a powerful moment for me. The third one was confusing. He doesn't regret Natasha, but he already stated he regret his family. Or just his wife? But his wife was the reason they have a family. It's a little confusing, but at least he doesn't completely want to disown Natasha. I'll take this time to also talk about A Father's History. I love that it was written like a script. It's a twist in writing, as I previously mentioned, I love that kind of thing. A thought that I had multiple times was: This is a really long day. I know that people can do many things in a day, but you can't possibly do everything Natasha and Daniel did, can you? The norebang, going out for Korean, Natasha managed to go to the museum, multiple appointments, Daniel also went to multiple appointments, they went to Daniel's parents' hair place (multiple times), and of course there was all of the smaller things, like whatever they did before they met that day, and Daniel saving Natasha's life, and going into the one store and seeing Natasha's ex. Didn't they also go out to a café? That's where Daniel had the original idea of making Natasha fall in love with him. It's a lot for one day. Speaking of one day: they fell in love in one day. I admit, this was the most non-insta-love book I've read that has insta-love, if that makes sense, but there were definitely moments where I was definitely thinking, You guys literally just met today. Slow down. (i.e. the norebang) Speaking of the norebang, I have thoughts and notes for pages 167-175. Let's just go in order. 167: "I'm going to get up and kiss her." No. Absolutely not. There's no way. This is too sudden and too soon. 169: "She's so close that I can feel the slight head from her blush." Daniel. No. "I put my hand on her waist and bury my fingers in her hair." This is way too sudden. "Anything can happen in the space between us." Anything had better not happen. "I wait for her, for her eyes to say yes, and then I kiss her." ANYTHING IS HAPPENING. "Her lips are like soft pillows and I sink into them." I don't need this in my life. "We start out chaste, just lips touching, tasting, but soon we can't get enough." You WHAT. "She parts her lips and--" Admittedly, I prefer not to read past there, as it gets too gross for me to stand. Please read at your own risk. 170: "I can't stop. I don't want to stop." Natasha, my one hope for any sort of reasoning, has abandoned me. I don't need nor want this in my life. I can't believe she's into this. 171: I stopped on this page, looked at it, wrote the word "Same" in my notes, looked at it some more, and flipped the page. 172: I'm still same-ing here, not looking at the next page. 173: I have read the page. I'm not doing well. Actually, I was in school when I read this part, and my friend looked over and said, "Your face is really pale." Maybe that's enough of a picture of my thoughts. 174: All of my faith has been lost in Natasha. 175: It's ending. I'm free. I'm safe. No more. That wasn't a fun scene. That was too fast. You guys met that day. I don't need this in my life. Soon after, on page 178, we see the line "The sun is also a star." I paused there, as I'm sure we all did, and I did not understand why that was so powerful of a moment that the book was named after it. Around pages 192-197, Natasha and Daniel have an argument about what their lives mean and the fact that Daniel postponed his interview for Natasha. Natasha is on the side that they're on this Earth to survive and evolve, and Daniel believes that everything means something and that their love is real. Personally, I stood with Natasha for this argument, but I want to point out that one of the bigger things in this book is how love happens. This book delves into the topic on falling in love. Can you fall in love? What exactly does falling in love mean or entail? This is one of the arguments where that topic was brought up. As someone who is incapable of getting crushes/having any sort of romantic relationship (welcome to my aro/ace life), I didn't care for it that much. for other people, though, I know this was a big thing. You know those books that you read at just the right time for what's going on in your life? Well, a lot of the (non-romance-y) points of this book do resonate with me, and on page 199, Daniel says, "We tell ourselves there are reasons for the things that happen, but we're just telling ourselves stories. We make them up. They don't mean anything." That, my friends, is my mindset, and seeing it come from Daniel makes it more emotional for me, just because I may not have been as fate and dream-ridden as Daniel, but I definitely did like to believe in little signs, like the songs Spotify plays at just the right time, or something falling to the floor as I'm talking about it. Really, though, that stuff is just coincidence. And sure, things happen for reasons, but those reasons are pretty scientific. Gravity causes things to fall, not fate. The book tackles being a person of colour in America in the outside world and within families. Page 234 is the start of a Daniel chapter where he confronts his Dad. His father says that Natasha and Daniel can never be, and Daniel denies it. Many things can be said about this point, but I want to take a quick moment to talk about interracial relationships. As someone who is mixed--the product of an interracial marriage and relationship--I wish for a world where people can just be with who they want (of course, not just ethnicity-wise, either.) I just wrote a college application 300-word essay on this, so I'm not going too far into depth, but it does hit me whenever someone looks down upon Natasha and Daniel's relationship. At the beginning, I didn't like that Irene had a chapter. My view, however, changed throughout the book. When Natasha saw the blue-haired couple, I was sure the next chapter would be able them, and when it wasn't, I was disappointed. I've come a long way from all of the dislike I put in my notes about Irene's chapters. There was a change in my notes, too, as I began to guess whose chapters we'd get to see. I like them--I looked forward to them. These extra chapters add something more to the book. They add to the plot and to our enjoyment, but my favourite part is that they show that the world is bigger than two main characters. These chapters show that billions of people have moments every day, at the same time as other people. For instance, we're following Daniel and Natasha, but Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald and Hannah Winter definitely had some stuff going on in their life, too. If this was Natasha and Daniel's biggest day of their life, it was also Fitzgerald and Winter's, too. This is a fun side-note, but on page 333, Natasha mentions learning about eyes in AP Biology. As someone who is currently taking AP Bio, am I going to learn about eyes? Is this something Nicola Yoon made up, or am I actually going to learn about eyes? The ending. Natasha gets deported. They stay in touch, but long-distance relationships are hard. But then we have an Irene chapter (well, technically titled "epilogue"), and quite possibly my favourite moment in the book. We start with a kind of pick-up from where we left off with Irene. She had written her suicide note, but Natasha's "thank you" saved her life. That night, Irene listened to Nirvana, called a suicide prevention number. She went to therapy, and now she's a flight attendant. Now, she's on a plane, looking at the different passengers aboard, and she's sees Natasha. She thanks her. This is the first thing I love about this scene: Irene got to say "thank you." She had the chance to say "thank you." Daniel looks over, looks back, Natasha says her name, Daniel looks back over, says her name, and Natasha says his twice. Some believe it is fate to find the one you love. This book ends by showing that viewpoint. The entire book we're faced with wondering if it's possible that they're really in love. We get our answer here. To me, this book is a sort of "what if" book. What if you are fated to meet your supposed soulmate? I'm not good at words, and I'm not one for romance, but it was a good, fulfilling scene. Overall, I'm not a contemporary reader. There are very few contemporary books I'd reread, and this, unfortunately, may not be one of them. They hype may have been too much for me, or maybe it's just that it's a romance book, but I'm glad that there were other things tackled along with our main plot.

#The Sun Is Also a Star #TSIAAS #Nicola Yoon #NicolaYoon #Book Review

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