#percy: vengeance-ing

[andi-o-geyser]

playing the briarwood theme in the end credits of episode 6 was an absolutely diabolical choice. do it again please

[behindthewox]

NEMESIS, goddess of revenge

In Greek mythology Nemesis is the name of the goddess of revenge and vengeance. The Romans called her Invidia, which is the latin word for envy. She had two brothers named Charon (ferryman to the dead) and Hypnos (the personification of sleep), and her sister Eris is the goddess of Discord.

What is Nemesis?

In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis the main antagonist is named Nemesis T-Type, nicknamed the Pursuer. He is presumably named Nemesis after the Greek goddess of vengeance. Nemesis T-Type is one of the two greatest of all bio-weapons created by the Umbrella Corporation.

Can Nemesis be good? In Rick Riordan's series Percy Jackson and the Olympians Nemesis is initially portrayed as a bad character, but it is later on pointed out that she is also the goddess of balance. The balance between good and evil is a necessity, and without balance there'd be neither good nor bad. While she's not a typically "good" character and may fall on the "evil" side in many aspects, good would probably not exist without her and the balance she keeps between good and evil.

Is it normal to have a nemesis? Most libraries will probably have a copy of the Agatha Christie novel Nemesis. If you are a main character it is highly advised to have a nemesis, especially if your story is about the fight between good and evil. It is not normal to have a proposed dwarf star from the Sun's extreme outer orbit in your possession. The asteroid in the main belt, 128 Nemesis, is probably best left where it is.

What is going on here?

Are you wondering what the eff I'm going on about? This is a quick example of what an SEO blog post could look like, using the keyword "nemesis" and a bit of googling to find the most commonly asked questions and related searches. The closer you can match what people will search for, the better. SEO blogposts is a new requirement for all sites, calling for 2 blogposts per week using keywords that the Mugs send out each week. The keyword must be used at least 7 times, including headlines. It's a pretty standard SEO structure.

It's tricky to write a good blog post using the SEO requirements, but the point with SEO isn't that the blog post has to be good - it just has to contain certain words a certain number of times. If it feels forced and awkward that's because it is pretty forced and awkward. Admittedly, this example is not a serious attempt at making a SEO blogpost. This is a me making a bad example on purpose to make a point. But I am still following the instructions and meeting (surpassing, actually) all the requirements. As far as SEO goes, it's an excellent example. Some people might even find it somewhat amusing.

SEO - friend or nemesis? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and it's all about getting your website or article onto the first page of results on the online search engines like Google. It's a pretty big deal. If someone searches "roleplay forum percy jackson" we'd want World of Olympus to be the top result, right? Without SEO it could easily end up at the bottom of the page and how many people will scroll that far? Not many. SEO is a really big deal.

[NOTE: I am not an expert on this and with only mere hours of research under my belt on such a complicated thing as SEO, it's very possible that my understanding and portrayal of it might not be entirely accurate. If I'm waaay off, please correct me.]

So by following the new blog rules and squeezing in keywords wherever possible, WoX sites will show up on top when people google the keywords? Don't be silly. It'll help a little bit, sure, but the real trick is SEO within the site code and content of the site as a whole. Saying "nemesis" a dozen times in a blog post certainly helps as the numbers add up, but don't expect your SEO-ed blogpost to bring in new users as if you're running paid ads. It's not magic, it takes work and strategic marketing. This is a long game. It will take months of SEO-ing to improve your site's SEO. It's worth doing but it needs to be done right. If your SEO-ed blogposts are as bad as my example, you're gonna lose a lot of respect and reputation in the many months it will take to get actual SEO results. Quantity comes at the cost of quality, especially if you don't have the time and resources to do it well. A lot of sites don't have the capacity to churn out biweekly blog posts right now, especially not with the additional requirement to figure out what this SEO thing is and how to do it without looking… well, desperate and pathetic.

SEO is important and it is worth doing. But at what cost? What is the point of showcasing the site blogs if the content on them doesn't show the best that the site has to offer? My suggestion is this: encourage SEO through support and positive reinforcement, not by force or pressure. This is volunteer work, after all. Take it slow, one step at a time. Be patient and let it take the time it takes. It's not magic and it won't work overnight either way, and if you don't do it right you might end up spending even more time and resources having to correct for it in the long run.

One step at a time. Don't try to run before you've learned to walk.

SEO stats on this blog post H1 x1, keyword x1 H2 x2, keyword x1 H3 x3, keyword x3 Paragraphs x 9 Total word count: 947 (stats excluded) Total keyword count: 16 (out of 7 required)

[trickeyarchangel]

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

Not that many since I'm not much for really arguing in the fandom community. But I do have a few that I really would stand strong on:

Percy Jackson series

- ALL of the demigods suffer from PTSD. You cannot expect me to believe that these kids (ACTUAL KIDS) walked away from these quests with no emotional and mental backlash to the amount of violence and sheer intense danger that they experience nearly every moment.

- Nico doesn't shadow-travel as much as he used to Post-Heroes of Olympus. This is, I headcanon, is from nearly fading away from overuse of said ability when transferring the Athena Parthenon to Camp Half-Blood. He probably has an underlying fear that if he does make use of the ability again, he will disappear. Even if Will gives his "doctor's approval" to using said ability, Nico probably wouldn't unless absolutely necessary.

- At the same time, I also headcanon that Nico is deathly afraid of the dark. Following the trend of Percy fearing to drown, Thalia's fear of flying, and even Jason's fear of lightning, Nico, after his experience in Tartarus, can no longer stand being in a dark room for any longer than a minute, maybe even less than that. He needs light, or else his mind will trick him into thinking he's back in the pitch black of Tartarus, in pain, lost, and alone.

- Not done with my Ghost King son. I also headcanon that, after being trapped in that jar for who knows how long, Nico is claustrophobic. True, he was in that "death-like" state probably for a majority of his time in their - but I'm pretty sure that every time he woke from that state, he was reminded of how little oxygen he had and that, with every diminished pomegranate seed he used, he was one step closer to dying from lack of oxygen. That and... waking up in a dark and tightly enclosed space? Doesn't sound nice at all.

RWBY

- Ruby definitely had a small crush on Jaune during the early parts of their friendship. (Might be projecting a little with this one since I was in a similar position as her once, and my first friend, who was very much like Mr. Jaune "Short-sweet-ladies-love-it" Arc, I definitely had a bad case of puppy love with.)

- Adam Taurus was a good guy who actually meant well when fighting for Faunus rights before the power rush and praise from the White Fang got to his head. A part of me doesn't want to believe that Adam was a complete abusive asshole from the very beginning of his relationship with Blake. At the same time, I believe my girl Blake to be smart enough to NOT romantically involve herself with a manipulative bastard if his attitude and actions were like that from the start. Adam must have been a good guy once - then it all went to his head and he developed that nasty narcacisstic hero/god complex that we see on the show.

- Mercury's semblance was probably something similar to Ruby's. This is just me throwing a wild shot in the dark, of course. But if we are going to use who he is inspired off of as a basis for this (Mercury, Roman Messenger God), his semblance must have been related to speed of some sort. With his fighting style, a semblance like that would definitely be a major boon and, in the eyes of his asshole father, an unfair advantage that could most definitely be seen as a "crutch". And prior to his father taking his semblance away, I imagine Mercury was already quite adept at using it in combat; which made losing it all the more horrible.

- A part of Salem still loves Ozpin/Ozma. While the Grimm corruption may have twisted much of what her original self was, there is a small bit of her humanity that still adores the brave knight who had saved her from her tower. (I am a sucker for tragic romances. So this is a little biased.)

Critical Role, Campaign 1: Vox Machina

- Vax'ildan probably was slightly infatuated with Mr. Percival De Rolo. Rewatching the old campaign, especially the early episodes, I noticed how affectionate Vax was with the group's "token human" and how those affections were very romance-coded (in my perspective). So I just believe that, had Percy's vengeance tirade not been so all consuming and had he not accidentally killed Vex'ahlia, Vax and Percy might've had a romance - however brief.

Devil May Cry

- DANTE AND VERGIL BREAK OUT OF HELL AND STICK TOGETHER AND RUN DEVIL MAY CRY TOGETHER AND ARE JUST ALLOWED TO BE BROTHERS AGAIN

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

1) [Percy Jackson series ] This is more directed towards Mr. Rick Riordan than the fandom inself but ... I wish we could've seen Nico and Will fall in love. I would have loved that - to see my boy, who was in need for affection and was so scared of accepting who he was and just feeling what he felt, slowly opening up to the sunshine that is Will Solace. I wanted to see the same kind of relationship growth that Mr. Riordan gave to Percabeth, Jasiper, and Frazel. But I suppose I'll accept what we have in the recent books - mostly because I am weak for a happy Nico.

2) [Percy Jackson series] Still more directed towards Mr. Riordan but... Can you please stop hurting Apollo so much?!? Listen, I get he's done some terrible stuff as a god, but can you give this poor guy a sympathetic shoulder? You gave him one - Jason Grace - but then you f---ing killed him!

Just give Apollo someone who could just... let him express what he feels without being thrown off by his surface persona/defense mechanism. Give him a vent buddy, please. Someone who'll just listen to him.

3) [RWBY] I guess it's kind of expected since the show has so many female characters, but I wish there were a lot less lewd content in this fandom. I don't mind the occasional naughty piece of art, but there's just so much in one succession that I'm just thrown off.

[silentspaces]

Final Battle reflections

Okay, so now that I’m back from camp, I have had some more time to think about CR all over again. (There are major spoilers for 114, so stop reading if you don’t want to be spoiled.)

I just wanna say, in this fight, some people might have thought it was too easy (listen, it clearly wasn’t), but the fact that no one had to throw any death-saving rolls is just a testament to the fact that, in this final battle, Vox Machina was in top form working as a *team*. They knew their strengths and limitations, they prepared (as much as they were able to) beforehand, they were ready with support for each other, they were working as a unit with (what I felt was) a lot less of the second-guessing or frantic cobbling together of plans mid-battle. (Not saying it didn’t happen, but just less of it.)

And we got to see how some of the characters had changed, too, in terms of development and their play-style in battle, compared to what they were like before. Percy, putting aside notions of pride or vengeance or just enjoying f—ing with authority figures,  immediately filled the role of support with suppression of the skeletons. Scanlan, who often (and may still) thinks of himself as insignificant and unimportant and not worthy of others’ care or attention, was set up to be the key piece in this battle and *had* to constantly be healed and protected and made the center of everyone’s plans (despite his reluctance about it–just take healing and boons when they’re offered! Jeez! You and Vax are both so self-sacrificing sometimes!). Keyleth focused on the bigger picture and had to ignore hurting (killing) the child (who she didn’t know was Velora), which was a biiiiig change from the other time she had done that. She doesn’t let herself get caught up in the small things (for better or for worse) or get paralyzed with guilt and indecision.

Anyway, I felt that they handled this endurance battle extremely well, and if anyone thought it looked like it was too easy, it was only because they were more or less a well-oiled machine for this last fight, and like any pros, they make a tough feat look simple.