Welcome to a MST Dungeon Special, where I spork with actual humans instead of myself and people I invented to keep me company because I am a friendless trollop.

Source: I discovered this excerpt via Badfic Graveyard. Here is the original post, and here is where you can continue to read the story if you’re so inclined, but it’s really terrible and purple and you should probably wear a gas mask before clicking the link. It’s almost like Song of Solomon in the Bible but worse.

MSTers: Kitty and Ali. “Ali” is not short for “Alison” so don’t call him Alison.

Caveat lector: This may hurt your mind a little, as it’s one of the most extreme examples of freaky simile purple prose I’ve ever seen.

[6…5…4…3…2…1]

Kitty: Hey Ali. This is so goddamn purple I don’t even know.

Ali: Only one way to find out. I haven’t even read the first sentence yet.

As Spikenard

Ali: I’m unsure why, but this name reminds me of Digimon. It doesn’t even end with -mon. Why does it remind me of Digimon? Maybe ‘cause it sucks.

watched, Bronwyn slipped the transparent cloak from her shoulders; it fell with a whisper.

Ali: I wonder, does he mean a ‘woosh’y sound?

She let her hands drop to her sides; she pulled her shoulders back and stood erect, feet apart, legs straight.

Kitty: You know, like how most people stand.

This is what he saw:

Kitty: SATAN!

Bronwyn standing pale and tall in the nervous light that shimmered through a vibrating canopy of green leaves.

Kitty: They had one of those cheap motel beds on each branch.

The shifting bands of milky light and emerald shadow

Ali: Shadows are where no light is shining and stuff. Black. Black. Is emerald black? No, Ronny, it’s not.

made her seem luminous, translucent, as though she were a tallow candle glowing beneath its own flame. Like a porcelain lantern. Like a curtain fluttering in a window at dawn.

Kitty: Okay, now we’re descending into the realm of extremely bizarre metaphors. Soon he’ll start describing her feet as crocodiles.

Ali: I’d just like to point out they were similes. Sorry, I’m a dick about that.

Kitty: Nobody cares, Ali.

Like a ghost that came and went with the twilight and darkness, that first veiled and then revealed.

Ali: He came.

Her hair had the sheen of the sea beneath an eclipsed moon.

Ali: Have you ever looked out to sea in the middle of the night? With no moonlight? I’ll tell you what you’ll see: fuck all.

It was the color of a leopard’s tongue, of oiled mahogany. It was terra cotta, bay and chestnut.

Ali: What’s the colour of a leopard’s tongue? Red? Pink? Why didn’t he just say red?

Her hair was a helmet, a hood, the cowl of the monk, magician or cobra.

Kitty: Well, was it a monk, magician, or a cobra? Pick one, Miller.

Her face had the fragrance of a gibbous moon.

Kitty: The moon smells like cheese and gravy.

The scent of fresh snow.

Ali: Nuh-uh, not unless fresh snow smells like cheese and gravy too.

Her eyes were dark birds in fresh snow. They were the birds’ shadows, they were mirrors; they were the legends on old charts.

Kitty: This is steadily getting more and more ridiculous. [eats popcorn]

Ali: Oh I get it. Because like, when you look into her eyes, her life story will resonate out of it. Kinda like when you look at the key of a map to find the toilets.

They were antique armor and the tears of dragons. Her brows were a raptor’s sharp, anxious wings. They were a pair of scythes.

Kitty: Those are some deadly eyebrows!

Her ears were a puzzle carved in ivory. Her teeth were her only bracelet; she carried them within the red velvet purse of her lips.

Kitty: Whoa, uh…ew.

Ali: I wonder if she has a zipper between them lips. The image is very disturbing.

Her tongue was amber. Her tongue was a ferret, an anemone, a fox caught in the teeth of a tiger.

Kitty: Her tongue is furry, possessed of stinging tentacles, and orange.

Ali: Yeah, no wonder she keeps her lips zipped tight like a purse. I wouldn’t want anyone else seeing my tongue either, if it were like that.

Kitty: Also now that he’s using “was” instead of “was like”, it’s a metaphor. IN YOUR FACE.

Ali: He’ll slip up soon, just you wait.

Her shoulders were the clay in a potter’s kiln.

Kitty: So getting covered in fire a lot?

Her shoulders were fieldstones; they were the white, square stones of which walls are made. They were windows covered with steam. They were porcelain. They were opal and moonstone.

Kitty: Alright, they’re white, we get it.

Her neck was the foam that curls from the prow of a ship,

Ali: So…she’s got some facial fuzz? Don’t girls usually shave that off before you can even see it with a microscope?

it was a sheaf of alfalfa or barley, it was the lonely dance of the pearl-grey shark.

Kitty: “Pearl-grey shark” could refer to almost any shark, really.

Ali: Her beard sounds longer than mine, if she can make it sway around like a dance.

Her legs were quills. They were bundles of wicker, they were candelabra;

Kitty: They were chocolate bars, they were bottles of air freshener, they were shrooms.

the muscles were summer lightning, that flickered like a passing thought; they were captured eels or a cable on a windlass.

Kitty: Aww, poor eels. Or cables. Whichever.

Ali: Isn’t this a fantasy? WTF cables.

Her thighs were geese, pythons, schooners.

Kitty: Honk-hiss-swoosh!

They were cypress or banyan; her thighs were a forge, they were shears;

Kitty: I need to go to Shears and return this Kitchenaid.

Ali: “Her thighs were a FORGE”? That’s got to be an innuendo. Also I can’t tell: is she supposed to be pale, dark-skinned, or burnt to a crisp?

Kitty: Maybe at the end of this Miller will go “Just kidding!” and tell us what she actually looks like.

Ali: A lioness, a crowbar, a cheesegrater. At the same time.

her thighs were sandstone, they were the sandstone buttresses of a cathedral, they were silk or cobwebs.

Kitty: Which are really nothing alike except for their delicate nature.

Ali: And any woman that could be compared to cobwebs should probably be kept away from, unless you were looking for prime material for Cannibal Corpse’s next album art.

Her calves were sweet with the sap of elders, her feet were bleached bones, her feet were driftwood.

Kitty: That’s an attractive image.

Her feet were springs, marmosets or locusts;

Kitty: Locusts? Seriously? The only way this could be worse is if…

Ali: Locusts are the most beautiful creatures in the world though!

her toes were snails, they were snails with shells of tears.

Kitty: …snails. Seriously, Miller? Get a clue, before someone hits you over the head with a baseball bat made of them.

Her arms were a corral, a fence, an enclosure; they were pennants; they were highways. Her fingers were incense.

Ali: They carried the tale-tell scent of a person who doesn’t use soap.

They were silver fish in clear water;

Kitty: Silverfish keep getting into my cabinets, they’re really annoying.

they were the speed of the fish, they were the fish’s wake. They were semaphores; they were meteors.

Kitty: [gasp] SHE killed the dinosaurs!

Her spine was a snake. It was the track of a snake. It was the groove the water snake makes in the glossy mud of the riverbank. Her spine was a viper, an anaconda.

Kitty: Well, at least snakes, vipers, and anacondas are related…

Ali: Oh, I get it now. She’s a stickman. A really wobbly one.

It was the strength of the anaconda. It was the anaconda’s unknown hieroglyphic.

Kitty: It baffled the Egyptologists for half a century.

Her spine was a ladder, a rod; it was a chain, a canal, it was a caravan.

Ali: Lemme figure this one out. It’s a ladder…it’s a really straight ladder.. made of…chains. In the water pools of our…circulatory system. Which are kind of like…

[pause]

Ali: I give up.

Her buttocks were fresh-baked loaves; they were ivory eggs, they were the eggs of the lonely phoenix. They were a fist.

Ali: Somebody’s been staring too much.

Her breasts were citrus, they were soapstone; they were bright cumulus

Kitty: I’d say they’re more like nimbostratus, but to each his own.

and the smooth fingertips of Musrum. Her breasts were honeycombs and dew-beaded windows, or soft, sweet cheese.

Kitty: Was it the Laughing Cow sort?

Ali: Ew, you can see the the veins on her tits? Gross.

They were sweet apples; they were glass, they were cowries.

Kitty: And again with the snails.

Ali: Snails? Enlighten me. I assumed he meant a cow’s udders.

Kitty: A cow’s udders are called, uh…udders. A cowrie is a kind of snail that lives underwater. I think it’s one of the cuter varieties.

Ali: Well, I wouldn’t have guessed.

They were the twin moons of the earth.

Ali: Someone failed first grade…

The nipples rose like mercury with her heat. They rose like monuments atop flowered hills, above deserts of hot sand; the nipples were savory morels, with the flavor of the forest.

Ali: I spoke too soon. Wait a sec, Sparkster can see her nipples? Is she in the nude?

Kitty: Well, maybe. She’s like a fairy or elf or something. We all know how eagerly those will shed their clothes.

Her ribs were a niche, an alcove, an apse; her stomach was an idol in the niche, alcove or apse, an effigy, a phantom.

Kitty: I’m picturing, uhh…oh hell, I don’t know. I’m picturing a lot of unrelated objects piled on top of one another and stuck together with krazy glue.

Ali: I think she’s anorexic.

Her stomach was a beach, a savannah, a flagstone warmed by the sun, a cat asleep on the flagstone, a bleached canvas sail in hot southern winds. Her navel winked like a doll’s eye,

Kitty: Creepy…

like the eye of a whale, like the drowsy cat.

Ali: Ok, so her face is pale. Her shoulders are burnt to a crisp. Her stomach is yellow. Her thighs are charcoal. What next?

Kitty: Her crotch is orange!

Her pubes

Kitty: Damn, I spoke too soon.

Ali: You’ve got to be joking.

was a field of wheat after the harvest, a field neatly furrowed; it was a nest, a pomegranate, an arrowhead, a rune.

Kitty: I think I’ve lost my taste for pomegranates. Thanks a lot, Miller.

Ali: Since when were the pubes beautified anyway? Well, there was that chocobo-head…

Kitty: Let’s not mention Chocobo Nights ever again. Ever.

Ali: But I’m pregnant! With a ch-kkihhty, let go of my throooooaaaaaarrrhhhh [asphyxiated]

It was a shadow. It was moss on a smooth white stone. There was an orchid within the moss. There was a drop of dew upon the orchid.

Kitty: Her crotch is a smooth white stone with an orchid with a dewdrop. Is it okay if I bang my head against my keyboard for a sec?

Ali: Ok, but only if I get to bang my head against the wall. brb.

Kitty: tgyjyutryuti6i8dt679uytfiyg

Ali: Back. I think there’s a fracture! I’m so…happy…

It had the breath of moss-beds, of the deep seas, of the abyss, of scrimshaw and blue glass, of cold iron; she had the sex of rainforests,

Kitty: —because rainforests are sexy somehow. I mean, what about soggy, hot, smelly, malaria-ridden jungle is sexy?

Ali: Sexy Amazon chicks, Kitty. Sexy Amazon chicks.

the ibis and the scarab;

Ali: That’s Egypt again, not a rainforest.

she had the sex of mirrors and candles, of the hot, careful winds that stroke the veldt,

Kitty: That word is SO purple I don’t even know what it means.

Ali: It’s some sort of geological…geographic…place. Some sort of plains or something.

the winds that taste of clay and seed and blood; the winds that dreamed of tawny, lean animals.

Kitty: I understand we all went through a purple phase, but damn!

“You are quite beautiful, Princess Bronwyn,” Spikenard sang, with his sardonic grin and eyes as violet and hard as amethysts.

Kitty: Good luck trying to stab those out.

“Your body is halfway between earth and dream, neither magic nor elemental, neither animal nor spirit.”

Ali: I… I want to say something, but I can’t. I’m going to try for a fracture again instead.

His long fingers reached towards her face, brushed her eyelids…

Kitty: In Spain, you can’t touch the queen. Let’s pretend we’re in Spain and OFF WITH HIS HEAD

Ali: [administers meds] Calm down.

Kitty: YOUR MOTHER EATS SCARABS IN HELL

“Your eyes are the sound of rain.”

Kitty: [blinks] Oh listen…it’s the sound of rain. [blink blink]

Ali: I tried, I tried really hard. It just left me dizzy. And now I can’t stop blinking.

. . . followed the contours of her cheekbones and jaw . . .

“Chalkbeds and moonlight.”

[1…2…3…4…5…6]

Kitty: According to the poster of this monstrosity, on the next page she gets raped. Let’s not read that, we’ve suffered enough.

Ali: Christ, I think I’m having a mental shut-down. I’m going to go listen to “Still Alive” to help put this knife down from my chest.

Kitty: Don’t do it, just remember it’s all over. You’re free! Go frolick in the fields.

Ali: NOT THE FIELDS. They’re covered in cows and snails and leopards and chains and ladders and ovens and Spanish people!

Kitty: Uhhh…shoot. The ocean? No, that has sharks in it. How ‘bout Egypt or the rainforest?

Ali: I’m afraid of nature. And animals. And sexy Amazon chicks.

Kitty: At least your navel is not an eye! … [runs screaming into the night]

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Comment

  1. OverlordDan on 18 March 2009, 12:03 said:

    Well, this certianly helped to brighten up my time between finals! Thanks for suffering through this you two!

    Now, I may just be being silly here, but when I read her description, did I detect a bit of…Inuendo?

  2. Kitty on 18 March 2009, 12:13 said:

    Innuendo? Heavens no. That would be retarded, and this is Silk and Steel, after all.

  3. bobtheenchantedone on 18 March 2009, 14:22 said:

    I can’t stop laughing…!

    Man, that is epic. People really… I mean… how could you possibly write like this and think it’s good?? is dumbfounded

  4. SlyShy on 18 March 2009, 14:23 said:

    I began writing a comment in that style, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. But, wow. There is purple, and then there is purple.

  5. SubStandardDeviation on 18 March 2009, 14:30 said:

    It’s as though the author was pulling words at random out of a dictionary.

  6. SlyShy on 18 March 2009, 14:32 said:

    You know, I bet you, you could write a computer program that randomly generated description like this. It wouldn’t be too difficult, all in all.

  7. CometStorm on 18 March 2009, 16:06 said:

    My god, there was so much word vomit description and I still don’t know what the hell this whore princess looks like.

  8. LucyWannabe on 18 March 2009, 16:25 said:

    “I began writing a comment in that style, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. But, wow. There is purple, and then there is purple.”

    I believe the phrase for this is Urple. Prose so purple, it’s UBER-purple. Urple. (and I know of the word urple thanks to the Phantom of the Opera Fandom. Dammned phanbrats…)*

    *Phanbrats, for the uninitiated, are like Twi-tards.

    Congrats on getting through this monstrosity. I don’t think I would have—aside from how ridiculous it sounds, it’s also so repetitive that it’s boring. <_<

  9. Snow White Queen on 18 March 2009, 17:14 said:

    I still don’t know what this fairy person looks like.

    Author, you fail. However, Kitty and Ali, that was hysterical. Then again, you did have a lot to work with…

  10. CGilga on 18 March 2009, 17:24 said:

    Hey I liked Digimon!

    Also, I’m not sure which I was more disturbed by, the story, or that horrific fic you linked, Kitty.

  11. SubStandardDeviation on 18 March 2009, 18:45 said:

    Oh, one more thing. His name is Spikenard. “Noun: An aromatic ointment used in antiquity.” How is that not obviously a porn star name?

    My god, there was so much word vomit description and I still don’t know what the hell this whore princess looks like.

    Check out the “fanart” linked to the original post. It’s like some sadistic conjurer on crack.

  12. Marquis De Carabas on 18 March 2009, 18:46 said:

    Overly purple prose is overly purple. Seriously, the writer couldn’t just say “she was beautiful” and be done with it? The descriptions sound like it’s for a postmodern zoo.

  13. Spanman on 18 March 2009, 19:02 said:

    Oh. Oh dear. Whoever was writing this monstrosity was taking themselves far too seriously for their own health. And a terrible writer besides.

    Reading this, I sort of imagined Bronwyn looking a bit like this:

    Except with a more varied array of objects. Like chains and cobwebs and snakes and caravans and things… D:

  14. The Drunk Fox on 19 March 2009, 01:13 said:

    There is purple, and then there is purple.

  15. Ari on 19 March 2009, 05:01 said:

    Cream count: 10000000000

    Need I say more?

    Edit: I read the next chapter, and oh man is it a rape scene. Apparently the elf chick has thighs like snakes, a crotch like angry hornets (Ever seen the movie Teeth?) Spikenard is sort of like an Edward, but worse (nearly impossible, but it’s done.) He has breath like nutmeg and cinnamon, and his…“phallus” burns so hot that it scorches elf-chick’s hands. And the word “throb” was used.

    My God. It’s like Stephenie’s and PaoPao’s writing mixed together…and made worse. Except Edward has a red-hot…yeah…and Bella’s sort of everything.

    My eyes have died.

  16. OverlordDan on 19 March 2009, 07:28 said:

    My goodness. Is the rape scene as purple as this part? This all seems like the author was being payed by the simile.

  17. Dan Locke on 19 March 2009, 11:19 said:

    You mean metaphor.

  18. Asahel on 19 March 2009, 15:59 said:

    Someday I’d like to do a story in which there is a character that likes to describe things using this sort of purple prose—only he keeps messing it up and remarking to himself how his metaphor or simile doesn’t really make any sense.

    So for example, using some of the purple from this abomination, he might say, “Your hair is a helmet—no, wait, helmets are hard and your hair isn’t. It’s a hood, the cowl of the monk, magician or cobra—even though those aren’t really like each other. Your face has the fragrance of a gibbous moon. Wait, that doesn’t have a scent. How about fresh snow?” And at this point the other characters would interrupt him just to get him to stop.

  19. SlyShy on 19 March 2009, 17:40 said:

    Interrupt him with a sword in the gullet? I think this would be amusing in combination with regeneration. Kind of like how no one can get Claire to shut up.

  20. Artimaeus on 20 March 2009, 17:10 said:

    I read the rest of the story, and regretted it… ugh… if A Midsummernight’s Dream was X rated, and written by CP and SM’s love child.

  21. OverlordDan on 21 March 2009, 12:07 said:

    Asahel: I would read your story. Especially if it was the main character, and things were going on in the background as new prose was being thought out.

  22. Ophelia on 26 March 2009, 07:33 said:

    Her pubes was.

    Her pubes was.

    Her pubes was.

    No, dammit!

  23. Guest on 26 March 2009, 09:25 said:

    Oh wow. And I agree with pretty much everyone else: I still have absolutely no idea what she looks like. She could be short and white or tall and black…wow. Yeah, this is probably the longest description with no information.

    Actually, this may be a good tool to show people how using metaphors and similes and purple prose are actually bad (well, the first two are only bad when abused), because I know some Inheritance fans who like the type of descriptions because it sounds eloquent, even though it takes too many words.

  24. peppercake on 28 March 2009, 17:20 said:

    I now wonder how i could have stumbled through this excerpt without the sporks.

  25. Maki on 1 June 2009, 15:34 said:

    I laughed so hard I cried, so seriously. You have epic commentary, the only thing that would make the story worth reading.

    Wow. I think that’s an oxymoron. Anyway.

    Excellent job.

  26. Anonymous on 7 July 2009, 01:52 said:

    Fancy descriptions. Dunno what she looks like. What the hell is she suppose to be, anyway? She might be a shape-shifter, for all the descriptions. There’s a lot of really weird description…. if you have a snake as a spine, or a ladder of chain, I assume your spine is very bendy and flexible thing. Ooh, ooh, what about… twin moons for breast? Or cheese, or cumulus. Let’s see, quarter moon, half moon, or full moon?

    Other than chaotic description, Kitty and Ali, I worship you for making my day with laughter.

  27. fffan on 11 February 2010, 02:23 said:

    ewwww…

  28. Dana on 16 November 2011, 22:13 said:

    “They were chocolate bars, they were bottles of air freshener, they were shrooms.” -this is now my favorite quote ever.
    My friends and I showed this to our creative writing teacher, and by the end of it, she looked like she wanted to cry.

  29. Fireshark on 17 November 2011, 00:55 said:

    This has to be trolling. It just has to be. It’s like the worst part of Paolini times a million. I refuse to believe that anyone thinks this is good writing, nor that even the original writer could understand it. At least Paolini’s similes, while distracting, sometimes made sense or could be ignored.

  30. BettyCross on 17 November 2011, 14:10 said:

    Her buttocks were fresh-baked loaves; they were ivory eggs, they were the eggs of the lonely phoenix. They were a fist.

    This is like Eye of Argon, especially this part. It took me a long time to stop laughing after I read “they were a fist.”

  31. Emma on 17 November 2011, 21:28 said:

    I laughed so hard my face hurt