Curtain Call!

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

Heh.

Alright, well, you've watched the Lovely Lady Lacrimosa with love and hatred these past seven weeks, now it's time to ask that most burning of questions: Just who was that masked marten, anyway?

(And also other things that you've been wondering. :p )

Ask away, you wonderful audience, you.

[Revel]

Where did you buy your tail? I've been looking for one just like that and haven't seen it anywhere! Was it custom-made? What's the serial number on that particular model?

[Jarrtail]

Have you ever participated in another survival contest? Which one(s)?

[Bellona Littlebrush]

1. What is one of the fastest ways to determine if a river is flowing at sub-critical or super-critical velocities?

2. Who was the first person in the American legal justice system to plead 'Insanity'?

3. Why isn't a tomato a vegetable?

4. Did you always intend for Liza to be unlikable?

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

Revel: I didn't buy it, and there's no serial number. It's a one-of-a-kind creation, made specially for me by the Lacrimosa & Wife corporation. (A family business.) Took nine months to craft.

Jarrtail: I have, indeed! As for "which ones", that's a matter of how you define "participated." If you mean "was involved in as either a writer, failed applicant, voter, judge, audience member, or admin," then... um... there's been something like eleven or twelve.

Bellona: Argh! Numbered list!

1. Jump in! Sub-critical rivers are generally warmer.

2. The prosecutor in the Scopes Monkey Trial. :p

3. Its application to the Vegetable Club was denied because they already had apples, cherries, raspberries, and pomegranites to fill the "small, round, red thing" category.

4. Ummmmmmmmm... I actually have to go to psychology right now, but this is a great question, so I'll try to give you a great answer later.

[Sycamore]

3. Its application to the Vegetable Club was denied because they already had apples, cherries, raspberries, and pomegranites to fill the "small, round, red thing" category.

Are you saying apples, cherries, raspberries and pomegranites are vegetables?

[Venril]

1.  Have you ever played an "unusual" species in a survivor contest?
2.  Would Venril have had a chance if he was a pine marten?
3.  How would Liza get along with other female pine martens from other contests (Biara, Sybil, etc)?

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

3. Its application to the Vegetable Club was denied because they already had apples, cherries, raspberries, and pomegranites to fill the "small, round, red thing" category.

Are you saying apples, cherries, raspberries and pomegranites are vegetables?

Yep. Don't fooled by the Fruit Club propoganda.

[Damask the Minstrel]

Amendment to one of Vennys:

Would Venny have had a chance... period? Now that we know Liza had her own brush with *ahem* uncanonness...

EDIT: (I'd ask about Damask, but we all know how that went, already. Poor fella. ^.^)

As for an original question: would almost dying and risking herself for not only her own health, but commoners temper Liza at all? Or would she now not only be haughty, but haughty and self-confident since she dodged death? (Feel free to not answer if we see this in your epilogue.)

Bonus question: Will Liza ever realize that she is, in fact, pretty? Or will she freakishly wear a giant hat with a veil to cover her face her whole life?

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

And, more questions:

Bellona's Question That I Didn't Answer Yet: To answer this, I kind of need to delve into the "Why I Wrote Eliza" story.

My other application, Ghervase, I wrote from start to finish in an hour, and absolutely loved it. So, I figured that he would probably get in, because it's always the effortless ones you dash out with no thought that make the finals. I actually have always loved the name Eliza, so for my second application, I actually wrote three different characters, all of whom were pine martens named Eliza. Then I showed them to my mom. (Who taught me English.) She liked the third Eliza best, so that's the one that I submitted. (And, actually, the first submission didn't go through, and I was this close to just shoving the application and taking my chances with Gherv.)

Eliza was originally designed as a critique on quite a number of young ladies that I know. (For instance, every dancer I have ever known ever has been totally unwilling to go to any dance that I have invited them to. (As a friend. Not a date.) That's why Eliza is a dancer. I actually don't know anything about dance, which is why it really didn't come up much. :p ) I wrote the dance scene first, and then realized that there was no way I could get away with it, so I dropped a building on her just to make her more interesting. Then I figured that was that, and started thinking of ways to write Gherv.

Once she actually got in, I didn't know what to do with her, so my original plan was to make her kind of an angsty withdrawn sort with no self-esteem, who just sort of lashed out in anger at everybody around her. But, the early reviews all basically said "ditch the angst", so I just focused on the snooty angle and hoped for the best. It worked, so I kept doing it, but tried to throw in a few gradual changes so she wouldn't become one-dimension.

Venril 1: Indeed, I have! I won't say how many, or where, but until Eliza every survival-fic character I ever played was the first one of its category. (I.E., I may not have been the first Otter, but I might have been the first Male Otter, or the first Female Squirrel.)

Venril 2: That depends. In totally different circumstances, where he wasn't - in her mind - totally to blame for every problem in her whole life, then he might have. But she's got Jonathan on the brain, still.

Venril 3: Well, Eliza would kill Sybil, because Sybil would try to steal her stuff. Biara, she would probably ask to fix her face, but if Biara couldn't, Eliza would just dismiss her as some cycloptic crackpot. Ildiko the dancer and Leifdey the lute-player she'd find entertaining. Sophia and Tieri... I don't remember that well. (Sorry, Cricky!) She'd probably hate them, especially if they were pretty.

Answers to Damask's questions coming later!

[Sycamore]

I have to ask this question:

Therefore, I offer you my Canonicity Rating!

. . .

Eliza - You reek of Vulpine Imperialism.

Are you a VIer?

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

Damask 1: Post-training Venril, if he were a pine marten? Yes. Pre-training whiny Venril? No. Fundamental rule, common among every single young woman I've met: Nice guys don't get dates. Nice guys get called "cute" and "sweet." :p  (DISCLAIMER: The women I refer to are young and naive. I definitely am not anit-feminist or anything. I'm just waiting for them to metamorphosize into ones old enough to recognize that 'nice' is not synonymous for 'weak.')

Damask 2: Sorry, Masky. Eliza loves poetry, though, so if you were a pine marten, she'd be all over you. :p

Damask 3: I don't know that it would have tempered her to that much of a degree, but it has definitely changed her. Notice that when she told Quentin not to sit down and he did so anyway, she didn't try to bite his face off? :p

Damask 4: She might realize that it's not so bad as all that. Admittedly, the only ones who told her she was pretty were Venril and Damask, and she thought both of them were nuts. All of the 'sane' beasts called her ugly. (And just wait 'til she gets home.) This question, along with #3, should hopefully be fully addressed to a better degree in my epilogue.

Sycamore: No. I am not, currently. (But I was, for about four months in about 2005-2006. There you go. :p )

[Revel]

Nine months? That's a long time for just a tail. It only took me a few weeks to make five stoat tails. It must be worth it. Can they make me one? How much would they charge?

[Magical Fish]

Fundamental rule, common among every single young woman I've met: Nice guys don't get dates. Nice guys get called "cute" and "sweet." :p  (DISCLAIMER: The women I refer to are young and naive. I definitely am not anit-feminist or anything. I'm just waiting for them to metamorphosize into ones old enough to recognize that 'nice' is not synonymous for 'weak.')

Awww, *consoles Eliza's author.* But I must object! I was 19 when I met my boyfriend, universally acknowledged as one of the nicest guys on campus, and I never dismissed him as just "cute." So cheer up!


Anyway, congrats on the win. Eliza was one of my early favorites. But I've been wondering: What's the deal with her family? How did she go from hiding out in caves to living in high society?

[Opal]

Well, just goes to show that there are a lot of stupid girls out there. Because, y'know, I kind of like the fact that my husband isn't a total jerkwad. :P