Big Trouble in Little Towns Pg.48
At the risk of shocking you, that is not Captain Pike’s support chair from Star Trek. This is a bamboo cage that Ancient China used as a form of public punishment, similar to Medieval stocks. My research couldn’t tell me if these cages had specific names, but it did tell me that cages like these would be adorned with paper labels describing what the prisoner’s crimes were. The character on Agitha’s cage means “Thief” and can also mean “burglar,” “evildoer” and “wicked” which, I think we can all agree are pretty deserving titles for her.
And if any of you were thinking that Agitha’s rhyming game was lacking…that was partially by design! As evidenced by her distaste for using the real magical incantations in favor of her made-up poems for her spells, Agitha would much rather make up her own style than follow a tried-and-true one…However, also evidenced by the real incantations working where her made-up rhymes summoned no magic at all, Agitha’s style is largely impractical and doesn’t sound as good as she thinks it does. Stefan, being the nerd scholar that he is, taught her a little lesson in poetry and humility here…Y’know, just in case the Thief Cage wasn’t lesson enough.
…But I say that Agitha’s rhymes being so bad was only partially by design because…I really didn’t write most of it to be bad on purpose. I’m just very, very bad at poetry and molding poetry to serve a narrative purpose only made things more difficult. Fortunately, my lack of talent actually helped the story and helped characterize the villain! Hooray for incompetence!
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