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aboveallarescuer · 5 years ago

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Dany’s moments of humor and/or lightheartedness and/or irony and/or being childlike

As I was rereading ASOIAF, I made it my goal to compile all* the book passages demonstrating either certain key attributes of Daenerys Targaryen (e.g. that she's compassionate and empathetic) or aspects of hers that are usually overblown (e.g. that she's violent and ambitious). Doing such a task may seem exaggerated, but I'd argue it's not, for many, many misconceptions about Dany have become widespread in light of the show's final season's events (and even before).

It must be acknowledged that it can be tricky to reference, say, ADWD passages to counter-argument how she was depicted in season eight (which allegedly follows ADOS events). Dany will have had plenty of character development in the span of two books. However, whatever happens to Dany in the next two books, I would argue that there is more than enough material to conclude that her show counterpart was made to fall for flaws that she (for the most part) never had and actions that she (for the most part) would never take.

Another objection to the purpose of these lists is that Game of Thrones is different from A Song of Ice and Fire and should be analyzed on its own, which is a fair point. However, the show is also an adaptation of these books, which begs the questions: why did they change Dany's character? Why did they overfocus on negative traits of hers or depicted them as negative when they weren't supposed to be or gave her negative traits that were never hers to begin with? Another fact that undermines the show=/=books argument is that most people think that the show's ending will be the books', albeit only in broad strokes and in different circumstances. As a result, people's perception of Dany is inevitably influenced by the show, which is a shame.

I hope these lists can be useful for whoever wants to find book passages to defend Dany's character in analysis or even conversations.

*Well, at least all the passages that I could find.

Also, people may interpret certain passages differently and then come up with a different collection of passages, so I'm not arguing that this list is completely objective (nor that there could ever be one).

Also, some passages have been cut short according to whether they were, IMO, relevant to the specific topic of the list they're in, so the context surrounding them may not always be clear (always read the books!). Many of them appear in different lists, sometimes fully cited, sometimes not.

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To justify the existence of this list, let's see examples of widespread opinions that I feel misrepresent Daenerys Targaryen:

"The big difference between me and Dany [is] my sense of humor, in that I have one," Clarke laughed. "I mean, that lady ain't cracking jokes!" (x)

While discussing the difficulty of infusing the serious Daenerys with Clarke’s own light-hearted humor, she implies we shouldn’t expect much of that in season eight. (x)

I'll take anyone but Daenerys, who long ago went full “Mighty Whitey” on us and still doesn’t have a sense of humour about herself. (x)

They're complete goofballs, so most of the stage directions are very funny [...] It's a lot of in-jokes[.] So they started writing for us, and I think they knew that whatever kind of stoic, cold sensibilities they might be writing down, I was going to try to bring a bit more warmth and humanity to [Daenerys] where I possibly could. That was always a conversation we were having. And every season I'd do something else on hiatus, and I'd come back and be like, "What's up, yeah, she's going to sit like this" (slouches down in chair). And every time, they're like, "That's really cute, but sit up straight and don't smile, you're not funny." (Laughter.) (x)

Emilia Clarke seems like a lovely person and it's understandable that years of directors telling you to act stoically will make you think that's how the character is. But that was a change that they deliberately made, for the Daenerys of the books has a sense of humor.

(Also, Emilia is more accurate than she probably thinks she is when she suggested Dany would not sit up straight - see in this list the numerous times she sits crosslegged and the one time she got "tired of being regal" and sat "with one foot tucked beneath her and the other swinging back and forth".)

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

Dany wedged herself into that corner, making a nest of sorts by tearing up handfuls of the grass that grew around the ruins. She was very tired, and fresh blisters had appeared on both her feet, including a matched set upon her pinky toes. It must be from the way I walk, she thought, giggling.

The next morning she woke stiff and sore and aching, with ants crawling on her arms and legs and face. [...] Where did all the ants come from? [...]

It turned out that their anthill was on the other side of her wall. She wondered how the ants had managed to climb over it and find her. To them these tumbledown stones must loom as huge as the Wall of Westeros. The biggest wall in all the world, her brother Viserys used to say, as proud as if he’d built it himself.

Viserys told her tales of knights so poor that they had to sleep beneath the ancient hedges that grew along the byways of the Seven Kingdoms. Dany would have given much and more for a nice thick hedge. Preferably one without an anthill.

Dragonstone was still visible above the grasslands. It looks so close. I must be leagues away by now, but it looks as if I could be back in an hour. She wanted to lie back down, close her eyes, and give herself up to sleep. No. I must keep going. The stream. Just follow the stream.

Dany took a moment to make certain of her directions. It would not do to walk the wrong way and lose her stream. “My friend,” she said aloud. “If I stay close to my friend I won’t get lost.”

“I am lost at sea,” she said as she limped along beside her meandering rivulet, “so perhaps I’ll find some crabs, or a nice fat fish.”

ADWD Daenerys IX

“Khaleesi, which tokar will you want today?” asked Irri.

“The yellow silk.” The queen of the rabbits could not be seen without her floppy ears.

At the base of the Great Pyramid, Ser Barristan awaited them beside an ornate open palanquin, surrounded by Brazen Beasts. Ser Grandfather, Dany thought. Despite his age, he looked tall and handsome in the armor that she’d given him.

How queer, the queen thought. They cheer me on the same plaza where I once impaled one hundred sixty-three Great Masters.

Dany could hear her handmaids arguing behind her, debating who was going to win the day’s final match. Jhiqui favored the gigantic Goghor, who looked more bull than man, even to the bronze ring in his nose. Irri insisted that Belaquo Bonebreaker’s flail would prove the giant’s undoing. My handmaids are Dothraki, she told herself. Death rides with every khalasar. The day she wed Khal Drogo, the arakhs had flashed at her wedding feast, and men had died whilst others drank and mated. Life and death went hand in hand amongst the horselords, and a sprinkling of blood was thought to bless a marriage. Her new marriage would soon be drenched in blood. How blessed it would be.

“She needs a spear,” Ser Barristan said, as Barsena vaulted over the beast’s second charge. “That is no way to fight a boar.” He sounded like someone’s fussy old grandsire, just as Daario was always saying.

“Khaleesi?” Irri asked. “What are you doing?”

“Taking off my floppy ears.”

“Magnificence, the people of Meereen have come to celebrate our union. You heard them cheering you. Do not cast away their love.”

“It was my floppy ears they cheered, not me. Take me from this abbatoir, husband.”

ADWD Daenerys VII

On the day that he returned from his latest sortie, he had tossed the head of a Yunkish lord at her feet and kissed her in the hall for all the world to see, until Barristan Selmy pulled the two of them apart. Ser Grandfather had been so wroth that Dany feared blood might be shed.

“...The Frog has a gift for you.”

“The Frog?” she said, giggling.

“Greenguts is a queer sort of name.”

“A jape, Your Grace. From the ships. I was greensick the whole way from Volantis. Heaving and ... well, I shouldn’t say.”

Dany giggled.

“I am only a young girl, and young girls must have their gifts,” she said lightly. “Daario, please, you must not tease me. Give it here.”

“Your Grace, I have the honor to be Quentyn Martell, a prince of Dorne and your most leal subject.”

Dany laughed.

The Dornish prince flushed red, whilst her own court and counselors gave her puzzled looks. “Radiance?” said Skahaz Shavepate, in the Ghiscari tongue. “Why do you laugh?”

“They call him frog,” she said, “and we have just learned why. In the Seven Kingdoms there are children’s tales of frogs who turn into enchanted princes when kissed by their true love.”

“Come back to bed and kiss me.” No one had ever kissed her like Daario Naharis. “I am your queen, and I command you to fuck me.”

She had meant it playfully[.]

“Your Grace needs more than wine to break her fast. You are such a tiny thing, and you will surely need your strength today.”

That made Daenerys laugh, coming from a girl so small.

“...Have them ready a sedan chair.” If she must wear her floppy ears, let all the rabbits see her.

ADWD Daenerys VI

“Magnificence, you do not understand,” protested Reznak. “The washing of the feet is hallowed by tradition. It signifies that you shall be your husband’s handmaid. The wedding garb is fraught with meaning too. The bride is dressed in dark red veils above a tokar of white silk, fringed with baby pearls.”

The queen of the rabbits must not be wed without her floppy ears. “All those pearls will make me rattle when I walk.”

“The pearls symbolize fertility. The more pearls Your Worship wears, the more healthy children she will bear.”

ADWD Daenerys V

“...And you will have the friendship of Lhazar.”

Daario won that for me, for all that it is worth. “The Lamb Men. Would that lambs had teeth.”

“That would make the wolves more cautious, no doubt.”

That made her laugh.

Dany was so pleased to see his leathery brown face that she hugged him. His eyes crinkled in amusement. “I heard talk Your Grace was going to take a husband,” he said, “but no one told me it was me.” They laughed together as Reznak sputtered[.]

ADWD Daenerys IV

“If you will forgive my saying so, Your Radiance looks … weary. Are you sleeping?”

It was all Dany could do not to laugh.

“If I kill my cupbearers, who will pour my wine and serve my supper?” she said, trying to make light of it.

On her terrace, in her bathing pool, the little fish would nibble at her legs as she soaked. Even they kissed with more fervor than Hizdahr zo Loraq.

“Ninety days and ninety nights without a corpse, and on the ninety-first we wed?”

“Perhaps,” said Dany, with a coy look. “Though young girls have been known to be fickle. I may still want a magic sword.”

ADWD Daenerys III

"No, I know that smile. It is a cruel queen who dices with men's hearts. Humble merchants like myself are no more than stones beneath your jeweled sandals." A single tear ran slowly down his pale white cheek.

Dany knew him too well to be moved. Qartheen men could weep at will. "Oh, stop that." She took a cherry from the bowl on the table and threw it at his nose. "I may be a young girl, but I am not so foolish as to wed a man who finds a fruit platter more enticing than my breast. I saw which dancers you were watching."

Xaro wiped away his tear. “The same ones Your Grace was following, I believe. You see, we are alike. If you will not take me for your husband, I am content to be your slave.”

“I want no slave. I free you.” His jeweled nose made a tempting target. This time Dany threw an apricot at him.

“As you say, Your Grace. Still. I will be watchful.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “I know you will. Come, walk me back down to the feast.”

One of her young hostages brought her morning meal, a plump shy girl named Mezzara, whose father ruled the pyramid of Merreq, and Dany gave her a happy hug and thanked her with a kiss.

ADWD Daenerys II

“We’ll both sleep, and dream of sweeter days. Close your eyes.” When she did, Dany kissed her eyelids and made her giggle.

In the purple hall, Dany found her ebon bench piled high about with satin pillows. The sight brought a wan smile to her lips. Ser Barristan’s work, she knew. The old knight was a good man, but sometimes very literal. It was only a jape, ser, she thought, but she sat on one of the pillows just the same.

“Your barber has served you well, Hizdahr. I hope you have come to show me his work and not to plague me further about the fighting pits.”

ADWD Daenerys I

“You must excuse me, ser. The petitioners will soon be at my gates. I must don my floppy ears and become their queen again. Summon Reznak and the Shavepate, I’ll see them when I’m dressed.”

Brown Ben Plumm, the captain of the Second Sons, had put it more succinctly. "Man wants to be the king o' the rabbits, he best wear a pair o' floppy ears."

“Ser Barristan,” she called, “I know what quality a king needs most.”

“Courage, Your Grace?”

“Cheeks like iron,” she teased. “All I do is sit.”

“Your Grace takes too much on herself. You should allow your councillors to shoulder more of your burdens.”

“I have too many councillors and too few cushions.”

“Your Radiance will know the reason I am here.”

“Why, it must be because you have no other purpose but to plague me. How many times have I refused you?”

A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

“...To the end of my days I shall remain your faithful knight, should you find me worthy to bear a sword again. If not, I am content to serve Strong Belwas as his squire.”

“What if I decide you’re only worthy to be my fool?” Dany asked scornfully. “Or perhaps my cook?”

“I would be honored, Your Grace,” Selmy said with quiet dignity. “I can bake apples and boil beef as well as any man, and I’ve roasted many a duck over a campfire. I hope you like them greasy, with charred skin and bloody bones.”

That made her smile. “I’d have to be mad to eat such fare.[”]

ASOS Daenerys V

“I have me a drop of the dragon blood myself, you know.”

“You?” [...] “How could that be?”

“Well,” said Brown Ben, “there was some old Plumm in the Sunset Kingdoms who wed a dragon princess. My grandmama told me the tale. He lived in King Aegon’s day.”

“Which King Aegon?” Dany asked. “Five Aegons have ruled in Westeros.”

“Five, were there? Well, that’s a confusion. I could not give you a number, my queen. This old Plumm was a lord, though, must have been a famous fellow in his day, the talk of all the land. The thing was, begging your royal pardon, he had himself a cock six foot long.”

The three bells in Dany’s braid tinkled when she laughed. “You mean inches, I think.”

“Feet,” Brown Ben said firmly. “If it was inches, who’d want to talk about it, now? Your Grace.”

Dany giggled like a little girl.

ASOS Daenerys IV

Drogon looped his neck around to nip at her hand. His teeth were very sharp, but he never broke her skin when they played like this. Dany laughed, and rolled him back and forth until he roared, his tail lashing like a whip.

“They will not hurt me,” she told him. “They are my children, Jorah.” She laughed, put her heels into her horse, and rode to them, the bells in her hair ringing sweet victory. She trotted, then cantered, then broke into a gallop, her braid streaming behind. The freed slaves parted before her.

ASOS Daenerys II

Behind the carved wooden door of the captain’s cabin, her dragons were restless. Drogon raised his head and screamed, pale smoke venting from his nostrils, and Viserion flapped at her and tried to perch on her shoulder, as he had when he was smaller. “No,” Dany said, trying to shrug him off gently. “You’re too big for that now, sweetling.” But the dragon coiled his white and gold tail around one arm and dug black claws into the fabric of her sleeve, clinging tightly. Helpless, she sank into Groleo’s great leather chair, giggling.

ASOS Daenerys I

The narrow sea was often stormy, and Dany had crossed it half a hundred times as a girl, running from one Free City to the next half a step ahead of the Usurper’s hired knives. She loved the sea. She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of horizons bounded only by a vault of azure sky above. It made her feel small, but free as well. She liked the dolphins that sometimes swam along beside Balerion, slicing through the waves like silvery spears, and the flying fish they glimpsed now and again. She even liked the sailors, with all their songs and stories. Once on a voyage to Braavos, as she’d watched the crew wrestle down a great green sail in a rising gale, she had even thought how fine it would be to be a sailor.

“Would that this Balerion could soar as her namesake did, Your Grace,” he said in bastard Valyrian heavily flavored with accents of Pentos. “Then we should not need to row, nor tow, nor pray for wind.”

“Just so, Captain,” she answered with a smile, pleased to have won the man over.

“How big will he grow?” Dany asked curiously. “Do you know?”

“In the Seven Kingdoms, there are tales of dragons who grew so huge that they could pluck giant krakens from the seas.”

Dany laughed. “That would be a wondrous sight to see.”

Dany turned back to the squire. “I know little of Rhaegar. Only the tales Viserys told, and he was a little boy when our brother died. What was he truly like?”

The old man considered a moment. “Able. That above all. Determined, deliberate, dutiful, single-minded. There is a tale told of him ... but doubtless Ser Jorah knows it as well.”

“I would hear it from you.”

“As you wish,” said Whitebeard. “As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that men said Queen Rhaella must have swallowed some books and a candle whilst he was in her womb. Rhaegar took no interest in the play of other children. The maesters were awed by his wits, but his father’s knights would jest sourly that Baelor the Blessed had been born again. Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, ‘I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.’”

“And he was!” said Dany, delighted.

She was pondering her next words when she felt a cool breath on the back of her neck, and a loose strand of her silver-gold hair stirred against her brow. Above, the canvas creaked and moved, and suddenly a great cry went up from all over Balerion. “Wind!” the sailors shouted. “The wind returns, the wind!”

Dany looked up to where the great cog’s sails rippled and belled as the lines thrummed and tightened and sang the sweet song they had missed so for six long days. Captain Groleo rushed aft, shouting commands. The Pentoshi were scrambling up the masts, those that were not cheering. Even Strong Belwas let out a great bellow and did a little dance. “The gods are good!” Dany said. “You see, Jorah? We are on our way once more.”

As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal’s head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother’s jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration.

“Stop that, Rhaegal,” Dany said in annoyance, giving his head a swat.

“You had the last one. I’ll have no greedy dragons.” She smiled at Ser Jorah. “I won’t need to char their meat over a brazier any longer.”

“So I see. Dracarys?”

All three dragons turned their heads at the sound of that word, and Viserion let loose with a blast of pale gold flame that made Ser Jorah take a hasty step backward. Dany giggled. “Be careful with that word, ser, or they’re like to singe your beard off. It means ‘dragonfire’ in High Valyrian. I wanted to choose a command that no one was like to utter by chance.”

“Khaleesi, has it occurred to you that Whitebeard and Belwas might have been in league with the assassin? It might all have been a ploy to win your trust.”

Her sudden laughter made Drogon hiss, and sent Viserion flapping to his perch above the porthole. “The ploy worked well.”

A Clash of Kings

ACOK Daenerys V

Xaro had learned that Pyat Pree was gathering the surviving warlocks together to work ill on her.

Dany had laughed when he told her. “Was it not you who told me warlocks were no more than old soldiers, vainly boasting of forgotten deeds and lost prowess?”

“A most excellent brass, great lady,” the merchant exclaimed. “Bright as the sun! And for the Mother of Dragons, only thirty honors.”

The platter was worth no more than three. “Where are my guards?” Dany declared. “This man is trying to rob me!”

“Thirty? Did I say thirty? Such a fool I am. The price is twenty honors.”

“All the brass in this booth is not worth twenty honors,” Dany told him as she studied the reflections.

“Ten, Khaleesi, because you are so lovely. Use it for a looking glass. Only brass this fine could capture such beauty.”

“It might serve to carry nightsoil. If you threw it away, I might pick it up, so long as I did not need to stoop. But pay for it?” Dany shoved the platter back into his hands. “Worms have crawled up your nose and eaten your wits.”

“Eight honors,” he cried. “My wives will beat me and call me fool, but I am a helpless child in your hands. Come, eight, that is less than it is worth.”

“What do I need with dull brass when Xaro Xhoan Daxos feeds me off plates of gold?”

The brass merchant came hopping after them. “Five honors, for five it is yours, it was meant for you.”

“Four! I know you want it!” He danced in front of them, scampering backward as he thrust the platter at their faces.

“Two honors! Two! Two!” The merchant was panting heavily from the effort of running backward.

“Pay him before he kills himself,” Dany told Ser Jorah, wondering what she was going to do with a huge brass platter.

The gap-toothed smile faded from the giant’s broad brown face, replaced by a confused scowl. Men did not often threaten Belwas, it would seem, and less so girls a third his size.

Dany gave him a smile, to take a bit of the sting from the rebuke.

“I regret if we caused you alarm. If truth be told, we were not certain, we expected someone more ... more ...”

“Regal?” Dany laughed. She had no dragon with her, and her raiment was hardly queenly.

ACOK Daenerys III

“He asked me to marry him again.”

“Yes, and I know why.” When the knight frowned, his heavy black brows joined together above his deep-set eyes.

“He dreams of me, day and night.” She laughed.

ACOK Daenerys II

The water was deliciously cool, and the pool was stocked with tiny golden fish that nibbled curiously at her skin and made her giggle.

A Game of Thrones

AGOT Daenerys VI

“When I was a little girl, I loved to play in the bazaar,” Dany told Ser Jorah as they wandered down the shady aisle between the stalls. “It was so alive there, all the people shouting and laughing, so many wonderful things to look at ... though we seldom had enough coin to buy anything ... well, except for a sausage now and again, or honeyfingers ... do they have honeyfingers in the Seven Kingdoms, the kind they bake in Tyrosh?”

[...] Her handmaids trailed along as Dany resumed her stroll through the market. “Oh, look,” she exclaimed to Doreah, “those are the kind of sausages I meant.” She pointed to a stall where a wizened little woman was grilling meat and onions on a hot firestone. “They make them with lots of garlic and hot peppers.” Delighted with her discovery, Dany insisted the others join her for a sausage. Her handmaids wolfed theirs down giggling and grinning, though the men of her khas sniffed at the grilled meat suspiciously. “They taste different than I remember,” Dany said after her first few bites.

“In Pentos, I make them with pork,” the old woman said, “but all my pigs died on the Dothraki sea. These are made of horsemeat, Khaleesi, but I spice them the same.”

“Oh.” Dany felt disappointed, but Quaro liked his sausage so well he decided to have another one, and Rakharo had to outdo him and eat three more, belching loudly. Dany giggled.

“You have not laughed since your brother the Khal Rhaggat was crowned by Drogo,” said Irri. “It is good to see, Khaleesi.”

Dany smiled shyly. It was sweet to laugh. She felt half a girl again.

“Was it the Usurper?”

“Yes.” The knight drew out a folded parchment. “A letter to Viserys, from Magister Illyrio. Robert Baratheon offers lands and lordships for your death, or your brother’s.”

“My brother?” Her sob was half a laugh. “He does not know yet, does he? The Usurper owes Drogo a lordship.” This time her laugh was half a sob.

AGOT Daenerys V

From the lurch in his step, she could tell at once that Viserys had found his wine ... and something that passed for courage.

AGOT Daenerys IV

“The dragon speaks as he likes,” Viserys said ... in the Common Tongue.

Khal Drogo finally called a halt near the Eastern Market where the caravans from Yi Ti and Asshai and the Shadow Lands came to trade, with the Mother of Mountains looming overhead. Dany smiled as she recalled Magister Illyrio’s slave girl and her talk of a palace with two hundred rooms and doors of solid silver. The “palace” was a cavernous wooden feasting hall, its rough-hewn timbered walls rising forty feet, its roof sewn silk, a vast billowing tent that could be raised to keep out the rare rains, or lowered to admit the endless sky. Around the hall were broad grassy horse yards fenced with high hedges, firepits, and hundreds of round earthen houses that bulged from the ground like miniature hills, covered with grass.

AGOT Daenerys III

The green swallowed her up. The air was rich with the scents of earth and grass, mixed with the smell of horseflesh and Dany’s sweat and the oil in her hair. Dothraki smells. They seemed to belong here. Dany breathed it all in, laughing. She had a sudden urge to feel the ground beneath her, to curl her toes in that thick black soil. Swinging down from her saddle, she let the silver graze while she pulled off her high boots.

#daenerys targaryen #valyrianscrolls #a dance with dragons #a storm of swords #a clash of kings #a game of thrones #dany passages

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 4 years ago

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Growing Pains: Genre and Themes

At first, it seems that categorizing a sitcom as anything but a comedy doesn’t really seem possible. After all, ‘comedy’ is literally part of the classification. (As is ‘situational’, but situational doesn’t tend to be considered a genre.)

As such, it may seem like this article is, for the most part, kind of unneeded. I mean, the entire point of a sitcom is to be funny (Unless you’re Married With Children). Doesn’t that, in and of itself, make it a comedy?

Well, not exactly.

Like I’ve mentioned in other genre articles, very few pieces of media can be placed in only one genre category. Even the most seemingly one-note examples contain elements of other categorizations, which makes sense. No show is designed to fit solely in one box, and the best shows fit into several. While it is true that most shows can be categorized neatly into one main genre, the fact is, a piece of media tends to predominantly carry characteristics of one specific genre, while sharing many elements of other genres. That’s where things get tricky.

You see, not all sitcoms are created equally ‘comedic’. You may have noticed that some tend to include ideas from different genres.

Bewitched is what happens when you combine a fantasy idea with a sitcom format. Mork and Mindy and My Favorite Martian are science-fiction sitcoms. M*A*S*H is a war dramedy. The Addams Family is a horror aesthetic matched with a traditional family sitcom style. All of these shows are funny, true, but this also makes my point:

A sitcom is not necessarily only a comedy.

As a matter of fact, more than anything, a sitcom is a format, into which the story and characters must fit. While a genre is the result of the style of the story and characters, a sitcom is a format first, with characters and stories designed to fit into and around that format. With that in mind, many sitcoms had chances to play around with genres of individual episodes, while remaining true to their format.

With that in mind, we’re going to be analyzing Growing Pains to determine it’s genre, use of comedy, and how it fit into the format given to it. Let’s take a look, starting with the opening credits.

See, the opening credits of a television show do more than just show the audience the characters and who plays them. The opening credits set the mood, give the viewer a preview as to what to expect. The music, combined with the clips used, tell the audience what is to come. Star Trek has a stately instrumental theme with the overlaid narration: Space…the final frontier, giving the audience a sense of the adventures to come. Cheers overlays pictures of bars and their patrons, paired with an extremely recognizable tune.

So, how does Growing Pains open?

The opening sequence to each Growing Pains episode is set to the same song (albeit there are different versions): “As Long as We’ve Got Each Other”. Not only is the song incredibly catchy, it’s also a sign of what’s to come. In the first season, it’s played over pictures and artworks of family life in general, but for the remainder of the show, it’s changed to images of the main cast in various stages of life. Thus, in the opening sequence of every show, the audience quite literally watches the cast grow up, before the final shot is typically one of the entire family as they are in this particular season of the show.

What does that tell the audience?

This isn’t a trick question.

The opening credits do everything possible to tell the audience that they are about to watch a show that is wholly centered on a family. The opening is done with affection, nostalgia. It’s a homey invitation for the rest of the show, and the viewers infer that, despite interpersonal conflicts and traditional family fights, in the end, they are a family, and they do love each other.

So, how well does that reflect the show itself?

Growing Pains was very standard sitcom fare in that it was full of jokes, part and parcel with the obnoxious laugh-track expected at the time. By the same token, it was also a sweet family show (though not as cutesy as Full House, for which we can thank our lucky stars). Most importantly, it was about the people within the family. In that, not only does the intro definitely reflect the content, it also connects quite a lot to our genre question.

In each genre article, we discuss the very important fact that the genre is the product of the type of story and characters in each piece of media. Back to the Future is a science-fiction-comedy because the story is centered on soft science fiction elements as well as being comical, and the characters fall right in line with that. The Wizard of Oz is a fantasy movie because the story and characters are fantastical. Big Trouble in Little China is…a mystery. Not a mystery story, just a mystery in general. Nobody knows what it is.

That’s beside the point.

The point is, the characters and plots for each medium have a lot to do with how they’re classified, and the same holds true for Growing Pains.

Like I mentioned in the ‘story’ article, the show is centered on the Seaver family, and their individual lives. And while they aren’t exactly true-to-life, totally realistic events, they do tend to be exaggerated reflections of real-life scenarios. And life, as it turns out, doesn’t really have much of a genre.

There are scary Halloween episodes, tragic episodes, just plain funny episodes, and dramatic episodes, because that’s life. Life is sometimes scary, funny, dramatic, or sad, and Growing Pains and its characters didn’t shy away from that, because they couldn’t. By trying to depict an exaggerated version of life, the show, whether intentionally or not, had no choice but to adapt with it the idea that the ‘stories’ of life don’t tend to have a ‘genre’, they tend to just happen. There is no ‘event’ that happens every episode like car chases on The Dukes of Hazzard.

At least, nothing besides that laugh track.

Despite this, that doesn’t mean that there were no constants in story style. There were always a few things to expect in most episodes.

I mentioned the laugh track above as a mostly humorous aside, but in all seriousness, Growing Pains is a comedy. This isn’t a surprise, it is a sitcom, and the laugh track just cinches it, but it’s more than a comedy. There’s a lot of this show that speaks to some element of drama, as well.

While it’s true that Growing Pains never reached the levels of sobriety that M*A*S*H did (small wonder, as one show is about a family, and the other is about a war hospital), the show didn’t tend to sugar-coat big decisions and their effects on the family. It wasn’t always big drama, (the episode where Jason and Maggie fight after Maggie feels that Jason disrespected her in public) but it was drama, relatable drama for the audience at home. The humor was based on characters and their interactions with one another, how we could tell what kind of thing individual characters would say, rather than slapstick or goofy scenarios. Thus, the humor and the drama tended to go hand in hand. Typically, the laugh track didn’t tend to intrude on an emotional scene just because we need more laughs in an episode.

With character-driven shows like Growing Pains, family shows tended to be more focused on slices of life type events, and situations that didn’t fix themselves. There were always laughs, but there was more weight to the show’s plots than excuses to use jokes. It was, by no means, one of the more gimmicky sitcoms of the ‘60s.

Is Growing Pains a comedy show? Yes, absolutely. Unquestionably. But it’s also something more.

Audiences remember the jokes, sure, but they also remember the episode where Jason doesn’t want to help his mother’s dying second marriage because he doesn’t like the new husband. They remember Carol’s boyfriend dying in the hospital after drunk driving. They remember Maggie and Jason dealing with age as they welcome an unexpected baby into the family.

You know what that is? Drama.

Good stories, with memorable characters.

In the end, that’s what people took away from this show. Individual jokes tended to fade, but the audiences who watched the show didn’t forget the people involved, or the experiences they had. They still hold up, and modern audiences can still relate to those characters and their experiences.

Speaking of the characters, they certainly deserve some discussion as well.

Join us next time as we take a look at the Seavers themselves, and figure out what made them a stand-out sitcom family! In the meantime, drop an ask in the ask box for any discussions, questions, suggestions, or just to say hi! Thanks so much for reading, and I hope to see you in the next article.

#TV #Television #TV-G #Growing Pains #80s #Family #Comedy #Alan Thicke #Joanna Kerns #Kirk Cameron #Tracey Gold #Jeremy Miller

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animatedminds · 4 years ago

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What If: Every Character In Dragonball FighterZ Had a Dramatic Finish? (Pt. 3)

And here we are at the third leg of this little brainstorming session. Since yesterday, UI Goku has come out - people are enjoying the apparently pretty insane defensive options he’s got, and the new Kefla Dramatic Finish, but that doesn’t mean our work here is done just yet. If you haven’t seen the first two installments of these, this week in honor of the Ultra Instinct Goku DLC for Dragon Ball FighterZ I’ve been doing a little hypothetical thinking about Dramatic Finishes - those awesome re-animations of classic Dragonball moments that Arcys lovingly put into the game. Specifically, we’ve been approaching the question of “what if there were even more Dramatic Finishes” - since only a select portion of the cast has one. Over the last couple of days, we’ve been going through each of the characters without a Dramatic Finish and trying to find the best choice, the most cinematic moment, coolest and hopefully most epic shots of each character’s history that could work as a Dramatic Finish for them. This is more of a hypothetical: as I said in the previous installments, I’m not seriously saying that every character in the game should have a Dramatic Finish: Arcsys puts a hell of a lot of work into each of them, and the majority of the roster getting such time consuming devotion is just not happening. This is more of a thought experiment - and an excuse to rewatch a ton of clips from all over Dragonball history, of course. And as before, I’m looking for good scenes that would make appearances in Dramatic Finishes, not necessarily wins - so some of the characters on this list are going to lose.

If you want to the whole thing in one shot, you can always just listen to it on Soundcloud: we have a whole cast for it right here. But if not, then buckle up: cause here we got into Part 3. When last we met, we went through the Cell Saga (and Videl), so the next character up without a Dramatic Finish should be...

Majin Buu

Buu has been in the game since the beginning, but never did seem to get much attention - the main villain of his own arc, albeit one in which is many additional forms and personas took center stage after himself, Buu’s got quite a bit of interesting moments under his belt, with his own brand of destruction that’s as terrifying as it is silly.

I do want to preface this by pointing out that in the last video I went over an option for Super Saiyan Vegeta, which involved compositing the Final Explosion moment from his stint as Majin Vegeta into his regular Super Saiyan form and using that as a Finish, and before we go into more options for Buu I’ll say that at the end of the day I still think that’s the best option both for Vegeta and for Buu himself, but too give something extra for this segment...

The tricky thing about Buu is that he does a lot of fighting but not a lot of finishing - in this form, at least, he mostly wreaks havoc on innocent bystanders while the heroes can’t stop him. There are some scenes, like him killing Dabura by turning him into a cookie, that would work - but which would involve characters that aren’t currently in the game.

So I ultimately came up with two options (technically three, but I’ll save that third one for the next section).

The first is a less serious suggestion, since the steps required to make this scene smaller for a Dramatic Finish probably aren’t worth it, but its is a version of this anime-only scene where Gotenks attempts to fight Buu and - predictably - is defeated. This scene works in a general sense due to the good framing: Gotenks is knocked into a wall so hard he gets embedded into it, and then Buu destroys everything around them while he is helpless to stop it, and in transferring the action to the City stage you could make that simple idea work pretty well.

The thing is, what would really make this scene work as a Dramatic Finish is something that would be kind of extra for this game: the army shows up, and they kill massacred while Gotenks fails to get them to run. That would really put the drama in this Dramatic Finish - the hero fails to save the innocent bystanders and all, and without it the scene is just kind of bland, but there’s no way Arcsys is modelling all that just for a reach of a Dramatic Finish, so in the end there are better options for both characters.

So for the other, better option? Give him one of his scenes where he goes up against his later forms. Majin Buu ultimately turns good and fights against his later, eviller transformations, which makes for some good moments. The first of which would simply be a Dramatic Opening which adapts the scene where Kid Buu spits out Majin Buu who (later) gets up to attack him. It’s a two separate scenes, but they’re both quick, and easily condensed condensed into one: just have Kid Buu spit out Majin Buu, who immediately steps up to fight.

But for finally a Dramatic Finish suggestion, we have another one that requires some finagling: take the scene in which Majin Buu attempts (and fails) to turns Evil Buu into chocolate, and give it to Kid Buu instead.

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This would be a win for Kid Buu (again, replacing Evil Buu with him in this case), and it would work pretty easily, given that a lot of Dramatic Finishes so far use a formula like this: Kid Buu knocks Majin Buu back, who gets mad and tries to strike back with the Chocolate Beam. Kid Buu blows it back and Majin Buu gets hit instead. A piece of chocolate hits the ground, Kid Buu picks it up and eats it - then end with a shot of Kid Buu laughing maniacally, or perhaps shift one of Evil Buu’s poses over to Kid Buu.

It wouldn’t be the first time something from one of the earlier forms was given to Kid Buu in this game, and it works out fairy well - though I will say again that the Final Explosion moment is still the best option for Majin Buu in my opinion.

Next on the list...

Gotenks

Gotenks is, if anything, even trickier than Buu. The entire concept of Gotenks is a warrior who is extremely powerful and versatile, but also a complete fool and a blowhard. He’s many times more powerful than either Goten or Trunks could ever be alone, but in terms of character and wisdom he’s less than the sum of his parts - and so, he can never win.

This presents an interesting problem for this list: Gotenks has no follow through. Not only does he never really finish off an opponent, he also has a tendency to screw up and get himself taken out in inglorious ways that wouldn’t make great Dramatic Finishes either. The option I gave in the preceding section, losing against Buu, is a good example: it just has too many problems even given that it’s an above average choice in comparison to a lot of his other moments.

But there are a couple options I can think of, still. The first is a good choice for a Dramatic Opening - in fact, the very first thing I thought of for this section: that anime only fight that I brought up with Majin Buu begins in an interesting way: Gotenks blindsides Buu with a cheap shot. Then we get a surprisingly cool entrance for a scene meant mostly to fill time, in which Gotenks - wreathed in shadow against a vibrant blue background - makes a dramatic speech about how he’s going to kill Buu for good.

Really, the visual effect of this is so good that even given that they would have to transpose it to a different stage (the City, again) I wouldn’t mind seeing it as a Dramatic Opening. It’s at least an option for this section, though... let’s face it, it’s not quite there yet. We can at least think of a Finish for here as well, can’t we? Well, the one I figured on is - unfortunately for Gotenks - a loss, and it’s more of a funny moment than a Dramatic moment, but I’d say either of the versions of Beerus’ defeat of him during the Battle of Gods arc (either in the movie, or in Super):

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For reference, he’s the Battle of Gods version as well.

The perfection of this scene is that while it may not be a titanic moment that shook the heavens like most of the Dramatic Finishes, it gives us a chance to show off another side of Dragonball that’s always been a strong factor: the humor. The Super version, especially, gives Koichi Yamadera and Jason Douglas a chance to let loose their chops and give us a complete rant that’s as all over the place as it is fun to watch, and ultimately even if it’s not epic, it’s definitely entertaining. To imagine a Dramatic Finish that’s just Beerus stopping the action, taking over the camera and shouting about pudding in as over-dramatic a way as possible for half a minute sounds oddly good to me - kind of meta, and a heck of a non-sequitiur.

Yes, at Gotenks’ expense, but these two options really run the gamut of Gotenks’ scene: either he’s crowing dramatically about how awesome he is, or he’s getting humiliated in a fight. I love the kid, but he could use some character development (Super gave Goten and Trunks a little, but they were out of focus so much you’d never notice).

Either way, we move on to...

Vegeta (Super Saiyan Blue)

When it comes to characters for who felt a bit left out, it was somewhat surprising that neither Super Saiyan Blue Goku nor Vegeta got Dramatic Finishes when the game came out: this was Super was current, and it was assumed the game would try have a bit of synergy with its moments - but then again, it also makes sense. Animation lead time takes forever, and game lead time takes forever, and since it takes over a year to make either of those things waiting to make a moment in retrospect sometimes is just more worthwhile than rushing to do something in the moment.

You can see how doing adapting quickly might not end with the best result in Ranger 17′s FighterZ moveset, which has to fill blanks with Cell saga moves and a couple things adapted from other video games, unable to use a lot of the things that made Ranger 17 so fun to watch because the character was already in production when those happened.

But let’s not get distracted. Vegeta Blue is in an interesting spot, because no matter how powerful he is Vegeta’s role is still the same: do well against the less powerful opponent, then get wrecked by the main antagonists. This ultimately means that a lot of Vegeta’s best moments in Blue are against characters not in the game. A favorite moment, and the one I would absolutely want as a Dramatic Finish, involves a character I’ve personally wanted in the game since launch - but who is almost certainly never going to make the cut (Auta Magetta), a titanic Final Flash + Punch that ended up becoming his LVL 3 in the game itself. Other good options include his hilarious and cathartic defeat of Frost in the Universe 6 vs Universe 7 tournament, and his defeat of Toppo in the Tournament of Power, all of which involve character that are unlikely to be in the game even as DLC (though they’re at least more likely than Spopovich).

But if we only look at characters who are in the game, we’ve mostly got fleeting moments of victory that quickly turn around to defeat. But, if we’re looking that those there is one that stands out as particularly cinematic: the end of his fight with Freeza in Revival F (or Super).

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In this clip, Vegeta defeats Freeza, who has a cheap shot attempts to blow up the entire planet. Think the Freeza vs Goku Finishes or the Gohan vs Cell Finishes, except in this case the hero fails. The cheap shot works, and Freeza destroys everything... until time gets rewound and Goku stops this from happening by taking out Freeza before he can.

The irony here is pretty funny. You either get a Dramatic Finish where Blue Vegeta loses, or one where he wins but Blue Goku still steals his thunder. EIther way, though, it’s still one of the most cinematic options. Especially if you add in a little of the Super version of Freeza blowing up the Earth, with bits and pieces of all the characters as they have only a moment to react to their sudden doom. You could even do something akin to how Arcsys did Dizzy’s instant kill in Guilty Gear Xrd, and have your different teammates all react differently depending on who is on your team, though that might be a step too far.

Either way, all you’d need is to win against Blue Vegeta while Blue Goku is on your team. Freeza throws a fit, Vegeta attempts to execute him but is stopped by Freeza blowing up the planet... then rewind. The scene replays, but this time Goku leaps forward and finishes Freeza off. End with a shot of Vegeta yelling at Goku or something for stealing his moment.

It’s a pretty great option, even if it’s not Vegeta’s most glamorous moment - but then, that’s pretty standard for Vegeta. Either way, we can move on. Next up...

Hit

When I was first putting this list together, last week or so, it was before Blue Goku was revealed to be the version of Goku with the Kefla Dramatic Finish. Everyone assumed it was UI Goku, so I had a Goku option lined up - but him now having one (and thus being out of this list) works out fairly well, because originally the choice I made for Blue Goku and the choice I made for Hit ended up as the same thing anyway.

Hit and Blue Goku’s fights feature some of the best scenes either character (which is to say, Hit and that version of Goku) have in Super, and it’s a no brainer that the finish for this section would come from that fight... but, since the first version of that fight ended inconclusively, I would actually suggest compositing scenes from their first fight with the conclusion of their second, anime-only rematch: which ends with a titanic moment - though yes, another Kamehameha - where Goku literally breaks through and shatters Hit’s time stalling technique.

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Meanwhile, while the second fight provides the climactic conclusion, the first fight provides the build up and the best visuals: featuring epic scenes where the two rush each other in sprays of blue, red and purple that could really show what Super was capable of when the animation really got going.

So the key here is to make a new Dramatic Finish that combines elements of that first fight and the conclusion of the second: much like the Super Broly Finish, have the first part be moments from the first fight adapted together, to create the flow of a single stretch of combat. A win for Blue Goku, of course, this would start out as a blistering clash between the two.

Then, end it with the conclusion of the second fight, with Goku completely overcoming Hit’s time skip and blowing him away, through collapsing in exhaustion afterwards. Given the differing locations of their two fights, this could either take place in FighterZ’s original stage - Galactic Arena - which is loosely inspired by the Universal Tournament area, or the Archipelago.

Then much like the Jiren Finish, the last part of the scene would be them palling around - or as much as a guy like Hit can pal around - after the fight, promising to come at each other with even more power next time they meet, just like the ending of their rematch. It’s a strong Dramatic Finish that shows off the best of both.

It seems like Blue Goku has been the theme for the last two sections... but we might as well not break the trend now. We move on to the last section of the day, and the last character introduced in Super to not have a Dramatic Finish...

Goku Black

Yes, Zamasu’s insidious disguise himself. While Zamasu got several Dramatic Finishes to his name, Goku Black has since launch had to make due with the semi-special finish you get if you kill him with Beerus’ LVL 3.

As the primary Zamasu faced during his eponymous arc, Black does most of the legwork throughout that saga, but a downside to the way that saga is built is that there isn’t much in the way of “final” moments throughout it all: it’s basically a running fight in which the fighters take break for Round 2, Round 3, etc - most big moments on one side are instantly undone by big moments from the other side, with neither really gaining ground enough that you could build a Dramatic Finish out of it.

There is, however, one pretty decent moment that would make a great moment - featuring a cinematic comeback for Blue Goku followed by a brutal shutdown by Black. We’re talking here about Goku’s fury, the moment where he finds out what Black did to Chi-Chi and Goten in his timeline (note: not pleasant), followed by his enraged - but short lived - revenge.

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The flashback is just too long to really work in a Dramatic Finish, unless you did it in snippets like Bardock’s flashback in his, which I would suggest, but given the whole fight scene afterwards might end up a step too far. Either way, it’s a win for Goku Black, in the City stage: he has Goku literally up against a wall, torturing him alongside Zamasu... only for Goku to break free and completely lose it. Following would be another fight scene within a Dramatic Finish, in which Goku goes to town on Black and Zamasu, seemingly winning... until Black turns it around by powering up himself, finishing Goku off with the God Slicer (or Divine Lasso, depending on your preference).

Final shot is easy: a shot of Goku’s broken body on the ground, as in the source, added with a shot of Black standing smugly over him smugly. It’s one of Black’s more epic moments - at least that isn’t inflicted on innocent bystanders - and works very well as one of those few moments where the villain gets one over on the hero.

And that’s it for today! We’re coming up on the end: to be concluded, tomorrow!

As always, if you don’t want to wait just check out the whole thing on Soundcloud, and in the meantime let me know what you think of the choices for each character and whether you have any other ideas! But either way if you’re a FighterZ player I hope you’re enjoying the DLC, and if you’re a Dragonball fan I hope you’re keeping up that endless search for more power. Stay sparking!

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blackmaylovesfries · 5 years ago

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MX Powers Part 2 - 1st Question

Asked: Yes, by @babybee05, my darling!

Words: 1904

Sinopse: “How do they discover their powers & what are their individual powers” - So, this one-shot explains more about the boys’ species and what exactly are their powers and what they do.

Notices: I’m not well versed in Fairy Canon Universe so I mostly invented here. Hope I didn’t offended anyone! Also, if you have any advice, I’ll take it! Also, this isn’t really a one-shot since I had to do a lot of explanations so it got more like a topic post… Sorry to disappoint…

Masterpost

URGENT - BIRTHDAY POLL - Wonho’s B-Day is getting closer, help me!

- Kihyun:

Kihyun is a fire fairy. He and his family are from the biggest city from the Fire Clan and always lived a good life. When he was 8 years old he started to manifest his gift: Intense Five Senses. It may not sound impressive but it was actually the reason he was able to be the main vocal from Monsta X.

In the Fire Clan, the kids would be sent to the Imperial School, where they would learn about history and how to live in the clan until they were divided by their power nature to be trained more specifically. Kihyun spent 3 years at that “manners stage”, like old fire fairies call it. Everything is quite intense at that clan, that include education.

His family were already super intense, the reunions were always crazy and fun.Just like their fights were vicious, their love were stronger than anything. Kihyun surely doesn’t fall far from the tree, he liked the spotlight and when his house was full of friends and noise, even if it wasn’t him making the noise.

When he first manifested the Intense Five Senses, Kihyun was at home for a holiday. he and his mother were talking about the school while the woman was cooking. Till this day none of them can explain exactly what happened but on one second Kihyun was talking about his new friend and at the other he was at the ground.

Since then he was forbidden at the family kitchen. Well… Until he was able to control it because as soon he was able to not pass out everytime he smelled human curry he developed a great cooking skill that none of his relatives could help but to beg for him to take charge of the place. He was actually really great when it comes to mixtures and fairy culinary.

His power is actually simple but incredible. His five senses were intensified so every sensation you receive from this world he receive it 4 to 10 times stronger. Not only that but he also can make other beings feel that amplified sensations. Like how you hear his voice and see his performance.

As he grown, Kihyun were able to control how his power affected him and how it affected others. That’s why he developed the taste for cooking and doing house chores, he was able to tell when the smallest thing is wrong in the ambient and guess what combination of flavors would be better for people like Jooheon that can’t eat everything all the time.

His power is also why he was able to be the ‘mother’ of the group, since his super senses make him quite sensible to humor changes. Besides that he could experiment things and know almost instantly how the public would receive it. Kihyun was definitely surprised when Monbebe started to just kinda of love everything he did on stage.

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- Hyungwon:

Sweet Hyungwon is a water fairy. He and his family lived at a river inside the country, only having contact with others twice or thrice a year. Not that it matter since they were a happy family, always taking care of each other and having one night guests staying in their house.

Usually there were travelers that needed a place to stay in Hyungwon’s house. His parents were careful but they loved to hear the stories that the travelers told them. It was rare for his house to be empty. That was how Hyungwon discovered his gift at 11 years old.

He was busy the whole day, picking flowers and playing with his younger sibling so he wasn’t home until nightfall. Only then he discovered that his parents had a new guest. Well… an old one actually. That human had being with them a couple of times already and he was super kind to all of them. This time he was going to stay for a week with them.

The traveler had already even adapted to the family’s routine so they didn’t needed to adjust to him staying there. But this time there was something different. The human was sick. Actually it was just a cold but it was enough for influencing Hyungwon. He started to get drowsy every time he got near the man and his noise really hurted at the time.

When he complained to his father, the adult fairy took Hyungwon to a fairy doctor. It was a surprise when the doctor said that Hyungwon was super healthy and there was no problem at all. That made his father think that maybe he had developed the Healing Heart, a gift that would allow him to cure anyone he chooses to.

So, after leaving the doctor’s house, the duo of father and son went to the Big Water Fairy Library that were less than 30 minutes far from their house… Water fairies were really weird… Anyway, they found a book that helped young fairies to learn how to manipulate the Healing Heart. His father brought him and the book back and helped him to develop even more.

This gift was as pure and good as the name given. The Healing Heart really allows it’s user to heal others as they wish. But for the healing really be effective, Hyungwon needs to form a tie with the creature he wants to heal. Like a real tie. That’s why nowadays there are few peoples who are really healed by him: Monsta X and his blood family only actually.

The down side of it is that the user actually receive the pain they are healing. Like when Hyungwon is healing a cold, instead of the creature feeling pain or being uncomfortable Hyungwon will feel all of it. That’s also why he sleeps a lot, it helps his own body heal itself.

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- Jooheon:

Jooheon, like Minhyuk and Shownu, was from the Air Clan. An, again like Minhyuk, his family could turn into an animal. So, unlike Minhyuk now, Jooheon was able to turn into a caramel with black spots cat. That was why his nickname was Honey, his cat form was really like a bee.

His family did have some similar characteristics with Minhyuk’s one, like the incapacity of staying still and the recluse childhood. That’s why he just get really hype when in social situations. Their time to manifest the animal form is also the same, as soon as they can chew solid food.

The particularity of his family is that they are actually really sensible to pain. So they avoid any situations that could have them hurted or even sick. The adults are quick to teach this habit to their child so no one was really found of dangerous plays that cubs are usually down for.

Jooheon came to the human capital to join Monsta X because he didn’t thought about how he could possibly get hurt with rapping. He cried the whole night when he first fell on the dance class… Hyungwon and Kihyun have a lot of problem with he and his fear, they are mostly the ones that are always around him to help.

His cat form often influenced him in humanoid form. He loves to play with soft fabrics and chains that made small noises. Also he was always hot and ready to cuddle with anyone. Although he could be almost 10 meters tall, he could not spare with Wonho, since the oldest didn’t go easy on him like Jooheon’s mother.

His claws are able to cut through almost everything and his roar could be heard from a 40 kilometers diameter. Truly terrifying but his family was teached to fight and put themselves at risk only when their lives or their loved ones were already at risk. So although he avoid pain, he would do anything to protect his loved ones.

Jooheon’s young cat form only reached something about 20 centimeters at tops. Until he reached fairy adulthood, about 20 years old, he would always transform into a little cub everytime his other form appeared. That did not made him have a great childhood even if his parents said to him that that was normal.

He also had a lot of trouble to control his other form so even the slightest pain could make him transform when he was 15 years old. Only when he started to rap and get really into music that his control got better and better until he was able to meet Monbebes and not transform from excitement.

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- I.M:

Changkyun is a half water fairy, he was half human half fairy. He lived with his family in a small pond near the ocean. That’s why he could actually speak several languages and was quick to learn new things. Near his house was an mermaid village that were always helping travellers to reach mainland. There were always people coming and going so he learned a lot.

That was also why Changkyun was never lonely, even seeing other fairies only once or twice a year. Since he and his family lived far from everything, his mother almost never took him to season meetings besides the extremely officials ones. They didn’t wanted him to suffer so they stayed near a race that simply didn’t care that he was a hybrid.

He was almost 13 when he finally received his gift. His family were euphoric. Although most of the late manifested gifts were ordinary ones, they wanted Changkyun to feel special and equal to his older brother that had developed God’s Rhythm at 5 years old. Not that Kyun cared about it but he is still really thankful for his parents efforts.

When Kyun turned 13, his father took him to the mermaid village, where he could choose a present. Changkyun was looking around, holding his father’s hand, when suddenly he felt a strong sensation of pride. It was not a emotion he would have, not at 13 years old, although he could compare the emotion to when he was able to win a compliment from his father.

So he did a test. Yes, Chang was smart like that. He let go of his father’s hand and noticed that the sensation passed. Then, he took it again and the sensation was back! Smiling and jumping from excitement, Changkyun described to his father what was happening and asked him what he was so proud of. His father laughed and gently said “Of you, growing up to be so shiny.”

Then Chang discovered that he had manifested Absolute Perception. It allowed him to feel the emotions of the creature he touched. Since then, he started to control it enough so no one in this universe could hide their real emotions and intentions from him. He could tell just with a high five if the fan was a true one or not.

That was why he loved Monsta X right away, although they did have prejudice on the beginning he could see that they weren’t bad inside. They just needed time. He also used his talent a lot on tours to take care of his members mental health. He is so close of them now that he just need to be around them to read their emotions.

While when you can control Absolute Perception nobody can hide anything from you, when you are untrained powerful people can actually manipulate the Perception so it can’t say what is true and what is false, so you can be fooled easily if you’re not careful.

❤♫❤♫❤.•*¨`*•..¸♥☼♥¸.•*¨`*•.♫❤♫❤♫❤❤♫❤♫❤.•*¨`*•..¸♥☼♥¸.•*¨`*•.♫❤♫❤♫

Hi!!! So, I hope you enjoyed!!! I also hope that more questions come... If not, maybe I do the one-shots later anyway... Well... Thanks for requesting ( @babybee05 ) and for all of you for reading!

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theclanscript · 6 years ago

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the stages of yoo kihyun

⋈ pairing: kihyun x reader ⋈ word count: 3,570 ⋈ genre: fluff ⋈ notes: a little kihyun to brighten up your day ♡

“There you are!”

You recognized that upbeat voice anywhere. You turned away from the counter to see Minhyuk approaching you with purposeful steps. You had just finished preparing your morning tea from the break room of your workplace and were in the process of leaving. The smell of coffee percolating through this area never really pleased your senses—in fact, it made you nauseous—so you were hoping to get out of here as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, your coworker had different plans.

“What is it?” you asked, mentally strapping yourself in. You knew that Minhyuk’s conversations weren’t exactly the briefest, no matter how much you tried to make them so.

“Whatcha doing Friday night?” he asked with energy you couldn’t believe people had at this early hour.

“I told you I’m not interested,” you said casually as you took a careful sip of your tea.

“I’m not asking for me, ew.” As if the ending to that sentence wasn’t offensive enough, the face he pulled was one of overt disgust. That was what you got for trying to be clever, you supposed. There was no winning against him in a battle of wits. “It’s Kihyun,” Minhyuk suddenly continued. “He wants to ask you out.”

At the sound of the familiar name, you perked up. You remembered Kihyun—how could you forget?

Kihyun was Minhyuk’s best friend—bless his heart—and he worked under the same company as you two, just in a different division. Due to that circumstance, you had never really had many opportunities to see him around on your floor of the building. You had only met him a few days ago when a group of your coworkers had decided to meet up during the weekend for a nice, friendly luncheon. There, Minhyuk had brought Kihyun along, and over the period of the day, you had gotten to know him a little better.

To say that he had piqued your interest would be an understatement; he had been humorous, charming, and polite to boot. To be honest, you had been hoping that something would become of the first meeting. Still, you couldn’t help but narrow your eyes at Minhyuk accusingly, unsure of whether or not he was pulling a prank on you.

“If he wants to ask me out, why is he making you do it?”

“He’s not,” Minhyuk replied matter-of-factly. “He’ll probably be here any minute now, but I just wanted to beat him to it.”

There it was, that evil grin. Immediately afterwards, he broke out into a cackle that you swore only witches from storybooks could emit, which earned a few startled looks from the other workers tending to their own servings of caffeine. He then turned around to scurry off without another word, completely disregarding the fact that he had stolen Kihyun’s thunder just to see your reaction.

Apparently, it was worth it.

It took a few seconds to recover as you stood there in your baffled state, but once you snapped out of it, you urged your legs to head out of the break room. You were about to hunt down Minhyuk to make him explain or repent—maybe both—but it seemed that there was no use for that.

“Hey!”

Lo and behold, as you turned to walk across the main room, you saw Kihyun on the other side, having rounded the corner from the hallway to lock eyes with you.

“Hey,” you reciprocated, offering him a wave with your free hand. A brilliant and pleasant smile appeared on his face as he picked up the pace to head towards you, and you did your best to meet him halfway. He clearly didn’t belong on this level—he had mentioned working about two floors below yours. Once you two stopped in front of each other, you hoped that Minhyuk had been telling the truth.

“How are you—”

“Yes.”

Kihyun halted in the middle of his sentence, surprise etched onto his face. “I’m sorry?”

“Yes, I would love to go out with you,” you explained, saving him the time and potential embarrassment. Although, you could have just opened yourself up for humiliation by falling for a trick, but fortunately that wasn’t the case. A mixture of emotions flashed across Kihyun’s face for a split second as he processed what you had said before a look of realization dawned on him.

“Minhyuk?”

“The one and only.”

“I should have known.”

Thankfully, Kihyun was a good sport, letting out a chuckle of amusement while never losing his smile. He probably knew how to take things in stride by now—Minhyuk tended to be one step ahead of everyone at all times, and being friends with someone like that, you learned to adapt. As for you, you would take every chance you got to expose his tomfoolery.

“So, Friday?” you inquired as confirmation.

“Yes,” he answered with a noticeable lift in his tone of voice. “I’ll come by after work’s done.”

“Sounds great.”

Bidding you farewell, he turned on his heel to retrace his steps, no doubt returning to his own work station. You watched his retreating frame as he left, a beam making its way across your lips when he stopped to bow to one of the senior officers passing by, his soft, dark hair bouncing up and down with each tilt of the head before he continued on his merry way.

Content with how the event had unfolded, you spun back around to get back to work as well, but that was when you noticed a strange figure out of the corner of your eye. Diverting your gaze, you immediately spotted none other than Minhyuk creeping behind one of the windows of an office nearby. He was just standing there, pressed up to the glass with the widest grin on his face, resembling a villainous mastermind watching his secret plan unfold.

It was a wonder how he and Kihyun were friends.

“I still can’t believe you don’t like coffee.”

Kihyun and you were currently walking down a fairly busy sidewalk after having had a wonderful meal just prior. You had gone on enough dates to say that you two were officially dating by now. Each date had been special—visiting the dog café was your personal favorite—and while you had gone to a variety of places together, fried chicken was your mutual favorite and go-to for a casual lunch date. Of course, there was no better way to top off a date than to grab some dessert. This was what had sparked the subject matter of your conversation on your way to a nice café.

“What’s there to like about bean juice?” you questioned, remaining unimpressed by the drink and his apparent love for it. This made Kihyun burst out in laughter beside you. His features scrunched up as he threw his head back for a quick moment; it was a cute habit you had noticed over the past few weeks, and it never failed to make you smile along with him.

“Well, when you put it that way…” he started before you saw his stare trail off just like his words. Something up ahead on your side of the street seemed to have caught his attention, causing his footsteps to falter. “Hold that thought,” he told you, placing his hand lightly on your arm to slow you in your tracks. As you did so, he moved his hand to the small of your back to gently usher you out of the middle of the street and off to the side where you were not in the way of other pedestrians or speeding delivery scooters.

Once you were in a safe place, Kihyun jogged off in a hurry. Lingering in your spot, your gaze followed him as he approached a nearby storefront where a middle-aged woman stood by the entrance. She appeared to be having trouble with a dolly stacked with beverage crates to restock her convenience store, unable to lift the wheels up onto the curb.

“Here, let me help you with that,” you heard Kihyun say as he swooped in from the side. He took over for her by grasping the handles, and with an effective heave, he pulled the cart up over the ledge, backing up carefully as he did so.

“Thank you, young man,” the lady responded with a grateful tone.

You were expecting Kihyun to then let go of the goods after having done his good deed, but instead, he continued to step backwards into the store, pulling the crates with him. He disappeared past the entryway, but you heard his voice courteously asking the woman, “Where should I set this down?”

It didn’t take long until you saw him appear from the threshold again, walking briskly out of the front door to catch back up to where he had left you. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” you immediately encouraged. “That was a very kind thing to do.”

Kihyun merely waved your compliment off with a shy smile. “Anyone else would have done the same.”

This made you smile admiringly at him. It was sweet of him to think that, but you knew that not everyone would have done what he had just did. Not everyone would have stopped in the middle of the street and gone out of their way to help out a stranger—all the other passersby who had sauntered up and down the street without sparing so much as a glance towards the struggling shopkeeper were proof enough.

“So, where were we?” Kihyun spoke again as he motioned to recommence your walk to the café.

“Bean juice,” you reminded him.

“Oh right,” Kihyun said, another laugh radiating from him as genuine and amused as the first. Your own smile never left your face for the rest of the date, and by the end, you solidified a thought that had been brewing ever since the first date.

This one was a keeper.

There weren’t many times where you saw the full intensity of Kihyun’s wrath. Sure, he got annoyed at minor, almost trivial things—when people littered on the ground carelessly, when Minhyuk dished out his daily insults, when the company executives swatted away his polite greetings with mere nods—but this was different.

Kihyun was angry.

“Come on, babe. It’s okay.” You tried your best to speak in a soothing tone, hoping that it would calm your boyfriend down.

It was already nearing the late evening, and the two of you had decided to visit a bar after dinner for a couple of drinks. Unfortunately, a brute of a man had felt it was necessary to approach you in an unpleasant manner. The stranger had refused to leave, even when you had specifically told him that you had arrived there with someone. Kihyun had gone to get your orders in at the time, but when he had come back to your table, he had been less than thrilled to meet the unwelcomed guest pestering you. Thankfully, you had been able to pull Kihyun away and out of the establishment before the situation got out of hand. Thus, you were standing outside on the dimly lit streets now as he attempted to cool off from the encounter.

“It’s not okay,” Kihyun argued, his eyebrows creasing with the expression of pure irritation that he couldn’t hide. “What he did was not at all okay. He had no right to grab your arm like that. He was about to drag you away!” he disputed, his voice rising along with his blood pressure, no doubt.

“It’s not a big deal,” you admitted, having gone through far too many instances similar to this in the past. “Nothing happened.”

“Yeah, but something could have if I wasn’t there.”

You frowned as you watched him display his frustration. He looked off to the side, reaching his hand up to rub his temples in an effort to compose himself that you weren’t sure was working. Stepping closer to him to help, you wrapped your hands around one of his, giving him a secure squeeze in order to ground him again.

“But you were there. And I’m fine now—really. I’m okay.”

His other hand fell back to his side, and he turned to lock eyes with you, his gaze thorough and meaningful. As the seconds passed, you saw the fire in his eyes start to smolder down, anger seeping away with each breath he took until he released a lengthy sigh.

“It’s guys like those who make people believe that men are the worst.”

You chuckled at his complaint, relieved that most of the tension seemed to have dispersed. While you knew that Kihyun had a temper, you also knew the caveat that it never really lasted very long.

“Good thing I have you to prove that theory wrong.”

Kihyun lifted your hands up, placing a warm and affectionate kiss atop your knuckles. That was all you needed to know that things were going to be okay.

“How did you even survive going to these places alone?”

“I ask myself that every day,” you exclaimed, your exasperation expelling from you in the form of your own sigh.

“You won’t need to anymore, okay?”

As you stared at Kihyun, you knew that he meant what he said. His face showed no signs of hesitation, deception, or embellishment, only certainty, sincerity, and a promise. His words hit you like shockwaves sent straight to the core of your being to move you, but sometimes, he made you feel so delighted, so respected, so special that there were moments when you wondered if you truly deserved him—but you supposed that was a thought for a different day.

For now, you had him, and he had you—boy, did he have you good.

The first thing you heard when you woke up from your sleep was the sound of activity coming from your kitchen. Your groggy eyes darted over to the clock to see that it was about 9 in the morning. It technically wasn’t too dreadfully early to be up, but it was the Saturday after a company party, which meant that any time before noon should be deemed too early to be conscious.

Your mouth felt a bit dry and your head felt heavy from the night of drinking, but this was certainly the best you had ever felt on mornings such as this, especially compared to the first few experiences from your beginning of your working days—and you only had one person to thank.

Speaking of, Kihyun wasn’t in the spot next to you in bed, so you could only assume that he was the one creating the noise in the kitchen just now. You both had gone to bed at the same time, having come back home from the gathering pretty late, but it seemed as though nothing was capable of stopping Kihyun from being an early riser.

Sluggishly willing yourself out of bed, you took a quick detour to your bathroom to fulfill your morning duties before dragging your feet all the way to the kitchen. Sure enough, you were greeted with the sight of Kihyun busily in the middle of cooking something or another.

“Good morning,” you called out. This immediately caught his attention as he whipped his head around to acknowledge your presence.

“Good morning,” he replied with twice as much vitality as you. “Perfect timing.”

“What are you up to?” You treaded a bit closer to investigate the stovetop, noticing steam rising from a pot above one of the burners.

“Just making some hangover soup for when you got up.”

You laughed, recognizing that the scent wafting from the dish had seemed extremely familiar. “Are you sure you don’t need it more than me?”

The truth was, you hadn’t drunken nearly as much as you had anticipated you would have last night. You hadn’t really been feeling up to the occasion prior to the dinner, knowing full well that you would have had to fall victim to the unspoken mandatory drinking rule that came with events like these. They called it good manners, you called it peer pressure.

Making matters worse, your supervisor had tried his darnedest to get you to drink more, filling up your shot glass with soju the second it had been emptied and urging you to gulp each one down with excessive clinking of glasses. You had expected as much from previous occurrences of his cheeks becoming rosier and his requests getting bolder. There hadn’t been much you could do in those instances, at least not many that wouldn’t have gotten you fired, so you had held your tongue and tipped your glass, unsure of whether the burn of the alcohol or your unspoken objections had been more painful.

You knew the reason for his persistence. It was the same suspicion that had been strengthened every time you had noticed that no one ever bothered Minhyuk for refusing to drink a drop. To be fair, he had given specific and dramatic excuses such as “I’ll die if I drink” or “my head will explode”, but you still couldn’t help but resent that those defenses probably wouldn’t have even worked for you.

Luckily, Kihyun had not only been present for the gathering, but as the pressuring from your supervisor had increased, so had his interceptions. He had been your black knight, swiping up most of the soju shots that had been pushed into your possession to take them himself. He had done it with respect and a disarming smile to maintain the party mood, you had almost been convinced that he hadn’t been internally judging your supervisor’s vulgar behavior.

Much to your relief, the older man had caught on after a few failed attempts and given up his frivolous pursuit, and you had been able to enjoy the rest of your night and in turn, not hate your morning.

“Don’t worry. I made enough for the both of us,” Kihyun assured before heading over to the other side of the kitchen. “It should be ready soon. Why don’t you go sit down?”

“Take your time.”

You did as he said, scuffling over to the dining table to take a seat. From there, you found your eyes following Kihyun as he worked, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction just from the view of his back. He opened up one of the cupboards, and you broke out into a smile as he stretched up on tiptoe to reach a box on the top shelf. He then proceeded to fiddle with the electronic kettle, pouring hot water into the cup he had set before him. It was all the most mundane actions, but to you, each movement brought you joy to witness.

Before you knew it, Kihyun was walking up to you to hand you a steaming mug of what you discerned to be green tea.

“Here you go,” he presented warmly, and you gladly took it in your hands with a small thanks. You set the drink down on the table beside you, but you didn’t pay attention to it. You didn’t dare take your eyes off of Kihyun, and he noticed this, stopping in his tracks as he was just about to turn back around.

“What is it?”

He took a step forward to stop in front of you. He lifted his hand up to nudge a few stray strands of hair from your face before cupping your cheek in a soft caress. You leaned into the touch, one you found so incredibly fond and just a little doting.

“Nothing. Just appreciating my wonderful, handsome boyfriend.”

His beautiful laughter surfaced again, and he held the embarrassed expression he often did when you praised him an exceptional amount. “Are you still drunk?” he joked.

You laughed as well as you shook your head, but soon, your smile slowly faded from your face. You thought of what to say, how to put all your emotions into coherent sentences. You had contemplated for a while now, but the results had always been the same—just you stuck in your mind filled with whirling worries.

But Kihyun knew. He could tell by just meeting your eyes—just two years of being together had given him this uncanny ability. He gave you a knowing look, the corner of his lip quirking up in an endearing and comforting smile. He placed both his hands on either side of your face, rubbing your cheek with his thumb tenderly as he stared intently at you.

With just a simple gesture, Kihyun not only made you feel loved, but he made you feel worthy of being loved.

He dipped down to place a gentle kiss on your forehead, and you felt a flutter across your skin as if the contact wiped away all your disruptive doubts. He then moved on to place an even softer kiss on your lips, capturing them in such a sweet and compassionate way that made it seem like he was handling the most precious entity in the world.

After he pulled away, the only thought left in your mind was how you wished to tell him how lucky you were to have him. But as he smiled down at you during the silent exchange with his untiring and steady gaze, you realized that he had been telling you something all along.

You are my greatest treasure.

#kihyun #monsta x #monsta x scenarios #kihyun scenarios #monsta x fanfiction #kihyun fanfiction #monsta x imagines #kihyun imagines #monsta x fanfic #kihyun fanfic #monsta x fluff #kihyun fluff #lucy lit

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sorijilleo-beoreoghae · 5 years ago

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NCT “Meta”

Hey guys! Let me know what you think! Also, feel free to send any related asks, questions, or opinions!

**this includes all subunits!**

Overall Thoughts:

Amazed this concept actually worked out well given SM

The members are ALL incredibly talented

Also all incredibly odd lol

They all get along well and have lots of neat, complex relationships and interactions

Each subunit is so unique and has their own vibe

Let's be honest, we all need more ot21 interaction

Very diverse music

NCT DREAM

(the best subunit lol fight me)

Thoughts:

Super talented group

All really talented

Cohesion and team blending is top tier

Always have super complicated choreo, often end up on the floor

Fresh and not too cutesy, can be rebellious

Consistently good and diverse music

Members GRADUATE as they hit 20 :C

Babies of NCT

Taken care of by other NCT members

Neglected by SM the most (not including U)

Funniest subunit, vlives are gold

Too much chaos in one group

Kings of BOPS

Member Breakdown:

Renjun: Fiesty little baby lol. Voice of an angel, very sweet and strong. Is smol, his humor is rather dark and honestly so relatable. Chinese and Korean bilingual, unable to understand Korean when it suits him lol. Artiste, paints, reads, thinks of philosophical debates. Solid dancer, teaser.

Jeno: No fun lol. Very sincere and kind guy, kind of boring lol and gets teased by members. Great dancer, good rapper, very innocent, kind of like a human puppy. Loves his cats lol. Does ASMR a lot. BFFs with Jaemin.

Haechan: Chaotic devil. Constantly teasing other members and making life difficult, a little diva. Very unique vocal tone, great voice, also very good dancer. Manages to harass everyone despite being in 127 as well as DREAM atm lol.

Jaemin: Actual prince charming. Is literally the kindest soul to exist, super sweet to everyone, fans, members, children, etc. Still manages to joke around and tease them sarcastically a lot. Can play piano, does a lot of volunteer work. Good dancer, great rapper, very distinctive style. Always tries to be cute, especially to fans. BFFs with Renjun and Jeno.

Chenle: CEO lol. Actual dolphin, very clear high voice. Has been singing since he was tiny, BFFs with Jisung. Can rock really weird hair colors, i.e. orange, teal green... Calls Kun "mom" lol knowing it annoys Kun. Little trickster.

Jisung: THE dance prodigy. LOW voice, good rapper and good vocalist, incredible dancer. "Maknae", but really rules DREAM. Great stage presence and total fluff ball off stage. Easily frightened, squishy, literal baby. Doesn't like to do things alone. BFFs with Chenle.

Favorite Song: Drippin'/Boom Most Underrated Song: We Young Song That Grew On Me: My First and Last Favorite MV: Go Favorite Era: We Young Favorite Title track: Boom Favorite Non-title Track: Drippin'/Dream Run/Walk You Home

Album Ranking: 1. We Boom 2. We Go Up 3. We Young 4. The First

Top 10 songs: 1. Drippin’ 2. Boom 3. Dream Run 4. Go 5. We Young 6. Walk You home 7. DNYL 8. We Go Up 9. 1,2,3 10. Fireflies

Bias(es): 1. Jisung 2. Renjun 3. Jaemin

Favorite Dancer: Jisung Favorite Singer: Renjun Favorite Rapper: Jaemin Favorite Choreo: We Young Least Favorite Title Track: Chewing Gum Least Favorite Choreo: none (bruh their choreo is the best) Favorite Rap Part: Jaemin's We go up intro Favorite Vocal Part: Renjun's part in Walk You Home, all of Drippin' Favorite Dance Part: Jaemin's kick in We Go Up, Renjun's center part in We Go Up Popular Song I Don't Like: none Unpopular Opinion: I think DREAM is better without Mark... it's a more complementing fit and blend of member instead of Mark overpowering everything and I love the OT6 balance

Visual Ranking: 1. Jaemin

2. Renjun 3. Jisung 4. Jeno 5. Haechan 6. Chenle

Vocal Ranking: 1. Haechan 2. Renjun 3. Chenle 4. Jisung 5. Jaemin 6. Jeno

Rap Ranking: 1. Jaemin 2. Jeno 3. Jisung 4. Haechan 5. Renjun 6. Chenle

Dance Ranking: 1. Jisung

2. Jeno 3. Jaemin 4. Haechan 5. Renjun 6. Chenle

NCT 127

Thoughts:

Definitely have a very specific sound they like to bring to their music

That does NOT mean that all the songs sound the same

Their ballads are STRONG

A lot of their songs inspire absolute love or hate

Not very even line distribution sometimes, lead vocals get hardly any and Mark/Taeyong get a LOT

Cool choreo

Overworked babies lately

Strange mix of people that somehow manage to thrive lol

Member Breakdown:

Taeyong: Fluffy little ball of sugar and cuddles, like a baby chick. Diligent leader, very responsible, parent of all NCT children LOL. Fantastic rapper, has so much stage presence it's SCARY and dominating. Best on stage, cutie off stage, incredible dancer, works ridiculously hard. Affectionate to members, easily embarrassed.

Taeil: Power main vocal with great range. Dorky, oldest member but often doesn't act like it. Affectionate, especially to Winwin lol. Pretty quiet in general but is kind of out there when he does talk.

Yuta: Real Life anime prince. Red haired Yuta is the superior Yuta (no I do not accept criticism). Super charismatic, great stage presence that varies according to the concept well. Can rap and sing very well, great dancer. Very outspoken and opinionated. Likes to tease the other members and can be ruthless lol.

Johnny: MUSCLES, thick boi, little bit of a thot. Rapper, dancer, vocalist, all around talent. Funny one of the group, naturally entertaining. Likes teasing the other members mercilessly, jokes a lot, sexy king, Chicago boy.

Doyoung: Bunny! Incredibly angelic voice, very distinctive vocal tone, yet he can match his style to any genre of music they produce. Basically a model, super charismatic gaze on stage. Mom of the group, also takes care of DREAMies a lot. Likes to do cover songs, good cook.

Jaehyun: Heartthrob of the group, visual god, great at everything, speaks well, kind, thoughtful, raises eyebrows at the other members antics sometimes but doesn't stop them lol. Knows EXACTLY what he's doing to fans when he's onstage...

WinWin (in this house we will NOT exclude WinWin): Quiet (ish) but savage, does NOT tolerate other members bulls***t, not a fan of touching, but sometimes lets his members hang on him. Traditional Chinese dance, cute without trying, even when specifically not trying. Great at adapting stage persona to genre i.e. Regular v. Touch. If it weren't for WayV we'd never know what his voice sounds like.... *cough* *cough* SM give him lines and DO NOT EXILE HIM I SWEAR TO GOD.

Jungwoo: LITERALLY, and I cannot stress this enough, THE biggest uwu. Kind of oblivious lol, big fluff ball, likes affection, shy and nervous sometimes. Low self esteem, works really hard to improve at all times. Deserves more lines lets be honest.

Mark: SM's supreme rapper, in a constant state of confusion. Silly boy with uncontrollable giggle. Innocent yet not all at the same time. Usually in every possible subunit lol, finally decreasing for once. "oh Canada"

Favorite Song: Simon Says/Highway to Heaven Most Underrated Song: Come Back/ Baby Don't Like It Song That Grew On Me: Firetruck Favorite MV: Simon Says/Touch Favorite Era: Simon Says Favorite Title Track: Simon Says Favorite Non-title Track: Good Ting

Album Break Down: NCT #127 (2016) Limitless (2017) Cherry Bomb (2017) Regular-Irregular (2018) Regulate (2018) We Are Superhuman (2019)

Album Ranking: 1. NCT #127 2. Limitless 3. We Are Superhuman 4. Regulate 5. Regular-Irregular 6. Cherry Bomb

Top 10 Songs: 1. Simon Says 2. Baby Don't Like It 3. Good Thing 4. Highway to Heaven 5. Touch 6. Regular 7. Cherry Bomb 8. No Longer 9. Paradise 10. Firetruck

Bias(es) 1. Doyoung

Favorite Dancer: Taeyong Favorite Singer: Doyoung Favorite Rapper: Taeyong Favorite Choreo: Come Back/Simon Says Least Favorite Title Track: Limitless Least Favorite Choreo: Touch Favorite Rap Part: Taeyong's rap intro in Simon Says Favorite Vocal Part: Cherry Bomb bridge/Doyoung in Baby Don't Like It/Haechan and Doyoung in Highway to Heaven Favorite Dance Part: chorus of Come Back/the pointing bending part of Simon Says Popular Song I Don't Like: Limitless/Wakey-Wakey Unpopular Opinion: Mark and Taeyong are great, but they need to spread the parts out more evenly, especially letting some of the dancers be in the chorus choreo center more

Visual Ranking: 1. Taeyong

2. Doyoung 3. Jaehyun 4. WinWin 5. Johnny 6. Jungwoo 7. Yuta 8. Haechan 9. Mark 10. Taeil

Vocal Ranking: 1. Doyoung 2. Taeil 3. Jaehyun 4. Haechan 5. Jungwoo 6. Yuta 7. Taeyong 8. Mark 9. Johnny 10. WinWin

Rap Ranking: 1. Mark 2. Taeyong 3. Yuta 4. Jaehyun 5. Johnny 6. WinWin 7. Haechan 8. Jungwoo 9. Doyoung 10. Taeil

Dance Ranking: 1. Taeyong

2. Yuta 3. Jaehyun 4. Haechan 5. Johnny 6. WinWin 7. Jungwoo 8. Mark 9. Doyoung 10. Taeil

NCT U

Thoughts:

Most under-utilized subunit

Should be the most used to allow collabs between members of different units, could bring the Chinese and Korean units together a lot too, even doing Chinese promotions

Could help test groups of members for new subunits

Has arguably the BEST songs of any subunit, okay not arguably, definitely

Member Breakdown: not happening since there isn't a recent U comeback :C (not counting the OST)

Favorite Song: Baby Don't Stop Most Underrated Song: The 7th Sense Song That Grew On Me: The 7th Sense Favorite MV: Baby Don't Stop/The 7th Sense Favorite Era: Boss Favorite Title Track: Baby Don't Stop Favorite Choreo: Baby Don't Stop Favorite Rap Part: Taeyong's Boss rap Favorite Vocal Part: Ten's adlibs and "feels so nice/feels so right" in Baby Don't Stop Favorite Dance Part: the iconic (chorus) Baby Don't Stop part

Top Songs: 1. Baby Don't Stop 2. The 7th Sense 3. Boss

Unpopular Opinion: NCT U will reign supreme among subunits if SM ever lets it

WayV

Thoughts:

Solid group

Good cohesion, concept

Good original music as well as new takes on a few existing NCT songs

Choreo for Take Off is legendary

FULL of talent

Should really be integrated with other units more so people stop separating WayV from NCT :C

Member Breakdown:

Kun: Mom of the group, waited for debut forever, easily frustrated with members' antics. The other members intentionally tease him. Promotes the rest of NCT harder than SM lol.

Ten: Dance GOD, talented vocal, good rapper, absolute chaotic MESS of a human being. Little filter, limited self control. Leads the younger members astray. Struggles with Chinese sometimes (but also knows at least 4 languages, so...) and gets help from the other members. Thai legend who is LEGITIMATELY AFRAID OF FRUIT. Wears glasses most of the time, giggles a lot, very suggestive. The other members get tired of his bulls***t XD.

WinWin: Quiet (ish) but savage, does NOT tolerate other members bulls***t, not a fan of touching, but sometimes lets his members hang on him. Traditional Chinese dance, cute without trying, even when specifically not trying. Great at adapting stage persona to genre, if it weren't for WayV we'd never know what his voice sounds like.... *cough* *cough* SM give him lines and DO NOT EXILE HIM I SWEAR TO GOD. IN THIS HOUSE WE STAN A HAPPY, INVOLVED WINWIN.

XiaoJun: Vocalssss. Angry eyebrows lol, but still handsome. A bit reserved compared to some members (at least outwardly LOL), but still young and fun. Dorky dances and causes chaos with YangYang and Hendery. Works hard at dance and all aspects as well.

Lucas: Big dumb puppy lol, very oblivious, jokes a lot, other members tease him a lot for being an idiot XD. Highly entertaining, knows how to make people laugh and put on a show. King of iconic NCT lines (lets not forget "YOU ARE NANA??"). Good dancer, rapper, and vocalist. Visuals too, model proportions.

Hendery: Talks a LOT, looks like Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid and Donkey from Shrek simultaneously. Spontaneous goofball, jokes around with Ten a lot. Was in SM rookies for a while so trained in Korea for good bit.

YangYang: Kind of crazy? Chaotic, uncontrollable. Baby (should've been added to DREAM too, don't @ me), good rapper but also solid vocalist and really tries in everything. Speaks German, which is cool.

Favorite Song: Dream Launch Most Underrated Song: Dream Launch Song That Grew On Me: Say It Favorite MV: Let Me Love You Favorite Title Track: Take Off Favorite Non-title Track: Dream Launch

Songs Ranking: 1. Dream Launch 2. Take Off 3. Let Me Love You 4. Come Back 5. Regular 6. Say It

Bias(es): 1. Ten

Favorite Dancer: Ten Favorite Vocal: XiaoJun Favorite Rapper: Lucas Favorite Choreo: Take Off Unpopular Opinion: WayV is good as it is, I don't think DREAM China line (Renjun and Chenle) should join when they graduate DREAM. They don't really fit the image for the group and I'd much rather see an OT5 or OT6 DREAM fixed unit than adding members to already established units.

Visual Ranking: 1. Lucas

2. Ten 3. XiaoJun 4. WinWin 5. Hendery 6. YangYang 7. Kun

Vocal Ranking: 1. XiaoJun 2. Ten 3. Kun 4. Lucas 5. YangYang 6. Hendery 7. WinWin

Rap Ranking: 1. Lucas 2. YangYang 3. Ten 4. Hendery 5. WinWin 6. XiaoJun 7. Kun

Dance Ranking: 1. Ten

2. WinWin 3. Lucas 4. Hendery 5. YangYang 6. XiaoJun 7. Kun

Let me know what you thought! Also, if you have any suggestions for future metas please send them to me!

Previously done:

ASTRO

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eurekq · 5 years ago

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so here they are.... my revamped darlings. naohiko, rika, amane, and maya are new! im going to put all their bios under the cut, they’re mostly copypasted from the old ref though except for the new kids :P i really like naohiko, he’s basically an amalgamation of every percussionist i’ve ever known lmfao

basic premise: 16 fresh-out-of-highschool prodigies are invited to star in well-respected and widely-watched big brother-esque reality tv show, which takes place on a cruise ship. what they weren't expecting was for the show's 25th season to be a killing game! the students: CHOUMI YUKIYAMA: exceptional among even her fellow shsls, choumi made her historic mark on ballet by becoming the world's youngest ever prima ballerina at the age of 13 and japan's first ever prima ballerina assoluta at 18. fans flock to her ethereal, angelic grace on stage as well as to the percieved sense of otherworldlyness surrounding her albinism. on the darker side of her popularity, repeated sexual harassment from fans and male dance partners alike has hardened her world view to make her not quite cold, but definitely reserved in her emotions. she adapts fairly easy to stressful situations and pushes through pain with almost no visible outward struggle due to her all too common experience with dancing through foot and ankle injuries. because of this she usually ends up taking initiative in difficult scenarios if no one else steps forward. she is also a quite talented hobbyist figure skater and is fluent in both english and russian. REN KIKUHARA: a fairly odd florist in that instead of ordering flowers to arrange into bouquets, every flower he sells is grown himself. although this means that his selection is seasonally and fairly regionally limited, he has an incredible talent for working with plants and can even sometimes coax out-of-zone flowers to grow. he's fluent in hanakotoba and is surprisingly good at flirting through flowers without it seeming cheesy, although he doesn't do it very often. people often remark that his bouquets often seem to have more love and life in them than store-bought ones. ren is a calm and kind soul and prefers listening to talking, with what he does say always seeming to be just the right words for the situation. MARIKO MIKAMI: mariko was a sickly child, and spent a large part of her elementary school years in hospitals. around the age of seven, she began folding paper cranes as something to do, and wished to live normally after she folded her 1000th. she soon recovered, and feels that she owes her life to origami. she is precise and calculating in everything she does, which shines through in her art: every delicate, artful piece of origami that she makes is creased and folded perfectly. she also dabbles in wet-fold origami. she's most famous for her dry-fold though, and her pieces are well known for their complex, precise, mathematical beauty. she refuses to fold paper cranes anymore, feeling that they are too sacred for her to touch after they saved her life as a child. a calm, slightly disconcerting smile is always on her face, no matter the circumstance; her manner is polite for the most part, if i a little aggressive. MOMOTAROU KOBARA: momotarou, born into a rich family that fufilled his near-every want, made a name for himself in the world of collecting at the age of just eleven by, through luck and love for the series, collecting every pokemon card. from then on he set onto collecting just about anything non-perishable: pins, collectors set bandaids, vinyls, etc. he has exceptional luck in finding deals on ebay and other sites. he cant really be called a hoarder, since he likes to have just one of everything; he resells, gifts, or uses any duplicates. his mood swings between a dreamy, chilled out, flirtatious persona and periods of numb depression when it hits him that his whole life revolves around material possesions and that he has no real human connections. SARA KUROKAWA: a talented young woman from a long line of popular backalley tattoo artists. she combines traditional symbolism and youthful influence in her designs to make something new and more appealing for the younger generation, and is a huge proponent for tattoos being shown off for fashion rather than hidden away in the traditional style. sara does have (illegal) tattoos done by her older siblings on her arms despite the minimum age being 20, although her being homeschooled, looking older than her actual age, and having a tendency to wear long sleeves year round has led her to encounter few problems. she and her family are among the many who simply choose to ignore the statute requiring a medical license to tattoo. sara is a fairly rude person in a backhanded way, acts stereotypically catty and even a little deranged sometimes, and enjoys making herself the center of attention, whether through her appearance (dyed pink hair and white contacts) or the things she says. the only two things that can break her shell and make her excited and genuine are tattooing and piano, which she has played from a young age and loves. NAOHIKO KINZUMI: the son of a concert pianist and a professional jazz drummer, naohiko shortcutted the usual pots-and-pans percussion stage most children go through and spent most of his childhood hitting actual drums. blessed with perfect pitch and a natural feel for rhythm, his parents enrolled him in private music lessons at age five, and he joined onto his first indoor percussion ensemble at age 13. a fast learner, naohiko can play most all percussion instruments at a professional level, including both tuned and auxiliary. he is especially known for his drumset skill, specifically being able to match the speed and complexity of most double kick pedal rhythms with just one foot, and his delicate grace at bowed vibraphone. naohiko is loud, brash, and fun, with an infectious smile and sense of humor that draws people in. despite the flashiness of his drumset playing, his favourite instruments are actually the weird obscure ones, like the waterphone, mahler hammer, and "bucket of loud objects to be dumped on the floor". HARUMI HAMANAKA: harumi is a sweet and bubbly girl, if almost cloyingly so. her good luck is a fairly stable force (nowhere near as chaotic as komaeda, for example), generally acting in the favor of wishes of people around her. her mother intensly wanted for her to be on the show because of the exposure it provides, and this is what harumi attributes to her being selected. despite the way her luck operates, shes no doormat and in fact has an overwhelming force of personality, and her sweet demeanor can become rather passive aggressive if challenged on pretty much anything. SHOU KATSUKI (PROTAG): pushed to succeed in the game from a very young age, shou is japan's reigning chess champion, a FIDE-certified grandmaster, and went to international competition the year before the killing game. he played through to the finals with influenza, which worsened through the matches due to lack of treatment and culminated in debilitating pneumonia that left him in the hospital and unable to play for first. because of this, he's cultivated a sort of inferiority complex that he tries to cover for with self-confidence, which actually comes off as condescending rudeness. he has a natural talent for cause and effect analyzation and is good at planning ahead. he gets flustered easily over trivial things and is a sore loser, but tends not to crack under actual pressure. shou doesn't like to be associated with his family due to the intense pressure they put him under only to steal his winnings the second he began to succeed and thus prefers to be referred to by his given name, even by near-strangers. he does genuinely love chess, but his favourite board game is actually risk. (no one ever wants to play with him, though.) RIKA FUJIMIYA: originally scouted as a young child for her unique eyes and birthmarks, rika's first minor film role at the age of nine left the director stunned at her acting capability. as someone who grew up with a very murky self image and a difficulty interpreting social situations, rika lived most of her early life essentially "acting" the way she believed others would respond well to, which resulted in her easily adapting to doing the same for the cameras. she went on to have a very prolific child acting career without really settling into a niche. As a teenager she took her first steps into stage acting, playing juliet capulet at 16 in a moving and extremely impressive performance, and later at 18 performing a striking and memorable female hamlet. her deep and rich voice has also landed her several voice acting roles. her personality offstage has solidified a lot more since her younger years, although she doesn't go out of her way to talk to anyone, fan or otherwise. when approached, she is polite, gentle, and humble, although she has trouble separating her image as a celebrity from that of her as a person and thus it is extremely difficult to get to know her. KENJI MINAMOTO: an eccentric and a bit airheaded olympic fencer whose strange insistence on not wearing protective gear during practice (he believes it makes him better by giving him a stronger motivation to not get hit) has earned him many a scar over the years, and has left at least half of his joints in braces at any given time. he follows his own bushido-esque moral code (the details of which he will not tell anyone), although he will not put himself above whapping the occasional really annoying person in the ankles. his épée is his best friend and he carries it most everywhere. most of the scars on his face and hands are actually from trying to put in his very sharp industrial piercings while drunk. despite his oddities, his light-footed and elegant ambidextrous fencing has been compared by many to a graceful dance, and although in many respects he comes across as dumb, on the court his mind is laser-focused and unbelievably quick and analytic. AMANE BECKE: a more lowkey type of talented than her fellow contestants, amane hasn't won any major competitions, been on tv, set any records, or anything of that sort. she does, however, run what is widely considered the best bakery in japan. based out of nagano and the daughter of a swiss pastry chef, amane has a natural talent for baking nurtured through over a decade of dedication and love for the craft. she excels at interesting flavor combinations, but her true genius is in her classic, feel-good baked goods. many say that the things she bakes just taste like home and warmth. amane is as warm and sweet as her creations, but with a spark of wit and mad-scientist-y genius that make her an entertaining joy to watch work, if a little overbearing to talk to. EISUKE ITOU: eisuke grew up sewing clothes for his younger sisters barbie dolls, and he particularly loved dressmaking. he gained exposure in his first year of highschool by handmaking gorgeous outfits for his class's booth at the school festival, and, through application to various junior fashion competitions, he was eventually noticed by a big-name designer in paris. however, he found learning french next to impossible and has spent the year prior to the game in relative isolation, unable to have any real human conversation. his psychological state was fairly severely impacted by his long hours spent sewing and designing on internship with no company to get him by, and he is now debilitatingly socially anxious and finds conversation difficult and awkward. MAYA HANABAYASHI: maya spent her early teens with only a passing interest in survival-based media, having enjoyed hunger games and similar media, but not to the point of obsession. however, when traveling on a plane with her father back from visiting family in las vegas, she found herself in a similar situation when their plane went down in a heavily forested area of california, leaving a seventeen year old maya as the only survivor. with only a swiss army knife and a lipstick-shaped stun gun gifted to her by her father to feel safer during their stay in vegas, she survived alone in the woods hatchet-style for six months until late fall, when the fallen leaves made her campfire coincidentally visible to a very observant park ranger on firewatch. after being rescued and returned home to japan, maya found it extremely difficult to readjust to normal life. her thick and warm camo jacket, more a fashion statement when she was wearing it originally, was lifesaver to her during the cold spring, and she she can't bring herself to separate from it even with multiple rips and burns in the fabric. she has refused multiple book deals due to still being heavily traumatized, but after a long period of deliberation decided to go on the show as a way of finally moving forward and acknowledging it. maya isn't exactly socially anxious, but rather closed off and disconnected. JUN TENSEI: born jun harada, many believe that his spiritual connection is the real deal, but a few critics hold that he is most likely just an incredibly talented bluffer. the real truth about him is unknown, but many say that his seances do accurately reflect the personalities of their deceased loved ones and help them feel at peace. he is deeply religious, but not to any one traditional faith (although he does use traditional christian symbols such as crucifixes and items such as holy water on occasion). he believes strongly in the power of the soul and its ability to exist beyond death. his voice is soft and almost hypnotic, and he has a penchant for gentle teasing and riddles. he comes off as pretty shady to most, but he's fairly harmless. TOMOKO KAITA: a peppy and outgoing astrology guru who can read your deepest flaws and strengths with just your date and time of birth. known worldwide for her extremely accurate personal horoscopes. despite this, she strongly believes in the ability of an individual to defy their fate through hard work and self improvement. she dislikes giving negative horoscopes, and does her best to focus on the positives that the stars hold in store. her smile brightens the whole room! she is intensely loyal to her friends, to the point of self-sacrificing emotional labor. YUU IROIKE: yuu iroike isn't even his real name, and it's a mystery as to how show staff even tracked down his mailing address to get him on the show. he's a well-known public figure for painting huge, sprawling, colorful murals in tokyo, yet who he really is remains unknown. he paints faster than his murals can be scrubbed away, and has somehow never been prosecuted for vandalism because his graffiti is generally considered an improvment. he's sly, mysterious, and teasing in person, and gets a bit of an itchy trigger finger when he hasn't painted in a while. His skill with spray paint is so great that it seems as if the paint bends to his very will.

#my ocs #my art #fanganronpa #fr #danganronpa oc #danganronpa

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booknerddoesroswellnm · 6 years ago

Text

Here’s my Roswell,New Mexico Theory

**SPOILERS**

**WILD FAN THEORIES**

**VIOLENT PROCRASTINATIONS**

Ok y’all hear me out, cuz it’s about to get weird and twisty.

I think Alex killed Rosa.

There are several stages to this, so please bear with me. And maybe it doesn’t make sense, but I have a big test I’m procrastinating so I’ve gone full conspiracy-theory over here.

Part 1: Max didn’t kill Rosa.

Max didn’t kill Rosa. He’s so hurt that Liz thinks that is even possible, which is so sweet I mean come on that’s a full CW-swoon. But the whole danger of his electric personality and not being in control is a red herring, and an easy one for a confused Liz to fall for, but the bottom line is, if he killed Rosa, there’s no show. That’s not something this Liz Ortecho would forgive and be with him just because he wants her. Nope. No way. And it shouldn’t be. It violates Liz as a character, and women everywhere would be shaking their heads and hitting the “off” button on the remote. But it also violates Max as a character if he killed Rosa and knows that he did it and is still for real pursuing her. Because his whole answer to Isobel’s being pissed at him is “sorry your relationship is built on a lie.” If he killed Rosa, that goes out the window.

But Max knows what happened to Rosa. When Liz accuses him, he doesn’t just say “no you’re crazy you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he also doesn’t lie and say “no this other thing happened,” he also doesn’t say “hey I know I’m an alien but that is entirely unrelated to what happened to your sister like not all weird things are related. Sorry.” This show has taught us to read the weird things as related. So Max says leave the past in the past there’s nothing we can do to change it. He knows what happened. What happened isn’t that he killed Rosa. But he says Liz can’t ever know “what happened to Rosa” which means it implicates him and Isobel and Michael.

Part 2: Ten years ago, Isobel erased Liz’s memory and made her leave town to keep her away from Max.

In the pilot Michael says “if Max is wrong (about trusting Liz) you will get into her head and make her forget, make her leave Roswell and Max like you did ten years ago.” I definitely interpreted that at the time as “mess with her head in general like you messed with someone’s head in general 10 years ago” but I think actually it’s specific. When she tries to brain revise Liz in episode 3 Isobel says don’t come back THIS TIME. 10 years ago, Isobel actually erased Liz’s memory and drove Liz away, and bonus if Max doesn’t know, but Isobel and Michael know and have been keeping it from him. That’s why Isobel says that it’s her fault he’s been unhappy all this time: because she sent Liz away before thinking it was a high school crush and not that it was Full-On-CW-Flavor-True-Love. She gets really overwhelmed by her guilt when she realizes that deep down Liz loves Max back the same way. So why would she have had to erase her before? Why would Isobel and Michael get together and decide that Liz needs to be erased and sent away?

A) Max would have followed Liz when she left. He admits it. They can’t let that happen. We know Max and Isobel are unhealthy-codependent and Isobel might be that bad. The day Max and Liz went to the desert, right around when Rosa died, Liz touched Max’s mouth with her dang thumb and he UFOgasmed the school into a blackout. You know that Isobel and Michael knew that was Max, which meant that Liz + Max was a threat to them being discovered. That’s one possible reason. That ties up neatly and doesn’t have to be involved with Rosa’s death to make sense. But it is clear that the three of them are implicated in some way by the events surrounding Rosa’s death. So, while that could stand alone as a secret, it doesn’t work in the world of the show, which has taught us to read it so that the cluster of “too many secrets” directly involves “what happened to Rosa.” Sending Liz away without it being involved with Rosa doesn’t fit the mythology of the show thus far.

Ok so, how could that be related to Rosa’s death? Why else would 10-years-ago Isobel have used alien brain revision on Liz? To protect Max and Michael—that still stands. What would they have needed protection from? Two options: someone knowing/finding out they’re aliens, or someone they love needing protecting, or some situation that involved both. Which means that the most likely case is:

B) Rosa knew about them. At the very least, Rosa knew about Max. She knew enough to tell him-who she previously thought was “so vanilla”- to stay away from Liz in a shovey kinda way. Rosa told Liz, or wanted to, or tried to. Rosa did the scavenger hunt of clues because she realized that somehow people were getting/could get memory wiped. Viewers have been complaining a bit about how the scavenger hunt of clues is hokey, but it actually can work if it’s not just a “weird Rosa has a secret and is dramatic” thing, but is a result of the fact that she actively knew people were messing with her head. She maybe was using drugs to try and make her mind not-mess-with-able. Or she was just using drugs I mean people just use drugs too. But she left these clues FOR A REASON- to try and make sure Liz knew or could figure it out even if she got memory wiped again. How do we know that the scavenger hunt directly reveals that Rosa knew something was up with them, at the very least, if not specifically the alien-aspect? Because one of the clues was Max’s entire love letter. She hid it from Liz so she couldn’t find it when he wanted her to. But she hid it FOR LIZ to find later. Liz knowing about them because Rosa knew—and was determined enough to make a town-sized scavenger hunt to make sure Liz would be able to remember again even if she got brain wiped or something happened to Rosa—is definitely enough of a reason to wipe Liz and send her away from Max. Rosa was clearly volatile, it could have turned into a whole thing. But despite the threat that Rosa posed if she knew:

Part 3: Neither Isobel nor Michael killed Rosa.

They’re making a big deal out of the fact that they’re keeping the secret of Liz’s memory wipe from Max. Probably. That’s a believable secret, and a bad one. A you-sent-away-the-only-woman-I’ve-ever-loved-and-it’s-the-ultimate-betrayal-in-this-galaxy-or-any-other kind of secret. But keeping the secret that one of them murdered Rosa from him? Nope. He knows exactly what happened to Rosa. And, back to violating character, I don’t think Max would still try to be with Liz—including telling her the truth—if Isobel or Michael had killed Rosa. Even by accident. Because that’s too slippery a slope. He couldn’t classify telling her about them being aliens as damage control because it would be directly and immediately linked to One of Us Three Aliens Killed Your Sister. But he’s also working the guilt thing pretty hard, and I think there’s a chance this Max wouldn’t believe he deserved to try to have Liz in his life if Isobel or Michael killed her sister. Also, the whole scene where Isobel and Michael show up and knife-throwing and threatening becomes a problem if they murdered Rosa. It’s not a kinda-funny, showing-off-powers montage and no really don’t tell. Then it’s actual murderers of your sister also threatening you with knives flying through the air by your body who btw can get into your house any time. That’s a big dark jump compared to what else is going on here. It is out of the context of the show, in a sense. OK—here’s where I’m going to lose some of you:

Part 4: Unknown Other Aliens Didn’t Kill Rosa

Yep, there are other aliens on the CWRoswellNM-Earth for sure, and for sure they could have something to do with Rosa, and I believe that right now anyone familiar with the source material or previous adaptation is being counted on to think that because there’s a direct parallel in those sources. But here’s where it becomes a problem for the show as it’s imagined now: If it was Other Unknown Aliens, there aren’t enough reasons Max couldn’t tell her that. “We don’t know who it was, or where they went, but there is apparently a bad alien out there and he killed Rosa. Sorry we let you think she died from drugs and let the whole town hate your family. The military covered it up because that’s what they do.” Yes, that’s sad and would hurt Liz, but there’s no reason he couldn’t have told her. It doesn’t answer enough of the other questions, or why Isobel and Michael think Liz finding out would be the worst thing in the world. They’ve written it as though what happened to Rosa also explains these other elements, that they’re all intertwined, and that just doesn’t accomplish that. That’s only one secret, again, the Rosa secret reduced to a singular root cause, not “so many secrets” that are reasons Max “can’t ever be with her.” In addition, and potentially more importantly from an ideological standpoint, that violates the anti-essentialism political message of the show. If Unknown Other Aliens killed Rosa, and that’s the thing Liz can’t ever know about, then the reason she can’t ever know is because if there’s one bad alien they’re potentially all bad aliens and Liz either can’t forgive/love Max or would turn them in to the authorities to be monitored etc. With the very clear political statement regarding undocumented immigrants that has been in every episode of this show, that brand of essentialism is simply a violation of the world of the show.

OK, so. Let’s agree to humor me that none of the aliens (known or Unknown) killed Rosa. Rosa knew about them, at least about Max. Liz got memory-wiped and sent away ten years ago when the whole Rosa thing was happening. Why the heck does that make me think Alex killed Rosa? Because we’re only halfway into the well of deep dark secrets festering in the alien heart of Roswell, New Mexico. Follow if you dare…

Part 5: Something Big happened 10 years ago to separate Malex, and it left its…handprint…on the whole Scooby Gang.

A) Alex says that when Michael looks at him he’s seventeen again--not eighteen which he had to be to join the military, so I don’t think enlisting is what separated them. It happened before he enlisted. Do I have more evidence than the use of the word seventeen for that? You bet.

B) We know from extra-textual materials (interview, twitter, etc.) that Alex’s character is the one who has changed the most in the last 10 years. He’s the only actor who had to read a flashback scene at his audition, supposedly because the character is so different now from what he was then that they needed to see him do both. And 10 years of military service could be responsible for that. Absolutely. Fully supporting and respecting the impact of ten years of dedicated military service and being wounded in action. But it also could have been something else. Something that made him change, and change so drastically that he became someone who decided to join the military rather than rebelling as the youngest gay skater-punk member of the super-duper military family he had been up until then.

C) That’s not the only character-shifting we learn happened at that time. Maybe whatever happened to make Alex join the military is the same thing that made Max want to be a cop—the thing that made him want to help people instead of being a writer— the thing he deflected and he wouldn’t tell Liz about in the Pilot. What’s more, Michael went from being high-achieving AP student to living in a trailer and working in a junkyard, and Liz notes that she is surprised by that, as if it would have been out of character for the Alex she knew in high school. We’re also told that he’s a literal genius and so this wasn’t on the path he was on. Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes all around. Still with me? Cool.

D) Something happened to Michael’s hand that caused permanent damage. Something related to Alex, and something from back then. Looking at a picture of himself and Alex together in high school made Michael think about it and look down at his injured hand with a loaded yearning gaze. They also make a point to show the damaged hand and Alex’s amputated leg in the same shot during their morning-after scene.

E) Michael and Alex tell each other in episode 3 that Alex is still the guy looking for a reason to walk away and Michael is still so good at giving them to Alex. So, something happened that Alex blames Michael for, something that made him walk away. Michael does not agree. Maybe because what Alex thinks happened isn’t actually what happened…because someone changed what he remembers.

Alright, so we’ve established a parallel 10-years-ago mystery with the whole gang. How is Alex at all connected to Rosa’s death? Bad things can happen to unconnected people at the same time on television, right? Yep. Totally. However, there’s something that connects all these dots, and I’m not talking about a swoon-worthy-yearn-tastic 90s soundtrack.

Part 6: Maria knows what’s up.

A) High School Buds: Alex and Liz were friends in HS, but Alex and Maria were definitely friends because he kinda told her about Michael. And if those two were that close, the odds that he wasn’t friends with Rosa—Maria’s actual BFF—are slim to none.

B) Super Strong Face Acting: In Episode 3, Heather—who plays Maria—does a great job laying down the thickest of dramatic irony as Liz is telling her that Max said he loved her then and maybe now and that he’s harmless. Excellent direction. Excellent acting. Audience, the I-don’t-trust-those-aliens-and-harmless-is-not-the-word-for-it looks Maria was dishing out were for us, and we picked them up loud and clear. The fandom is rife with Maria-the-all-knowing energy this week, so I’m just gonna leave that one here. Does she necessarily know that they are all three full stop aliens? no idea. Does she know they’re dangerous? hells yes. Hence, she doesn’t follow Rosa’s scavenger hunt herself: she doesn’t need to, because she knows, which is why it’s not for her, it’s for Liz, which is why Max’s letter he wrote to Liz makes sense as a clue.

C) Maria—gently, subtly, and somewhat unwillingly—helps Liz with the scavenger hunt. When she realizes she’s not gonna be dissuaded, she guides her. Gives her hints. Also keeps trying to dissuade her like “she’s not what’s hidden in the dusty corners of this town” or whatever that line was, but then “hey the drive-in is not a small-town Saturday night for Rosa. Our spot is. That you don’t know about. And so could only find the clue if I took you there. And when you were stumped worked into the conversation that we used to find Pisces which your sister thought looked like an arrow also OMG A CLUE LOOK AT THAT?! Episode 3 was well-written, arguably the best-written episode of the show so far. That wasn’t lazy writing: we were supposed to see it.

So: Rosa knew, and Maria knew/knows. Do you think they would keep their as-we’ve-established-friend Alex in the dark about that? Especially if the day came that they suspected that Michael was the boy who could keep Alex in Roswell with only the power of his luscious sustained lip action and also might be at least dangerous at most extra-terrestrial? I think not, my friends. These Roswell buds are loyal as all hell.

Part 7: The Isobel/Rosa connection hinted at in Episode 3 wasn’t what we thought.

It’s tempting to think there was a connection between Isobel and Rosa and that’s how Rosa knew the truth. Maybe that’s the case. The writers have laid it on thick that Rosa was hearing voices and that caused her self-medicating, so sure the material is there. However. In the preview for episode 4, Michael tells Isobel she can’t get into a dead girl’s head. Let’s go ahead and assume he means Rosa because we’ve had a consistent number of dead girls so far, and we see a flash of Rosa-alive-with younger and longer-haired Maria in the promo. If Isobel is the one who told Rosa, and that caused the whole thing, Isobel wouldn’t need to try to get into Rosa’s head, because she would know what Rosa knew—she being the one who told her. That plot point doesn’t make sense if Isobel told Rosa and that’s the whole story.

It’s also possible that “I wish it could always be this way” is something Rosa said to Liz pre-memory-wipe because they were having a good honest sober moment together and Rosa knew it would be taken away/erased from Liz’s memory and was sad about that. It didn’t have to come from Isobel’s memory. It could have come from previously-erased memories of Liz. That is not Isobel’s first time splashing around in that particular kiddy pool.

So, Isobel telling Rosa could be something, but it can’t be the whole secret, in part because of the episode 4 plot point, but also because Michael’s hand injury is being made important, and the connection to Alex is being made important. So, more than just Isobel-to-Rosa went into Rosa knowing more than she should have, such as perhaps Michael somehow telling Alex telling Rosa and Maria, which would also explain how Maria knows more than she’s letting on (which we all know she does).

Part 8: The Alien3 played a direct part in Rosa’s death, but didn’t actually do it, so what on earth else could have led them to be involved? And, besides them saying TOO MANY SECRETS five times an episode, how do we know they were involved?

a) Max also says everything he’s ever done is “to protect Isobel and you (Michael).” That’s not a “I’m sneaky and don’t tell people secrets” thing to say, that’s an “I’ve actively done things” thing to say. This also explains, in part, why he won’t admit what happened. He helped cover up the truth.

b) That defensive statement (see 8:a) was in response to Michael saying “How could you do that to Isobel.” Full stop. To Isobel. Which means they all know Isobel is involved, and that it’s Max’s acknowledged responsibility to protect her specifically as his adopted sister. Cool. But then, back at Max’s house, when Max says he’s going to tell Liz the truth about them being aliens, Isobel says “Michael would never forgive you.” Hmm. That stands out, doesn’t it? Why would Michael specifically not forgive him for telling Liz? And why would that be a rhetorically convincing argument for Isobel to make? It doesn’t make sense if it’s just “because none of us want it to get out.” Nope. It has to be specific. It has to be something that impacted Michael a different way than it impacted the other two of them. Something that helped turn him from AP Wonder-Boy into junkyard car repair man. Something that he still hasn’t recovered from. What could that be? The Michael we know doesn’t really care about anything—Max as much as said so in the Pilot. Except. Except that Isobel asks if there really isn’t anyone he’d risk everything to save. And we get the most longing of looks from Michael, because there is someone he’d risk everything to save. There is something that would be a rhetorically effective parallel situation to try and use when Isobel wants to convince Max he can’t tell the person he loves the truth. There’s exactly one thing that would check all those boxes. Because, ten years ago, when things got real and Rosa died and they all got tied up in that mess, Michael lost Alex.

Part 9: Conclusion

So, it goes something like this: Alex, somehow, killed Rosa. And Michael was involved and that’s when he hurt his hand. Car crash makes sense. Isobel had to brain edit Alex because Michael asked her to protect him, but she couldn’t erase everything of that kind of trauma. Maybe she made Alex think something different happened, something involving Michael that gave him the reason to walk away. Maybe he remembers the accident but not details and fault or had to pretend he wasn’t there. We know there are limits to Isobel’s abilities because Michael asks her in episode 3 if “you weren’t strong enough” to control Liz’s mind which, if she’s always been able to make people think what she wanted, wouldn’t occur to him. (This might also explain why Maria still knows something). This means that both Michael and Isobel would have been implicated in Rosa’s death, that they both would have needed protecting, that Michael could also have been injured, that Michael and Alex could have had to lose each other—either by choice or by side-effect of brain-erasure—and that Max would have been implicated trying to protect them because that handprint was sure there in that photo. If Max tried, but failed, to save Rosa, this would all almost add up. We have evidence for Max having tried to save Rosa, or at least that he’s tried to save someone before. He says he never saves people, but he could also tell Liz how long it would take for the handprint to go away and knew how to use it to show memories. Liz is not his first-time of the handprint variety.

Admittedly, it’s not perfect. But it would explain what separated Malex back then. It would explain multiple secrets they’re all involved with in a way that keeps them interconnected. It would explain Michael’s eagerness to brain erase Liz from the start, and why he’s Jeep-kicking mad in the promo for Episode 4 when the three of them talk about Liz accusing Max of killing Rosa. Y’all, we know Michael doesn’t fight for himself, doesn’t fight for any kind of life of his own. But would he fight to protect Alex? Is Alex someone he would risk everything to save? Hell yes. What if what he’d have to risk was Alex? Their relationship, memories of them together, etc? What if he was saving him from a memory of killing one of his friends? From where I’m standing, that’s something Michael would risk losing him for. It would also explain why Max just doesn’t freaking tell Liz what happened. Alex was her friend, was Rosa’s friend, and–as Kyle pointed out last episode—the town threw him a parade when he came home from overseas. The man—the white man, with the white military family—who killed her sister—child of undocumented immigrants—is a town hero. Of course, they couldn’t have known ten years ago that would be how Alex ended up, but does that kind of conflict fit the world of CWRoswellNM as we know it so far? Yep. If Liz knew it was Alex... if she knew that Michael and Isobel helped cover it up... That would be huge. And it would explain Max’s guilt over what happened to Rosa, even if she wasn’t capital-M-murdered. Even if it was an accident. And why Isobel and Max are so adamant that she can never know, why Max is so adamant. In this scenario, they all have something to lose. Including Liz.

Part 10: Loose Ends

I know what you’re thinking: if it wasn’t an alien coverup, how or why did the military fake Rosa’s accident with a fake appendix-having body or at least fake medical records when they had the real evidence with that terrible picture? I am going to point you to Alex’s dad and his recently-revealed attachment to reputation. How much wouldn’t he do to protect his soldier sons? The image of his family? I don’t think there’s much he wouldn’t do if he knew of Alex’s involvement, but I don’t think he needed to know to engage in the cover-up. The handprint could have been there from Max trying to save Rosa after the crash, and OG Sheriff Valente called Alex’s dad and was like UM ALIENS and then the faking commenced. After all, we know OG Valente knew: we saw those drawings in the supposedly-crazy letters. In addition, the conflict between those two over the event could also explain their falling out and why there would be things in OG Valente’s letters that Alex’s dad didn’t know.

So who is Ophiuchus, you ask? I have no clue.

#roswell nm #rosa ortecho #roswell new mexico #cw roswell new mexico #cw roswell nm #malex #long reads #theory #michael guerin #alex manes #liz ortecho #max evans #isobel evans bracken #echo

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cartoonfangirl1218 · 6 years ago

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Minor EoA character zodiacs

So I decided to go ahead and try some of the zodiac signs for EoA characters. But I really liked @pizzansunshine‘‘s argument for the main six’s Possible zodiac signs so I decided to do minor reoccurring characters. Which was pretty hard I’ll admit. The zodiac signs can be overlapping so you can agree to disagree with what I think is the best fit for the characters. Anyway, enough of my babbling, here’s what I have. https://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com

Luisa Libra

Strengths: Cooperative, diplomatic, gracious, fair-minded, social

Weaknesses: Indecisive, avoids confrontations, will carry a grudge, self-pity

Libra likes: Harmony, gentleness, sharing with others, the outdoors

Libra dislikes: Violence, injustice, loudmouths, conformity

People born under the sign of Libra are peaceful, fair, and they hate being alone. As we see, Luisa is a very sociable person from being friends with the palace staff to joining the local Olaball team. She’s like an understanding Abuela to everyone she meets.

Partnership is very important for them, as their mirror and someone giving them the ability to be the mirror themselves. Francisco and Luisa have the sweetest, closest relationship in the series. They are equal partners with respect, trust and love for each other.

These individuals are fascinated by balance and symmetry, they are in a constant chase for justice and equality, realizing through life that the only thing that should be truly important to themselves in their own inner core of personality. Luisa stands firm to following her heart and her beliefs and the Abuela-bear claws come out when she faces someone who is a lying, cheating jerk. Lord Elrod from Princess Knight for example.

Francisco Pisces

Strengths: Compassionate, artistic, intuitive, gentle, wise, musical

Weaknesses: Fearful, overly trusting, sad, desire to escape reality, can be a victim or a martyr

Pisces likes: Being alone, sleeping, music, romance, visual media, swimming, spiritual themes

Pisces dislikes: Know-it-all, being criticized, the past coming back to haunt, cruelty of any kind

It’s a sign connected to music, so Pisces reveal music preferences in the earliest stages of life. They are generous, compassionate and extremely faithful and caring. Pisces are never judgmental and always forgiving. They are also known to be most tolerant of all the zodiac signs. I don’t have to say this but I willl, Francisco’s eternal love is music and we have seen that he is such a kind man when it comes to looking at both sides of a problem and never gives an unasked for judgement.

Deep in their hearts, they are incorrigible romantics. They are very loyal, gentle and unconditionally generous to their partners. Pisces are passionate lovers who have a need to feel a real connection. Like I said with Luisa, the two show an absolute loyalty and devotion to each other. It’s clear Francisco only has eyes for his wife.

Inspired by the need to make changes in the lives of others, they are willing to help even if that means to go beyond the boundaries. This zodiac sign is compassionate, hard-working, dedicated and reliable. Pisces are selfless, they are always willing to help others, without hoping to get anything back. As we learned in the last Día de los Muertos episode, Francisco was a secret vigilante at a time when nobles weren’t allowed to be in danger just for the sake of protecting his kingdom.

Prince Marzel and Princess Marisa Gemini

Strengths: Gentle, affectionate, curious, adaptable, ability to learn quickly and exchange ideas

Weaknesses: Nervous, inconsistent, indecisive

Gemini likes: Music, books, magazines, chats with nearly anyone, short trips around the town

Gemini dislikes: Being alone, being confined, repetition and routine

Expressive and quick-witted, Gemini’s are sociable, communicative and ready for fun, with a tendency to suddenly get serious, thoughtful and restless. They are fascinated with the world itself, extremely curious, with a constant feeling that there is not enough time to experience everything they want to see.This is a versatile, inquisitive, fun loving sign, born with a wish to experience everything there is out there, in the world. I swear I didn’t just choose Gemini because they were twins. Marisa and Marzel, Marisa specifically, were interested in looking to the human world and were the most willing to mend the fued. Since the joining, the two clearly enjoy hanging out with Elena and co. and learning a little more about life of the shore.

Daria Scorpio

Strengths: Resourceful, brave, passionate, stubborn, a true friend

Weaknesses: Distrusting, secretive, violent

Scorpio likes: Truth, facts, being right, longtime friends, teasing, a grand passion

Scorpio dislikes: Dishonesty, revealing secrets, passive people

Scorpio-born are passionate and assertive people. They are determined and decisive, and will research until they find out the truth. Scorpio is a great leader, always aware of the situation and also features prominently in resourcefulness. As we’ve seen as commander of the reef, Daria is a take-charge woman and when she puts her mind to it whether it is sabotage or protection, she puts her whole effort into it,

Scorpios are known by their calm and cool behavior, and by their mysterious appearance. People often say that Scorpio-born are fierce. They are excellent leaders because they are very dedicated to what they do. Scorpios hate dishonesty and they can be very jealous and suspicious, so they need to learn how to adapt more easily to different human behaviors. What motivated Daria’s actions in Tides of Change was that she wanted to protect Coronando from the human threat so you can say that is dedication to her work though misguided. Plus we see how Daria is not one to quickly spell out her thoughts, preferring stern glares like when Elena arrived unexpectedly at the palace. Also the grudge she held against humans even when Elena proved that they weren’t out to get them but wanted to be friends.

Princess Valentina Aries

Strengths: Courageous, determined, confident, enthusiastic, optimistic, honest, passionate

Weaknesses: Impatient, moody, short-tempered, impulsive, aggressive

Aries likes: Comfortable clothes, taking on leadership roles, physical challenges, individual sports

Aries dislikes: Inactivity, delays, work that does not use one's talents

Aries are continuously looking for dynamic, speed and competition, always being the first in everything - from work to social gatherings. You'll rarely meet an Aries who isn't capable of finishing several things at once, often before lunch break! Valentina is a fire sign, and as the website suggests, she does look for a competition even if it was really unneeded. Yet Valentina just has a natural exuberant personality and need for action. And as we’ve seen, she has many talents from Olaball to wizardry so she is constantly on the job working for her people. No wonder they call her their savior.

Rafa de Alva Taurus

Strengths: Reliable, patient, practical, devoted, responsible, stable

Weaknesses: Stubborn, possessive, uncompromising

Taurus likes: Gardening, cooking, music, romance, working with hands

Taurus dislikes: Sudden changes, complications, insecurity of any kind, synthetic fabrics

Practical and well-grounded, Taurus is the sign that harvests the fruits of labor. They feel the need to always be surrounded by love and beauty, turned to the material world, hedonism, and physical pleasures. What we often see as stubbornness can be interpreted as commitment, and their ability to complete tasks whatever it takes is uncanny. This makes them excellent employees, great long-term friends and partners, always being there for people they love. Rafa can be stubborn like when she was insistent that she couldn’t help Sofia or that her Navidad traditions were the best or even just passing Avaloran traditions to Mateo under the threat of death. But she is also a very caring individual and a natural leader for her village, and a stable, loving influence in Mateo’s life. And to me, she seems very much a homebody who’d enjoy gardening and the like. Perhaps herbs for magic potions like her father had taught her.

Carla and Prince Alonso Leo

Strengths: Creative, passionate, generous, warm-hearted, cheerful, humorous

Weaknesses: Arrogant, stubborn, self-centered, lazy, inflexible

Leo likes: Taking holidays, being admired, expensive things, bright colors, fun with friends

Leo dislikes: Being ignored, facing difficult reality, not being treated like a king or queen

Leos are dramatic, creative, self-confident, dominant and extremely difficult to resist, able to achieve anything they want to in any area of life they commit to. There is a specific strength to a Leo and their "king of the jungle" status. Self-confident and attractive, and their healthy sense of humor makes collaboration with other people even easier. They are ambitious, creative and optimistic and once they dedicate to their work, they will do everything just right. As we’ve seen that while both are initially very lazy people, Alonso and Carla can be committed to a cause when they put their mind to it. Alonso as he starts to reinvent himself as a better prince while Carla won’t let ghosts or Shuriki or Elena or anyone in her way on her quest for power. And while neither are very joking, both are comedic characters,

Family matters won't be the first thing Leo will think about when they wake up in the morning or lie to bed at night. Turned to themselves for the most part, they tend to become independent as soon as possible. Still, a Leo will do anything to protect their loved ones, proud of their ancestry and roots in good and bad times. As we’ve seen, both are independent but Alonso does have a need to make his dad proud while Carla does care enough about her father to keep following him around and has some sort of admiration for her mother.

The best possible situation they can find themselves in is to be their own bosses or manage others with as little control from their superiors as possible. Leos love to be surrounded by modern and trendy things, and although money comes easy to them, they spend it less responsibly than some other signs of the zodiac. Eh less responsible can be the first thing one thinks of when it comes to Alonso and Carla, for sure. And a love of luxury too. And we have seen that Carla really really hates when people tell her what to do so she is just a Leo to the core to me.

Olivia Aquarius

Strengths: Progressive, original, independent, humanitarian

Weaknesses: Runs from emotional expression, temperamental

Aquarius likes: Fun with friends, helping others, fighting for causes, intellectual conversation

Aquarius dislikes: Limitations, being lonely, dull or boring situations

Aquarius-born are shy and quiet, but on the other hand they can be eccentric and energetic. However, in both cases, they are deep thinkers and highly intellectual people who love helping others. While Olivia is still growing and her personality still developing, I think she could be an Aquarius due to her energetic nature and her pursuit for wizard knowledge. Wizardry takes many years but she clearly has the devotion to studying time. She wanted to learn right away and without delay. Plus she wanted to do it for a good cause and to help people.

Doña Paloma Capricorn

Strengths: Responsible, disciplined, self-control, good managers

Weaknesses: Know-it-all, unforgiving, condescending, expecting the worst

Capricorn likes: Family, tradition, quality craftsmanship

Capricorn dislikes: Almost everything at some point

Capricorn is a sign that represents time and responsibility, and its representatives are traditional and often very serious by nature. These individuals possess an inner state of independence that enables significant progress both in their personal and professional lives. They are masters of self-control and have the ability to lead the way, make solid and realistic plans, and manage many people who work for them at any time. They will learn from their mistakes and get to the top based solely on their experience and expertise. Well I think this sums up her character pretty well as she implies with most episodes that she deserve everything based solely on her expertise and fits with how she made everything she had from the ground up.

Not only do they focus on the material world, but they have the ability to use the most out of it. Unfortunately, this element also makes them stiff and sometimes too stubborn to move from one perspective or point in a relationship. They have a hard time accepting differences of other people that are too far from their character, and out of fear might try to impose their traditional values aggressively. Kinda the whole plot point of Masks of Magic that she wanted the Feast of Friendship her way. More out of her own selfish ego than fear though.

Capricorns will set high standards for themselves, but their honesty, dedication and perseverance will lead them to their goals. They value loyalty and hard work over all other things, and keep associates with these qualities close even when they might be intellectually inferior. Concentrated and resourceful, this is someone who gets the job done, doesn’t mind long hours, and commits to the final product completely. Fits with how she and Esteban built up Avalor’s economic growth and also the only explanation to me on why she had hired Carlos (Sorry Carlos. Maybe you are smarter than I think).

Armando Virgo

Strengths: Loyal, analytical, kind, hardworking, practical

Weaknesses: Shyness, worry, overly critical of self

Virgo likes: Animals, healthy food, books, nature, cleanliness

Virgo dislikes: Rudeness, asking for help, taking center stage

Virgos are always paying attention to the smallest details and their deep sense of humanity makes them one of the most careful signs of the zodiac. Their methodical approach to life ensures that nothing is left to chance. Virgos are excellent advisors, always knowing how to solve a problem. This can make them helpful and extremely useful to have around, but also brings out their need to search the problem in everything and everyone around them. As chief of staff, Armando is the go to person for any problem as we see in All Kingdoms Fair and Model Sister- how handily he fixed everything. He’s very detailed and always has what Elena needs to do her royal duties. Also Virgos are sensitive and critical of themselves just as Armando is, amplified by Santos’ insults.

They will care for people they build a solid relationship with, treasuring them for years and nurturing them in every possible way. An intimate friendship with a Virgo is always earned by good deeds. They are very dedicated to their family and attentive to elderly and sick people. They understand tradition and the importance of responsibility, proud of their upbringing. Armando is such a mama’s boy and an abuela’s boy by how fondly he talks of his time with her in the village. He treats the royal family as his family too and we’ve seen his loyalty to them by reminding Esteban of his roots in Secret of Avalor to saving Elena/Mateo/Naomi/Gabe from chonopos.

Scarlet Turner Sagittarius

Strengths: Generous, idealistic, great sense of humor

Weaknesses: Promises more than can deliver, very impatient, will say anything no matter how undiplomatic

Sagittarius likes: Freedom, travel, philosophy, being outdoors

Curious and energetic, Sagittarius is one of the biggest travelers among all zodiac signs. Sagittarius is extrovert, optimistic and enthusiastic, and likes changes. Sagittarius-born are able to transform their thoughts into concrete actions and they will do anything to achieve their goals. Freedom is their greatest treasure, because only then they can freely travel and explore different cultures and philosophies. Scarlet loves the sea and traveling like she loves air and since she was so adaptable to moving around for work and enjoyed it so much, I think it makes her a perfect Sagittarius.

Because of their honesty, Sagittarius-born are often impatient and tactless when they need to say or do something, so it's important to learn to express themselves in a tolerant and socially acceptable way. Sagittarius is very fun and -born love to laugh and enjoy the diversity of life and culture, so they will easily acquire many friends around the world. They are generous and not one of those who lecture. When it comes to family, Sagittarius is dedicated and willing to do almost anything. In the beginning of Captain Turner Returns, you can say Scarlet was a bit tactless when she was sure that Naomi would get used to leaving Avalor and ignoring all of Elena’s attempts to get them to stay. Yet her family is very important to her like when she tried to get a job at home so she could stay with Daniel and Naomi more and eventually giving in to staying in Avalor.

Now a lot of this is my own speculation. Craig did say that Carla will be revealed to be more complex than she seems. It doesn’t seem like Victor will have the same treatment, but I think Carla’s development will reveal a little more of his character since he was the one who raised her and cares for her.

Victor Delgado Cancer

Strengths: Tenacious, highly imaginative, loyal, emotional, sympathetic, persuasive

Weaknesses: Moody, pessimistic, suspicious, manipulative, insecure

Cancers are very emotional and sensitive, and care deeply about matters of the family and their home. While this is a bit of a stretch, I say that Victor is a bit emotional such as his deep feeling of hurt at Esteban’s betrayal, and his anger towards the world.

Cancer is the sign of family and these individuals care about family bonds and their home more than any other sign of the zodiac. Also a stretch but just based on the fact that he is caring for Carla alone and she is the only one he treats with some decency and very unlikely for him to betray her.

Lack of patience or even love will manifest through mood swings later in life, and even selfishness, self-pity or manipulation. They are quick to help others, just as they are quick to avoid conflict, and rarely benefit from close combat of any kind, always choosing to hit someone stronger, bigger, or more powerful than they imagined. Oh yeah, if we follow this Victor defiantly did not get enough love growing up. He sees himself as a victim even though he committed treason, he is a manipulative thief to his former friend’s family and thinks he can play with the big guns of Shuriki and Fiero.

#zodiac signs #elena of avalor #long post #character analysis #prince alonso #princess valentina #victor delgado #carla delgado #luisa flores #francisco flores #armandk gutierrez #rafa de alva #scarlet turner #olivia #prince marzel #princess marisa #daria #doña paloma

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brilliantorinsane · 7 years ago

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The Speckled Band (1931): a.k.a. Sherlock Wilde

Note: For this meta I tagged everyone who reblogged earlier posts in the series. However, as I certainly don’t want to shove my work at anyone who isn’t interested, from this point forward I will only only tag individuals who have shown continued interest by reblogging multiple posts, or who have specifically asked to be tagged. Thank you to anyone who has been or continues to be interested in any part of this series <3

Guys, I did it. I found the Gayest Holmes. Not the best Holmes, nor the best adaptation by any stretch of the imagination; but most definitely the gayest. Well, okay, the most stereotypically gay, and one of the most nearly confirmed as such in the explicit text of the film—a fact which has me reeling given that this film was released in 1931.

This is the third installment of my series on obscure Holmes adaptations and their depiction of our beloved duo both individually and in relation to each other. For the first two installments, see below:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Stoll Pitures, 1921–1923)

The Speckled Band on Stage: Yep, Still Gay

Production and Reception:

[Spoilers ahead. But unless you want to avoid spoiling the ACD cannon story The Speckled Band or his play of the same name, I wouldn’t worry about it. There’s really nothing worth spoiling in this film]

This adaptation, released the year after Doyle’s death, is derived less from the cannon story of the same name than from a stage adaptation also written by Doyle. The play is wonderful, featuring a genuinely chilling villain, well-realized side characters, laugh-out-loud humor, the best Holmes and Watson, and allllll the gay subtext. You can read the script here, and my discussion of the play is linked above.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers’ 5 step adaptation plan appears to have been the following:

1. Keep the bare bones of the play, including some of the name changes, the emphasis on the Rylott household, etc.

2. Take the play’s uncomfortable undertone of Orientalism and make it the film’s prevailing atmosphere, then add casual pro-slavery rhetoric, just ‘cause.

3. Remove approximately 3/4s of what made Doyle’s script so good, then creatively undermine, dilute, and/or convolute the remaining 1/4.

4. Hire a promising actor to play Holmes, and then give him minimal interesting content.

5. Hire the actor who played Rylott in the stage play, because it can’t hurt to have one good thing.

Yeah … I’m exaggerating, but its not good. Which is disappointing on many levels, because it would have been fascinating to know how a flagrantly gay Holmes would have fared in the early 1930s. But as it is, this adaptation fails on so many levels that it seems impossible to theorize whether homophobia played a significant role in the fact that it made scarcely any impact in its day and has been entirely forgotten now. Sure, homophobia might have aided the process of erasure, but this film didn’t need any help sinking into oblivion.

Nevertheless, although the blaring racism makes it difficult to fully appreciate the filmmaker’s courage in not abandoning the play’s subtext, it is still worth being aware that filmmakers were paying attention to and actively portraying the ACD cannon subtext as early as 1931.

Raymond Massey as Sherlock Holmes

It really is a pity that this film didn’t give Raymond Massey the chance to show what he could have done with Sherlock Holmes. In his book Sherlock Holmes on Screen, Alan Barns argues that Massey might have created a Holmes to rival all his contemporaries, and whenever he appeared I paid close attention, always feeling as if he were about to get interesting. Unfortunately, he never quite did.

Massey’s Holmes spends the majority of the film in a deeply lethargic state. Depressive moods are as much a part of Sherlock’s character as his boundless curiosity, and I would have found it a rather interesting portrayal if he had ever woken up from his stupor. But although he has flashes of intensity, in the end he lounges about the crime scene as listlessly as he does 221B. Further, because we know too little about this Holmes to understand his lethargy, he never quite solidifies into a concrete or compelling individual.

In dearth of anything else, the most interesting thing about this Holmes is that he is definitely, definitively, flagrantly gay. To Massey’s credit, this is instantly apparent—my initial impression that, “wow, this Holmes is kinda a lazy dick,” was paralleled with a rather flabbergasted, “wait … is he playing him as gay???”

If I’d seen Massey’s Holmes without context, I may well have thought I was watching a film about Oscar Wilde—the stereotypical epitome of Victorian homosexuality. Even Barns, who has excellent things to say about Holmes adaptations but seems vaguely allergic to discussing the detective’s sexuality, describes Massey’s Holmes as an “aesthete” and speaks of his “almost Oscar Wilde approach” (266). And all of that registers before Holmes starts examining his fingernails, resting his hand on Watson’s leg a good few inches above his knee, and talking about marriage. But we will return to that last point shortly.

Athole Stewart as John Watson

Stewart as Watson in this film is … fine. Even good, comparatively speaking—Stewart’s Watson is hearty and kind and is not portrayed as an idiot, which really is an anomaly at this stage of Holmes adaptations. This is probably due in large part to his excellent role in Doyle’s stage play. Unfortunately, the film consistently sets up Watson’s strengths only to erase them.

Watson in the film is kind to Helen—that’s the one good quality that doesn’t get undermined. So, yay. But while in the play Watson stands up against Rylott’s tyrannical demands when he is summoned to examine the body of the first murdered sister, the film begins to replicate that scene only to have Watson give in after his initial protest. In both the play and film he initially appears to be a decidedly intelligent man who guesses exactly what is going on in the the Rylott household, but in the film this is undermined by his subsequent conversation with Holmes, in which it appears that he was entirely clueless and took everything at face value after all. The film makes an interesting but half-hearted attempt at introducing modern technology into 221B, and most of this has been installed by Watson; but Holmes finds it essentially useless for his work and relies on different tools entirely. In the play Watson himself kills the snake; in the film he … shines a light so Holmes can attack it.

In short, Stewart’s Watson goes through the motions of being a partner, but he is never quite allowed to do anything useful.

So … What About Johnlock?

Eh. I guess?

By all rights an adaptation with a gay Holmes ought to at least have one-sided unrequited Johnlock. But while its clear that Holmes is gay, it is not clear that he is in love with Watson.

Beyond the character’s aestheticism, mannerisms, and thigh grab, evidence of Holmes’s sexuality is blatantly but clumsily contained in two brief exchanges with Watson regarding Helen’s marriage to her fiancee. The first comes at the end of Holmes’s first scene, when he abruptly asks Watson to inform him when Helen becomes engaged, with an intensity which demonstrates some emotional investment in the event.

My initial (annoyed) assumption was that they were going to make Holmes out to be in love with Helen. But when Helen comes to Holmes for help two years later, it is clear that they have never met. Nor is there anything in Holmes’s treatment of her to imply some creepy at-a-distance infatuation. And yet we are definitely supposed to pay attention to his preoccupation with the wedding, because the final scene consists of Watson announcing Helen’s engagement to Glen Sternum, to which Holmes responds: “I was afraid that might happen.” Then when Watson, taking Holmes’s response for generalized cynicism, leaves the room with the amused assertion that “we all come to it [i.e. marriage],” Holmes waits until he is gone to respond with a melancholy, “not all, my dear Watson. Not all.” And that, apart from a final line about filing away the details of the case, is the end.

So what are we to make of Holmes’s sorrowful preoccupation with Helen’s marriage? Honestly, I’ve been unable to work it out. Is it is meant to refer to a generalized inability to attach a girl? But there’s no hint of that in the plot; and besides, why then would he be so concerned with this particular marriage? No, it makes more sense to suppose that Holmes’s queer-coded mannerisms are fully intentional, and he knows he will never marry because society will not allow him to marry a man. So was he afraid that Watson, a good friend of the family, might marry her? But then why is he still so sorry when she marries someone else? Is he secretly in love with the man she married (who, fun fact, is a slave-owner)??? Weirdly enough, that is my only theory which doesn’t directly contradict any of the facts, although it would make for incredibly vague and sloppy storytelling.

Just to complicate this further, Doyle’s play also contains a subplot about Holmes being sorrowful about a marriage (although the sorrow is a bit more subtextual)—but in the play it is Watson’s marriage. So basically … the filmmakers appear to have gotten the “Holmes is upset about Watson’s marriage because Holmes is in love with him but cannot marry a man because Homophobia” subtext, but—perhaps because showing Holmes being openly sorrowful over Watson’s marriage felt too obvious?—they clumsily redirected Holmes’s sorrow to a different marriage with which he textually has no connection.

As for Watson, there’s not much to say. There is an odd line in which Holmes asks Watson whether the housekeeper was good-looking and Watson answers “no” before pausing and, with an air of surprise, amending, “yes.” This could be seen as indicating that he is uninterested in the attractiveness of women. (This would make him out to be gay and not bi, which I suppose makes sense for the time). But it could just as easily be put down to the film’s sloppy writing, and if Watson is gay his cheery assurance that he and Holmes both will come round to marriage in the end indicates that he is entirely unaware of it, so … *shrugs.*

In conclusion: this film was probably made by people who Knew, at least about Holmes, but instead of creating Johnlock they gave us a Holmes who is almost definitely gay but only maybe in love with Watson; he could just as easily be in love with a slave-owner he never sees during the film or be sad about not being able to marry a man in general. Then they tossed in a narratively irrelevant Watson who might maybe possibly be gay but he definitely doesn’t know it.

It’s a mess.

Conclusion: Should You Watch It?

I mean … you could. A decent-ish recording is available on YouTube here. But while I feel like we ought to be aware of this first (as far I know) stumbling attempt at subtext, I’m not trying to talk anyone into watching it. If you’re interested in Raymond Massey’s portrayal of Holmes I suggest just skipping to his scenes, which add up to slightly over half of the 50min film. In particular I recommend his first scene, from 7.15–12.35, and the final scene, which begins at 47.30. And if you find a more coherent means of interpreting Holmes’s lines about marriage, please do let me know!

Well then. Yep. That is a thing. Which exists.

The End

@devoursjohnlock @thespiritualmultinerd @ellinorosterberg @kajepan @spenglernot @materialofonebeing @possiblyimbiassed @oysters-and-gingernuts @sosukana @maniclemons @materialof1being @persnicketypea @cuttydarke @newshea @a-candle-for-sherlock @tjlcisthenewsexy @sarahthecoat @the-elephant-is-pink @bluebluenova @hewascharming @battledress @cumberlocked221 @victorianfantasywatson @sherlockisgayaf @alemizu @infodumpingground @believein-johnlock @disregardedletters @accuratebutunsystematic @artemisastarte @inevitably-johnlocked

#the speckled band 1931 #sherlock flim #Raymond Massey #Athole Stewart #sherlock holmes #John watson #johnlock #film adaptation #film criticism

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baddly-well-done-translations · 4 years ago

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Garbage: Shirley’s year |Interview by Yves Bongarcon (Rock Sound Magazine N°11, year 1998)

Saying that Garbage’s new album had created expectation is a true euphemism. Four million of their first album sold with a discorcenting easyness, a star status in many countries and an irritant custom of releasing almost perfect singles; had contributed on putting the group of Shirley Manson and Butch Vig in this year’s viewpoint.

With “Version 2.0” and their first single, “Push It”, the chalenge of the post “Stupid Girl” stage has been archived with success, establishing themselves, even in Spain, as a golden album group. Before their next concerts the days 10 and 11 of February, in Barcelona and Madrid is an hour for making balance. And what better way than starting the year next to the redhead Shirley Manson?

When meeting you, one has the sensation that you have a big humility. Almost as if you were musicians that didn’t take themselves seriously. What do you think?

“No. Sincerely, I believe we consider ourselves real musicians, or in other case, people that are music passionate. But the difference could lie in the fact that we aren’t arrogant musicians. We limit ourselves to be musicians, no other ostentation in the middle. But it could be you think that way because in the new album we play with classical musicians, a string trio, and that we have said everywhere... that we had played with “true” musicians! (Laughs) The truth is that we had to work hard with people like them, who dominate an instrument perfectly… Next to them, in some sense, we’re simple afficionates that play a bit of everything… But we don’t do the same work they do, that’s clear”.

USA 1 - Europe 1

We were afraid that with “Version 2.0”, Garbage settled in its proposal and got turned into an american rock band, which would be a pity, right?

“All of us are, in certain ways, influenced by European music, especially british ones. And it has nothing to do with nationality, well yes, but only a part. We can’t forget that the three Americans of the group grew up listening to The Beatles and seventies European music (laughs)”.

Before it came out, a very techno orientated album was announced. Anyways, apart of tracks as “Dumb” or “Hammering in my Head”, which are machine bassed, the rest of the album is still “Garbage pop”.

“Our first worry is, after all, writing pop songs, let’s not forget it. We’ve always considered ourselves a rock group, We’ve never pretended being a techno or electronic music one. However, we have open minds and not a single scruple in borrowing some jungle or drum n bass elements that look interesting for use in a song.

With this new album, a lot of people thought we were going to do what Madonna did, an ambient techno album. Something that wouldn’t look sincere to us from the group’s viewpoint. In truth, Garbage is a melting pot which, over a rock identity, integrates and recicles diverse styles and genres. From jungle to blues, from pop to metal, this is the group's reason of being. Seeing it that way, “Version 2.0” was, in some way, the result of the multiplicity of its composition’s textures”.

Internal pressure

Were the gestation and birth of “Version 2.0” painful processes?

“No, not for me. “Version 2.0” was a lot less painful for me than the first one. I believe I was more secure of myself, I had more confidence in my own possibilities. With the first album, saying that I wasn’t very comfortable would be very little (smiles)”.

What’s the true key of Garbage, what makes you function so well together?

“Humor sense and some kind of irony. We’ve lived many things individually so we could watch ourselves from the outside. We’re the actors and public of Garbage at the same time. I could use the words “microns” and “participants” (smiles). Our secret, if we even have one, resides in our capacity of mixing passion and distantment, surrender and withdrawal in the interior of our own reality. That's the motor of our growing”.

“Version 2.0”, that title which remembers us of an informatic program… Is it maybe the direct application of your peculiar sense of humor?

“No (laughs). Yes, of course! It represented the album, for which the computer that governs any recording studio nowadays has been omnipresent; and it allows us to take a funny and without pretension perspective of our work”

The Shirley mention

In “version 2.0” there are constant references to the Beach Boys. It is even said that you acredited your “Don’t Worry Baby” to Brian Wilson so he autorizated you to use that tense in the album. Why this seventies obsesion?

“I believe it’s a pretty old obsession for any of us but also some kind of reaction to what is heard nowadays: ‘Rock is dead’, ‘pop is dead’, etc. especially since techno’s emergence. It was our way of saying that things follow a continuity, there aren’t ruptures and it’s totally possible mixing music from different ages without having to denigrate any of them. It’s very easy taking some old fashioned elements and actualizing them”.

Shirley, from where does the confidence that you’ve acquired at voice level came?

“That came scentialy from the work I’ve effectuated but also the fact that I’ve finally found my register and tonality. Before, I used to adapt to the music, now the music adapts to me. It’s infinitely confier this way”.

Now that you’ve experienced it for a second time, do you know what success is?

“Money, glory or fame are nothing more than some of the resulting possibilities of a functionable creative process. After all, our goal is making music, not money, let’s not forget this. But above all, I believe that the true success is simply being happy. And that is not such a hard thing to achieve. I think that, even when I was younger, I never conceived success as an instrument of power or a simple accumulation of properties. Around us there are a lot of people which have everything: money, fame, and however they’re extremely unhappy. What sense does success have in these conditions? What sense does it have if you aren’t happy?”

Could you imagine your life without this thing called Garbage?

“We aren’t teenagers who believe a band can go all their lives. Personally, I know Garbage will end. Maybe one day I’ll have a family and kids, that will make me see things another way. I suppose in that moment, recording and touring won’t be my priority. However, nowadays I live in the present and taste the today”.

As in the first album, the universe that involves around “Version 2.0” looks very conceptual. Is that really the group’s desire?

“First, everything is decided inside of the group. But after that we see ourselves forced to ask for specific things to determinated specialists. For the videos, we always try to work with people who we believe, correspond to our views. It’s something extremely important. You have to think that nowadays people will see your video before listening to your music on the radio. Therefore you have to act consequently. More than wisdom, it’s an absolute necessity, a priority. For “Push It”, the first single, we decided to work with Andrea Giaccobi, an Italian who’s a true image artist. He’s at the same time, photograph and cineast, so he embellished the video a lot. He achieved giving a lot of style to his movie while respecting our music and then we noticed he proceeded with image the same way we do with music: working simultaneously over different materials, using and mixing the old and new things, etc. It was an authentic collaboration”.

Reality house

According to you, is Garbage’s music connected with reality?

“A song, because of its own nature, rarely can be based in reality. Music is, in essence, a method for escaping this world and it’s reality. How is it even possible to express any reality in four minutes fifty seconds? You can express a feeling: fury, love, angst, quietness. Not reality. As an example “Only Happy When it Rains” ironiced over the feeling of self-pityness of a lot of people in my generation, but didn’t pretend being a complete photo”.

Of what are you prouder in which it refers to Garbage?

“Of the almost perfect chemistry we’ve achieved in the group. This complicity is very rare. Sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you can archive it with a family or lover. But in a group, there’s a one million possibility of it working this way. It’s still difficult to believe it. After all, that could be what’s special in Garbage”.

#garbage #shirley #fuck this woman's difficult way of talking #oh so fucking nostalgic #old magazines #spanish #interview #translation #give credits #fucker

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love-laika · 7 years ago

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As a companion to what I posted last night, here are all of the games I played this year! I’m not ready to pick a favorite yet, but you can probably draw your own conclusions from this list.

First, the games I did manage to finish

Inside is really short but totally wild. A solid if occasionally frustrating platformer that is more about dystopian horror, but like in a quiet way. It uses every second with purpose and is much better for it. I never played much of Limbo, but I think I enjoy the atmosphere of inside much more. It's really scary!!!

i "finished" playing Starlight Stage (as much as one can) this year too. The rhythm game is pretty fun but I'm just so tired of mobage/gacha stuff. It takes up so much time and just makes me stressed. I'm tired. But if you like idol games, and haven't tried it yet I highly recommend! It's a great time to jump in

Hiveswap! You're all probably pretty tired of my Homestuck talk, but it's a great adventure game. I hope future chapters will continue to be fun and creative and silly (and eventually probably break my heart)

Wolfenstein 2: a game that juggles lots of ideas and delivers on most of them. It deserves kudos just for being willing to tackle prickly subjects (like America’s horrific past). The shooting is fun but way too hard. Play it on easy. And no spoilers but the ending sucks, in multiple ways kinda. The set pieces around the midsection just had my jaw on the floor though

It's strange to have a brutal FPS where the story is better than the shooting in some places?

Last for beaten games is Heat Signature (again as much as you can beat a randomly generated roguelike). I am SO into its approach to stealth, where basically you are urged to think on your feet and adapt to changing situation. the simple fact that you can stop time for as long as you want and just think is really great. its less about execution and more about doing the right sequence of events for the situation

Some of my fav game moments came totally unscripted from me taking on a really tough mission and just getting out by the skin of my teeth

Now for the probably really long part, stuff I didn't finish. I'm bad at finishing things (anything) so it's not that I hated these games, but I do generally have more mixed feelings

An older game I played a lot was Burnout 3 and like that game is *chef kiss*. I used to be WAY into racing games, so this really scratched that old itch. It is, dare I say it, the best racing game I've ever played. It strikes that really perfect balance of control and chaos for each race. The AI is super aggressive so have to play offense and defense equally to get ahead. The triumph of getting gold in a difficult race is just exhilarating

I had a specific moment where it was just me and one other guy duking it out for first. He was way ahead after I got in a bad crash so for the final lap I was boosting all the way, cutting every corner, and drifting around every bend to catch up. Then finally just seconds from the checkered line, I nudged him into an oncoming car and finished. I was fucking hooting and hollering in my room at 2 in the morning

The only reason I haven't finished is that there's no real rush to. There's no story to get to, just a larger collection of cars and tracks. It’s always ready for me when I decide to come back

(brief aside) I opened up Burnout Paradise after this and while the open world is really cool to explore (one of the best for driving) it doesn't give me the same adrenaline rush. It’s too easy and the AI is not nearly as vengeful

Night in the Woods I started in like February and have barely touched and I feel SUPER bad about that. It's a good game, but I think I might be kind of afraid to play it... at first I related a LOT, maybe too much, to Mae. As the game goes on and begins to seriously judge her it started to make me seriously uneasy. I'm afraid to confront my problems and it felt like the game was calling me, specifically, out for that. Which I mean the writing must be pretty good then. I’ll get back to it... eventually

Of the games I'm bad at finishing, visual novels are probably at the top of that list just because of how long they are and the relatively low amount of direct participation. but VA-11 Hall-A is really good!!!! It's just a really solid cyberpunk bartending simulator. And Jill is like my favorite protag this year. did you know I had never seen blade runner before this year?

The reason I dropped off a bit is that I had computer problems and lost some saves. I’d need to go through like 2 hours of stuff I already read. but. Words are failing a little bit. The writing is just good y’all

The further I get from Persona 5 the less I'm in love with it. Once you get past the fantastic music and slick graphics... the writing is just kind of bad. Characters feel kind of hollow and it sends really REALLY mixed messages and society and conformity. It could be the script or just the translation but everything just comes out sounding bad. After 100 hours, forgivable flaws just get grating. I'm in the last dungeon and I don't think I'm going to finish it

Just like put a hold on Nier: Automata for me. I've started but I haven't really gotten to the parts where it supposedly kicks into gear. 2B is hot though

Breath of the Wild has got to be like, the pinnacle of open world design right? A lot has been said about Zelda so I’ll skip the main stuff. My favorite thing is how physical your interactions with the world are. The game encourages you to play with its systems and see how they interact. Drop food into a fire to cook it a shocked enemy will drop their gear, water and metal will conduct electricity, tame your horse by riding it and correcting when it veers off the path etc.

I played just a little bit of LISA too. I like its really dark sense of humor, but the game also feels like it is sometimes actively discouraging you to play. It's interesting!!

Lastly is Metal Gear Solid V. I've thought a lot about this game because it succeeds and fails in a lot of weird ways. For now, just know this. The stealth is so good it got me to buy all of the previous games just so I can understand the series better (though I have played MGS 1 before my thoughts are basically the same as this)

The final game I played this year is Super Mario Odyssey literally this morning so I got nothing to say on that one

jesus christ there were so many games in 2017 and yet I'm still going back to ones made years ago

#thoughts? comments?#likes? subscribes?#long post #goty #video games #btw most of these are on sale somewhere rn

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sinceileftyoublog · 5 years ago

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The Versions of Shannon Lay

Photo by Denée Segall

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The story of how LA-based folk singer-songwriter Shannon Lay came to commit to music full-time is legendary. It’s akin to Radiohead seeing Jeff Buckley live leading to Thom Yorke’s heartbreaking performance on “Fake Plastic Trees”, but this time, it’s a different kind of inspirational folk luminary. Lay watched Jessica Pratt’s quiet, contemplative, yet all-encompassing music dominate a room; if there’s a demand for it, she, too, could do it, she thought after watching Pratt’s set. Lay decided to quit her job of 7 years at a vintage shop in August of 2017, the month being the namesake of her best album to date and one of the finest of 2019.

August exemplifies so much that Lay does well. The surprisingly linear spontaneity of opener “Death Up Close”--which starts with a misstep and eventually features a Mikal Cronin saxophone solo--is contrasted by the flaneur of “Nowhere”, an ode to enjoying the circular journey without an end, where her voice travels in the opposite direction of the song’s lilting melody. “Will I ever see through?” Lay asks, but not too bothered, layered over drums and hand claps. She sees the humor and delight in the smallest moments: Gorgeous and simple standout “Shuffling Stoned” is a scene in a record store in New York City, a customer buying weed from his dealer as small spider crawls on his stack of records. Many people would want the spider killed, but Lay sees it as no less a sign of life than anybody else. Most remarkable is “November”, dedicated to the woman left behind, Molly Drake, the mother of the late Nick. “Molly did you feel the sting / Of November songs gone quiet,” she asks, again not expecting an answer but knowing that asking the question, embodying another’s state of mind, is what’s important.

Live last month at Lincoln Hall opening for Cronin, Lay and her band members (Denée Segall, Sofia Arreguin, and Shelby Jacobson) were effortlessly good. August songs like “Sea Came to Shore”, in studio just guitar and violin plucks, were much more forceful on stage, while old favorites like “Parked” allowed Lay to show off her finger-picking and English folk chops. The band ended their set with an a capella, almost unrecognizable version of Italo house classic “Everybody Everybody” by Black Box, further cementing Lay’s ability to adapt material to suit her style. The audience, even one prepared for the hell-raiser to follow, loved it. It makes sense; if anybody has experience slaying in front of all types of crowds, it’s Lay, who also plays in Ty Segall’s Freedom Band. She’s thankfully unafraid to call out talkers when necessary, as she told me over the phone earlier this year. “Nick Drake quit halfway through his first tour because people were talking during his set,” she reminded me. “People [who talk] don’t have empathy...they’ve never been up on stage,” she added. Ever the wise reader of people, but one too thankful to let it get to her too much, Lay moves on.

During our interview, Lay shared the stories behind some of the songs, videos, and lines from August, as well as explained her inspiration from The Simpsons, true crime, and Nick Drake and Karen Dalton. Read our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.

at Lincoln Hall

Since I Left You: A lot of the context of the album you’ve shared in other interviews or through the bio. Is there something else the listener might not pick up in terms of how August is unique as compared to your past releases?

Shannon Lay: I wanted this one to be overtly positive. Not as moody as my last ones. I think that was the main difference that I felt--this undercurrent of joy I had never really had making a record. There was always a heartache involved or a brooding of the state of the world. Now, more than ever, I feel like you gotta do what you want to do. Being able to experience and appreciate that and encouraging other people to do that too.

SILY: Did doing music full-time help you think about things in new ways?

SL: Yeah, for sure. It kind of freed up so much brain space that was taken up by the usual life stuff. It was cool to put all of my energy into one thing I cared about so much. It was a really amazing experience I had never really had.

SILY: What was your job?

SL: I was working at a vintage store called Squaresville. It was a great little store. I grew up there, working there from 19-26. Really formative years of my life. The store bought clothes from the public, so there were all these new faces coming in. The staff would have been an amazing sitcom. Everyone was just the most incredible character. It was a ton of fun. My boss at the time was just so supportive--always let me go on tour and come back. She was a huge reason I was able to do this in the first place.

SILY: That’s nice to hear. A lot of the time when you hear about these types of stories, it’s about escaping some sort of soul-sucking desk job.

SL: I was very lucky. I had a cool environment to be in.

SILY: Do you still keep up with them?

SL: Yeah, for sure!

SILY: The first song on the record--does that start with a recorded misstep?

SL: Yeah, it was a total accident. As we were going through the tape, I just fell in love with that moment. The song comes in so quick, it was kind of a “Roll it!” moment, and then the record just goes.

SILY: So it was something you just heard and were like, “We should keep that in”?

SL: Totally. When we were doing the mastering, they had taken it out, since they thought it was a mistake--we were like, “Put it back in! Put it back in!”

SILY: Where did you get the idea for the video for “Death Up Close”?

SL: Me and the director, Matt Yoka, we had been talking about that idea for a year. We finally had just enough money to pull it off. Matt’s the best in the sense that when he gets an idea in his head, he’s going to make it happen no matter what, so we just had the most fun ever. We built all of it. Everybody was so nice. Most of the people were just volunteering. The concept behind it was mainly the idea of having a safe space in your mind that’s never changing no matter how much you change. For me, that’s obviously The Simpsons, my total safe haven, end all be all childhood memory show, and something I still watch every day. It was amazing to become yellow.

SILY: Is there a specific line or joke from The Simpsons that you think about all the time?

SL: The one that comes to mind is such a weird deep cut. There are tons of them. [laughs] There’s one where George Bush moves into the Simpsons’ neighborhood...this is not funny to anybody...there’s one point where Bart comes over and George Bush yells to Barbara Bush, “Bart’s here, we gotta get him out of here,” or something, and she’s just like, “I’m making pies, it’ll be a while!” That’s the joke that I think of. [laughs] There’s so many. I also love the one where Lisa starts to play hockey and Marge has Milhouse’s teeth from the show before. I’m just like, “Stop showin’ us those.”

SILY: There are so many good Easter Eggs.

SL: Yeah, totally.

SILY: What was the story behind your video for “Nowhere”?

SL: I did that one with my house mate Chris [Slater]. He’s a great director. We just used our phones for that one. I found an 8 MM app that was available. We just went around our neighborhood taking some footage, and he put his editing magic on it. I really like the way that one came out. It was a cool visual moment.

I wish music videos had more of an impact, but I think they’ve become this weird thing. You remember back in the day, Making the Video, and they had a yacht, and it was this huge thing...the new Missy Elliott video totally harks back to it, like she has different looks and different dancers.

SILY: The song “November” references Nick Drake’s mother. You see a lot of songs about a prolific or important singer-songwriter who left too soon. Why did you decide to explore the perspective of his mom?

SL: I guess sort of the fact that he did live at home. It was just a normal night that he went to sleep, woke up, had a bowl of cereal, and took one too many pills. I just imagine his mom waking up in the morning and feeling this silence in the house. It just must have been such a crazy moment. I don’t think it was any secret he had some emotional problem, but you never expect anything like that to happen. Putting myself in her shoes for a minute, and feeling such a strong presence leave the world, it must have been really emotional and intense. At the same time, what he left behind was incredible. He’ll live forever. He’s more alive now than he’s ever been because of how many people have discovered his music. I was thinking about the inherent sadness of losing a loved one, especially someone where everyone outside of them could see their potential, but maybe they’re struggling. It’s a whole thing. [laughs]

SILY: I love the story behind “Shuffling Stone”. Do you like spiders?

SL: I do love spiders. Not when they’re on me, but I do like spiders.

SILY: “Something On Your Mind” was released before this record was even announced. Had you always planned on putting it on the record?

SL: I didn’t, but it just became clear to me that it sums up what I’m trying to portray and how I’m feeling. The amount of people who don’t know who Karen Dalton is--I’d love to spread more awareness of her. I discovered that song relatively recently and it really hit me, so I started playing it live, acoustic guitar and vocals. Whenever someone did know that song, they’d be like, “Dude, thank you so much for playing that song. I love that song.” I think it’s that kind of a tune. If you have a relationship with it, it’s incredibly special, and to discover it is a really beautiful thing. I hope it points people in her direction.

SILY: What made you want to sign with Sub Pop?

SL: When we first finished the record, I kind of did an email blast and sent the record to all the labels we like. Sub Pop got back so fast and were so stoked. I was surprised because they don’t strike me as an overtly folk label, but that was exciting to me to, to be like, “Hell yeah, let’s bring a new perspective to this established, wonderful thing.” Then I met some people from there, and they were the most wonderful people. I’ve never really experienced the resources they have before. There’s a social media guy, and a PR girl. Everybody is working so hard in their specialized zones. It’s amazing to experience and be a part of. They just seemed so down to earth while also being very professional and serious at the same time. They’re awesome.

SILY: They are pretty stylistically diverse even if they haven’t done much folk. Your sound fits just because of that.

SL: Totally, yeah. It opens a lot of doors in my mind of what I could do.

SILY: I read one review that said Jessica Pratt inspired you to dedicate all your time to music.

SL: The first time that I saw her play, I was super deep in the rock scene. I had always been in really loud bands, considering that people want to see that kind of music. I saw her open for Kevin Morby in LA, and the whole room was silent, and she was just captivating everyone. It was incredible to watch. I immediately went home and booked my first solo show. I had no idea people wanted this kind of music, and I had been making that kind of music, so let’s see what happens, let me book a show. She was totally the catalyst for that. I was so in awe of the simplicity and the beauty of what she was bringing to the table. Music like what she makes has a lasting power and timelessness where you can be anyone and anywhere in the world and people will be captivated. It’s amazing.

SILY: Is it hard for you to switch back and forth between your solo shows and playing in bands?

SL: It’s kind of easy. It’s a matter of mindset and what alcohol you’re consuming. [laughs] I always go tequila for the loud shows, wine for the quiet shows. We’re saying the same things, but in very different ways. It’s kind of nice to have both perspectives.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art for the new record?

SL: The guy who took the photo, Matt Reamer, mentioned he wanted to do more portrait photography. He had always a lot of live stuff. We took photos, and as I was going through them, I came across that photo. I love how ambiguous it is. I could be thinking about anything in that photo. It’s whatever you want it to be. I had the idea of getting people to do different versions of it, and it became this cool, unique thing of these different perspectives and the evolution of me in the past year. I’ve been doing a ton of cleaning house, checking in, and learning new things about myself and not taking myself too seriously. It’s been a hell of a journey, and seeing these four versions of me felt really appropriate for the record.

SILY: Are you the type of songwriter who’s always working on new songs?

SL: I’ve been kind of stuck lately, because I’ve had a lot of stuff to work on, but there’s always a ton of voice memos on my phone, little snippets I work on in the car. I look forward to when I have a block of time where I can sit down. I’ve written quite a bit of the next record, but I probably have 5-6 songs to go. I’m excited to get back into it.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

SL: I just watched Euphoria. That was really good. It really inspired my eyeliner game. I’m always listening to a lot of true crime. I’m a big true crime buff. It fascinates me--the extremity of people’s actions. That’s what that song “Wild” is about on August--the things we’re capable of.

SILY: That line, “We are kind things capable of the most evil,” is very fitting. You kind of nail nature versus nurture in just that line.

SL: Yeah, totally. It’s wild. [laughs] The age old question.

SILY: Are you a Forensic Files fan?

SL: I am! Whenever I’m in a hotel room, I know it’s gonna be on, and I’m stoked.

SILY: My girlfriend and I struggle to find new episodes. It’s always our “before bed” show, and we’ll start one and midway through be like, “Wait, we’ve seen this one.”

SL: Have you ever listened to a podcast called Small Town Dicks? It’s the voice of Lisa Simpson, Yeardley Smith, and she has this podcast. It’s amazing because it sounds like Lisa Simpson doing a true crime podcast, but it’s also amazing stories.

Album score: 8.5/10

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williamexchange · 5 years ago

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Content Development – How to Develop Top Content for Your Website

You need a plan.

If you’re reading this, you already know the marketing value of exceptional content.

It’s true—Content is your moneymaker.

Content is also your sales pitch. It’s your billboard, brochure, and portfolio – rolled into one.

However, content without structure is like a ship without a captain.

Your content’s effectiveness is steered by your developmental approach to reachingyour audience.

Whether you’re a blogger, marketing professional or a social media strategist – you need strong content that’s organized by a content development strategy.

As I said, you need a plan.

However, what does an optimized development plan look like?

It reaches a broader audience through organic publicity.

It tailors your content for different readers.

It helps generate fresh, competitive content—On deadline!

Helps to establish trust.

Converts visitors into repeat (paying) customers.

In other words, you need well-written, actionable and shareable content that educates readers, spread word-of-mouth business, and solidifies your reputation as an authority.

Quality content proves to customers you’re an innovative thought leader. It establishes trust. A professional content development strategy will help you edge out the competition.

Still with me?

Good.

Let’s walk through the fundamentals. Then we’ll jump on some advanced techniques.

What is content development?

It’s the strategic planning, organization, and execution behind content creation and distribution.

Think of content “development” as a two-sided coin.

1. Side one: strategic planning – how and when to distribute organized content—the engineering.

2. Side two: content creation – writing authoritative and innovative content. The architecture.

First, you develop a plan. Then you develop the writing.

To be successful, you have to master both disciplines– the organization and the production.

How do you strike the perfect balance?

Invest as much effort planning your content development process as you do producing the content—If not more.

Why is content development so important?

Successful content development requires you to streamline your process.

Once you get your production line up and running, your organization becomes a well-oiled machine.

Well-structured content development models take the guesswork out of creating top-level content. This lets you focus on delivering superior information and making sales.

Content development also prevents you from missing deadlines. It eliminates procrastination and other distractions that steal time away from crafting killer content.

It’s the blueprint you unroll to visualize the structure of your goals, and the strategies to achieve them.

Stages of the Content Development Process

Let’s flip on a light and examine that blueprint.

1. Defining your content goals.

What value does this content add? (education, problem-solving?)

Who are you making the content for? (experts, professionals, hobbyists?)

Where are you posting it? (blog, website, social media, all of the above?)

When are you rolling out this content? (maintaining a content schedule.)

How will your audience find and interact with this content? (channel and platform strategy.)

What makes your content different from your competition? (uniqueness, innovation.)

2. Learning about your audience.

Research the buying habits and behaviors of your customers.

Pay attention to customers comments and suggestions on social media.

Familiarize yourself with tools like Google Demographics and Interests.

3. Creating a content calendar.

Are you tired of missing deadlines? Create a content development calendar.

To optimize your results, you need to map out a schedule of what content to post, how often to post and specific dates of the postings.

This is an excellent planning tool that will give your team a centralized source to track content progress over multiple platforms.

It’s also a great way to quickly visualize the amount and types of content you’re putting out this week/month/year. Without a calendar, you risk duplication or, even worse, creating gaps in essential content.

Calendars also help you plan for milestones, so you make the most of important events and holidays.

Planning quarterly works well, since it can be hard to plan out an entire year at once.

You need to control your workflow, so you’re pumping out content quickly – hitting deadlines while raising your game with exponentially better content that keeps visitors hungry for more.

4. Systematizing your writing process for efficiency and performance.

Design templates for blogs, white papers, infographics, video scripts, charts, and graphs.

Design writer guidelines for you and your team. This ensures consistent branding and quality.

Test out content variations. Modulate tone for different audiences.

Collect data on performance. Which content generates the best results?

5. Studying your competition.

Stay relevant by analyzing the top competitors. Borrow their best practices.

Determine what your competitors are lacking. Step in to fill that void.

Solve problems – don’t give visitors any reason to bounce into the arms of a competitor.

Become a content genie. Ask your audience for their wish list and start granting.

6. Maintaining a strong social media presence.

Use a variety of social media channels.

Post often—but not too often.

Make it easy to share your content.

7. Mastering SEO Optimization.

Search Engine Optimization gets to the heart of effective digital marketing.

You need to bone up on the fundamentals of good SEO writing:

Make sure all your web content is indexed.

Be sure to use proper formatting tags (H1, H2, etc.)

Keep individual page URLs short and use dashes to separate words.

Learn to rank for Google. Produce authoritative content and Google will prioritize your content.

Regularly perform keyword research. That means using tools like SEMrush to find the best and most relevant keywords for your content.

Keep up with changing trends. SEO marketing changes all the time. It pays to stay abreast with industry experts.

8. Develop Free Content for Visitors.

Educate readers using tangible downloads filled with actionable tips and helpful tools they can use now. Teach them a skill, so they feel empowered and grateful.

Why should you provide free content?

Downloads are portable. If visitors don’t stay on your page, they can revisit your PDF later.

It establishes you as an expert. Who else could develop such an authoritative white paper?

It expands your network. Downloads are easy to share, spreading word-of-mouth interest.

Makes sense, right? Grateful customers tend to stick around.

What kind of free content should you offer?

Blog articles. Blogs are terrific educational tools that show off your expertise and your brand’s writing style. Online content like blogs is easily digestible.

Newsletters. Email content has to be entertaining and useful if you want people to read it. Offer them valuable information on your industry and the services you offer.

Infographics and memes. Infographics convey many data in a small package. Visuals are great learning tools. Moreover, memes are a fun way to make your content shareable for younger generations.

Fun emails with Coupons. This should go without saying, but everyone loves a good discount.

Videos. Video content is a great way to show off personality and incorporate humor.

Tutorials and courses. Whether video courses or PDF tutorials, educational content is always appreciated by customers and proves your expertise.

Templates. Depending on what services you offer, there are several template types you can offer customers to help them help themselves.

E-books. While e-books require an up-front time investment, they can lay out all the components of your platform, like a site map that indexes your services and expertise.

But wait—isn’t that giving away the farm?

Not at all! Freebies are proven lead magnets that make visitors happy, drawing them closer to buying your products and services.

Not convinced?

Think of it this way:

Teach a woman to fish using your template, and she’ll be grateful. However, she’s busy, so she asks YOU to fish for her. Then later, she’ll want you to teach her to hunt bigger game.

Which you’re happy to do. For a fee.

9. Learn the Ingredients of Top-Performing Content

Content is the feather that tickles your customer’s curiosity.

It’s a pleasant itch they can’t help but scratch, and stellar content leads to stellar profits.

You need to capture the attention of visitors, so they convert into paying customers.

How?

With a platform that’s rich in quality content. Content that speaks to customer needs and demonstrates brand value. The best content stimulates interest, solves a problem and leaves customers wanting more.

It establishes your reputation as an industry expert.

Generating consistently top-performing (and high-ranking) content can seem overwhelming.

It’s easier than you think:

Be concise. Stay focused. Eliminate confusing or extraneous ideas.

Be engaging. Win over readers with the fundamentals. Then introduce new insights about related challenges readers haven’t considered. Help them overcome those challenges.

Answer your readers’ questions. To level-up your content game, you have to write copy that delivers answers better than competitors. Visitors seek you out based on the implied promise you’ll address their needs. Keep that promise.

Quote industry experts. Quotations, statistics, and studies add credibility to content. Leverage the authority of other experts (as long as they aren’t your competitors).

Be adaptable and agile. Tweak your content based on customer interactions and behavior. As David Ogilvy said, “Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.”

Write for your audience. Knowing your audience is key to winning them over. While there are universal truths that appeal to most people, you still need to tailor the language, tone, and information to your targeted demographic.

Link to High Domain Authority (DA) Sources: Websites with high domain authorities serve as sources trusted by readers. The DA concept was created by Moz, the parent company of the Firefox browser. It uses a 1-100 scale of authority (100 being the best).

Learn to Write for “Scanners.” Studies show people don’t read online like in print. They scan. They glance. You have mere seconds to win them over. Use short sentences.

Hook them with one-sentence paragraphs.

10. Use Storytelling to Educate While Entertaining

Picture it:

Potential customers Google your services while sipping their morning coffee.

They visit your site. They admire your attractive design scheme—the intuitive layout.

Their minds wander. They glance at other browser tabs. They consider clicking a competitor’s link.

However, then they spot your “About Us” section and wonder, “What can this company do for me?”

They peruse your team’s qualifications. “Impressive!” they think.

Conveniently, they find a significant section of pull-quotes from satisfied customer testimonials. “They sound happy,” your visitor thinks.

Then they notice your “Free Resources” page. They watch videos, download useful infographics and e-books.

They read your call to action. “This is EXACTLY who I need!” they exclaim – excited to work with you.

You’ve won them over. Your content convinced them you’re the best. They share your content with friends.

For leading content providers, this happens every day. It can happen for you, too.

The best content creators use compelling storytelling to captivate readers and sell their message—to explain problems and solutions through relatable narrative. (They also remember to use analogies, humor, and emotion to make their stories memorable.)

So tell a few stories. Just don’t get lost in the weeds – you’re not writing War and Peace.

You still have to get to the point.

Wrapping Up

Now it’s time to use this guide to create a content development plan of your own.

Develop a winning strategy that lays out your calendar, goals and long-term vision for a successful brand.

Invest your time on creating quality content and then market that content like a pro.

Still not sure where to start?

I’ve taught you how to fish – but I know you’re busy and might not have enough time or confidence to do it yourself. There are many Website Designers in Aurora, Denver and you can take help from them to get affordable business website.

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